Here on the Coast

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Howard White. Here on the Coast

Here on the Coast

Contents

Introduction Sunshine on the Raincoast

Getting to Know Us

Fishy Business

What’s in a Name?

A Tough Time for Trees

Zero Gardening

The Electric Diary

The Boating Life

Confessions of a Home Handyman

Climate Talk

Talking Hard Times

The Great Getaway

A Coaster Discovers Scotland

Trading in the Rain

A Swan among the Seagulls

History vs. Hotdogs

Sex on the Sunshine Coast

Hollywood Comes to Bute Inlet

Good Wood

The Princess

The Kleins and Their Dale

Libraries under Fire

Pete the Poet

The Unlikely Cannabis Guru

Echoes of the Great War

The Music Bug

Novice Writer at Ninety-Nine

Bard of the Woods

So You Think You Had a Bad Trip on the Ferry?

Magic in the Mountains

When the Cat Does Not Come Back

Hijacked in Mexico

The High Cost of Hesitation

The Great Undoing

Fixed-Link Follies

The Arts

The Great Canadian Biffy

Of Grizzlies, Oilers, Pigs and Wacey Rabbit

Luddite’s Lament

Raised in Pender Harbour

Searching for a Coastal Icon

Spring and All

Muse in Caulk Boots

Roaring Bullheads, Brainfarts and Baseball

Early Computers of the Sunshine Coast

Undiscovered Miltons

Halloween People

Waste Wars

Water, Water

Restricted Visibility

Munga’s Meadows

Shadows in Our Sunshine

Acknowledgments

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Here on the Coast

Howard White

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There was no Indigenous name for the Sunshine Coast, probably because it was divided between three nations who didn’t view it as one territory. The Squamish held the southern end including Gibsons and Roberts Creek; the Sechelt or shíshálh people held the middle section from Roberts Creek to Jervis Inlet; and the Sliammon (or Tla'amin) held the northern section from Jervis Inlet to Desolation Sound. The biggest settlement in the territory was at Pender Harbour, the tiny village where I’ve lived for the past sixty-five years. The shíshálh name for Pender Harbour was kalpilin and they called it that for untold centuries. It has only been called Pender Harbour for less than two centuries, having been renamed on something of a whim by an explorer who probably didn’t spend twenty-four hours in the place.

It has gone downhill ever since. There are about three thousand people here now, though it is sometimes hard to believe because the convoluted character of the shoreline does such a good job of concealing the homes. But three hundred years ago there were at least twice as many people living here during the winter months. Every nook and cranny was dotted with longhouses, and the biggest one was reputedly three hundred feet long and six of our storeys high. This was the one called kla-uhn-uhk-ahwt and you might say it was the Capitol or Parthenon of the Sechelt Nation. kalpilin in those days was one of the great trading centres of the coast—the whole west coast, from the Columbia River to Alaska. Sechelt was just a summer encampment and Gibsons an unimportant satellite village of the Squamish. Here in Pender we still consider Sechelt and Gibsons to be upstart, flash-in-the-pan kind of places that should be more respectful of our elder status, but sometimes our elected representatives have trouble making the rest of the Sunshine Coast understand this.

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