HerKind.com

My first apartment in Vancouver was in the West End, on Alberni Street, just steps away from Lost Lagoon, across from the Vancouver Rowing Club and overlooking Burrard Inlet, with a coveted unobstructed view of the North Shore mountains. Being a typical city girl, I naturally marvelled at the sights revealed through a floor to ceiling living room window. I saw rainbows that began somewhere in the ocean, beyond Stanley Park's majestic trees, and crashed down at the far end of the Inlet. I couldn't take my eyes off the ever changing West Coast sky, the very one that makes the weather so changeable and a source of endless complaints. I watched rowers stubbornly moving their boats through the water, even in the pouring rain. I took to walking around Lost Lagoon, amazed at the perfect eco-system within - as limited as it sounds, I'd never seen anything like it!

That first spring, by virtue of spending a little time every day visiting the swans, I inadvertently became one of the many locals invested in their nesting and hatching activities. I didn't know it then, but this was a disparate group of nature lovers, loners and others who, every year, gravitated to keep account of the swan pairs, the number of eggs laid, and how many ended up hatching. In the end, only one pair had viable eggs, and rumours abound about how and why so few eggs remained. Some thought the Vancouver Parks Board was spoiling them in an attempt to keep numbers down, others thought that members of certain cultures that view swan eggs as delicacies were stealing them, others (like me) blamed the non-enforcement of by-laws like no off-leash dogs and no feeding the swans. The only way to keep an eco-system working is to protect it's natural laws, and these swans were getting too domesticated, therefore lazy about their parental duties.

In any case, I began daily, sometimes twice daily visits to one swan pairing that had lost all but one egg - I was always a champion of the underdog, and felt at this point in my new life that I was kinda one of them. I honestly thought that if this lonely egg hatched, it meant my life would work out in Vancouver. No kidding. I got angry when the parents abandoned the nest for too long, in pursuit of human hand outs on the other side of the Lagoon. I patiently waited, spoke words of encouragement to the mother, I sat for hours on end waiting for a glimpse of the first little crack, even when I knew it was beyond the time for such a miracle. Reluctantly, I moved down a few yards to where another swan pair had three, by all accounts, viable eggs.

By this time I had exchanged phone numbers with a few regulars since I did not want to miss the momentus hatching. One morning I got a call just before I was leaving my house to attend a fundraising luncheon. I ran down to the Lagoon trail to find the swan nest encircled three people deep. I managed to worm my way in to see the first egg hatch. How wonderful it was! A few hours later, after my obligations, I came straight back to the nest to find I hadn't missed a thing. Hours went by, that seemed like minutes, pretty soon it was dusk, someone had some food they were willing to share, though we barely noticed we were hungry. I saw both the other cygnets spring out of their eggs! How entirely amazing, this nature-in-action.

A terribly jaded Vancouver TV reporter showed up to ask what all the fuss was about. "We are talking about swans, aren't we?" she said. I remember volunteering to do an on-camera interview when noone else would. I wanted to make my point - from a newcomers perspective - about how important it was not to take this nature in our midst for granted, since it's doesn't just happen anywhere and we should do our utmost to protect it. I must've sounded like a nutter, but I was drunk on the fresh experience, after all, isn't that why I'd come. To see and experience something new?

I might add, it wasn't just the swans we were all watching - a local nature photographer guided our attention to the eagle's and blue heron's nests and we had to step carefully on the Lagoon trail to avoid ducklings on their first outings with proud parents. By far though, the most exciting thing was watching the swans take their three new babies for their first swim - just one day after they were born!

That spring/summer I sent regular swan and nature news home to friends and family. I'm sure they thought I'd gone off my rocker. The sound of the crows and Canada geese were music to my ears after years of throaty pigeon noise. Make that a metaphor for what you will!

That was six summers ago. Every single summer since I spent travelling around BC and Alberta, seeing nature of all stripes and embodiments - bear cubs, elk, bald eagles, mountain lions, wolves, whales, seals. Anything that moves in and around mountains and ocean, I witnessed, in amazement.

This year, I spent summer living in Toronto's Danforth neighbourhood (Greektown), a few subway stops east of downtown. The location was great, lots of little markets, great restaurants, vibrant summer patio nightlife and a friendly Starbucks at the end of my street. It's good to be back home for the proximity to family, old friends and the kind of culture only Toronto affords. Drawbacks: it was hot, smelly, the apartment I was in was in a state of disrepair or makeshift repair, I didn't really feel safe due to old, easy to access windows with holes in the screens, my neighbours had noisy fights where I thought one night there was a murder happening. And the piece de resistance, a raccoon died outside my apartment one night at around 4 am - it squeaked and squawked until I heard it draw its last breath. I couldn't stand the noise, or the fact that I was too afraid to go out and help the poor thing, so I turned my TV up full blast on MuchMusic and put my iPod on full tilt as well. I could still hear it! I can still hear it!

Now you might not believe this, but the raccoons out west were friendly little things, not as domesticated so, somehow, not as ferocious. I never worried about my cat being out there with them, there it was the coyotes I shielded him from. I don't like pigeons and that interminable noise they make - though I must say, it was fun to watch two of them nest on my front porch and, when the eggs hatched, watching them grow and take their first flights. Pigeons are ugly (sorry to pigeon lovers) but as babies they are cute for a couple of days. And it was unexpected nature-in-action in the big concrete jungle.

My rambling point? I missed the West Coast summer this year - I thought / think about it alot. Now I am back in Ajax, back to the 'burbs where the air is fresher, and I can hear the Canada Geese. But a car culture prevails, and there's not alot I can do without one. Caliban, my cat is happier 'cause he has lots of undevelped land to roam outside without being shooed away by neighbours protecting their pride and joy 2x4 gardens.

The thing is, no matter how difficult things got for me trying to make a life in Vancouver, and they did get really tough, I could always take solace in nature. It takes alot of looking to find that here.

It's some kind of universal truth that the grass is always greener. In this case, literally.