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 try feebly to swim or just lay there being eaten by birds. There was no running involved. I was hoping I'd be witness to salmon Doin the Darwin. Fish with sponsorship contracts. 'Running'... ha!
Nothing of the sort.
Seems every year for as long as there've been salmon, they've been swimming upstream, spawning and dying. To the population of Victoria British Columbia and some off season tourists, this segment of the cycle of life is quite an event to witness. Now, I'm all for anything that involves being outside in nature, especially nature on the west coast, but this was a pretty bizarre form of eco-voyeurism that I just wasn't getting into. Yes, it's vibrant and educational and the streams are teeming with life (and death) 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 promptly die and get eaten by gulls.
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.
Nothing of the sort.
Seems every year for as long as there've been salmon, they've been swimming upstream, spawning and dying. To the population of Victoria British Columbia and some off season tourists, this segment of the cycle of life is quite an event to witness. Now, I'm all for anything that involves being outside in nature, especially nature on the west coast, but this was a pretty bizarre form of eco-voyeurism that I just wasn't getting into. Yes, it's vibrant and educational and the streams are teeming with life (and death) 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 promptly die and get eaten by gulls.
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 on the 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, majestically leaping several meters out from the water, avoiding bears and other predators to 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 attendant 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)
Click HERE to go back to Stories and Writings
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 attendant 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)
Click HERE to go back to Stories and Writings
