Two years ago a young male cougar swam to our island. Its not clear where it can from, but most likely it crossed the Collingwood Channel from Keats Island, as distance of nearly 2 kilometres at its shortest point. The cougar took up residence on Mount Collins and the west side of Mount Gardner, and has made Bowen Island its home. Until recently it has been surviving on deer, of which there are plenty on Bowen. It has kept to itself and very few people have seen it, although hit has been captured a lot on camera. Those that encountered it have often been deeply moved by the animal.
In the last month or so it has turned its attention to livestock and has killed three sheep. Its shift to domesticated animals means that it is now targeted for removal by conservation officers. It won't be relocated. It will trapped and killed. Eating sheep has sealed its fate and soon we will be cougar-less again on Bowen.
There is also at least one black bear on Bowen at the moment. Possibly two. They will not be long for this world either, as this is not a very bear-safe community, meaning that we don't generally have good practices around securing garbage and other common practices to make it safe for bears to cohabitate with humans without become fatally attracted to our stuff.
We are a wild-feeling place, but not a wilderness. It's not possible for wild predators to live safely here. Nevertheless, I feel blessed in a strange way that the cougar and these bears have chosen to be with us, even though it was always a death sentence for them. They put the question about who we are, what we have done to this place, and what we can really say about how we live in respect of the island, the sea, and the flora and fauna which we live amongst.
Flags flying on the waterfront at Shearwater BC. There are two standard Canada flags and two of Curtis Wilson’s 2005 Indigenous Canada flag
I spent yesterday, Canada Day, with my friend Pauline Le Bel inside the common room at our municipal hall. The room was filled with the “Canada Day Re-Imagined” part of the program. Michael Yahgulaanas‘ recent works were on display, there was a full collection of posters of the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and we were there to solicit donations for the Welcome Figure Project that we are championing.
I appreciate how Canada Day is celebrated on our island. It is a celebration and invites a thoughtful reflection on what it means to live in this country. National holidays don’t need to be excuses for blind nationalism, but they don’t need to be blindly critical of the nation either. They need to be complicated and nuanced reflections on where we live, what we love about it and a celebration of the ways we can make it better, by building community, advancing justice, and listening to the varieties of experience that surround us.
In last week’s Undercurrent (vol. 52, no. 26), our excellent local newspaper, one of our renowned local poets, Jude Neale, offered a Canada Day poem that, in a quiet way, names some of this. I’m sharing it here with appreciation:
Canada Day on Bowen Island
By Jude Neal
On Nexwlélexwm, morning arrives by ferry.
The ramp lowers with a groan of metal,
and Bowen Island opens itself to the day,
green and salt-bright, waiting.
Children spill onto the dock
with paper flags in their hands,
red and white flickering like small flames
against the blue harbour air.
Their laughter rises first,
light as gulls,
carried over the water
and caught in the cedar branches.
Strawberries come next,
stacked in cardboard trays,
ripe and shining,
little summer lanterns
held carefully between two hands.
Along the shoreline, the day gathers colour.
Coffee steam curls above paper cups.
Dogs nose the grass and shake seawater from their coats.
Voices drift between picnic blankets,
folding chairs, coolers, bicycles,
the soft shade of trees.
Families settle on the grass.
Friends wave from across the field.
Someone makes room at a table.
Someone pours lemonade.
Someone laughs and calls a neighbour over.
And Canada appears, quietly.
Not only in the anthem,
not only in speeches or flags,
but in the ordinary grace
of people making space for one another.
In a shared plate of berries.
In a hand offered onthe dock.
In stories carried here
from prairie towns, northern rivers,
Atlantic kitchens, Pacific rain,
and all the long roads between.
It is there in many voices,
many histories,
many ways of belonging.
It is there in courage.
In care.
In the work of welcome.
In the hope that a country.
can keep learning how to hold its people well.
Above this small island,
the summer sky opens wide.
Far beyond it, the north remembers its green fire,
aurora ribbons loosening across the dark.
The prairies breathe gold.
The mountains keep their snow.
The Atlantic throws light against stone.
And here, on Bowen,
the sea folds all of it into one shining afternoon.
A child pauses at the harbour's edge.
Her flag flutters softly in the breeze,
a red maple leaf against summer green.
For one still moment,
the island seems to hold its breath.
The ferry waits.
The water glimmers.
The cedars stand tall.
And through this small bright scene,
the whole country seems to shine.
Thanks Jude.
A baby barred owl seen last Wednesday by Terminal Creek, near our home. These owls breed every year in the same place and the babies sit in the trees and wheeze at passers-by until their hoot-makers come in.
Today I turn 58 and In a couple of weeks I will have lived on this island for 25 years. Being here for that length of time – a duration that has long exceeded anywhere else I’ve lived – tunes one to the finer rhythms and changes of time and place. Today, the thing I’m noticing is the change in the dawn chorus year to year. The sound of the dawn chorus which begins in April really and shifts through a few movements in May and June before abruptly stopping in the summer, is like a developing symphonic piece. There are distinct movements to it that are consistent enough year after year that one can discern the mark of the composer on them. These include the constant buzzes and questioning whines of the towhees, the two note calls of the chickadees: the black-capped clear and bell-like; the chestnut-backed buzzy and wheezy. There is always a distant goose call from the bay, about 600 meters away below us to the south. Juncos chip in the garden. Flickers hammer on roofs and power poles. Crows harass whatever predator is threatening them or call to each other from the beaches down below us. From high above it all, ravens offer their occasional grumbled commentary on the state of things. Creepers and kinglets sing the hyper-soprano parts.
As the spring progresses though, the yellow-rumped warblers (affectionately named “butter-butts” by birders in these parts) and the robins take pride of place in the chorus. These will be later joined by the orange-crowned warblers. As we get into June, the black-headed grosbeaks start singing with their clear, loud phrases. White-crowned sparrows begin calling and a visiting western tanager will offer both flashes of colour and lovely ringing song. Flycatchers round out the chorus, with the western offering a whoop-dunk, the Pacific a wolf-whistle and the willow a sneeze.
But it’s also the variations that grab my attention. In 2020 we had nuthatches meeping away everywhere and then they disappeared from the chorus the next year. Pine siskins, who will migrate hundreds of kilometres east or west in search of eruptions of insect populations will almost overwhelm the chorus some years, while in others, like this year, they will be completely absent. This year western warbling vireos are everywhere and seem to be the most common mid-range voice in the choir. And little packs of bushtits move through the understory like gangs, something we don’t get every year.
This is the body of work that the land here produces. When I travel at this time of year, I notice ways in which the niches of voice are filled by other birds, but after living in a place for a quarter century one can discern the subtle movements and compositional techniques that the island, in this place, and at this time of day employs in its expression of the season. This little patch on which I have sat for 9,000 mornings has its own body of work, and every day, every season, and every year offers variations on the theme.
On May 1 we left for a month in France. When we returned we got the weekend at home which meant hastily harvesting spinach and making 15 spanakopitas for the freezer and a bunch of spinach pesto. Then it was off again on Tuesday morning and a few days of work in Toronto and then a lovely weekend with my brother and sister and nieces and nephew in Simcoeside, north of the city.
And then yesterday home in time for a Carmena Bowena rehearsal. The less said about that the better. I was dirt tired from the jet lag and the weekend, and as a whole, let’s just say it’s great to sound like that in rehearsal. We got to take a look at some deep holes that need patching up. We will be fine come June 27-28 for our concerts.
It is rainy and cool here on the coast, a little taste of what we call “Juneuary.” Stage 3 water restrictions have started on our island meaning that we can only water our garden by hand now. So despite a welcome steady drizzle, we are into summer gardening.
As the year is nearly half over I’m checking in on my quest to log 365 birds. When the year started with a trip to Costa Rica in January and knowing that we were headed to Europe and Eastern North America this year, I thought that might be an achievable target. Today I logged birds 300 and 301 – a Western Wood Pewee and a Western Tanager. So 64 birds to go for the year. The thing about the northern hemisphere is that there aren’t that many more birds I’m likely to see here. Migration season is pretty much over. There will be a window of birds coming back through here in the fall and then the winter birds that hang out will return. So even though it looks like I’m nearly there, there aren’t many I can add from here on Bowen Island. Most of my birding is on the coast, but I might do a trip or two to the Fraser estuary or towards the interior to see some different birds this summer. At this point, it’s about going to where the birds are.
I have one more work trip this season before finally being able to put my feet up until the fall. This summer I’ll be working through our Complexity Inside and Out materials which need some updating as we get ready for the fall 2026 offering. This is a course that is geared towards folks that are leading in complexity from an organizational position or as a consultant/facilitator/host. Given the amount of writing, thinking, and reflecting I’ve done this winter and spring prompted by Dave Snowden’s absolutely prodigious output, there is lots to say, do and clarify. Specifically I need to find clear ways to shape how my practice lies adjacent to hosting and, I hope, drives that practice into a deeper coherence with the challenges and imperatives complexity throws up for us.
A photo by Burns Jennings of a whale that surfaced near his boat in Seymour Bay in 2022. I’m on the shore in front of a garage door, watching through my binoculars.
Back in 2005, my friend Pauline Le Bel wrote a musical about the history of Bowen Island, starting with the Big Bang and coming up tot the present day. I was watching the video of the performance today and was struck by the scene where the protagonist, Duncan, learns about how Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound used to be home to 100 humpback whales. The narrator Raiva tells him that the last whale was killed in 1908 and their voice hadn’t been heard in the Sound since.
Back in 2005 this was pretty true. Humpbacks hadn’t visited our inlet since the last one was killed in 1908. But in 2008, when they returned. My friend Bob Turner made a video about this remarkable turnaround.
By 2022, there were 396 humpbacks in the Salish Sea, and the population has continued growing. Now baby humpbacks come with their mothers to spend the summers here, making this region their permanent home. When I asked Bob what was responsible for the remarkable comeback he said, “well, food of course, but mostly it’s amazing what happens when you just stop killing them.”
Watching Pauline’s performance made me remember that in 2005 we had no idea if this would happen. I remember thinking that if I could just see humpbacks back in the inlet in my lifetime I’d be a happy man. Three years later the first one returned. These days, once they return from their winter breeding grounds, they are almost impossible to miss.
A little hope-core for a rainy March Monday.