InFocus Magazine

Just imagine, sale
if you will, there
the choreography—not to mention the energy—demanded on a daily basis from a woman in her 30s who is married with two pre-school age children (Zoe, clinic six, and Linus, just under two), who works full-time in the North Island College marketing department, and who also manages to set aside two hours each and every day to write.

Oh, and who is, incidentally, a published author, not just a dabbler.

“Where do you find the time?” I asked Kim Bannerman over a recent coffee.  “I get weary just looking at the complexion of your day.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” she says, “but I manage and it helps a great deal to have a fully supportive husband (Shawn Pigott, who happens to be a highly talented filmmaker—creativity runs high in that household) and kids that are easy.  Also, I don’t watch much TV, and we don’t have cable.  And I have pretty good organizational skills.  I think if I can continue to be as organized as I am since I became a mom I can rule the world!”

Though Bannerman spent her childhood years in Royston, she is fully a Cumberland girl at heart and when she moved back to the Comox Valley after a number of years living in Vancouver, it seemed like a natural move.

It also seemed natural that her latest published book—her fourth (the others are The Tattooed Wolf from 2003, The Wolf of Gilsbury Cross 2006, and the Fire Song 2011)—Bucket of Blood should be set in Cumberland.  It’s a work of fiction, she says, but it bears testimony to fact and to her heritage.

“When I was researching for the book I drove around Cumberland with my dad so he could point out some sites and their stories that I might be able to use. That’s why the book is dedicated to him, and I’m only sorry he didn’t get to see it,” she says.

Her father, Ron Bannerman was a well-respected Comox Valley educator and, on his retirement he and his wife Cindy ran heritage tours throughout the Valley.  They were also instrumental in the development of Cumberland’s No. 6 Mine Heritage Park.  He died unexpectedly in November, 2009.

But, having been born and raised in Cumberland, he knew the community like the back of his hand, and Bannerman cherishes his legacy.

“Dad helped me with this book quite a bit,” she says.  “In fact, he was integral to my research process.  When he died so suddenly I put it away for a while.  But then I got back to it, and ultimately it was to become part of his legacy to me.  Both of my parents always supported me.  They were and are, in the case of mom, kind and generous people who always believed in me.  That’s invaluable.”

Bannerman’s background led, in a roundabout way, to where she is now.  After graduating from GP Vanier, she headed out to the metaphorical ‘big city’ to study anthropology at the University of BC.  Initially interested in forensic anthropology—crime scenes, corpses, causes of death and other CSI stuff—she branched off more into historical anthropology.  More specifically, she became intrigued by Celtic history and this led her to study for a time in England in 1998.

“I became intrigued by the character Boudicca and her role in that whole Roman period in England,” she says.  Boudicca was the leader of the Iceni peoples of East Anglia and mounted a campaign against the Roman legions in AD 60 in which she and her army burned the Roman capital of Colchester and went on later to capture London.  She is a huge folk hero in that part of England.

“It was just fascinating to me and I got really involved in her story, both while we were in England and then after we returned,” Bannerman says.  “In fact we went back to England and France in 2001 to do more research.  The end result was a huge manuscript of about 600 pages.  It might become a book someday.  Mainly it was a learning process and was good for my self-confidence.  Of course, by this point in my writing career I can also see the flaws in the manuscript.”

As life evolved, Bannerman and husband Shawn spent more than 10 years living in Vancouver, during which time she had an eclectic array of jobs, including working for the Vancouver Public Library, the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, and Opus Framing and Art Supplies.  And then the two of them decided it was time to decamp for the Comox Valley.

Her first big literary break came in 2003 when her lupine saga The Tattooed Wolf was e-published.  When she was seeking publication at that time she was cognizant of Canada’s uninviting publishing reputation.  It’s simply a huge challenge for a first-time, agent-less writer to get published here.  So, she decided to go with the science-fiction e-publisher Double Dragon.  It worked, and Bannerman has no regrets about taking that route away from the conventional format of paper between covers.  Now, in the age of Kindle and Kobo it has become even more acceptable.  After all, 2003 was nearly a decade ago, and that’s about a millennium in terms of the rate of tech-advances these days.

“Electronic publishing makes it easier for new writers to be published,” she says.  “In that sense it promotes new writing.  Also, it’s gratifying to get comments from your readers immediately.  There’s an actual dialogue.”

The werewolf saga, The Tattooed Wolf, grew out of a childhood conversation with an uncle who attempted to scare the bejesus out of his young niece (as uncles will sometimes do) by filling her head with tales of supernatural lupines.  The message stuck with Bannerman, and ultimately it was translated into her first book.

What is Bannerman’s process?  Well, unlike some famous literary procrastinators such as Dorothy Parker who once said, in effect, she didn’t like to write, she liked “having written”, Bannerman actually likes to write.

“Truly I love to write,” she says.  “I’ve been like that all my life.  I started writing when I was in elementary school.  In fact, my friends and I would all write and then we’d critique one another.”

Her favorite subjects?  The place in which she lives, or places she has lived.  Consequently, Bucket of Blood, is set in Cumberland and that came out of a realization that it was “odd to be living in this community and to not have fully realized what amazing stories there were in the Cumberland area.”

Even more of an oversight, she says, considering her huge family connectedness to the old village, going back to her grandfather and father, both of whom were born there.

Her ‘process’ demands a considerable discipline that she tries to adhere to as stringently as possible.  This includes devoting two hours each and every day to writing.  And this is not a chore.

“Writing makes me feel at one with the universe,” she says.  “The key to happiness is to find the thing you ‘have’ to do. I have to write.  And I know when it’s working and when it’s not working.  When I’m in the mode, I can really focus.  But, admittedly there are some days I really don’t feel like writing, and those are tough.  Of course, not feeling like writing is different from being blocked.  Blocked is horrible and it leaves me unable to sleep.”

She does a few things when she’s blocked.  One is to merely step away from it for a while until her writing mojo returns.  Otherwise, she’ll do a related task—like editing.

“Editing gives you a break and I, unlike some writers, really enjoy editing,” she says. “The downside is you can edit indefinitely.  You can always finds something you can improve upon.  At some point you have to say I am happy with this, and let it go.”

Bucket of Blood was launched last September 21 at North Island College, where Bannerman also works.  A reading from the novel was offered to the public at the launch.

While the book is, as a novel, fictional, Bannerman assures that elements of the tale did not arise in a vacuum, but are based on veracities of the day— the late 19th Century when Cumberland was a booming coal town and indeed the ‘metropolis’ of the Comox Valley, and the smaller communities as Courtenay and Comox were of little consequence.

This is the Cumberland of the Dunsmuir mines and of a Chinatown that was more populous than the European community. The Chinese did, as a character in Bucket of Blood slightly bitterly but realistically states: “twice the work for half the pay” and longed to make that nest egg so they could return to China as rich men and find themselves comely wives.

Those who know the area also know of the brutal conditions in the mines for the Chinese in Cumberland, where in the early days the laborers weren’t even granted the dignity of using their names but were merely referred to using the names of their European overlords, such as “Smith’s Chinaman”.  Old write-ups in the Cumberland Museum attest to the racism of the era.

As a consequence, and understandably, the Asians created their own community in Chinatown— an alien and mysterious place.  Chinatown in the day was opium dens, fan-tan parlors, prostitution, danger and mystery.  It was in that cultural milieu that Bannerman’s characters, English born Lizzie Saunders and her older sister, Violet found themselves on the death of their mother in 1898.

Into this alien mix you find the dominant group, the Europeans: English, Scots, Welsh, all in early Cumberland to toil in the Dunsmuir mines in a brutal and unforgivingly dangerous calling.  Needless to say, the ‘boys’ could be excused for cutting loose when the weekend rolled around, as this expert shows:

Though the midnight hour had come and gone, Cumberland’s main street roiled with life. The steady chuh-chuh of No. 6 mine’s bellows, coupled with the distant clanking of industry, provided a rhythmic beat to the merry-making of the Bank Holiday weekend. Men in filthy dungarees stumbled into the bars for a pint of bitter to slake their thirsts, work-calloused boys drove a new shift of mules along Dunsmuir and women of questionable morals solicited company from drunken louts who loitered outside the flop houses and pool hall. Boisterous piano music, cat calls wolf whistles, and the deafening sounds of nihilistic revelry filled the air.

Such is the pervasive mood and ambience of Bucket of Blood and Bannerman captures it with a crisp and inviting style that does not fail to keep a reader intrigued.  She is also adept at presenting dialogue as it would have been in the late Victorian era amongst those who both toiled in the bowels of the earth as well as with those of higher social pretensions.

But, the point of this piece is not to offer literary evaluation rather than to look at the life and process of an already and deservedly successful Comox Valley writer. Needless to say, therefore, that the reader will find the book moves at a pace, offers a delightful degree of a fictionalized Cumberland (and other spots) that doesn’t deviate far from the reality of the day; it merely enhances it to a deserved three-dimensionality.  It’s a good read, suffice it to say.

Where is Bannerman now and where does she go from this point?

“I’m taking a correspondence course through the London School of Journalism,” she says. “I’d like to pick up more skills in non-fiction, either between covers or online”

She says, in the latter case, she follows Vancouver Province digital journalist Erik Rolfsen and his drive to bring factual information away from ink and into the greater sphere globally.

Meanwhile, she’s mapping out a storyline for a non-fiction work, but declines to say more about it at this time.

Asked if her early research into the life of Boudicca could ever see the light of day in a Kim Bannerman book, she cryptically replies:  “I’m not sure at this point—but it’s always a possibility.”

---

Find out more about Bannerman at www.foxandbee.com.  Her novel, Bucket of Blood, is available locally at the Laughing Oyster Bookstore, the Cumberland Museum, the Courtenay Museum, Blue Heron Books and Abraxas Books and Gifts on Denman Island 

 
Just imagine, Mycoplasmosis
here if you will, viagra the choreography—not to mention the energy—demanded on a daily basis from a woman in her 30s who is married with two pre-school age children (Zoe, internist
six, and Linus, just under two), who works full-time in the North Island College marketing department, and who also manages to set aside two hours each and every day to write.

Oh, and who is, incidentally, a published author, not just a dabbler.

“Where do you find the time?” I asked Kim Bannerman over a recent coffee.  “I get weary just looking at the complexion of your day.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” she says, “but I manage and it helps a great deal to have a fully supportive husband (Shawn Pigott, who happens to be a highly talented filmmaker—creativity runs high in that household) and kids that are easy.  Also, I don’t watch much TV, and we don’t have cable.  And I have pretty good organizational skills.  I think if I can continue to be as organized as I am since I became a mom I can rule the world!”

Though Bannerman spent her childhood years in Royston, she is fully a Cumberland girl at heart and when she moved back to the Comox Valley after a number of years living in Vancouver, it seemed like a natural move.

It also seemed natural that her latest published book—her fourth (the others are The Tattooed Wolf from 2003, The Wolf of Gilsbury Cross 2006, and the Fire Song 2011)—Bucket of Blood should be set in Cumberland.  It’s a work of fiction, she says, but it bears testimony to fact and to her heritage.

“When I was researching for the book I drove around Cumberland with my dad so he could point out some sites and their stories that I might be able to use. That’s why the book is dedicated to him, and I’m only sorry he didn’t get to see it,” she says.

Her father, Ron Bannerman was a well-respected Comox Valley educator and, on his retirement he and his wife Cindy ran heritage tours throughout the Valley.  They were also instrumental in the development of Cumberland’s No. 6 Mine Heritage Park.  He died unexpectedly in November, 2009.

But, having been born and raised in Cumberland, he knew the community like the back of his hand, and Bannerman cherishes his legacy.

“Dad helped me with this book quite a bit,” she says.  “In fact, he was integral to my research process.  When he died so suddenly I put it away for a while.  But then I got back to it, and ultimately it was to become part of his legacy to me.  Both of my parents always supported me.  They were and are, in the case of mom, kind and generous people who always believed in me.  That’s invaluable.”

Bannerman’s background led, in a roundabout way, to where she is now.  After graduating from GP Vanier, she headed out to the metaphorical ‘big city’ to study anthropology at the University of BC.  Initially interested in forensic anthropology—crime scenes, corpses, causes of death and other CSI stuff—she branched off more into historical anthropology.  More specifically, she became intrigued by Celtic history and this led her to study for a time in England in 1998.

“I became intrigued by the character Boudicca and her role in that whole Roman period in England,” she says.  Boudicca was the leader of the Iceni peoples of East Anglia and mounted a campaign against the Roman legions in AD 60 in which she and her army burned the Roman capital of Colchester and went on later to capture London.  She is a huge folk hero in that part of England.

“It was just fascinating to me and I got really involved in her story, both while we were in England and then after we returned,” Bannerman says.  “In fact we went back to England and France in 2001 to do more research.  The end result was a huge manuscript of about 600 pages.  It might become a book someday.  Mainly it was a learning process and was good for my self-confidence.  Of course, by this point in my writing career I can also see the flaws in the manuscript.”

As life evolved, Bannerman and husband Shawn spent more than 10 years living in Vancouver, during which time she had an eclectic array of jobs, including working for the Vancouver Public Library, the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, and Opus Framing and Art Supplies.  And then the two of them decided it was time to decamp for the Comox Valley.

Her first big literary break came in 2003 when her lupine saga The Tattooed Wolf was e-published.  When she was seeking publication at that time she was cognizant of Canada’s uninviting publishing reputation.  It’s simply a huge challenge for a first-time, agent-less writer to get published here.  So, she decided to go with the science-fiction e-publisher Double Dragon.  It worked, and Bannerman has no regrets about taking that route away from the conventional format of paper between covers.  Now, in the age of Kindle and Kobo it has become even more acceptable.  After all, 2003 was nearly a decade ago, and that’s about a millennium in terms of the rate of tech-advances these days.

“Electronic publishing makes it easier for new writers to be published,” she says.  “In that sense it promotes new writing.  Also, it’s gratifying to get comments from your readers immediately.  There’s an actual dialogue.”

The werewolf saga, The Tattooed Wolf, grew out of a childhood conversation with an uncle who attempted to scare the bejesus out of his young niece (as uncles will sometimes do) by filling her head with tales of supernatural lupines.  The message stuck with Bannerman, and ultimately it was translated into her first book.

What is Bannerman’s process?  Well, unlike some famous literary procrastinators such as Dorothy Parker who once said, in effect, she didn’t like to write, she liked “having written”, Bannerman actually likes to write.

“Truly I love to write,” she says.  “I’ve been like that all my life.  I started writing when I was in elementary school.  In fact, my friends and I would all write and then we’d critique one another.”

Her favorite subjects?  The place in which she lives, or places she has lived.  Consequently, Bucket of Blood, is set in Cumberland and that came out of a realization that it was “odd to be living in this community and to not have fully realized what amazing stories there were in the Cumberland area.”

Even more of an oversight, she says, considering her huge family connectedness to the old village, going back to her grandfather and father, both of whom were born there.

Her ‘process’ demands a considerable discipline that she tries to adhere to as stringently as possible.  This includes devoting two hours each and every day to writing.  And this is not a chore.

“Writing makes me feel at one with the universe,” she says.  “The key to happiness is to find the thing you ‘have’ to do. I have to write.  And I know when it’s working and when it’s not working.  When I’m in the mode, I can really focus.  But, admittedly there are some days I really don’t feel like writing, and those are tough.  Of course, not feeling like writing is different from being blocked.  Blocked is horrible and it leaves me unable to sleep.”

She does a few things when she’s blocked.  One is to merely step away from it for a while until her writing mojo returns.  Otherwise, she’ll do a related task—like editing.

“Editing gives you a break and I, unlike some writers, really enjoy editing,” she says. “The downside is you can edit indefinitely.  You can always finds something you can improve upon.  At some point you have to say I am happy with this, and let it go.”

Bucket of Blood was launched last September 21 at North Island College, where Bannerman also works.  A reading from the novel was offered to the public at the launch.

While the book is, as a novel, fictional, Bannerman assures that elements of the tale did not arise in a vacuum, but are based on veracities of the day— the late 19th Century when Cumberland was a booming coal town and indeed the ‘metropolis’ of the Comox Valley, and the smaller communities as Courtenay and Comox were of little consequence.

This is the Cumberland of the Dunsmuir mines and of a Chinatown that was more populous than the European community. The Chinese did, as a character in Bucket of Blood slightly bitterly but realistically states: “twice the work for half the pay” and longed to make that nest egg so they could return to China as rich men and find themselves comely wives.

Those who know the area also know of the brutal conditions in the mines for the Chinese in Cumberland, where in the early days the laborers weren’t even granted the dignity of using their names but were merely referred to using the names of their European overlords, such as “Smith’s Chinaman”.  Old write-ups in the Cumberland Museum attest to the racism of the era.

As a consequence, and understandably, the Asians created their own community in Chinatown— an alien and mysterious place.  Chinatown in the day was opium dens, fan-tan parlors, prostitution, danger and mystery.  It was in that cultural milieu that Bannerman’s characters, English born Lizzie Saunders and her older sister, Violet found themselves on the death of their mother in 1898.

Into this alien mix you find the dominant group, the Europeans: English, Scots, Welsh, all in early Cumberland to toil in the Dunsmuir mines in a brutal and unforgivingly dangerous calling.  Needless to say, the ‘boys’ could be excused for cutting loose when the weekend rolled around, as this expert shows:

Though the midnight hour had come and gone, Cumberland’s main street roiled with life. The steady chuh-chuh of No. 6 mine’s bellows, coupled with the distant clanking of industry, provided a rhythmic beat to the merry-making of the Bank Holiday weekend. Men in filthy dungarees stumbled into the bars for a pint of bitter to slake their thirsts, work-calloused boys drove a new shift of mules along Dunsmuir and women of questionable morals solicited company from drunken louts who loitered outside the flop houses and pool hall. Boisterous piano music, cat calls wolf whistles, and the deafening sounds of nihilistic revelry filled the air.

Such is the pervasive mood and ambience of Bucket of Blood and Bannerman captures it with a crisp and inviting style that does not fail to keep a reader intrigued.  She is also adept at presenting dialogue as it would have been in the late Victorian era amongst those who both toiled in the bowels of the earth as well as with those of higher social pretensions.

But, the point of this piece is not to offer literary evaluation rather than to look at the life and process of an already and deservedly successful Comox Valley writer. Needless to say, therefore, that the reader will find the book moves at a pace, offers a delightful degree of a fictionalized Cumberland (and other spots) that doesn’t deviate far from the reality of the day; it merely enhances it to a deserved three-dimensionality.  It’s a good read, suffice it to say.

Where is Bannerman now and where does she go from this point?

“I’m taking a correspondence course through the London School of Journalism,” she says. “I’d like to pick up more skills in non-fiction, either between covers or online”

She says, in the latter case, she follows Vancouver Province digital journalist Erik Rolfsen and his drive to bring factual information away from ink and into the greater sphere globally.

Meanwhile, she’s mapping out a storyline for a non-fiction work, but declines to say more about it at this time.

Asked if her early research into the life of Boudicca could ever see the light of day in a Kim Bannerman book, she cryptically replies:  “I’m not sure at this point—but it’s always a possibility.”

---

Find out more about Bannerman at www.foxandbee.com.  Her novel, Bucket of Blood, is available locally at the Laughing Oyster Bookstore, the Cumberland Museum, the Courtenay Museum, Blue Heron Books and Abraxas Books and Gifts on Denman Island 

 
What’s your idea of paradise?  We all have a different perspective of a place we’d deem perfection, stomach
but for many of us, visit this
paradise would include a place in the wilderness.  Unfortunately, for a good number of BC citizens, the wilderness is not accessible.  A person with a disability can only see the trail winding into the trees, but they can’t explore it.  Fortunately, this is changing.  There are groups working hard to create wilderness accessible trails for everybody and every body, no matter their level of ability.

The first sub-alpine accessible trail in a BC Provincial park, the Centennial Loop Trail, officially opened last summer.  The two kilometre trail, located in the Paradise Meadows area of Mount Washington, is a combination of hard packed earth and long stretches of boardwalk.  The trail winds through the unique sub-alpine terrain, over streams and across meadows.  In the summer the area is ablaze with wildflowers and the small lakes that dot the landscape reflect the clouds and blue sky.  Most importantly, whether you walk, run, or roll, the new trail is accessible to everyone.

Since its completion, the Centennial Loop Trail has had thousands of visitors, but it took 14 years of volunteer time and effort to make it happen.  Though many individuals worked to make the trail a reality, Judy Norbury, a disabled but abled person, was instrumental in its creation.

Stricken with polio at age four, Norbury has lived most of her life as a disabled individual—but she doesn’t see herself that way.  “My parents never treated me as disabled,” she says.  Her mother was fiercely protective of her, though not in the way you might imagine.  Instead, her mother protected Norbury from being treated differently because of her wheelchair.  For example, the word ‘crippled’ was never allowed in the household.  “All in all, I had a great childhood,” Norbury remembers, “and I have no regrets about my disability as it has actually enabled me to experience amazing things.”

Though it hasn’t always been easy, Norbury has never allowed her disability to keep her from experiencing life.  She’s built a cabin on Pender Island, lived off the grid on the Sunshine Coast, and has travelled across India.  Though she usually gets around via her own steam there have been instances when she’s needed help.  She’s been carried, piggybacked and pushed, but she’s always made a way.  Even so, she realizes that not everyone has their own personal Sherpa to carry them around, and not everyone wants that.  There’s something to be said for being able to get somewhere or do something without the help of another person.

When asked about the level of accessibility in the Comox Valley, Norbury says it’s quite good here.  “There aren’t many places I can’t get to,” she says.  She’s a spunky lady though, and as you’d imagine, she’s not afraid to ask for help on occasion.  For example, if there are stairs in her way she just asks a nearby person to give her a bit of help.  But sometimes too many barriers can be downright annoying.   For example, years ago she visited the old Paradise Meadows trail, before it was renovated, and found stairs throughout.   “I could see that the stairs didn’t really need to be there,” she says.  “The trail just hadn’t been built with accessibility in mind.”

Throughout the following years, Norbury and organizations like the Strathcona Wilderness Institute discussed the lack of accessible trails in the Comox Valley, and worked toward making the necessary changes to existing trails so they would be open for all.

The Accessible Wilderness Society (AWS) is another local organization that works toward facilitating wilderness experiences for disabled individuals.  Dan Bauer, the president and founder of AWS, feels that creating more trails like the Centennial Loop Trail should be a priority to all of us.   “We’re all getting older,” Bauer says.  “Few of us leave this world in the same shape we are in today.  It’s in our best interest to take steps to ensure these opportunities are available for all in the future.”

Bauer is a paraplegic who was injured in a car accident in 1985.  Though it must have been unimaginably difficult to realize he wouldn’t walk again, it didn’t take long for Bauer to see that he could work to improve his situation and the situation of those like him.

Specifically, he recalls a time soon after his injury when he was sitting in a hospital room with other patients who had spinal cord injuries.  On the other side of the room was a man surrounded by his wife and children.  The man was crying and telling his kids that he wouldn’t be able to take them fishing anymore.  Bauer remembers the tears of the children as they listened to their father and saw his grief.  The scene deeply affected him, and he wondered why it had to be that way.  Why couldn’t that man take his children fishing despite his disability?  Way back then, so soon after Bauer’s own injury, the seeds for the Accessible Wilderness Society were sown.

Bauer explains that although accessibility in the urban centres has been the main focus for many years, it was time for inclusion to go beyond the pavement.  To Bauer, Norbury and the rest of the volunteers at AWS, the great outdoors offer something that, like a vitamin, is essential to all of us.  Bauer describes the invigorating and restorative power of nature when he states, “There is something that touches me deep inside when I’m in nature, and that’s something I want for everyone.”

Although Bauer is in a wheelchair, he considers himself quite fit and able.  “I’m a bit like Rick Hansen,” he says with a laugh.  His fitness makes it easier for him to access some trails that other disabled people could not.  He notes that there have been many times he’s pushed himself along a difficult trail, only to feel sad when he got to the viewpoint.  “It breaks me up when I get to these beautiful places and know that many people can’t see it too.”

In fact, Bauer says the biggest challenge of AWS has been recognizing the different levels of disability that exist.  For example, what would be possible on a normal wheelchair may be impossible for someone with a motorized chair.  Or a scooter may be able to use a trail, while a person using a walker would find it too difficult.  Because of these challenges, AWS is publishing a new and improved guide that will differentiate trails according to the level of accessibility.

Disabilities don’t always mean problems with locomotion.  For example, vision impaired people also desire access into the wilderness.  Bauer admits that, initially, this fact was not recognized by AWS.  He tells the story of a vision-impaired man who mentioned the problems of a particular trail.  When Bauer told him he believed the trail was quite good—in fact he’d just been on the trail with his wheelchair—the man asked Bauer if he had noticed all the low hanging branches.  Bauer hadn’t.  “I’m only four feet tall when I’m in my chair!” he says with a laugh.  “But getting bonked on the head by branches as you walk along a trail is not what I’d call accessible.”

From then on Bauer and the rest of the AWS crew viewed the trails from an even wider perspective.

Viewing our trails through a larger lens is something we can all do.  There are many trails throughout the Comox Valley that only need small changes to make them available to a wider audience.  Bauer mentions that some people worry that making a trail accessible means changing it so much it’s unrecognizable, but that’s not the case.  Normally a trail just needs to be widened a bit, or a gravel section needs to be amended.  Oftentimes the necessary changes aren’t even expensive.

He tells the story of one trail that was just wonderful until he came to a bridge that had two steps leading to it.  “That entire trail would have been perfect if they had just installed a $300 ramp,” he says.  “It was so frustrating to see that beautiful and beckoning trial on the other side of the bridge winding away from me, knowing I was hindered by just two steps.”  But step by step, things are changing here in BC.

Right now Vancouver Island has close to 40 parks and trails that are completely accessible, but there are many more trails Bauer would like to see improved.  In fact, he sees a future where British Columbia is celebrated for its accessibility—where tourists purposely come to our province in order to experience nature like they’ve never been able.

According to Bauer, 14.3 per cent of Canadians list themselves as having a disability, and you can multiply that number by 10 if you include folks from the United States. “That’s an impressive number,” says Bauer, “and it’s growing even more as our population ages.”

Bauer sees those numbers as an opportunity, and he promises, “If we provide the accessible trails for people, they will come.”And why not?  British Columbia can already boast the longest completely accessible trail in the world—the 12 kilometre Inland Lake Trail near Powell River.  This amazing trail even has charging stations along the way for power wheelchairs.

But Vancouver Island will soon scoop the world record, since Bauer and his society plan to build a completely accessible trail around Robert’s Lake, near Campbell River.  This new trail will be 13.5 kilometres long. Bauer and the Accessible Wilderness Society aren’t doing these things on their own anymore.  In fact, they have some friends in high places.  For example, the Honourable Pat Bell, the Provincial Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation, loves the idea of opening up the wilderness for citizens and tourists with disabilities.  Though the Accessible Wilderness Guide is only found in information centres on Vancouver Island, Minister Bell wants to help Bauer and his society publish their guide province-wide.

Even Prime Minister Steven Harper was made aware of BC’s highest accessible trail.  Bauer tells the story of the opening ceremony for the Centennial Loop Trail, when Steven Fletcher, Canada’s Minister of State for Transportation—who just happens to be in a wheelchair—took a detour on his travel itinerary to take part.

Apparently, Fletcher was so happy with the trail he kept asking his aid to take pictures.  “He’d see a good shot and say, ‘Send that one to Steven.’  Then he’d go around the next corner, remark on the beautiful view and ask his aid to get another photo, saying, ‘Send that one to Steven too.’  When asked who ‘Steven’ was, Mr. Fletcher said it was the Prime Minister.”   Bauer laughs when he says, “Mr. Harper was sent an annoying amount of pictures that day of Minister Fletcher enjoying the Centennial Loop trail!”

Well, maybe it was annoying for our Prime Minister, but the actions of the people volunteering their time to make our trails more accessible to everyone are far from bothersome.  We are blessed in the Comox Valley with nature in abundance, and that abundance should be served up in generous portions to each and every citizen—which is just what Bauer and Norbury and many others aim to do.

The Accessible Wilderness Society is always looking for volunteers.  You can visit their site and learn about their exciting future projects by going to www.awsociety.org.

For information specific to the Centennial Loop Trail visit: www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/strath/centennial_trail.pdf