Our sanctuary within a sanctuary.

Unrelenting winter rains swell the Walbran Valley until the emerald river is a dark churning torrent and weighted tree limbs reach down to unload their burden of droplets in our hair. Returning to camp by headlamp we begin a quick routine, dropping gear, stoking a fire in the wood-stove and heading to the emerald pool for a dip. On the journey back in drier under-layers the wall-tent is glowing with firelight and the promise of shelter.

In the moist warmth of the cozy wall-tent I cut the kindling midsized and stacked it wood cabin style by the stove. Alex comments that it was a neat way of drying them and I remembered that Bicycle Bob had inadvertently taught me this on my first night in the Walbran. Then the wood had been too wet to close the stove door so the vapour and smoke filled the tent burning our eyes. The cool tent made our conversation drift towards saunas and cabins. I mention building one down by the waterfall. To which Bob replied clearly “many people have tried to build structures here, but nothing is permanent in the Walbran”.

Back then the wall tent was everything. On big build weekends it would be packed like a circus with laughter and light spilling out of it, while in the rain and snow of winter the empty tent would soon warm and hang full of wet clothes and a few sleepy builders stoking a fire and chatting. On all these nights the tent brought us together and made the wild isolated valley home.

Sitting in the tent years later we surveyed our little Walbran homestead. The zippers on the doors had ripped the winter earlier helping moisture and Ink cap mushrooms invade the woodchip flour. The canvas of the walls was blotchy with enough mold to entertain a bioblitz, and in places the tent had turned to powder or disintegrated all together. Looking up was the worst of it though. This winter a heavy snow load ripped the tarp Charlie Spink had used to cover the roof, like the final breach of a castle under siege the rain had poured in, flooding the fabric and turning the tent into a true sponge for mycological life. Our home was akin to a scuttled ship regrowing coral, the perfect human made medium for an ecosystem, the problem was we were still aboard.

Pete started raising donations and we all chipped in to buy a new canvas tent hand crafted on the Island. We set it up and admired our beautiful new home.

The next weekend Pete and Ron arrived to where the tent had been to find Alex and I sitting on bare patch in the road. We couldn’t help but smile when we told them the tent was gone and they didn't believe us until we had affirmed it many times. It had been stolen along with the beloved Jotul cast iron stove.

For two years we considered another tent. Humming and hawing as we speculated if it would be stolen again. Finally Jericho found a retro number online and Pete bought it with donations the Friends of Carmanah Walbran had received. Another few days of building and designing tarp structures and ribs and here it is. A new shelter in the Valley, come visit and help make it home.

Written by Will

Photography by Olivier, Will and Lisa

A Fresh Canvas