Perhaps the breezes that carry through Squamish woods and marsh would not smell so sweet, nor each morning's rustle seem so gently evocative had I not recently picked up a used copy of W.O. Mitchell's Who Has Seen the Wind.
In all my years of reading, I'd never encountered Mitchell. I'd heard of him of course- listened to the CBC's pan elegiac orgy of remembrance when he passed, knew he was considered a Great Canadian Writer, and yet considered that he must not have been All That Much if he wasn't on any school curriculum. I guessed I'd get to him when I got to him.
The occasion of getting to him was brought to me courtesy of my Garibaldi hiking adventure. Having been laid up for days, wondering if my foot was broken after all, and generally making a demanding nuisance of myself, Kate wisely suggested we go in search of something for me to read.
Mitchell brings to mind other Canadian favourites who did make the curriculum- Sinclair Ross, with As for Me and My House, and Earnest Buckler, with The Mountain and the Valley. I will be revisiting that bookstore for everything else Mitchell, and possibly trying another strenuous hike soon. The only reason I see for Mitchell being excluded is his undulating story structure, full of dualities and experiential revery; ignoring completely antagonists, rising action and climaxes, and other teachable tenets. In a perhaps unrelated note, he is gives a somewhat unsympathetic treatment toward school boards and disciplinarians, though I found that this only added to the novel's many enjoyments.
There has never been anything so evocative as the smell of earth on a summer's day, carrying every sort of clover, hay bale, and stream in the vicinity along with it as it comes to me in quiet listening. Getting to know Squamish and Whistler has been an exercise in adapting my sniffer to appreciate salt water mixing with wide mountain-fed streams, the vegetative musk of thick marshland mixing with the carried dusts of hot pine needles, and repeated intoxication via cool mountain drafts.
We've been having trouble leaving this place. We've ventured North, but we've left it at day trips from home-base here. Whistler, Pemberton, Nairn Falls and such have their pleasures, but the air here, the trail networks, the hidden gem called Nexen Beach, the absolutely entrancing Chief and surrounding bluffs hold us transfixed. We agreed last night that if not for the call of friends and family back East, we would spend our entire summer right here.
