Arrival

We have a wonderful dinner. The French language flowing well above my head, and everyone in good spirits. There are about 10 of us, all from France except one originally from Martinique and another from Morocco. With tall, lively Pere G at the head of the table, truly very open-hearted and full of life, air fills his lungs and blood runs through his veins. He gives directions to places that google cannot provide (like the municipal library), he tells of the different Algerian dishes we have, and offers a lemon drink, a gift made by the Sisters of Annunciation in Bobo, Burkina Faso. He tells me the library is particularly well stocked on architecture, and I cannot wait.

My arrival went smoothly. The plane was perhaps 20% full, and almost entirely of men. This continued right through into the airport, and it felt more like I had wandered into the wrong washroom, rather than I landed on a construction site. I chatted with the guy beside me, a Brit, who gave me a landing card. They don't offer these on the flight, he says. He comes every two weeks, and works on silicon chip manufacturing. He gave me tips on finding the ATM in the airport (it's the one with VISA on it), and quite successfully I found it, as it was the most normal thing in the world. There might be one other ATM in the city that accepts foreign plastic, and from what I gather from a blog, this required assistance from members of the Algerian Army. I asked for X dollars. It negotiated and said how about Y?

Two of the wallet-busting wad of bills went to the taxi driver. This was also a normal experience. They wait in line at a taxi stand, and they tell you a price a little more than what you've been told. He is perhaps in his 70s, but boy, drives like he owns the road. The judicial, psychological, and mechanical nuances were completely honed down by this guy. There were spaces in between cars I never knew existed. He needed no map; he knew exactly how to get me to my destination, even though he had never been there before. He sniffed the air, and went from there.

Traffic is an acknowledged thing to be wrestled and wrangled with. Like anywhere else, but very much more so here, traffic accidents cost far more lives than anything to do with terrorists. A group of four here are doing a programme on something to do with truck traffic. In the next month, there will be a lecture by urbanists and planners, on some sort of 'accidental intervention.' If I translate that right.

My room is a lovely 12'x12' haven of security, serenity and simplicity, looking out to a courtyard of cacti and succulents. Liketypical middle eastern architecture, and perhaps monastic, it does not have much of a facade (a door and a number), and the heart of the place is a fruitful, empty place. I opened two doors, and let in the call to prayer at sunset, the first I've heard for awhile. French maps dating from 1928 tell me about the local climate, of good and bad agricultural times, and the colour of the Sahara is matched by my room's walls. The entire place was built in 1962 or shortly thereafter. It is a place of simple hospitality for the purposes of supporting research on all things Algerian. I have a large oak desk, 'professor-sized,' which soon enough will support my own efforts.

Pitter-patter

I arrived at Heathrow in the afternoon, and my senses awoke, vaguely, to the feel that this is not Kansas anymore. 'Do you live in Algeria?' asked the customs officer. In the grand tradition of verbal exchange with authorities, I offered a simple 'No.'

Having transferred to the hotel near Gatwick, I soon discovered why I got such a good deal. In my mid-afternoon slumber, construction to improve facilities was in positive action. But as the drilling continued and the fire alarm rang, like a mound on a bed of comfortable soil, I was hardly to stir.

My flight is in the morning. The window (vinyl, right-hand inward casement, with restrictor) is open. It is an unexpected, rare treat in what seems to be a modern land of exposed exterior mechanical systems. The pitter-patter of rain layers with the occasional swoosh of a car, and the hum of an airport that perhaps sleeps little. I had a delightful, nourishing curry in the hotel restaurant for dinner. It served as a reminder that the extraordinary can come from the hands of the ordinary.

One of the pleasures of travelling to the east (Europe) is waking up at midnight and having a lot of quiet time. Usually I do some timed-release reading preparation for a trip, and there was no exception in this case. I wandered in the woods of Camus in the fall, watched The Battle of Algiers, and stumbled upon the Algerian nationalist Abdelkhader in the biography of Anglo-Syrian Jane Digby. Literature on this place, however, a vast desert in the English-speaking world. The first Lonely Planet on Algeria was published in 2007, and the copy which is accompanying me is in relatively pristine condition - a complete set of pages, a good spine, and perhaps a greyness on the edges due only to dust and not to handling. And in this quiet time of pitter-patter, I journey into my Bradt and LP and Petit Fute, into a vast landscape with pockets of the incredible. How one guidebook, and indeed a single country, can fathom what it does is a bit beyond my comprehension. Who *hasn't* been to Algeria would be the question. There may be, in fact, more in Mandarin on current affairs here, and if I am lucky I may find a noodle shop, and need to brush up on how to request 'not spicy.' I will acknowledge my arrival to a kind of heaven if I can have a bowl of foul for breakfast and shrimp rice rolls for lunch.

And if this is the humble promise and potential of the unknown, so be it.

7:17

7:17 am. The horizon between when I feel slightly chilly, sitting outside on the terrace in the courtyard, and when the southern Californian sun rises up in all its majesty. I wonder if there are local words here describing the sultleties, if any, of the sun here. For it would seem to me that it is either mid-day sun, or it is not. But then I am just a foreigner, accustomed to clouds which mediate my relationship to the sun.

It was a beautiful, rosy evening yesterday at the Getty. I had spent the day driving up the coastal highway, in search of what I always do here - lunch, trinkets, a shady parking spot. The sunset was soft and long. We, again waved our gallery opening invitation and our badge, and to our surprise, were directed to drive up the holy, sacred way to The Parking at the Top. Not even other researchers here at the house were permitted this. We must have done something good.

The Getty is an extraordinary setting. And it created one also. One does feel like a god or goddess in the clouds. Many beautiful people, and there was an endlesd supply of food and drink. Think that the food outlasted people's appetite. Such was the pervasive generosity that evening presented.

G showed me around this kingdom - the plants, the views, her office. Of the four walls in it, the two opposite walls each have a door to a terrace. It was a space in which the idea that fresh air, a view, and productivity need not be exclusive of each other.

Today, a bit of packing, and then the Eames House No. 8.

Breezes

A slight breeze blows. So long as this city remains by the coast, this shall always be. The sun preheats us this morning, in unadulterated strength. The sky is blue, unlike yesterday, when haze from the fire in the mountains just north cast its veil over the city, precipitating a dusting of ash on all our cars, as if it were trying to bury the cause of its ignition.

The morning started with breakfast by the pool, G brings out newly baked flat buns from the oven. They are called bathtub buns, as it takes as long for them to bake as it takes one to take a bath.

G is at a research institute on a scholarship, which includes lodging here. I have met a few here around the pool, and a few more at brunch yesterday at the director's house. It was a modest, elegant house, small and generous, much like the hostess herself. The company was made of mostly German speaking researchers, freelance writers, and others involved with art history of various commands. It was a casual, beautiful company to be with.

We planned to visit the Getty Villa. Being who we were with, with gracious people who enjoy opening doors for others, we were tipped with the location of the back door. We showed the guard a badge, sang sweetly, and were let in through otherwise private gates. A 'brand new' Roman villa, for me the most exciting aspect was where the different whole spaces came together, much like a vertical labyrinth.

In the afternoon, I type in my cousin's address. In the quiet of my mind on the flight here, I lamented how far my relatives are in Australia. They are simply nice people to be with, and it is nice to be forever connected to them. The next morning a vague recollection bubbled to the surface: that I have a cousin here. 'Here' means a 2 h freeway drive, draining the battery on my hot phone on Waze. All I can say is that I can't wait to see my nephew again - 7 years young going on 30. We had a lovely time by the pool and bbq, in a neighbourhood where neighbours own the houses they grew up in.

Home on the beach

'I find that people who come to visit just want to go down to the beach,' said Dolores.

And down to the beach I go. It is sandy, and I take my time. I understand why the two clans are the ravens and the eagles - this is their playground. Severn, D Suzuki's daughter, has a Haida husband and two kids, with whom she has been heard by Dolores to speak Haida at the Co-op. They have a new house just a few houses away from Dolores' under construction. The bulldozer, doing rough grading, and the rock music that accompanies cut into the early morning air, otherwise full of eagle and raven sounds.

B, who I met from the festival at a table, has now moved into the other room here at Dolores' house. He has added another dimension to this week, and while Dolores and I cannot entirely sort out what to do with him, he seems ok, has done no harm, and seems to need a place to stay. He has been here in Haida Gwaii since June living chez a variety of people in return for help around the house, and here he is sifting Dolores' four garden boxes to rid them of stones.

B and I were at the library yesterday when he started chatting with A, who he met at a potluck. A invited us for tea this morning. He lives by the water in a house he built 8-ish years ago, one that I would consider beyond impossible, being free of a humming fridge and bathroom. He is also under the constant pressure of eviction. The light in the winter, he says, with the high water and low rays, bathes the deepest recesses of his one-room house with the dancing light of reflected waves. His first house of some 10 years, near the same site, was swept away by storm, and all but very little was saved. He tells me, as I roam through his space, he likes how I connect the dots of the things I see. We spend 3 hours chatting over tea from mint he gathered in the forest, as if we were the best of kindred spirits catching up from a long absence.

In the evening, Dolores, B, and I watch a remarkable and truly moving documentary about the repatriation in 2003 of about 150-160 Haida human remains from the Chicago Field Museum to Haida Gwaii. It is called Stolen Spirits. As we watched, Dolores kept saying that such-and-such in the film was her brother, her cousin, her niece, etc. To convey the depth of community effort and emotion in this process was a task that I am glad was well done. Everyone seemed to do the right thing. They learned how to make traditional bentwood boxes and how to design and paint Haida art on them. Elementary school kids sewed buttons onto the blankets that the remains would be nestled in. There were calls made to Air Canada, a full delegation sent to Field Museum, much dancing and chanting throughout, including at the O'Hare gate as they saw the remains enter the plane. And the anthropologists who hosted them at Field came and were welcomed to Haida Gwaii, and held a box, as part of the re-burial procession to the cemetary. A full circle complete.

Haida-ing

'Haida dogs?' I ask Dolores, 'What's that all about?' 'I don't know, but they're probably big.'

Dolores has beautiful eyes, clear and bright. But they are problematic for her. Yesterday, the first thing she said was that she discovered a new black dot in her eye. She tells me she doesn't have bifocals on the left side of her glasses, because she can't see anything out if it. Every two months, she comes to the eye doctor in Vancouver for. It was on one of these trips that I met her on the Skytrain.

If it weren't for Dolores, I would be entirely blind here. She tells me about the bump in the road, and how pavement would crack after an earthquake. That the sign for Jungle Beach is actually just a bit away from the 'real' Jungle Beach. That before, there was no road to Massett from Skidegate, they took the boat from Port Clements, and that Skidegate is where the government rounded them up and put them all. That when she was young, she ate clams off a stick for snacking, and that there would be seaweed in her pocket for munching on too. That her father was a great fisherman from Tanu (taa-NOO) and her mother from Skedans.

She tells me how to make bubbly sounds from deep in my throat, as if to bring up a little fish from the depths of the sea. I practice the word for Skidegate. It starts with a TH from the throat, then a G, still down there, followed by an easy 'gildna', followed by the second word starting with a double LL from below, popping up to the surface with an -ungway. Cheena means fish, and we pass by a river whose name translates as fish water. Skit-q'un - salal berries - are not quite ripe yet here. Haida means 'people', and the word for those up in Masset are 'faraway Haida.' I recognize the 'thl' sound which is similar to a sound from my dad's village dialect.

On Saturday we will go to the Kay Heritage Centre, for the 30th anniversary of its opening. Kay (qaaey) - almost better spelt as arabic قاي - means sea lion. Kay scuna means 'you smell like a sea lion' because boy, they are first smelled before seen. She will be the Acting Matriarch there at the festivities, as her sister, the Matriach, is ill. We go by the Centre to look at the totem poles, and she tells me which ones which relative made. They have the two clans, the Ravens and the Eagles, which is passed down matrilinially, and inevitably there is a raven or an eagle on a pole. She describes how the raven has a long straight beak, and the eagle has a curved beak. The rings at the top signify the number of potlatches the family has had. The hole at the bottom is the pole, and I've always liked low doors - they sometimes signify submission upon entrance. The word for door is the same for clam, as they both hinge shut. Of the two clans, she is a Raven, known for its intelligence. Specifically she is a 'Raven and the Moon.' She shows me the blanket with these symbols, which she will wear on Saturday.

We drive back from Kagan Bay (q'ah-gun < a safe place). I go extra slow by the playground and the town centre - cop cars do ticket for speeding, and they might be haida-ing behind a bush. We banter a bit, and by the end of the long day I get pretty silly. She tells me that they'll have Haida games on Saturday. 'Like what?' I ask, 'Ring around the totem pole?'

Tlell

'Good bye everyone,' says ruddy-faced Peter with the black hatbox, 'Welcome to Paradise!' He got the driver to honk at people walking along the road, and us to wave at them. He threatened a duel with the bus driver, who proposed to the 88-year old woman behind me, who I am sure blushed. We were all ready to leave the ferry landing, when I noticed a minivan intently aimed head-on at our bus. We started and turned to avoid a collision, against those who Peter suddenly noticed were friends who had decided to come to pick him up.

I meet Paul on the ferry (more like barge) from Alliford to Skidegate, who thought he'd chat with me as his son-in-law chatted with 'my man' (who?). From the best sounding name of a town in New Brunswick,  and currently on the sliding slope of Fort Mac, they are here for three days, renting the other half of a duplex of the owner who will guide them to the seas.

The grapevine grows quick and runs deep here. We learn via Peter that the flight attendent's name is Julie (and _everyone_ liked her, having experienced the other sort countless times) and that she lived on the Island for a year when she was in Grade 1. She was the only attendent on the Dash 8-300. She, in good Air Canada form, duly spoke everything in English and French, the French portion having as foreign a taste to the situation as an Air France equivalent in English on an international flight. The woman I sat next to, an 18 year old veteran of the Island, helped her stock the cart with pop ('2 sprites, 2 tomato juices...') and then later navigated the novice bus driver around to the various drop off locations here. Having arrived at a street sign labelled 3rd Avenue, I thought it was my stop. But no, she says 3rd is long and different ways to get on it. Take signs with a grain of salt - they may only indicate themselves.

It comes as a surprise to people on the bus that the place I am going to rents cars at all, and for the price I am paying. The overhead is perhaps low - I sit at a kitchen table to fill out the form - and the car might not have a single computer chip in it. The bare minimum exists for safe driving on a stick. The key opens the door and starts the ignition.

I drive directly out to Tlell, to the music festival where my friend D awaits at the door. The road is very smooth and hugs the ocean coast. I pass the Kay Centre, the Haida Heritage Centre - where the meeting of the Ravens and Eagles will be next week. Gwaii Haanas - Beautiful Land.

Nanai, grandmother in Haida, is what others call D. The woman on the bus tells me she is well-respected. She says it like it is, i.e. at the crepe she bought, 'Is this all I get for what I paid?' We sit at a table and meet B, who has been volunteering here in Haida Gwaii in art camp. We suffer through some acoustics, and I stay just to see who Sam Roberts is. We decide all three to go up to Masset on Monday, his next port of call.