Miner’s Bay, Mayne Island, BC Canada
At this time of year, in the dry of August, there are no campfires allowed on any of the Gulf Coast Islands of British Colombia. A wildfire on any of the islands could be catastrophic. There are limited local firefighting facilities, any assistance would have to be flown or shipped in and water is at a premium here. A modern forest fire with its wind driven crown tornado and temperatures over 2,000 degrees could reduce an entire island to a blackened cinder in a matter of days, or even hours. So: “NO FIRES”…. The signs are everywhere.
This is not so good for the “Kumbaya” aspect of a Chautauqua Tour. No fires means specifically no campfires. No Sitting around the flickering heat and light. No socializing in the dark. Or singing off-key. No merrily recounting moments of current and past tour miracles that probably never happened.
All of this group delusion-ism usually takes place around a campfire. It is an important aspect of the bonding experience. It mostly happens after the Big Show, sometimes with beverages of a mood-altering nature. Always with a feeling of camaraderie and shared exhaustion.
It has been a long day. And a long tour.
The closest we have come to a campfire was on Gabriola Island where we sat in a circle around a twisted stack of lighted juggling clubs. It may have done it for some folks, but my not being a juggler, it left me with the impression I was worshipping in the wrong church. Or, more correctly, the wrong generation and time tunnel. Plastic juggling clubs did not a campfire make. Call me old-fashioned.
But I’m not that old to be feeling that old.
On Mayne Island our hosts brought out a propane simulated fire pit. It may not have been exactly legal, but we were in an open field, grass cut to the length of whiskers. With shovels, fire extinguishers and water jugs at the ready. About as safe as you could be with this sort of thing.
Bring on the Kumbaya.
Ok, dear readers, you have suffered with my cynicism throughout this narrative and mostly because that I am trying to be ironic and funny. However it is also that I am actually feeling quite cynical of late. Let’s be honest here. It’s a rough world out there in reality. My cynicism comes from the heart.
However much the New Old Time Chautauqua might attempt to change this cynicism (and that is really the whole reason for it, right?) the tour had not come close until our three days on Mayne Island.
Everything went right on this little island. (21 square kilometers, 8.1 square miles, population 1300+-)
I won’t list our achievements, but they included building a 123 foot long wooden rail fence for the Primary School, workshops on juggling, harmonies for the non-harmonic, percussion rhythms for the non-rhymatic, the sword of Roman Emperor Constantine, and how to fold a fitted sheet. All of which were well-attended.
Additionally we had a community potluck with so much food we could honestly have fed the entire community. Among a hundred carbohydrate-rich dishes of delicious sides, two haunches of Fallow Deer were roasted to perfection on a barbecue rotisserie. It was luxurious protein. (And you thought we were all hippy vegetarians)
The Fallow Deer are invasive here and outnumber the humans, thusly they get cooked.
We capped off our stay with a brilliant show that lasted until the sun went down just long enough to provide drama for the finale of juggling torches.
No one got burned. The audience raved.
What a performance!
Kid Magnificent, our ten-year-old stage magician, limited his schtick to only 6 minutes. You might laugh about this but I bet you have seen many budding vaudevillians go on and on and on for as long as there is a single person smiling in the audience. It makes a stage-manager want to puke. But Kid Magnificent stuck the landing of his one card trick and gracefully exited stage right. He was brief and brilliant. I wanted to kiss him on the head, except his head is kind of hairy even for a kid and I have no idea when he had his last shower (sometime in June?)
I’m kidding. He’s as clean as any of the other disease-ridden Chautauquans.
Speaking of which, upon our arrival at Mayne Island we were (as a group) finally Covid-FREE. Everyone testing negative. On the entire tour we had only lost...let’s see.. one filmmaker, one aerialist, one assistant aerialist, one stilt-walker, one spoon-man (we lost him twice, so you might have to double count that one), one percussionist (we miss you Nora), one saxophonist (he had another gig, but later came back), one mother with child and friends (hard workers with strong politics) and the cartilage from the left knee of one traveling journalist (he’s still out there limping around the islands).
From a group of about 40, a dozen people got the Zombie virus on this tour. No one got seriously ill. With cooperation and forbearance we contained it to our group.
If it killed anything it was the Kumbaya.
Enter stage left: The Mayne Island Miracle.
After the Big Show. We struck the chairs, packed up the stage, packed up the truck, packed up the hospitality table, cleaned the Agricultural Hall and were back at our group campsite, by 10 PM.
There is a young family living at the end of Mill Road. They have some acreage, a newly hand-built cabin, a wood-shop, a portable lumber mill, a chicken coop, a tiny rental house, a lot of optimism. They were our hosts on Mayne Island. They had fashioned some rough campsites out of the forest to accommodate us.
This is where we stayed among the second growth coastal forest. Tall firs reaching for the light over sprawling hemlocks, vine maples, twisted arbutus shedding their bark, owls hunting in the twilight. New cedar trees growing from the decomposing stumps of their grandfathers. Stumps so tall you can see straight through their composting shadows. A summer rain fell during our first night and that scrubbed the air and settled the dust. It gave the cedar trees room for hope.
After the show a gibbous moon came rising through the forest canopy walking on the light of distant planets.
Around the fire, we sat,. There was a natural glow of propane flames tangoing among the smiling faces. Some laughter, some yawns, some stories told. A guitar here, a ukulele there, a saxophone left safely in its case.
I like the way the actor Harry Levine described it:
“We sat around that fire last night and there was something going on with the sound. The voices were echoing back at us, like they were contained in a globe or a ball, or being reflected by the forrest. It was the strangest sensation. I’ve not quite heard that sort of thing before.”
Call it, if you will, “Kumbaya.”
But I think it was the spirit of old Chautauqans, finally come in from the ships, magical hosts wandering the wood. Ghosts of the gloaming. Pushing our voices back toward the fire.
A perfect day, a perfect night. Not even the afterlife could keep them away.