Letters to John — From Canada — Letter Three

Enjoying a Walk Through Ambleside Park, West Vancouver

Admiring nature and the people, we are so different yet so similar

When I went to Canada in 2016, I wrote John a letter (email) every day. In this way, we felt as if we were travelling together. This is part of my third letter to John. I wrote it on the second evening while sitting in my van at the Riverside Camping & RV Resort in Whistler.

After my morning walk in the caravan park, I was getting hungry. I didn’t have anything to eat (last night, like a piggy, I ate everything I had, stretched my stomach and in the morning I was starving), so I had to wait for the shops to open at 10 am, and therefore had plenty of time to go for another walk. So I decided to go for a stroll and explore the surroundings.

I crossed the Capilano River, stopped middle of the bridge, and enjoyed the view of the railway bridge and the vessels hiding behind the steel structure. What a magnificent morning. The weather was perfect — I wished it stayed like this for my entire trip.

I continued walking through Ambleside Park and along the shores of Burrard Inlet. The majority of the trees there are very green, though some were still leave-less after the winter and their naked branches were covered with little light-green buds, others were starting to flower. Nature is waking up after a long winter sleep. You could feel the spring in the air.

In the wilder parts of the park, many branches were lying on the ground, all covered with green moss. Even in the thick forest, there was plenty of lush green grass and other small plants covering the woodland ground. Nature in Canada is quite similar to what I know from Europe and very different from the Australian landscape.

On one of the trees, I noticed a well-fed orange squirrel — I hadn’t seen these animals for a long time. I tried to capture it in a photograph, but it was against the light, so the image doesn’t show much except a dark silhouette.

The weather, the surroundings, and the fresh air made me very happy and excited. At the beginning of my walk, I smiled at the people passing by or said ‘Hello’, but pretty quickly, I learned that… talking to strangers definitely isn’t Canadian culture. People looked at me as if I wasn’t quite normal. Not that I am normal, but… In Australia, people always reply when I say ‘Hello’, even in the botanic gardens in Brisbane!

During the walk, I started to feel a bit lonely, and I missed Australia and the people there. We complain that everyone is stressed and many are not too friendly, but… As they say, we don’t know what we have until we lose it. Now I remember how people in Europe are exactly the same as here, in Vancouver — cold, reserved, and self-contained. I miss the Aussies’ friendliness…

I also realized how lucky I was that at that time, when Andy left me, I was in Australia, in Queensland… The pain of a broken heart was almost unbearable; however, the Aussies, their friendliness, their smiles, and their outgoing, warm-hearted nature soothed the pain. Some mornings, when I felt particularly down, I went for a run, and I said ‘Good morning’ to every single person I met to force myself to smile. Everybody replied, also with a smile, and this made me feel so much better.

I just remembered this because… I can’t say that I am heartbroken now, but I miss you, John, I miss you very much, and I have weird aches in my heart… And then, the people in the park made me feel somehow lonely… Anyway, I’ll be all right.

I continued walking along the shores, on the concrete footpath, and the rocky beach. In some places, there was a small section of a sandy shore, though the loose granular substance wasn’t so fine and smooth as on the coastline of the Land Down Under. No, it was grey and very rough.

There were plenty of big logs along the coast, which could be used as benches on the beach.

My attention caught the long suspension bridge, The Lions Gate Bridge, connecting West Vancouver with the City of Vancouver. The long, iron structure, a seemingly very thin road hanging on dozens of tidily ordered steel ropes and spreading beyond two massive towers, had some charm to it. It somehow appeared as if it was light as a feather. The high rises of the city in the background made the complete image look picturesque. If I didn’t get lost yesterday, I would drive over that bridge…

The park was full of people. I was surprised that at that time of the day, middle of a working week, so many people had time for walks in the park. Didn’t they have work to go to? Maybe they start working really late here, who knows. Though I must say, it wasn’t the people who mostly crowded the park. No, the population of dogs was definitely much bigger than the number of humans there — almost two dogs per person. I started to feel weird that I didn’t have a dog with me, and it made me miss Daisy — I wish I could have her with me here…

About 70% of all dogs in the park were the size of a slightly bigger guinea pig; nevertheless, big German Shepherds, Collies, Labradors, and other reasonable size canines were also to be seen. Some four-legged friends were kept on a leash and walked with their master as if they were presented in an obedience dog school; others happily played in the water.

While I was standing on the pier at Ambleside, I watched one particular dog, a white-and-brown middle-size canine, playing in the water and, in some respect resembling a dolphin. Every time when somebody threw him a ball into the river, he jumped into it, swam and dived, got the ball, and as soon as he was back on the shores, he couldn’t wait to jump into the deep again. The happy, full-of-energy little creature put a smile on my face.

I imagined how it would be to walk there on the pier with you, holding your hand and sharing all the experiences with you. Can you imagine, John, how lovely it would be to walk there together after the sunset, the pier nicely illuminated with the glow of the street lights, and admire the lights of the city and the long suspension bridge, the symbol of the western gateway to Canada… But, I better stop dreaming about this, as it makes my pain of missing you even worse.

Okay, so where was I… Ah, that’s right, I stopped at The Squamish Nation Welcome Figure, a West Vancouver landmark, a gift from the Squamish Nation (the Indigenous People of the area of Greater Vancouver, Howe Sound, and Squamish River watershed — British Columbia) to the people of Western Vancouver. It was constructed from an old-growth cedar log from Hollyburn Mountain. Its hands are wide open as a gesture of a big welcome. In honour of the teachings and wisdom of the Squamish Nation grandmothers, the sculpture fosters respect for the land, animal, and all people who come to these shores.

I find it fascinating to read and learn about ancient cultures, even the cultures that we often call “primitive”, though, in reality, many of them were very advanced and sophisticated, just not money and greed oriented as we are now.

Have you noticed that regardless if we are talking about Australia or America, the Indigenous people of the territories, though they had very different cultures, they had also something in common — a lot of respect (yes, the word which is almost extinguished from the modern vocabulary), respect for people, the land, animals, and nature in general. I think the respect for mother nature helped them and their cultures survive for thousands of years until the Europeans came along and… destroyed everything.

I believe that if people respected the land and the animal kingdom, they would, even more, respect each other, and in the end, this would give us the best foundation to build prosperous nations compounded of strong communities and happy families. I know my point of view is very naive — we live in an era where everyone prays to the almighty dollar, and the one with the most money survives; all that counts is a fat bank account. Fair enough…

I loved my morning walk, admiring the ships on the waters with the hardly visible outlines of the mountains far away in the background. Some seagulls on the shores feasted on a fish.

When I turned my head away from the sea, I could see the massive snow-covered summits of the North Shore Mountains. It was almost like in a paradise, and the only disturbing nuisance, except for the everlasting ache in my heart caused by missing you, was… the uninterrupted noise. Regardless of where in the park I was, I could hear constant noise, be it from machines operating on the construction sides, workers cleaning the park with brush-cutters and mowers, helicopters and small air-crafts constantly flying above my head, or zooming cars rushing somewhere on the streets of the city… there wasn’t even a second of peace and silence…

I spent over an hour and a half in the park. I discovered that about 50% of people living here are of Asian appearance, 25% would be Indians (from India) and Muslims, and the rest are mostly Europeans. Ah, that’s right, I even met one or two Canadians — who would have thought people of this nationality could also be encountered in this region ; )

At some point, I came to the realization that there is one thing people all over the world have in common, especially women, and it is… gossiping… Two young women were going for their morning power walk and passionately talking about their co-worker. Even if you didn’t want to, you got to know about the third woman’s terrible haircut, broken nails, and unprofessional-looking make-up. Actually, listening to these women’s conversations made me chuckle, and, in some respect, I pitied them. I thought to myself — if the best thing they can do on such a wonderful morning is to talk about somebody’s fingernails, then how boring and empty their life must be. Maybe I should show them my fingernails — never painted, always broken — this would give them a topic to talk about until the evening! What do you think, John? Lol.

I stopped at a memorial honouring Pilot Commander Don Jose Maria Narvaez, and it is how I learned that it was on the 1st of July 1791 when the first white man set his foot on the West Canada mainland. I was a bit surprised that it took so long for the Caucasian people to get to the western shores of the Great White North, considering that America was discovered already in 1492… Oh well, I guess they didn’t have cars and roads at that time, not to mention aircraft, and it is why they could not get across as quickly as I can now ;)

This story is from my unpublished book called “Letters to John — From Canada.” One day I hope to publish the entire “Letters to John” series, but until then, I decided to share snippets of my books on various social media and writers’ platforms.

More articles relating to this book and my adventures while driving across Canada you can find in the following collection/list

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