Mt. Nusatsum

Mt. Nusatsum

Monday, October 25, 2010

We're All Old Timers Now

Bella Coola, like any small town where everyone knows each other or if you don't know them at least you might recognize someone being new to town, has long term folks that tell stories about the past.  It might be at social events, the local coffee shop or in the grocery store line up.  When the talk gets around to weather or major events caused by weather it usually goes something like, "this was nothing like the winter of 50, when it was so cold that...", or "I remember the flood in 36 or 68 when so and so's barn floated away", or "...the winter of 72 when the snow was so deep that...", you know the kind of stories I mean.  I used to like listening to those stories because they provide that important oral history about a place that helps you form your own views about what might be possible.  Now with the Great Flood of 2010 behind us, the Fires of 2009 that almost took out a whole neighborhood and came with the hottest temperatures in recorded history in Bella Coola (41° C) and the dry summer of 2010 all in recent memory, we have to bench mark all those stories. Now anyone living in Bella Coola in 2009 and 2010 is pretty well an "Old Timer" as well.  It just means we'll behave the same as everyone before us and tell about the time Highway 20 was closed for 17 days because it washed out so bad or the time over 100 houses were damaged by floods and the water was 6 feet deep in Firvale and 4 feet deep in Hagensborg and people had to be scooped from the homes by helicopters with babies in their arms.  It means the old "Old Timers" have to find new stories or just be happy listening to the new stories being shared by everyone and be thankful that once in awhile something comes along to provide fresh new stories.

I liked it the old way though - when we could just listen to those stories and tell ourselves, "ah but that was years ago"; now we all have our own new reality and have to think about the unimaginable happening because we've all seen it for ourselves.   I just hope this isn't the winter we end up talking about, "the time the snow was so deep they had to send the army to dig us out..."  Grizzly

2 comments:

  1. Old-timers are our connection to the past. But it's hard sometimes to realize our present weather is no longer so stable. Great blog, Grizzly!

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  2. Bob Saunders - SAMS - 1974Sunday, February 27, 2011 12:04:00 PM

    I remember the flood of 68 as we lived in the old Hudson Bay house by the river at the townsite of Bela Coola. Later when we moved up the valley near the sawmill at Salompt we got to experience our own floods every couple o years. Great blog, brings back lots of memories.

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