My Cottonwood
On a walk with my three canine companions we scrambled beneath the old railway bridge on the south side of the Skeena River and stopped to listen to the music of the traffic as the throbbing diesel duallies and whining Suzuki Sidekicks move one way over the metal grill bridge. I love these easy little adventures and always return to my truck with a pocket full of stones or a handful of sticks. This walk yielded much more than a few shapely roots for on a small trail running parallel to the bridge ramp I discovered a tree.
Hiding in plain sight surrounded by alders and devil’s club, was a surviving monster cottonwood with the circumference of a Volkswagen beetle. Signs of its great age were evidenced by the cavernous cracks in the bark and the cave-like holes excavated in rotting knots by industrious forest creatures. I fell in love as I stood dwarfed by this majestic entity. I looked up to see a weather amputated top third and several massive arms continuing to embrace the sun’s energy to join with the root gathered nutrients bringing life to my leafy love.
Struggling to circumvent my mistress, as I now was enthralled, I was assaulted by last year's dry devil's club and the foot spearing dead branches hiding unseen in the brown and green beneath my feet. I discovered two more very large evergreens, a pine and a cedar who dwell there in obscurity, companions for their Cottonwood queen. The debris of at least a century of spring floods and the human debris of white plastic bags and old truck tires lie around her and in homage I'm cleaned beneath her before the rapid growth in the rain forest hides the detritus making cleahup impossible until next spring’s melting snow cover leaves the ground around my tree accessible once more.
I have taken one other person to see my tree for I wanted a picture of me and my lady's trunk. My mother’s Irish Catholic guilt has taken over and I realize that I should share my discovery with others and I imagine a time when groups of children and especially older people who, being mobility compromised by age, could get the assistance of strong young people and travel beneath the musical railway bridge to sit on a provided lawn chair and commune beneath their new aged friend and drink a cup of reviving tea and eat a piece of bannock and jam. But for now it is just me who visits her daily and today I'll take a piece of rope with me to circle her trunk to discover her true circumference.
April 24, 2011
My Cottonwood has a girth of 33 feet or possibly the distance measured by six tall men holding hands and embracing her majestic trunk.
A spring day beside the Skeena River, in 2011.
Today as I wait for summer to fight its way through the cover of rain filled clouds I have discovered why the colloquial name Cottonwood has been bestowed on my tree and other behemothic relatives. On this July dripping day I found beneath another massive Cottonwood on Ferry Island that sits in the middle of the Skeena River long white tufts which upon closer study proved to be a stem of seeds each seed equipped with cotton like wings which probably serves them in their struggle to produce a seedling. There is joy in a new discovery even if I am aware that this discovery is only new to me for I am sure that my neighbours whose lives have been spent in the shadow of these mountains already know of the cottonish cottonwood seeds.
July 5, 2011.
My Cottonwood revisited
I called upon my leafy love this July morning, a July who is disguising herself as April her departed cousin determining that I wear once more the faded green hoody and brown canvas fisherman's vest that have served as my outwear of choice for most of the 10 months that I've lived in this land of warm dampness. The frequent overlay of leaking white clouds are punctuated by magnificent stretches of brightness where the sun glints off the mountain peaks and the green plants seek to embrace the sky stretching upward with the speed of Jack's beanstalk.
Today was not magnificently bright and the peaks were hidden in a Vale of cloud but it wasn't raining and the wind was calm as I clambered under the old bridge, following three happy four-legged companions on our way to pay homage to my lady but also I wanted a picture of her in her new green gown. Beneath her towering height the low-lying tangle of brush containing, in bloom, devil's club and closely growing alders and other unrecognized plants made it impossible for me to get a photograph of her but I struggled to her base and again marvelled at her bark and her size.
I returned to the trail beneath the old bridge and just before I loaded my dogs into the back of my truck we veered down the trail arriving once more beside the fast flowing but diminishing Skeena River. I looked to the island now able to be accessed over rocks and strewn trees and saw what looked like a net stretching out 50 feet into the fast flowing river. My curiosity got the better of me and I clambered and climbed over the rocks straddling deposited logs to arrive at the net. I saw that it was anchored to a large ring concreted into a boulder. I realized that this was part of a First Nations food fishery. I took a couple of photographs of the wriggling water attempting to capture something of the action that was going on beneath.
As I was slowly and safely retracing my journey assisted by a found walking stick made for me by an upstream beaver and transported to a spot on the rocks marooned there by the abating spring runoff my concentrated journey was interrupted when I was approached by four men moving quickly in my direction two of them carrying burlap bags. This little adventure was proving to be way more exciting than what I had imagined when I left with only a visit to my Cottonwood in mind. I asked if I could watch them pull in their net and maybe take a few pictures. The older man and the obvious leader laughed and said that he didn't think the fish would mind getting their pictures taken.
25 salmon and one trout were captured in that green gill net and they were quickly removed and piled on the rocks where they were vigorously sniffed by my curious dogs. They evenly divided their catch into three plastic garbage bags which they tied shut and the plastic bags went into the burlap ones to give strength to the container as on their backs they slung their harvest from the river. I followed them listening to their conversation as one of the younger men spoke about a rich man who wanted 200 fish and would pay $20 for each salmon. The quiet voiced older man said he was taking his to the band office because there were lots of people who liked to have a feed of fresh salmon and that the band had a smoker which he was going to use. They drove off in their peeling little blue car with a full load of fellows and fish leaving me with the truck box full of tired dogs. The two hours we spent on this now familiar riverside has given me exercise, eye candy and the motivation needed to record these few hundred words to mark a small but significant event.
July 7, 2011
Thank you for sharing your writing. I wanted to comment on phrases you wrote which created strong images in my mind...
"my mistress" - you have made the Cottonwood (and she does deserve to begin with a capital letter!)so powerful as though she possessed control over you.
"a July who is disguising herself as April" - without telling us the weather, you have made me dig into my memory and associate it with what I know and that allowed me to become a part of your writing.
So brave to post your work - and a gift for the rest of us!
Posted by: Melanie | 08/04/2011 at 07:55 PM
Very impressive Ivan!
Posted by: Andy Klimach | 08/04/2011 at 09:30 PM