Just got back from my week out on the left coast. The highlight of the trip was a visit to Gabriola Island, where my GF spent her summers when she was young. Although I did not catch crabs from my GF, it is because of her that I caught as many as I did.

Gabriola's shoreline, like much of the west coast, is ridiculously rich with life. When I showed interest in a tiny crab scuttling along the beach, my GF looked at me with a mixture of compassion and concern, and then told me to stand beside her. She leaned down and flipped over a rock the size of a laptop computer-- dozens of tiny crabs skittered away for new cover. They ranged in size from the size of a toonie to smaller than your fingernail, and while most were dark brown, many were yellow, orange, or even coloured to resemble a mottled stone. They couldn't give you much of a pinch, but to be sure, I learned to pick them up by the rear sides of their shells. I also learned to tell the boys from the girls.
We stayed at a cabin with a dock on a secluded bay. When the tide went down, we went to nearby beaches and picked mussels and oysters off the rocks. My GF's uncle pulled up a bag of clams from the dock that he had left underwater overnight; this way, they would spit out their sand and be edible. We steamed fresh seafood every day and ate it in garlic lemon butter. After dark, we would toss the empty shells in the water and watch the firework glow of the luminescent algae. We stood in the blackness for an hour listening to the progress of a group of otters barking and splashing along the shoreline as they searched for their evening meal.

Bald eagles landed in the trees around us, and a seal poked its head from the water and watched us curiously between its foraging dives. A rainbow of starfish crawled slowly in the seaweed just below the ocean's surface; many were tucked into crevices on the rocks above, inches from the mussels they would devour when the water rose. And deer were everywhere, especially in front of our car on the roads we travelled.

For one glorious week, I reconnected with the part of me that loves the uncontainability of nature, the rawness of our predator/prey relationship, and the harmony and balance I only feel when I'm on the west coast.

Oh, and it rained for seven days. It started the day we arrived and was forecast to end the day we planned to leave. So, we came home a day early.

It was sunny in Calgary.

Small protest against the Molson Indy today. Dubbed the "Wholesome Undie" race, dozens of Vancouver's cyclists took to the pavement in their underwear to protest the Indy, claiming it to be too fast, loud, and bad for the environment.

"Remember," said Alison 'Unserwear,' one of the organizers, "we're not blocking traffic..." to which the crowd responded, "WE ARE TRAFFIC!"

[Ed's Note: The male, speedo-clad organizer was going by the name of 'Mario Underetti.']

Among their slogans were:

• Indy out, undies in, slow and sexy always wins!
• Gentlemen, stop your engines!
• Streets are for people, not for cars!

I have to agree with that last one. It really irks me that after spending billions of dollars on roads infrastructure that is obviously meant only for walkers, bikers, and Segway Human Transporters, cars feel they are entitled to share in the asphalt access.

Damn you, cars!

Ahem. Sorry, but that last slogan was really stupid. Especially if those cars have people in them, and aren't those evil robot cars.

I live two blocks away from the most beautiful tree in the world. I hate myself for not knowing the details: what kind of tree it is, how old it is, how deep the roots must be. These are the kinds of details I know about digital cameras, MP3 players and laptop computers, but not trees.

The tree has thick, grey-brown bark, layers of short branches bristling with coarse green needles, and the top is pointed; it looks like a four-storey Christmas tree. Near the bottom, some of the branches grow longer, droop down like threads from the hem of a well-worn piece of clothing.

It is the most beautiful tree in the world because it sits in the centre of the sidewalk on the west side of Homer Street, just north of Nelson. The wide concrete there was imprinted with leaves while the cement dried to give the impression of always being littered with falling ground cover. The bureaucrats in this town must have a sense of wonder. Or perhaps it is the contractors.

It is the most beautiful tree in the world because of the sidewalk square that isn't there; they removed it, or omitted it, to allow for the growth of roots. While other trees fell to the progression of the urban condo, this one, this lone tree, stood. I like imagining the architect, or engineer, standing on the bare building site years ago, looking at how this tree filters the sky: wrapping a piece of wide yellow tape around its trunk, he turns to his crew in their rumbling earth machines and shakes his head: No.
It is the most beautiful tree in the world because approaching it at night, you are aware of the shadow it creates around you even before you are aware it is towering above you. You reach the trunk in shock and look up into its bulk, a bruise in the sky that blots out all humankind's progress. Boo, it says, smiling. Like a lover's note falling out of an old book, it is the unexpected but cherished connection to something forgotten, perhaps even forsaken.

It is the most beautiful tree in the world because it has been in my mind for days, and lingers in my thoughts every time I descend to the pavement. And because even now, here in Kathy's apartment, eating chocolate cowboy hats that came all the way from Calgary, it distracts me, flattens the smile on my face, and makes me wish we could be better than we are.