The most remote place I've ever been.

If you were to travel to across Canada to the far west coast, hop on a ferry over to Vancouver Island, drive pretty much all the way up and across the island and then get on another boat for 20 minutes... you would reach Esperanza.  And that is where I just spent a week off then internet/cellphone grid - and it was fantastic.

What wasn't fantastic was our 4:00am departure time to leave Hope, BC (for Esperanza, which ironically enough means 'hope' in Spanish).  We had to be at the harbour by 6:00 to hold our reservation on the ferry... it was a hair-raising, rainy, dark drive; we arrived at 5:57.  Phew.  

And it was a looooong day of driving, including the windiest, hilliest road I've ever driven on.  But it was worth it in the end - Esperanza was breathtaking.  See?

the barge taking our luggage over

Unfortunately, I got stuck on the barge with all our luggage.  So instead of a 20 minute sheltered trip over the island, I stood in the frigid wind for an hour.  But I made friends with a little 3-year old boy out for the trip.  Which was hilarious when he was sitting on my lap that Sunday at church and we had the following conversation:

Sammy: What's that? (grabbing my necklace)

Sandy:  That's my necklace

Sammy: I have a scorpion necklace at home

Sandy: Oh wow!

Sammy:  What's that?  (grabbing the zipper on my shirt)

Sandy: A zipper

Sammy: What are those? (pulling out the zipper and looking down my shirt)

Sandy: ... 

And then I burst out laughing.  So did Christine, who was sitting beside me.  I figured out later on that he was probably looking at the writing on the shirt I was wearing underneath, but that didn't stop it from being the funniest thing I heard all day!

Sunday was actually one of the coolest days of my life.  One of our students, Laura, decided that she wanted to get baptized at Esperanza, and that she wanted me to baptize her.  I was so honoured.  And totally terrified, because, honestly, who am I to baptize anyone?!  But Steve reminded me that "God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called".  

So Laura and I headed into the Pacific Ocean on November 7th, 2010 to proclaim her faith :-)

Laura & I

 ... and it was awesome, salty and cold!  Not that that stopped some of our crazier students from jumping off the docks afterwards.

getting ready... 

 Now, when I was being briefed about Esperanza, I was told we were gonna chop wood in the rain for a week.  And we got the most beautiful week ever!  We probably got 2 inches of rain all week in a place where it's not uncommon to get 10 inches of rain in a morning.

And I discovered on that first work afternoon, that I just adore chopping wood!  We had a competition later on (Dan, Pete, Jake, Raf, Blayne, Scones and I haha) to see who could split one of those giant logs into quarters first.  I came last... big surprise, eh?  But I did it!

chopping away!

Blayne.  Mad skills.  

 We ended up chopping all the wood that first afternoon (which was a little disappointing, since I just discovered how fun it is!), but we went trail-blazing all week long.

heading off to the trail head

We were helping to clear some new portage trails... and that meant: MACHETES.  Woot. 

hardcore

 It really was in the middle of nowhere... And there was no trail to speak of when we first arrived... As you might be able to deduce from the picture below.

Pete standing at the takeout

 Funny story.  Jake and Pete were trying to remove a root ball from the trail, where it was half buried.  They'd already removed the rest of the tree and were trying to roll the stump down the hill.  Pete was pulling and Jake was pushing, when out of the dirt came a giant hidden root - right up between Jake's legs.  It flipped him up and over the stump and onto Pete and they both rolled a little ways down the hill. It was the funniest, most surprising thing that happened all day.  I thought Scones was going to pass out he was laughing so hard!

Pete & Jake - mid roll

 I've mentioned already that Esperanza was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.  The clouds hung so low over the water, between the mountainous hills on either side of the river...  And because it was the ocean, you got tides - which sometimes exposed starfish...

the docks at Esperanza

 My day off that week was gorgeous - I went kayaking, hiking, chopped some wood, went swimming...

out in the woods

 ... and fell through a tree.  There was a stream running through the compound - it was really neat actually, because it was salmon season, so you could watch them swim upstream to spawn.  I tried to find a place where I could see them jump, but instead I fell through some tree roots and got a really wet foot.

stupid salmon river... 

And that was our week.  We got some great classes on First Nation/White Man relations and colonization, played a lot of Cribbage and Dutch Blitz, cooked our own food and laughed together.  It was a lot of fun and we made some great new friends, but I don't think I could live there for a year.  

Lots of love

Sandy