Bowen Island 1974 - 1976

Various Personal and Perhaps Historical Remembrances

Lee Baldwin

" The best friends you can have as you grow
old are those who knew you when you were young "

Miller's Landing

My life as an artist really began on Bowen, when I moved there in 1974. Although I'd been working with glass for over a year, I decided to make a serious stab at an art career, and looked for a place that would provide both the physical room and head space to pursue that. And splendid isolation!

By inquiring among the crowd at Troll's Restaurant in Horseshoe Bay, I heard about a couple who were vacating a small cabin at the end of the road on Bowen, in Miller's Landing. The rent was $100 per month. Also I'd found an inexpensive but serviceable car, a nine-year-old Chevy Corvair.

Locals

Miller's Landing was at the end of a dirt road on a small island that in 1974 boasted about 25 feet of sidewalk. Total. Because of the isolation and relative freedom from government, the locals on the island were bound to be extraordinary. And eccentric. Richard Best, a carpenter and builder, lived down a rutted dirt road next to my cabin. His was the last house on Miller's Landing Road, with a super view of Howe Sound and Horseshoe Bay. Up the dusty road a ways, Carole Bryant, Bonnie McDonald and Bonnie's daughter Rebecca shared a house. Beyond them lived Gerald and Rosemarie Dowell and their two boys. Here's a sort-of map of the area showing the various houses.

Many of the houses on the road were empty most of the time, being vacation escapes for city folk. Of the two dozen homes in the neighborhood, only six or so were inhabited year-round.

So it was quiet. Outside the front door of my small shack was a large open expanse of tall grass, bordered by trees. A trail led through the bush down to a cliff with a rocky beach beneath. My landlord, a summer resident next door, suggested that I mow "my lawn," to which I replied "mow my meadow?" and there the conversation ended. It was a nice snapshot about frame of reference.

I arrived in Miller's Landing just as summer was getting under way. The warm-weather visitors also swooped in and began a string of loud parties and much coming and going around ferry times. Although I was new to the neighborhood, this felt like an invasion. The morning after the Labour Day weekend in early September, I woke up feeling like something was strange. I sat up in bed. It was quiet. Too quiet.

Before any creepy music could start, I dressed and walked out onto the dirt road. There was no one around, the vacation houses were abandoned and still. Footsteps from up the road. Around the corner came someone I knew, a friend from the neighborhood. I looked at her and said "It's ours again."

Phone Service and Wood Heat

My small cabin's heat source was an airtight stove made from sheet metal. Usually when I woke up the interior of the cabin was crackling cold. It was sheer pain to put on cold jeans and a shirt and go outside to chop wood. I found it was less painful to go out on the porch in the buff, chop some kindling, and hold my jeans in front of the fire, putting them on after they were warm. The coffee would be ready by then, and the day could begin.

It worried me to have a fire on inside the house. The airtight heater stood on the kitchen floor, within inches of the wall, which was only plywood paneling. The flue seemed to be OK, it was properly insulated where it went through the wall near the ceiling, and there was a metal sheet on the floor beneath the airtight. But the wall behind the airtight was too hot to touch when the fire was on. I lined the entire wall with aluminum foil, and that seemed to warm up the room quicker. And, the wall behind the foil stayed cool even when the heater burned its hottest, and I relaxed.

The phone had to be set up, and this proved difficult so far off the beaten track. For some reason the phone worked for outgoing calls, but I couldn't receive any until I'd set the account. I called BC Tel several times trying to accomplish this. They explained the phone crews only came to the Island one day each week. So I gave precise road directions to the operator to include with the order. Three weeks went by as I devoted the designated days to sticking around the cabin. No luck.

Finally I put a large sheet of plywood out by the road and painted BC TEL on it in tall red letters. Around noon that same day, two bemused installers knocked to ask what was up. They explained that my order showed directions to the south end of the island, nowhere near Miller's Landing. They'd found me only because they were driving around on their lunch hour. That was so like BC Tel, they couldn't tell a left turn from a right turn. But at least I got my phone.

Write if You Get Work...

The first year on Bowen was a productive one for the beginning glass artist. Garry Troll asked me to do a window for Troll's restaurant in Horseshoe Bay, as soon as that was installed he asked for another one, so I designed a sailing ship. Then his wife Carol wanted a window for the house. They weren't picky about what I did, so I came up with this really wild abstract. Those three projects kept me busy until John Newton-Mason asked me to do eight large lamps for the Carleton Pub in Gastown.

These lamps were 3 1/2 feet in diameter and nearly three feet tall. To begin each lamp I laid down a spider of lead strips fanning outward, and set the first row of glass pieces. Then I had to flip the whole thing over on the table. Bonnie MacDonald came by, and was helping me turn it. It was very floppy, limp, and had no strength whatsoever. Bonnie said later that she was very worried that the floppy lamps would not hold up. I had my doubts as well. I'd made smaller lamps the same way, but by comparison, this was going supersonic. However, as soon as I got the next couple of rows installed, the strength of the design became apparent and it was smooth sailing after that.

Bunky

Richard Best, neighbor and carpenter, became a good friend while I was on Bowen. For some reason we called each other Bunky. His edgy and radical humor were legendary on the island. Sometimes after he finished work for the day he would appear at my cabin door with a smile and a couple of 'cold ones,' sit down and say, "I tell you Bunk, it's a rough fuggin' go."

He told me a story of a dance on the island... a girl he wanted to take home introduced him to her parents as they were leaving. When asked where they were going, Richard said "Don't worry. I won't do anything to your daughter that hasn't been done before."

Once we sipped a beer in his living room, while his friend Kathy was trimming his hair. Richard sat on the floor so Kathy could sit behind him on the couch. Richard spotted a vase of summer flowers Kathy had put on the table. He said, "These look nice," picked up the vase and bit off the flower tops, chewing them with a pleased expression. Kathy only rolled her eyes and smiled.

Richard and I really got together on jazz. He was the only person I knew that liked the same jazz artists I listened to: Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Billy Cobham... we had complementary collections and were always loaning records back and forth. He is one of the few people who would actually sit and listen to me play guitar.

Bonnie

Bonnie MacDonald was one of my best friends on Bowen. A gorgeous blonde, she had a wacky sense of humor that matched mine, we were always cracking each other up. She would come to my small shack in the evening, smoke, and talk about all the crap in her life. She also had a great sense of rhythm. While I played my guitar she would slap out rhythm patterns with her hands, she was so accurate at this that it brought out the sloppiness in my playing. She always kept me on the beat.

One evening we were cruising downtown Vancouver, and dropped into a basement bar at the Vancouver Hotel, expecting to find some entertainment, but the place was quiet. The waitress explained that the piano player was sick that night. There were a few people scattered about the darkened club, the scene was essentially dead. Bonnie suggested I play the piano, and the waitress said, "Sure, I'll turn off the stereo." I turned to Bonnie and said, "You got me into this, so only if you play rhythm."

So we sat together at the big black grand piano and did a 45-minute set. The place woke right up. We got some applause, several free drinks, and had some laughs.

Bonnie had studied martial arts, something called Wen-do. I never saw her use it, but it gave her a lot of confidence. As we left the hotel late that night, this group of young thugs was coming toward us on the sidewalk. Bonnie said something to the effect, "I'll take the two on the right," and the group parted to go around us. We walked right through the midst of them without a problem. Sheesh.

The Ferry Crew

The Bowen ferry runs from Horseshoe Bay on the mainland to Snug Cove on the island. It's usually a 25 minute trip. The car deck is open, room for about 70 vehicles. The passenger lounge is up a long flight of stairs, with an open deck up another flight of outside stairs beyond that.

Once I got to know the ferry crew, I made many trips across in the crew cabin, which was smaller and much more congenial. Ron Carrall was always good for an interesting conversation, and the guys would always offer a cup of coffee, usually wretched.

One snowy day I was sitting in the passenger side on my way to Snug Cove, watching the shoreline recede. We were a mile or so off the coast. Suddenly I saw something fall from the Squamish highway just north of Horseshoe Bay. A car! Yellow, the thing tumbled downward in a sickening plunge and came to rest right side up on the railroad tracks. Turned out a woman and her young child were inside for the 200-foot drop, but miraculously both survived, only slightly hurt.

It was always a catastrophe to miss the ferry, because then you were stuck for at least a couple of hours, maybe all night. Once at the dock on Bowen one guy saw the ferry moving slowly a few feet from the ramp. He ran for all he was worth and leaped over the watery gap to land safely on the metal deck of the ferry... a ferry that was just docking. Everyone looked at him like he was daft.

Christmas, 1974

Jim Miller and Ruth Payne were frequent visitors to Bowen, his folks had a cabin in Miller's Landing not far from my shack. Occasionally they would invite me over for drinks or dinner, and Ruth was a sensational cook. That little house was a trip, as I recall the exterior was very weathered, unfinished wood, the interior very tiny, it was more like being on a small yacht than in a house. But the view of Howe Sound from the rickety deck was fabulous.

I was stoney-broke in 1974 and had not planned a Christmas trip to California, so my holiday plans revolved around having enough wood for the heater in my small cabin. Somehow Ruth and Jim got wind of it, and graciously invited me to his folks' West Van place for Christmas day. Because of the inconvenient ferry schedule, I crashed at their small apartment in Horseshoe Bay Christmas Eve, then we all headed to Miller's place later on. This was a real family Christmas all right, everyone was in good spirits and very gracious. I felt I'd washed ashore on a welcoming desert island. The food was exceptional and arrived in great quantity from the kitchen with its steamed-up windows.

In my years in British Columbia I had often encountered such generosity from friendly and down-to-earth people, but this was an outstanding example of Canadian hospitality.

Night Run

For my birthday in 1975, Marianne said she'd treat me to dinner at a new restaurant in Horseshoe Bay, I think it was called the Chalet. But we didn't want to head back at 8:30 p.m. when the last ferry ran, so there was the perennial problem of getting home to a small island at night. Somehow we arranged with Billy Lord who ran the water taxi for a ride back to Snug Cove, he said he'd do it for free, all I had to do was call his house when we were ready and he would meet us at the dock.

Around ten or so we finished a remarkably fine meal at the Chalet, and phoned Billy. Fred Beech answered, sounding worried about my chances for a ride. He hesitated putting Billy on, saying he was completely ripped on cheap wine. Calamity!

Billy came to the phone and spoke a few slurred words, then he and Fred on the other end completely cracked up, they were just having me on.

They both met us at Sewell's and we headed out into a stiff wind, it was probably blowing 30 knots and being February it was cold cold cold. As soon as we left the shelter of Horseshoe Bay, we ran into some strong swells, and the ride became very bumpy after that. The boat was strong with a sealed cabin, but the interesting feature was a pair of headlights mounted below the forward rail. Every time we nosed into a swell, the lights would illuminate the interior of the wave that was rushing over the nose at us. Beautiful shades of green and aqua were followed by showers of white foam, quite a light show. There was a real sense of relief as the prow lifted again into the dark night.

We made it into Snug Cove alright, and the trip turned out to have a useful purpose. An ambulance had just arrived with a patient on board and was calling for a ride to Horseshoe Bay. They didn't even have to wait, just went back with Billy and Fred.

Ambulance Run

This story also involves the water taxi into Snug Cove, but although it involves a guy named Lee, I only heard about it.

Lee was a carpenter on Bowen, lived with his lady friend Mo and worked for Richard Best building houses. Lee was on a ladder, using a ammo nail gun to nail the header board to the top of a framed wall. He lost his balance and grabbed the top rail, which was fine, but he also fired a nail through his hand into the rail. The nail didn't hit any bones, but it sank deep and the meat of his hand was firmly attached to the top header.

Richard climbed up and sawed the top rail away, letting Lee climb down shakily holding onto a short piece of 2 X 4 that his hand was nailed to. Lee wasn't in a lot of pain, and not bleeding, so he, Richard and one or two others called the water taxi and made a trip to the hospital in West Van. All the ambulance people could do was tape the board to Lee's forearm so it wouldn't wiggle around.

In the surgery, the doctor looked at the situation doubtfully, there was no way to get a purchase on the deep-set nail. Finally the doctor called for the janitor to come in. This provided Lee and Richard some quizzical looks and a raised eyebrows as the brown-shirted janitor joined the doctor and nurses in the surgical suite. After a quiet consultation, the janitor left, returning minutes later with a toolbox from the trunk of his car. Turned out the janitor was a wood carver, the toolbox contained sharp chisels. Working carefully, the janitor carved into the 2 X 4, making an ever-wider hole around the nail. The board slipped away, the doctor pushed the nail from Lee's hand and bandaged him up.

Food of the Gods, 1975

The Food of the Gods is the first of two monster movies made by Bert Gordon in the 1970's, based on a story by H.G. Wells: A strange substance oozing from underground causes animals to grow into killer giants. Huge wasps, chickens, maggots, and loads of giant rats. To kill off the giant rats, the island is flooded by blowing up a dam. There are four survivors at the end, gruesome ends for other characters, plus a newborn which arrives during the main attack by the rats.

This marvel of Hollywood cinema was shot on Bowen Island from October through December 1975, mostly at the Rogers ranch and at the Ferry dock in Snug Cove. Starring Marjoe Gortner and Jon Cypher, the cast included Ida Lupino, Ralph Meeker and Pamela Franklin. Dozens of the locals had work on the production. I was a stand-in, meaning I got to lie in a muddy ditch while the camera was set, then the actor would lie down in the ditch and the director would say roll 'em.

Marianne was the production secretary for the film. Lupino loathed the movie, and the director (everyone hated the director and his wife Flora, who was the assistant director). So one day Lupino and Marianne sat down with the script and wrote her out of the movie. She left immediately.

Riding up to the set in the crummy one snowy morning, one of the camera crew asked, "Who do you have to fuck to get off this shoot?" Someone said Flora, and the guy said, "Forget it, I'm staying."

I had left the Miller's Landing shack and was living in Dorman Bay by this time, with Marianne and her kids. The production of this movie showed me a different side to Marianne. On the set she flirted with every male, hardly spoke to me until we were home in the evening. She went out with the male lead one night, when I attended a Leo Kottke concert at the Queen E. with Al.

After a party one night, a crew member came to dinner at our house, obviously thinking he had Marianne lined up. She hadn't told the guy we were living together. Sheesh.

Catch The Can, Marianne

There's one really quirky story about Marianne and I that happened in the Dorman Bay house. It was a nice place, very open. The kitchen, dining room, and living room were all one big connected space. Bonnie MacDonald was living there too.

I had made a really wild glass lamp while living at the Garrow Bay Beach House, and now it hung handsomely above the dining table in the Dorman Bay house. I was at the stove making spaghetti when Marianne walked in. She started in about something. No hello, how was your day, just yammer yammer about some bit of unnecessary trivia. That's when I first discovered I would like to commit murder.

Marianne made some cutting, grandiose final statement and began walking from the kitchen. Whatever she said was calculated to enrage me, and it worked just fine. I picked up a large can of stewed tomatoes and reached back to throw it, very hard, taking aim directly at the back of her skull. I knew not only that I would hit her, but knock her dead on the spot.

At the last instant as my arm followed through, I suddenly thought better of the whole idea and changed my aim. With absolute precision I selected the tall glass lamp that hung above the table.

The can of tomatoes (28 oz.) struck the lamp right in the neck, and lodged there. Glass flew in all directions. Electrical sparks flashed and hissed angrily from the broken lightbulbs. The lamp, now dark, swung wildly on its chain, shedding fragments of colored glass. As Marianne took in this scene, her head jerked spasmodically. I was clearly having a minor fit. Marianne came quickly and started telling me everything was all right.

We were mostly calmed down when the kids came home. I remember the scene at dinner that evening, the tall elegant lamp hanging dark above the table, pieces missing, with a can of tomatoes sticking out of the middle of it. No one looked at it, no one said anything about it. There was a rhino on the coffee table. Several weeks later I took it down when everyone else was out.

Damn. Wish I had a photo...

Canadian Cellulose

One day on the ferry to Snug Cove I met Gerald Dowell, a professional interior designer who lived on Miller's Landing Road. He had seen a small glass panel I'd hung in the Snug Cove General Store as an advert, and wanted to view my portfolio.

So I took my slide display and hiked the quarter-mile up the hill to his house. After he and his wife had seen my work, he asked, "How would you like to do a window approximately eight by fifteen feet?"

What I thought to myself was "Yeah, right," but Gerald went on to explain that his firm, Hopping Kovach Grinnell of Vancouver, routinely designed corporate office interiors, and they were planning one for a large lumber firm, Canadian Cellulose on West Hastings downtown.

As I walked home later, I asked myself what were the odds that I'd wind up practically next door to someone who could springboard my career like that?

Just before Christmas, 1975, soon after the Food of the Gods shoot wrapped up, I received a check for $8000 as an advance on the project. All sorts of things kicked into action then. For studio space, I rented the store on Royal Avenue in Horseshoe Bay, next to Al Zimmerman's Company Store. (This space was formerly known as The Closet.) I flew to San Francisco to shop for glass and materials, and got to work on the design.

So I became a commuter: I was living with Marianne, her kids, and Bonnie MacDonald in the Dorman Bay house, driving to the ferry dock in Snug Cove, and arriving in the Royal Bay studio every morning. Overall the project took me six months. When complete, there were large glass walls on two of the floors in the Canadian Cellulose building. One of them looked like this.

After the work was installed, Marianne once again made known her opinion of me. She wrote me a note in which she said, "I am afraid more than I can say that you are a fake." And she wondered why I was always trying to get away from her...

Another Famous Conversation

Marianne and I were living in a different house on Bowen, just above Miller's Landing. I called it The Green Latrine, as the owner had just painted it bright green verging on chartreuse, and the previous tenants had left 28 bags of rotting garbage below the porch. I guess throwing the garbage over the rail was easier than taking it to the dump. You know who you are.

Anyway over breakfast we'd got into another dumb argument. I was sitting in a chair eating cheese toast from a small plate. She was standing at the kitchen island saying something disparaging about me being "upstairs playing Great Artist."

I flung the empty plate like a small frisbee directly at a bottle of tabasco sauce that rested on the counter beside her. The plate bisected the bottle, carried through, and shattered against the back door. A geyser of tabasco sauce anointed the ceiling.

Whatever Marianne was saying halted dead in its tracks. She came and quietly sat by me, patting me consolingly on the knee. Silently we watched the tabasco sauce drip from the ceiling onto the kitchen counter. After a long while she said, "That's the first time I've ever had a conversation with a flying plate."

There is something to be said for the fight-and-make-up cycle some couples fall into. But it is as addictive as it is unhealthy. She must have been in love with my rage, and compelled to feed it, because then it fed her.

Here's a photo of us in a calmer moment.

Marianne's Fire

I moved around a lot in only two years on Bowen: the Miller's Landing cabin, The Green Latrine, Dorman Bay, the Miller's Landing Poptop. The Poptop was Marianne's house at the last bend in the road going down into Miller's Landing. This house had been occupied by the Prittie family, and Ian Prittie lived next door in a similar small abode. Ian told us the house had been christened This-L-Do by his mom.

Marianne bought This-L-Do as an investment and a place to live. We were living in the Green Latrine when Marianne hired Richard Best to add a second story to the house, and we watched a lot of the work from our lofty perch a few hundred feet up the hill.

One of the features of the property was a mass of blackberry vines, covering the front quarter of the lot to a height of about eight feet. At some point, Marianne and I were sitting on the porch of the half-finished remodel, just musing over progress and next steps. We had a small fire going in the yard to burn construction ends. Without warning, Marianne dragged a burning chunk from this fire to the edge of the dry blackberry vines, and tossed it into the mass. With an omnivorous roar, flames rose immediately to a height of about ten feet and the fire began to spread.

I ran to turn on the hose. No water. Right, the main was turned off while the new water heater was being installed. Frantic, I turned on the main and yelled for Marianne to call the fire department. Our phone wasn't hooked up, so she ran up the hill to Ian's place.

As soon as the water main was turned on, water began flooding the unfinished living room... the drain plug had not been installed in the water heater. Running into the living room I slipped and fell on the wet floorboards, sliding all the way across the room to fetch up against the wall. I looked in dismay at the gush of water coming from the heater. The plug had to be somewhere! A glance outside told me that the fire had spread to about 20 feet across and growing. A tall column of flame, sparks, and smoke rose into the August sky. The plug for the water heater still eluded me. By cramming a rag into the drain hole, I managed to produce a small trickle from the hose, but it was no good. Finally I found the drain plug and screwed it in. Still no water. The damn heater had to be full for the system to pressurize! I left it filling and ran outside... where the fire, over 25 feet across and gaining rapidly, was putting out a lot of heat and sparks. I was worried for the trees.

Ian Prittie, shirt flapping and barefoot, ran into view and with a shovel started beating at the flames. Dave Walters from across the street ran up asking if we were "Out of control." We started battling the flames directly. Marianne reappeared and began to do the same. Gradually, the four of us slowed it down... finally water came from the hose and we managed to control and kill the fire, just as the Bowen Island Volunteer Fire Department arrived in their antiquated fire truck, driven by Laurie Lock. The three volunteers were relieved. Laurie said he wasn't sure they knew how to work the truck's pump.

Marianne told me later that Ian and his girlfriend were screwing in the living room when she burst in to use the phone. She hadn't knocked. Would you?

Kathy's Fire

Sometime later we had moved into the semi-finished Poptop. My old Miller's Landing cabin was just a few hundred feet down the road, now occupied by Kathy Buchanan. We had just nodded off to sleep one evening when I heard loud cracking sounds from down the road, as though someone was trying to break a heavy timber with a sledge hammer. I opened my eyes to see the entire house flooded with a bright red glow. I sat up in alarm: through the window I saw tall flames through the trees! Just at this moment two cars came around the corner very fast.

When I arrived at the cabin it was almost fully engulfed in flame. Bob Davies and the Bowen Volunteer fire crew were looking for anyone inside, a man with an air pack was just emerging after a search. They couldn't do anything to save the building, but they did keep the fire from spreading.

Later we decided that the fire must have started inside the wall next to the airtight heater. Someone said that when wood is heated repeatedly, its kindling temperature can drop to as low as 200 degrees F. That's low enough for a nearby heat source, such as an airtight heater, to ignite the wood. I wonder if Kathy removed the aluminum foil from that wall...

Did I Wreck It?

After I completed and installed the Canadian Cellulose art glass, I figured for some strange reason I'd do better with my art career in the States. I don't know how I reached that conclusion, as within two years working in B.C. I'd gone from a Mr. Nobody to having several sizable art glass projects under my belt. I was well known in the Lower Mainland, had friends and contacts, but somehow the grass looked greener... And of course the on-again, off-again thing with Marianne would come to a full stop if I was 1000 miles across the border.

So leave I did, and began an exploration of possibilities in California and Oregon. Said farewell to Bowen Island, Horseshoe Bay, and to all the folks I knew there. In retrospect, I might have done better in my glass career if I'd stayed in Canada. But of course I can't go back and try it that way now...

If you look closely at some of the things all of us did in those years, you might rightly conclude we were a bunch of young idiots. I know I was fearless in my ignorance, and went from day to day with the minimum of planning or foresight. But at least we were young. Speaking just for myself, I would probably do it all again.

If you want to catch what came out of all that glass over the years, here's the online portfolio.

Cheers...

If you're still twitching, why not say something? Send Lee a note