June 11, 2010

Namu


Namu - at one point - was a bustling fishery and cannery. Much has been written about the collapse of the British Columbia fisheries industry - so i won't say too much about it. It is certainly erie to sail past these rotting relics - the symbolic image of plundered resources is painfully obvious. Both Namu and Butedale are occupied solely by caretakers who reside over the dilapitated buildings so as to prevent further vandalism and theft. We have really enjoyed the company of these caretakers. Very anachronistic.
I bet someone who reads this will know what kind of bird this is...?



This bike got me all around Seattle for about 3 years, I threw it on my boat when i left town and figured I would take it north till it started fouling the lines. When I saw that the caretakers Peter and Reanne rode a bike around the Namu ruins - I figured I would leave my bike with them to use and then to eventually become a part of the rotting cannery landscape. This picture depicts the final resting place of old trusty rusty. Godspeed.


Walls of shrimp meat cans.

5 comments:

D Bone said...

I would've liked a picture of Peter and Reanne. Also, I don't understand why they were anachronistic. The canneries, I get. But the caretakers? Unless they were dressed in midieval costumes and swordfighting. Were they?

Unknown said...

the caretakers were anachronistic, i thought a lot about that word before i deployed it - because i knew that some english majors read this thing -

the caretakers themselves are right out of the 1950 cannery/ logging industry culture - all aspects - dress, technology, mindset -

and Peter and Reanne have been written about quite a bit in the guide books - so i didn't want to rehash that stuff - but Lou is ours. We are bringing Lou into the limelight for the first time.

Pat Freeny said...

Lou lives in Kitimat. Last time I was there, a baby eagle had appeared near the generator shack. Lou got a long pole and the eagle jumped on it and Lou carried it about, trying to see if it could fly. Didn't look like it. So we left to check out the generator shack. When we came out, the eagle was gone?
I sent Lou some photos we had taken of him with the eagle. He said just send them to Kitimat c/o Buttedale Lou. I guess he got them, i'll check when we go by this year.

Great trip so far! I've had similar experiences- getting shifted over a shallow bar when the winds changed. I learned about that, but not as quickly as you and Dan did!

Don't forget to get Kevin to show you how to get into Ford's Terror!!
Friday was his 3.5 decade birthday!
Cheers
Pat

Micah said...

Barn swallow

Julia said...

Did J Raban stop here? I remember reading about a place that sounded like this one in Passage to Juneau.