With more time on our hands, due to COVID-19 restrictions, a silver lining is there may be more time for good old-fashioned book reading of local authors.
Squamish's John Moore has recently published a series of his musings in Raincity: Vancouver Reflections (Anvil Press) that is as much a love letter to Squamish and the Sea to Sky as it is to the Big Smoke. Part history lessons, part humorous anecdotes, it is an eclectic journey sure to please old and new Squamish residents alike.
The Chief sat down with the former journalist and writer just before social distancing was the norm for a chat about the stories behind the story, his life here and what he makes of the changes in town.
What follows is an edited version of that conversation.
Q: This book is a neat collection of very different stories. How did you pick what would make it in?
A: They are a collection of stories I did as a freelancer doing a wide variety of assignments. One of the first assignments I ever got back in the 1970s was to cover a dogfish derby.
I was hoping for investigative reporting of the city council, but no, I got the dogfish derby. The editor told me it was very important and was front-page news in that town — and a byline on the front page isn't bad for a cub reporter, so he said I was to give it my best shot.
I gave it my best shot and made reference to everything from sacred Greek drama to the Roman Saturnalia — the editor said I did such a great job, that the next month I got to cover the Boy Scout Jamboree. The point being that you get assignments that may not be something you are particularly interested in, but you develop an interest as part of the job as a journalist. The first story in the book, Village People, and the Whistler story all grew out of the fact that for a few years when I was a freelancer and a home dad, I worked for trade magazines.
Q: In the book you mention you moved to Squamish in 1996, but why did you move here?
A: We were real estate refugees, just like everybody else who grew up in North Van. And now, my son who grew up in Squamish is 25 and loves it here, he can't afford to live here — he moved north, which is more like Squamish used to be.
Q: One of the great Squamish scenes in the book is when you had just moved here and were on Cleveland Avenue. Two cars stop so the drivers can talk, right in the middle of the road. Tell me what you were thinking then?
A: At the time I found it peculiar. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were sitting there behind them in the car. My wife asked what was going on. The guys were just having a chat. There were three or four cars backed up in each direction and I said to her, "Look, no one is angry!" In North Van you would have had people getting out of their cars, shaking their fists. We had a really good laugh about it. Sure enough, two minutes later they were done and we moved on. Nobody hit the horn. It was good.
Unfortunately, more recently I have seen people get angry about stuff like that. In the Highlands, I saw guys get out of their cars and yell at each other for something or other.
Q:. You talk about a Squamish rock climber back in the day who told you that you don’t really need all the fancy gear some climbers were getting. Can you elaborate on your recreation background?
A: He was a very good climber named Marc Dube. He was really fit and taught a course in the Smoke Bluffs that I took.
I got into climbing as an afterthought. When I was young I hiked on the North Shore, when not a lot of other people were doing that there. All we ever encountered were German guys in leather shorts, with funny hats and sticks. They were the guys that appreciated hiking then because Europe was so crowded.
Q: With a lot of the sports done here you seem to have all the gear and brands, right?
A: Yes. At base, that is the thing that bothers me. We took up hiking because it was cheap. I never had a whole lot of money. I couldn't afford to ski until I was 30. My mom was a widow with four kids, so hiking was the default option for me. I got into rock climbing because friends were into it. It was the last act of certain hiking that we did.
Q: In one of the stories you talk about how our backcountry is getting more crowded. Can you talk about the difference from when you used to walk your dog on the trails in the 90s to now?
A: Now it has become a bit of a hazard. I was a bit upset when all the bikes went off-road, initially. Bikes are great for reducing gasoline fumes, so, I should love bikes really, but I don't like being hit or my dog being hit by them. Today, they are much more polite, but back then, it was new and they acted like special elite commandos on bicycles and were a bit obnoxious.
But we all have to get along and it is part of the arguments about development versus purists — like with Squamish Canyon. But if you get people out in nature, even if it is in a slightly artificial way, even if you ride down the Thompson River in a raft on some dumb team-building exercise and it inspires you to take up white-water kayaking, then that is great and it isn't an inauthentic experience. You can't be too snotty.
Q: With all the time you have been here, and all the other places you have been, where do you think Squamish is headed?
A: I think it is obvious that it is headed in the direction of Whistler. That is not necessarily a bad thing because Squamish is not a planned town, which Whistler is and it looks like it and that is what is wrong with it, — as I talk about in the book.
It just screams inauthenticity, that whole town. But Squamish doesn't. Squamish has the opportunity to devolve into a softer, service industry type economy, with some grit. Towns that have that, like Telluride, Colorado, that are redeveloped, they are kind of confected, but the fundamental historical grit is still there.
Another example is Nelson, a gorgeous place that has been redeveloped. There are hippies and string quartets on the main streets.
And the new, younger people moving here, they come with a different view. They aren't hippies like I was — actually I was just a juvenile delinquent with long hair — but they have a different worldview and I like talking to them. They are much more ecumenical and global than we were. We had a political agenda that was more along the lines of the antifa kids — angry young men. These people, like my son, they may be angry, but they don't take it out on the world and they are the ones creating the new cultural ambiance in Squamish.
They tend to travel a lot and move around, at least now we are doing what we can to attract them and create a different kind of community.
To purchase Moore's Raincity: Vancouver Reflections go to www.anvilpress.com/books/rain-city-vancouver-reflections
