Thanksgiving in Hazelton, BC October 21, 2008

Mom and Dad's house below the wild Roche de Bole Mountains

Last Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving. The reason we celebrate more than a month earlier than those of you down south has to do completely with our northern latitude. If you don’t have your harvest in by the second week of October, it is probably frozen in the fields.

We made the long-anticipated trip Smithers and Hazelton BC to spend a few days with my family. My brother lives just outside Smithers, a beautiful, clean little ski town nestled in the shadow of the Bulkley Range. From his house, three mountain ranges are visible. My parents live an hour north a few miles from the little town of Hazelton on a 28-acre homestead, where they built their own house and have lived for the past ten years.

Smithers is about a nine-hour drive from Graham, if you take a one hour shortcut on gravel roads to Hudson’s Hope instead of going to Fort St John. It’s a little over 500 miles by road, but just over 200 miles as the raven flies, west, over the Rockies. I haven’t lived this close to my parents for over 10 years, and it is comforting to know that they are only a day’s drive.

We spent a few days in Smithers with my brother, Josh, his wife, Laura and Ava(2) and Jesse – their children. I hadn’t met 3 month old Jesse yet. He loves people already – very open and personable. Nick and Josh smoked the hams one day. We enjoyed Americanos and European pastries at our favorite coffee shop on Main St, bought the kids a long-anticipated marble track, visited the pool, and did “town stuff”. Josh and Laura’s house is quite large and open with lots of room for the children to run around. Lyra, Marley and Ava played “house” downstairs for a couple hours while the adults enjoyed their coffee one morning. The ensuing mess was on a grand scale, but it was worth it to have some time to visit.

Our time at mom at dad’s was quieter, but special all the same. Whenever I visit their home, I always spend the first few minutes just looking. The walls are usually different colors; there are new paintings of my dad’s hanging on the walls, and their eclectic collection of furniture and various treasures appear in different places. Mom had several fall arrangements that I liked: red willows, dried grasses and herbs in pitchers. We’ll have to go out and pick some before it’s too late.

Mom keeps a small flock of Muscovy and Rouen ducks. Muscovy are meat birds, and the Rouen are faithful egg layers. She has several good setters, including one called “MamaDucks” who hatch litters of up to 15 ducklings once or twice a year, keeping her and dad supplied with young birds, and some to sell as well. Quite close behind their house is a small seasonal stream, with their hand-dug well close by. The water usually runs out for a month or so in the summer, but this year, the fall rains were late and they had been without running water for three months. They mostly use rainwater, then haul water for drinking/cooking. My parents have an unusual way of doing most things, but it works for them, so we just try to adjust when we visit.

Josh and Laura joined us for a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner at mom and dad’s house on Monday. After a wet and gloomy start to the day, the sun came out mid-morning, and we all got out for a rather wet but beautiful walk. Mom roasted one of her ducks, stuffed with a wild rice concoction which she and my dad put together. We had brusselsprouts and potatoes from my friend, Hannah. I made a salad with the last of the fall lettuce including a few peppery pieces of arugula. Our late morning walk yielded some high bush cranberries and rosehips, which I boiled with a few raspberries, put through a sieve, then sweetened and thickened a little for a tart and delicious sauce. The best part was a wild blueberry pie with whipped cream. Mom had bags of blueberries in her freezer. I guess she hit the motherlode patch this year. The kids were quiet as they sat licking their spoons long after their plates were clean. No one moved. “I think I’ll just sit here and enjoy another piece of pie,” said mom, who has not an ounce of fat on her body. Nick joined in, the whipping cream bowl was scraped, and only when the pie was all gone did we leave the table.

We drove home on Thursday, stopping in Prince George, a mid-way point, to run some errands. Nick found the homebrew store, and I was delighted to find the health food store just a few doors down. Shopping in Northern Canada is quite a different experience from Santa Fe. More on that later. This post is quite overdue, and long enough. We crossed the Graham River under a full moon close to 1 am, and experienced a feeling of homecoming.

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