What is this mysterious radiation?
At last! Our first glimpse of actual sunshine since we debarked on the Sunshine Coast.
Seizing the rare and perhaps fleeting opportunity, we pull on our gumboots for a hike along Powell River's iconic Willingdon Beach Nature Trail.
It turns out we're hardly the only ones so inclined. Half the town seems to be out promenading: joggers, dog-walkers, mountain bikers, courting couples, lunch-hour smokers (cigs and medical pot, both), cane-wielding oldsters, geocache treasure-hunters, even a uniformed track team.
The trail traffic represents a pretty fair cross section of Powtowners: fixed income pensioners, outdoor enthusiasts and young families with school-age children.
The draw-card for all these diverse demographics can be guessed from a glance at any of the freebie real estate flyers distributed all over town: all sorts of property here sell for roughly 20-40% of what a comparable space might cost in metro Vancouver.
And that's not even factoring in the ocean views, pristine air, negligible crime rate, increasingly innovative and international educational opportunities, and unremittingly earnest endeavors at public edification.
Take, for instance, the Willingdon Beach Trail. Built in the disused roadbed of a coast-hugging railroad, it's broad and level enough to handily accommodate this fair-weather lunch-hour crowd. There's even room left over for an "outdoor museum."
An impressive collection of quaint and picturesquely overgrown industrial detritus lines the path: donkey engines, winches, steam boilers, graders, giant pulleys, log-handling mini-tugboats. All meticulously labelled, as are the variegated trees -- cedar, aspen, Doug fir, maple -- that filter the light glinting off the adjacent sea.
Curious seals bob alongside the trail, people- watching, just as we are. And more sleek, black silhouettes stand out against the offshore shimmer when we emerge from the trail to the open beachfront. Seals, again, or arcing dolphin fins?
Little exchange students (小留學生)
We put the query to a gaggle of Chinese teenagers cavorting on the beach at water’s edge. “Those black shapes out there, are they ocean piglets (海豚, dolphins) or sea panthers (海豹, seals)?”
They stare back at me in eye-rolling amazement – not so much at being addressed in their own language, it seems, as at the cluelessness of my question. “Why, they’re just water crows, fish eagles (水烏鴉, 魚鷹: cormorants), of course,” croaks one boy in the throes of voice change. And then they resume skipping stones.
Thus put in my place, I retreat to the sanctuary of the roadside Beach Hut fish-n-chips shack on Marine Avenue. This drive-in joint is much patronized by locals for its affordable prices, ease of access and stunning sea views. Also, I’d like to think, for the irresistible smile of the pigtailed tot that helps her Mom serve up the copious portions.
We share an al fresco picnic table with Feng Qifu, house parent of the teenage posse we’d met on the beach. I congratulate him on his young charges: “Those boys really know their marine life.”
“First-hand learning,” he nods, proudly. “They come here every day, as long as it’s not raining too hard. It’s an experience you can hardly get as a kid, nowadays, in Beijing.”
Nor even in some of the more gated and condominified Overseas Chinese enclaves of Greater Vancouver, I think to myself.
That’s what convinced Feng to shift his own three children (i.e. two more than China’s then-prevailing state-imposed quota) up here in 2013. The move proved so affordable that he was able to buy in (“for a steal!”) as co-owner Powell River’s rambling, ramshackle, history-laden, century-old Rodmay Hotel in the heart of Townsite.
“What an environment,” he enthuses. “Nature! Fresh air! Clean living! Other kids to play with, instead of being shut up in their rooms cramming for exams or glued to their computer screens. All this and a chance to get native English fluency, too!”
To make such opportunities available to more Chinese families, he means to partially convert the Rodmay into a residence for the high-school or even grade-school children that he’s sure will be sent here -- often on their own -- once Powtown opens up its long-mooted International Academy.
Plans were already drawn up for the Academy on a 40-acre campus hard by the town's already established French Immersion School, but the project was postponed by zoning problems. While the search is on for a new site, Powell River officials are already canvassing Asia for potential investors and students.
And the Academy could be dwarfed by a college-level institute for Chinese students that a Dalian investor has purportedly planned on a recently purchased 500-acre swathe of coast between Powell River and the Sliammon First Nation reserve to the north.
When the Academy scholars start rolling in, Feng stands ready to serve in loco parentis for such “little exchange students (小留學生).” He’s already got nearly a dozen early adopters installed in some of his 23 operational rooms. And the hotel still has another two unrefurbished floors that he can fix up to accommodate many more.
Nor is that his only way for the Rodmay to facilitate immigration. Numerous other businesses, now shuttered, once operated out of the hotel – a pub, a diner, a buffet restaurant, a shoeshine throne and “tonsorial parlour,” inter alia.
These, Feng notes, could reopen to offer investment and employment opportunities (and visa eligibility) to aspiring immigrants who opt to move here in whole family groups.
Ectoplasmic spectres and wannabe directors at the Rodmay
The Rodmay as an immigration portal is even well precedented, historically. A Chinese cook, “Charlie,” attained truly permanent Canadian residence status by dying in some unspecified gambling-related mishap to become one of the Rodmay’s five alleged (and EMF-attested) ghosts.
The hotel indeed has a haunted feel when we check it out, at Feng’s suggestion, after our matinee movie. Not a soul to be seen, even after we try the front desk service bell a couple of times.
Our “dings” just echo off the wood-panelled walls to squelch themselves in the threadbare carpeting. Fake logs smoulder in the fireplace, their glow reflected in the lobby’s Tiffany light fixtures and vaguely Art Deco paintings. The gas flame gives off no heat and – eerily – no sound.
Double-staircase lobby -- something creaky this way comes. Photo: Rodmay Hotel
So it’s a spine-tingling jolt when there’s suddenly a footfall creak on the double stairway flanking the mantelpiece. To our considerable relief, the hand that appears on the oaken bannister belongs not to some ectoplasmic orb, but rather to a very down-to-earth high school teacher, Lisa DiMarco of Heritage Woods Secondary in Port Moody.
She’s here to chaperone some of the 20-odd 11th and 12th graders in town for the Rotary-sponsored Adventures in Film Camp that runs alongside the FilmFest. It’s conducted by the Powell River Digital Film School (PRDFS).
The kids collaborate in 4-5 member teams to create their own mini-films, sharing out all the functions – writing, editing, filming, acting – of a professional film crew.
“It’s a cracking pace,” DiMarco says, “to produce finished works on a three day horizon.” One day for planning, scripting, location scouting, blocking and rehearsing. Shooting on Day Two, followed by a full day of editing and then a final screening.
The experience can be addictive, DiMarco reports. Some of the students go on to enrol in the PRDFS’ full semester’s immersion training course, for B.C. high school and college advanced placement credits. Others might come back for a PRDF summer camp.
With Vancouver’s rise as a film-making venue, Powtown boosters can aspire to establish “Pollywood,” as a credible steppingstone to a career in Vollywood.
Telecommuting Techies
Or not. Kieran Fogarty is one native son who made the journey to the “big time” media-production world of Vancouver and then, at age 31, decided to come back home to Powell River. I run into him on an evening stroll down by The Hulks, just enjoying the gloaming and the seal-song.
That’s exactly the kind of dalliance he could rarely afford back in the creative incubator of East Van’s videogame production studios, where he “made a bit of a mark,” he modestly avers, but felt he was “always scrambling.” Now that he’s found a romantic partner, he’s thinking about having children. “But who wants to raise them in a pressured space like the city?”
So he came back to Powtown, grew out his flaming red beard and leonine mane (“a kind of signature look”) and set himself up as an independent imagineer. That entails a combination of self-directed projects and occasional commissions. One recent gig: lighting and special effects for a touring magician (“I had to sign a seven-year non-disclosure agreement”).
“Working on my own, I can afford to take risks,” he says. “Even to fail at a venture, if it comes to that, and still pick up and try again.”
Among his risky ventures at the moment is helping to mentor the Powell River “makerspace,” a kind of hi-tech bullpen of versatile do-it-yourself tools and toys: 3D printers, a laser cutter and (soon, he hopes) CNC machinery. It’s co-funded, in part, by the city’s Chamber of Commerce, a local credit union, a coffee house and the Government of Canada’s Youth Initiative programme.
“There’s no shortage of makerspaces in East Van,” he admits. “But it’s a proof-of-concept thing to set one up here.” At $20-35 monthly fees, the space has so far attracted a dozen or so paying members, plus a retinue of curious kibitzers.
Fogarty hopes to increase makerspace enrolment by tacking on a video gaming parlour and virtual reality salon. “That ought to get some of these moneyed Chinese kids into our front door and interacting with locals,” he predicts. Besides, it would provide a ready-made focus group for him to Beta-test his own VR creations and his telecommuting collaborations with some of his erstwhile Vancouver colleagues.
Telecommutation offers a promising avenue for tech-savvy young families to enjoy Sunshine Coast amenities without sacrificing too much of a professional income. But it helps to have a back-up adjunct revenue stream, as Mohinder Singh and Janmeet Kaur discovered when they migrated here from Saskatchewan a decade ago.
Having established himself, over decades, as a water quality engineer, first in his native India and then in Canada, Singh realized that he could land enough consultancy work to support his family pretty much anywhere they chose.
They took their time checking out lifestyle options up and down the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
"Curry shooters" at sunset. Photo: Hsu Mei-lang
Powell River filled the bill. Neighbours made them welcome. Word soon spread about Kaur’s home cooking – Punjabi Sikh fare with an extra dash of sweetness and delicacy from the couple’s Kashmiri hometown of Srinagar. Before long she found herself in demand to cater local functions and, when a bungalow became available on Marine Avenue, they were able to open a boutique bistro, Little Hut Curry.
Empty nesters now that their Powtown-raised daughter has gone off to college, the restaurant still keeps them busy. Its intimate seating fills up with locals most nights even in the winter off-season. In summer, when the tourists return, you might want to phone ahead for a reservation.
We head there to sample “four corners” thali – the set menu varies daily, but on our visit it’s murgh makhani, paneer jalfrezi, rogan josh and tadka dal. All wonderfully satisfying.
But for us the best part is the couple’s saga of self-reinvention. Not to mention the savoury “curry shooter” hors d’oeuvres against the picture window backdrop of a spectacular Powell River sunset.