Arts, Crafts and the cycle of life...
I went to the 'Salmon Run' the other day. Firstly, I was disappointed to find NOT ONE SINGLE salmon do anything but swim or just lay there being eaten by birds. There was no running involved. I thought I was going to see salmon doin the darwin. Only in the very basic sense.
So...
Seems every year for as long as there've been salmon, they've been swimming upstream, spawning and dying. To the population of Victoria BC and some off season tourists it's apparently quite an event to witness. Now, I'm all for anything that involves being outside in nature, especially if it's nature on the west coast, but this was a pretty weird kind of eco-voyeurism that I just wasn't getting in to. Yes, it's vibrant and educational and the streams are teeming with life and all that, but really, people flock to the wilderness to watch elderly fish use the last of their life's strength to get it on and then die. Come to think of it... we should have it as good.
Anyway...
We had the (mis)fortune of arriving a little late in the season and caught the tail end of the run where the river is teeming with dead salmon carcasses and scavenger birds. Lots of interesting photo ops of a very sombre nature and a lot of fat, happy seagulls screaming about how tasty this buffet was. The few salmon that were still alive were just kinda hobbling along (if you can imagine the fish version of that) being pecked to death by the cycle of life.
So...
Seems every year for as long as there've been salmon, they've been swimming upstream, spawning and dying. To the population of Victoria BC and some off season tourists it's apparently quite an event to witness. Now, I'm all for anything that involves being outside in nature, especially if it's nature on the west coast, but this was a pretty weird kind of eco-voyeurism that I just wasn't getting in to. Yes, it's vibrant and educational and the streams are teeming with life and all that, but really, people flock to the wilderness to watch elderly fish use the last of their life's strength to get it on and then die. Come to think of it... we should have it as good.
Anyway...
We had the (mis)fortune of arriving a little late in the season and caught the tail end of the run where the river is teeming with dead salmon carcasses and scavenger birds. Lots of interesting photo ops of a very sombre nature and a lot of fat, happy seagulls screaming about how tasty this buffet was. The few salmon that were still alive were just kinda hobbling along (if you can imagine the fish version of that) being pecked to death by the cycle of life.
so...
The park, known as Goldstream National Park, has a nice trail that goes all the way along the stream and ends at a lodge that has hot chocolate and educational-type stuff in glass boxes, dusty animal parts hanging ont he walls and trinkets to buy. They also have a crafts section for the kids. A very... odd crafts section. I'm sure there are different crafts that correspond with different seasons but, in November it seems a macabre tradition to allow (and even encourage) children to cover dead salmons in a lot of paint and make prints on big sheets of paper. A true homage to the beauty of nature. These solemn creatures fight all odds to procreate and end up on a wooden table being groped by children and covered in paint. I heard one kid remark
"This is SUCH a good idea!"
...indeed.
I've decided that this is how I want to be remembered. This is what I want to happen at my funeral. Burial is so passe and we're running out of space, cremation is ok I guess but who's ashes are they REALLY? George Carlin once said he wanted to be stuffed full of dynamite and blown up. I was favouring that idea until now. When I die, I want to be lain naked on a table, and allow mourners to cover me in paint and make a print out of me! I can be wiped down and redone until everybody has their very own, artistic interpretive print to do whatever they want with. Hang me above the fireplace! Roll me up and put me in a tube and bury me somewhere! Make a bunch and adorn your office walls! Hey, whatever, I won't care, I'll be dead! THAT is what I want... someone see to it, ok?
After witnessing the salmon run and the fun, family activities attendand thereto, I think it a perfectly fitting tribute to the cycle of life and not in the least degrading.
-Kreddible Trout, Victoria BC, November 2007.
Click HERE to get back to the Nature section (if you still have the stomach for it)
"This is SUCH a good idea!"
...indeed.
I've decided that this is how I want to be remembered. This is what I want to happen at my funeral. Burial is so passe and we're running out of space, cremation is ok I guess but who's ashes are they REALLY? George Carlin once said he wanted to be stuffed full of dynamite and blown up. I was favouring that idea until now. When I die, I want to be lain naked on a table, and allow mourners to cover me in paint and make a print out of me! I can be wiped down and redone until everybody has their very own, artistic interpretive print to do whatever they want with. Hang me above the fireplace! Roll me up and put me in a tube and bury me somewhere! Make a bunch and adorn your office walls! Hey, whatever, I won't care, I'll be dead! THAT is what I want... someone see to it, ok?
After witnessing the salmon run and the fun, family activities attendand thereto, I think it a perfectly fitting tribute to the cycle of life and not in the least degrading.
-Kreddible Trout, Victoria BC, November 2007.
Click HERE to get back to the Nature section (if you still have the stomach for it)
