kootenaygoon

[kootenaygoon]

So,

I’m living in Squilax for the summer.

Found myself a nice little cabin down by the water, living on a property with four historical CP Rail cabooses that have been converted into living spaces. It’s nice and close to Adams River Rafting, and gives me a place to chill after the rapids. You can literally take a big step out my back door and end up in the lake.

Is this heaven?

The Literary Goon

[kootenaygoon]

So, This is Ronan Redel. He not only designed the cover of The Ballad of Shuswap Joe, he also contributed illustrations and invented the character of Nanor — which is Ronan spelled backwards. Throughout the writing process, I relied on Ronan’s historical research skills. He spelunked through the Scotch Creek archives and ultimately discovered a pristine print of Joe riding a log down the Skmana Lake flume in 1935, and we keep it on the bus at Adams River Rafting for our clients to see. I feel lucky to have such a talented historian and graphic designer on my team as we share this book with the world.

The Literary Goon

[kootenaygoon]

“Such Great Depths”

Joey Tapper had never seen the ocean, but he figured it couldn’t look much different than Slocan Lake. 

From where he was standing amidst the foundation rubble of his town’s shuttered mill, surrounded by waist-high scrub grass and shards of broken brick, the oily-looking water looked like it stretched out to infinity. And it was purple. A few hours earlier the 17-year-old had dropped some acid with his buddies — only his third time trying it — so some part of him understood that the feeling of rapture throbbing in his chest like heartburn was drug-induced, not a legit reaction to what he was seeing. Regardless, he felt himself momentarily overwhelmed as he contemplated the labyrinthine depths of the lake before him, visualizing the ghoulish faces in the underwater cliffs and the murky graveyard that lay waiting at the bottom. 

Even picturing it made him shiver, conjuring up visions of being stuck hundreds of feet down in the lonely gloom. Joey pulled his hoodie over his spiky blond hair to ward off the mountain wind, which dragged through his hair like ghost fingers. He brought a smouldering joint to his lips.

It was Friday evening, and pretty soon the sun would slump exhausted behind the looming mountains before him. That’s when the real magic would begin. Joey and three of his friends from Elephant Mountain Secondary had jumped the mill site’s chainlink fence, as they did most days, and tromped down to a shaded beach alcove conveniently shielded by leaf-covered vinery and a ten-foot rock they called Ol’ Captain. This is where Valley kids went skinny dipping late at night, where they had raging campfires, drunken sing-alongs, and fist fights. People lost their virginity there. Others lost their innocence, which isn’t the same thing. Neither had happened for Joey, a fact he blamed on his omnipresent acne and his frustratingly shy personality around girls. 

Joey had long believed there was a better version of himself lurking within him, that there was a different and superior life that he was supposed to living somewhere else, far away from here. Something about this version of his life felt wrong, doomed somehow. Had he lived other lives before this one? Would he live more after he died? There was no denying he’d been born and raised in the Kootenays, but he had this insistent sense that he belonged in some other place, or maybe some other reality.

The wind off the lake was icy, forcing tears out the sides of his eyes, and he wiped them on the arm of his grey plaid jacket. It annoyed Joey that reality was so persistent, that no matter how high he got, he always ended up back in the same drab surroundings. Normal life felt drained of colour. It wasn’t his mother’s fault, or his older brother Jimmy’s — neither of them seemed capable of taking care of Joey and his twin sister Emerald. No, it was his Dad. 

The whole Tapper family had been reeling dazed since Joey’s father had inexplicably committed suicide last summer, his big toe on the shotgun trigger. The authorities found him on a side road near the base of Elephant Mountain, politely pulled over to the shoulder with his hazards on. Joey had visualized many times what it must’ve looked like inside the cab, the cop walking up to the side window with a flashlight. Was there flecks of skull stuck to the windshield? Did the blood splash like paint? Could you still see his face, or was it mostly gone? Joey was sixteen when he first heard the news, and his life now seemed cleaved in two by that event. He’d been a relatively happy kid before, and now he was a broken stoner blinking back tears.

Nyla snapped him back to reality, yelling from further down the shoreline. She was waving a staff-sized stick over her head, giggling, while she hopped from boulder to boulder in her bare feet. The other guys were shouting at her, taunting her about something, but their voices were swept away by the wind. Joey watched her flexing legs dance across the beach in tiny cut-off jean shorts. It was a privilege to witness, he thought, with a nearly religious reverence. It made being born worthwhile, just so he could experience being in their proximity.

“You still with us, Tapps?” she yelled, taking a swing with her stick at a rusted out oil drum and snapping it in two.

“I’m holding it together.”

Something about that made her laugh, and she swept her faded pink hair behind her ears as she sauntered over unsteady on her feet. Nyla had a perma-pout that was kind of corny and she wore too much makeup, like a geisha or something, but she also had a look unique in their high school. Not hipster, not goth, not boho — just flamboyantly alternative. Joey had fantasized about asking her out for years, but somehow he couldn’t force the words out of his mouth. 

Other dudes had taken a shot, but none had been successful. Some kids in their grade even thought she was a lesbian. There were a few moments where he thought something might happen between them, drunken late night moments when their lips nearly touched under the moonlight, but he didn’t know how to pull the trigger. Thinking about this, he covertly slipped his hand into one pocket and took his throbbing dick in his fist just as Nyla gave him a playful shove in the chest. For a horrifying moment he thought he was going to topple over, but after a brief moment of panic his equilibrium returned and the ground reassured him that it was still there.

Nyla laughed oblivious, clearly off on her own acid-induced trajectory.

“The guys are talking about taking an expedition,” she said, facing him. “And we wouldn’t want to leave a crew member behind.”

He took a drag on his joint, then offered it to her. “An expedition?”

“Well, Ryland said he knows a guy that will sell us bunch of MDMA cheap, and he figures we can make all some money selling it during concert season. So he wants to head over to the dude’s house, but he lives on the other side of the lake.”

“The other side of the lake?” he asked, becoming aware that he was just repeating her words. “How are we supposed to get to the other side of the lake?”

She took a long hit off his joint. “Grady says he can get us a canoe.”

“A fucking canoe? A four-person canoe?”

“I don’t know. They said it’s nearby, at some property on the edge of downtown. Belongs to Grady’s uncle or something? I wasn’t like totally listening because I was looking for our little lost sheep, you know? Wouldn’t want you to wander off.”

“You worried about wolves?”

She laughed, handed him back the joint. “Always. Wolf safety is paramount, soldier.”

“Why do you keep calling me soldier?”

Nyla clambered up a nearby mud-pile, striking a pose against the light blue sky.

“Because you always follow the rules, even when you’re breaking them. You pretend like you don’t have a moral code, Joey, but I know the truth. You’re like a Kootenay version of a choir boy, always concerned about pleasing the elders and being a good little boy. You can’t fool me, Joey. I’m un-foolable.”

“That’s not a real word.”

“Fuck you it’s not a real word. What makes a word real?”

“It means the word has a definition that everybody agrees on.”

“So if people don’t agree on the definition, then it’s not a real word?”

Joey didn’t have an answer for that. His jugular was vibrating uncomfortably now, so he quickly slurped back a series of hits off his joint, then coughed violently into his elbow. He blinked his watery eyes at the mountain sloping away from him, really taking in each individual tree. His mind was doing more things simultaneously than he could keep up with, like it had fractured off into independent thought trajectories regardless of whether he could follow. Tiny organisms floated across his vision like fat see-through porpoises. That was the acid, for sure.

“You know how many words Shakespeare invented?” Nyla asked, smirking at his bleary gaze.  “Words are just sounds that somebody else made up. They can mean whatever we want them to mean. And we can make new words, new definitions. That’s the beauty of language. Think of slang, how each new generation introduces new words to the cultural vocabulary.”

He sighed. “I still don’t think un-foolable is a word.”

The Kootenay Goon

[kootenaygoon]

So,

My soul sings the song of the Adams.

The Kootenay Goon

[kootenaygoon]

So,

Just read the news that John Cooper has passed away. 

I interviewed John for the Nelson Star in 2017, and met him in person at his Kaslo art show shortly after. He was an instant kindred, brimming over with passionate creativity, and he inspired me to get into painting right when I needed it. Over the years we talked on the phone multiple times, and he would send me routine emails with reminiscences about his glory days hanging with author Tom Robbins back in the 70s.

When his health was failing and he moved in with his son in Portland, John invited my wife Kristina and I to come visit him. Unfortunately, we never made the trek. I would've loved to see his latest pieces, because I'm sure he was working right up until the end — even if it was just sketches of horse's asses or doodles of his favourite little cartoon Walter William. I hope he was painting Toad Rock too. 

During the Star interview, there was one particular quote that stayed with me over the years. I used it as a sort of mantra as I was writing my memoir about the Kootenays, and shared it multiple times on my blog. Words to live by:

“I loved seeing students achieve their identity, and receive comfort and happiness in their identity. A good teacher helps students to become themselves. All art is about freedom, and you can’t hardly make art if you’re not free.”

Shine on, you crazy diamond.

The Kootenay Goon

[kootenaygoon]

“He could basically elevate anybody’s consciousness, from a skate punk to a single mother to an elder. He was able to shift a person’s thoughts from the mundane to the spiritual. That was his amazing gift to people of this area was raising people’s consciousness.” -Arin Fay, talking about Nelson artist Wayne King

The Kootenay Goon

[kootenaygoon]

So,

It takes balls to put Bigfoot on the first page of your literary novel, especially if the rest of the book isn’t actually about the nine-foot behemoth but is rather a multi-generational losing-of-faith narrative that wrestles with the concept of belief itself. What happens when you lose a belief? How does it feel to mourn a lost faith — in Santa, in Luke Skywalker, in Jesus Christ? That’s the question that occupied author Sarah Butler while she composed her debut epic The Wild Heavens, and as a former Catholic it’s a subject that comes with a certain amount of baggage.

“How many fairy tales survive our childhood? Where does belief end and imagination begin? I wanted this book to begin with a loss of faith in someone who is deeply invested, so the question became, what would that take? Eventually I decided on a very particular sort of animal encounter that would rattle the faith of someone who was, at heart, a nature-loving creationist,” Butler told Literary Goon.

“In the first pages of the book my main character Sandy’s grandfather, Aidan Fitzpatrick, essentially has Darwin battling God in his thoughts. He’s a seminary student on his way to becoming a Catholic priest, but the encounter with this strange animal shakes him off that path, and instead he goes to study biology on the coast. If he’d gone through with his plans, he would never have married and had a family. So in a sense, without this encounter his granddaughter would’ve never been born. It’s her origin story.”

Butler herself is a “hopeful agnostic” when it comes to the Pacific Northwest’s most elusive type of “charismatic megafauna”, and has studied geography and biology as well as volunteered on research projects studying endangered animals while living in the mountain town of Nelson, B.C. Much of her free time is spent out in the surrounding wilderness, and the encounters she’s been through have led her to adopt her own free-form, nature-based pseudo-religion, based on the wondrous things she’s discovered during her treks. When she thinks of church, of sanctuary and ritual and the supernatural, she’s more likely to imagine a waterfall than a pulpit.

“For me there’s a parallel between seeing a wild grizzly bear in its natural habitat and what I felt as a little kid in church, and I think this is actually not an uncommon perspective in people who enjoy spending time in natural spaces. Those were the two strongest influences in my earliest years, nature and religion. In the book, Sandy grows up not-religious but her grandfather’s choice to leave the church colours their lives," she said.

"I often think of the word observant, and how it has two meanings — meaning you notice things, or you adhere to a faith, and maybe they are the same thing, or maybe not.”

It took Butler 10 years to write this story, a project she took on while working as an entrepreneurial single Mom. As it progressed, she reflected on the number of people in her life that had lost their faith but never talked about it. God had become Voldemort, a deity we were too embarrassed to admit we ever had faith in. Like Bigfoot.

“I remember what it felt like to be a devout little 7 or 8-year-old Catholic school girl, and then being severed from that belief system. It was hard. That loss of faith was more complicated than I realized at the time. And I think it’s interesting how many people leave their religion, then never talk about it—because, for some of us, it leaves more traces than we think. Sometimes there are fragments that stay behind – both magic and shrapnel.”

The Wild Heavens is a dreamy, contemplative novel that takes place over a single winter day in a B.C. cabin in the mountains. It takes readers through Sandy’s memories, including those of her grandfather’s encounter with the Sasquatch-esque creature, and pivots around a tragic disappearance that has scarred her life. With gorgeously rendered prose Butler evokes a reverence for the natural world that feels, yes, very religious. But that doesn’t make her evangelical.

“One trait that I think is common among people who have left Catholicism is that we have this allergy to dogma. I never wanted  to come at the story as though I had something to teach or dictate,” she said.

“It ended up becoming more philosophical because I spent so much time thinking about it over the years. Ultimately the book is about the characters and their relationships with each other and their own beliefs, but I also really enjoy exploring those bigger questions. It can take the story to some intriguing and unexpected places. I’m not trying to provide answers so much as share my questions.”

The Literary Goon

[kootenaygoon]

So,

What if you woke up to a world without parents?

In the upcoming folklore tale Wildhood, Nelson author Amy Makortoff conjures up a reality where children discover one morning that their parents have vanished. It’s kind of like Lord of the Flies, but rather than being stuck on an island these determined children find themselves traveling through magical realms ruled over by mysterious creatures.

“I want my kids to know why I am the way I am, and I want to tell them all about the things they can’t know about, so they can experience my real life in a softened way through storytelling,” Makortoff told Literary Goon.

“So when I started writing Wildhood, I wanted to create a childhood that was wild and exciting, because that’s how I was raised. I grew up in a pretty unique setting as a Doukhobor, so I’ve seen a lot of things that kids don’t normally experience.”

Keep reading

[kootenaygoon]

“I loved seeing students achieve their identity, and receive comfort and happiness in their identity. A good teacher helps students to become themselves. All art is about freedom, and you can’t hardly make art if you’re not free.”

-John Cooper, Nelson Star

The Kootenay Goon

[kootenaygoon]

“When intense situations come up in my life, which they do, I don’t freak out like I used to. I also don’t numb myself out. I realized you don’t need to shut down in times of conflict. You can maintain a connection and communicate your side without getting lost in the anger. I would say I feel calmer, more fulfilled and less confused now.”

-Dale Cedar, Nelson Star

The Kootenay Goon

[kootenaygoon]

“I think we should’ve made it bigger.”

-Ken Muth

The Kootenay Goon

[kootenaygoon]

So,

This is a story about grief.

Two weeks ago I drove out to the Holiday Inn on Six Road to get some sleep and some time away from the craziness of my family. I was exhausted, carrying Celista on my hip, and struggling with multiple bags. 

We'd been driving for hours because I'd stupidly detoured up to Squamish on a whim and tried a few places in Vancouver. Our phones were dead. It was at least midnight when we pulled into the empty parking lot of the hotel and dragged our pile of luggage and infant daughter inside panting and sweating.

Once we reached the reception desk, I sat Celista down at the counter and went searching for the debit card I kept losing. The room was $120 for the night, but because I didn’t have a credit card I was also getting chiseled out of an additional $300 damage deposit.

“Make sure you keep this receipt,” the little man at the counter said, from behind his mask. “If you lose it, we can’t give you back your deposit.”

I blinked at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was being serious.

"I'm going to lose this, I promise you. Look how much shit I'm carrying, I've got a baby here," I said. "What happens if I lose track of this slip of paper? Then you just keep my fucking money? Doesn't everybody pay this deposit? Why do you need this piece of paper to prove it? Why don’t you keep it?”

Once I’d thrown the scrap in his direction, he informed me that he didn’t appreciate the tone of my voice and now I had to leave. I told him that I wasn’t leaving until he provided us with the entry card to our room, which I had just paid $400 for. Was he just going to rob us on the spot? This nerdy little shithead squawked pathetically and threatened to call the police. (As if I’m afraid of the police.)

Kristina jumped in at this point, trying the diplomacy approach. “Can’t you just give us the room key? We’ve been driving for hours,” she said, but I couldn’t stand to hear the desperation in her voice. I could feel myself transforming into beast mode. 

He yelped something like "these are the rules", looking increasingly frightened, then Celista and I charged out the whooshing doors. It was too much — my sister’s death, the stupid masks we had to wear, all this bullshit — and I just snapped a little bit.

“Now you’re not getting your deposit back,” he yelled haughtily from behind the safety of his golden desk. 

Then came the moment. It was one of those magic moments when you know the right thing to do, but the wrong thing seems more appealing. It was the kind of opportunity to do something I never would otherwise, a perfectly justified act of public vandalism on a grand scale. I had a wonderful, terrible, Grinchy idea.

So I marched back into the hotel, where Kristina was still talking to the receptionist, and sauntered casually across their beautiful linoleum lobby to their 15-foot Christmas tree. I took ahold of the shaft with one hand, then launched it across the room like a javelin. It was surprisingly light, and it soared into a piece of their furniture before smashing to the ground. The ornaments shattered and bounced in jubilant chaos.

It was one of the greatest moments of my life.

The Kootenay Goon

[kootenaygoon]

So,

Locals call it the Pulpit.

Along the right flank of Elephant Mountain, jutting out from the trees like a lectern, is a jagged rock face that gives you a full view of the small town of Nelson far below. Hikers work their way up to it daily, year-round, and it’s a favourite place to pose for selfies. It’s also, however, the perfect place to murder someone — which happens to be the premise of the latest instalment in Judy Toews’ mystery series, Lucky Jack Road. 

“I’ve lived on Kootenay Lake for over 40 years with my husband David and our two daughters, paddling and hiking, so I have a deep personal connection to the land. It’s stunningly beautiful, of course, yet it also has a dark side where bad things can and do happen,” Toews told Literary Goon.

“Nelson is a place of deep contrast. When you first arrive you feel this very laid back, non-conformist vibe. The mountains are beautiful, the scenery is amazing. But the longer you stay, the more you realize that this place has a real dangerous edge.”

While Toews’s children were growing up, her husband worked as a forest hydrologist while she held down various gigs within the public health sector. She worked as a nutritionist, she coordinated communications for population health initiatives, and she became curious about all the things occurring around her that she couldn’t quite see.

“I loved writing ever since I was a little child, figuring things out on paper, and I had an interest in newspaper journalism. I wrote some columns here and there about nutrition and that sort of thing, but eventually I became intrigued by Nelson’s dark underbelly,” she said.

That mental exercise culminated in an early morning bike trip one day when she spotted an abandoned rowboat adrift along the shoreline of Kootenay Lake. As she biked further she spotted a RCMP officer with a pair of binoculars, and realized that there could’ve been a body in that boat. Would she have even noticed? 

Why hadn’t she stopped?

“That’s where the story sprung from in my head, as I pedalled the rest of the way into Nelson. I put myself in the place of a young female journalist and that’s when my lead character Stella Mosconi came to me, almost fully formed.” Shortly later Toews began work on her first crime novel, Give Out Creek, which features a prominent police officer love interest and plenty of research about the inner workings of the real Nelson Star. She shadowed journalists, sat through editorial meetings, and even proposed a new headline for a cover story. 

“I did as much reading as I could, about forensics and crime investigation, and I talked to editors like Bob Hall, Kevin Mills, and Greg Nesteroff. It was really fun to come into the office and see the reporters in action,” she said.

Then she took a further step: she scheduled a sit-down interview with Police Chief Paul Burkart. She felt silly, like maybe her undertaking was a bit trivial for someone of his position, quizzing him about real-life situations for a book that wasn’t even non-fiction. But he was cordial and patient with her, answering questions and adding vital information to the narrative. 

“When you talk to real people, you have these conversations you could never have while doing online research. I really wanted my story to be credible, so it was important to me that I met with the right experts. And I was so lucky that people like Paul were so generous with their time.”

For her second novel, Lucky Jack Road, her main character Stella Mosconi is just starting to hit her stride as a reporter and getting settled into city life when a local man named Jack Ballard takes a nosedive off the Pulpit. 

“Despite Ballard’s popularity in Nelson, Stella was not a fan - he’d frightened her badly when they’d dated as teens. Yet she finds herself absolutely obsessed with figuring out what happened to him, and why he went over the edge,” Toews said.

Mirroring real life tragedies that happened during that time, including the death of her husband David, the book has an emotional heft that wasn’t there the first time around. She’d like to see the books become increasingly dark and nuanced as she works toward completing a six-part series. 

“At some point, when you start asking questions, you really can’t stop until you find the answers. I don’t have all the answers yet, and neither does Stella.”

The Kootenay Goon

[kootenaygoon]

So,

My friend Anna Katarina recorded this gorgeous tribute to my sister Kathryn, who passed away last week. I tweaked the lyrics of “Candle in the Wind” by Elton John, and then she did all the rest. My family is so grateful. 

The Literary Goon

[kootenaygoon]

“They say God made man in his image. It doesn’t mean He looks like us and wears T-shirts. It means he’s a creator and he wants us to create.”

-Joe Nillo

The Kootenay Goon

[kootenaygoon]

So,

There’s a new Soul in the world.

My friend Joe Nillo became a father earlier this month. I met him while I was working as an arts reporter for the Nelson Star, and he set my imagination on fire. Along with John Cooper, he’s responsible for me re-engaging with visual art. In my memoir, I write about the portrait he created of Soul’s mother Kaley. I watched him live-paint it during Shambhala in 2017.

Joe shared a beautiful poem on Facebook, and I just wanted to share a few lines: “Giving blessings and salutations

For the perfection of your creation

Your gentle breath a meditation

Your beating heart a revelation

Your perfect love an invitation

To be still

And know

We are god.”

The Kootenay Goon

[kootenaygoon]

“Another Candle in the Wind”

by Will Johnson 

Goodbye, Kathryn Elaine

You know you were loved by all

You had the grace to hold yourself

While those around you crawled.

I know your heart was broken

And sadness ate you from inside

But I also know, my girl

That you loved to be alive. 

And it seems to me, you lived your life

Like a candle in the wind.

Never knowing who to cling to.

When the rain set in.

I would’ve liked to grow old with you

But this was all we get.

Your candle burned out too early

But your legacy is set. 

Loneliness was tough

The toughest feeling you ever felt.

Our family wanted to help

Trade in the hand you were dealt.

Like Princess Di, don’t you see?

No matter how you felt

You were royalty, to me.

And it seems to me

You lived your life

Like a candle in the wind

Never knowing who to cling to

When the rain set in

I would’ve liked to grow old with you

But this was all we get

Your candle burned out too early

But your legacy is set.

**-My heart will be broken forever, K. Thank you for being my sister. You were so precious, so perfect, so loved. Everyone loved you, Kathryn, with your white blond hair like duck fluff, your kindness and your crazy throbbing mega-heart. I’ll take care of your dolphins.

The Kootenay Goon