Has anyone seen hide nor hair of Travelog #5? If you have Travelog #5 in your box, please send me a copy. Perhaps it doesn't exist, but if it does, let me know!
Meanwhile, back in the now. Here I am in Val Marie Saskatchewan again! And as usual, it is how I came to be here that is the real story.
The night of the day when I sent out Travelog #10 my pal Guill showed up from Montreal. Those of you who have been travelling with me a while will recall Guill. He is my musician friend who came to my rescue in northern Ontario after my close encounter of the semi-truck kind a few years back. He and I drove to Montreal through central Ontario and were working on some songs.
This year, he decided to come out west looking for work and we agreed to meet up in Winnipeg. I was surprised to see him on that particular night because he'd only left Montreal the morning previous. He drove the 2500 K in just under 46 hours, driving like a Quebecker no doubt.
Anyway, he showed up just in time. The following morning the task of getting to the festival site turned out to be just a little larger and more difficult than I'd planned, and if Guill hadn't showed up, I might not have made the festival at all. Following the path I'd intended to take, at the advice of the bicycle repairmen in Winnipeg, led us deep into industrial strength traffic on a road that had no shoulder and was in total gridlock. Had I been on my bike, and not in Guill's car, I'd have been in real trouble, perhaps the long feared semi would have finally caught up to me. As it was, traffic was so intense we had to escape it. And escape it we did, by taking a secondary road east of town to Dugald, where we turned north to our intended destination.
As festival sites go the Winnipeg Folk Festival site may well be one of the best on earth. It is located about 30 K north east of the city in a large nature park called Birds Hill. It is a high bluff of rolling forest and grasslands featuring thousands of acres of trails, small lakes, forests, meadows and campgrounds. The site itself takes up about 20 acres with several large meadows and clumps of trees that serve as natural barriers between the different stages and attractions. The main stage area is located in a large open meadow that can accomodate maybe 70,000, or more, concert goers. It is a very green space, and the festival does a fine job of keeping it green. Thier recycling practices and waste disposal systems are second to none, and they have even won awards and recognition for their land stewardship.
In addition to the site, the festival operates two campgrounds that accomodate about half of the audience. One campsite is called the Festival Camp, and is a bit of a lawless frontier town complete with speakeasies, fire circles, concessions and even stages. The other is called the Quiet Campground, this is apparently because it is quiet until 5 am when all the little babies, who are camped with thier families, start hollering for breakfast, or for fright of the swarms of mosquitoes humming outside their tent screens. Guill and I set up camp in this campground, although we've both agreed, if there is a next time, we'll go to the Festival Campground because, either way, there's little sleep to be had at these events.
My job at the festival was to work the main gate. At this particular festival, that meant I was one of the big bad guys at the gate who goes through everyone's bags looking for contraband - recording devices, bottles of booze, marijuana and glass. We were confiscating the illegal stuff, putting the glass (perfume bottles mostly) aside, checking Swiss army knives at security, and basically playing border guard for the entire weekend. I didn't like the idea of going through peoples things, but I admit I did find it interesting what people will carry around with them, and what they will try to smuggle in.
Here's the gist of my shpeal to the patrons as they came through my gate: "Okay folks, I'm about to check your bags, cigarette boxes, large pockets, strollers and anything else you're carrying in here. If you have anything you don't want me to find, I suggest you turn around now and take it out to your car or back to your camp." Then I would go through their things. You wouldn't believe how many people tried to bluff their way by me, and the others on the crew. We confiscated enough booze to keep security smashed throughout, enough pot to alienate the Marijuana Party, several hundred perfume bottles, and a virtual arsenal of knives of every description. So far as I know, no one found a recording device. It was all about mood altering substances, smelling pretty and carving up dinner.
My bosses were watching me pretty close, and when I managed to find a glass pipe in a plastic cigarette box, they came over for closer inspection. They found a little dime bag of pot crammed in the corner of the box. At that point I put my glasses on and started yielding results. By the end of the festival I'd caught more contraband then another entire crew had found. This endeared me to my bosses, the festival wigs, but did not win me any favour with those whose fun I'd spoiled!
By time the second day of the festival rolled around I was getting more comfortable with the job, and managed to turn a lot of people back to their cars before they tried to trick me. There were no negative incidents, although I did catch one volunteer with a bunch of pot, weighed out in little bags, and he got kicked out, which made me feel bad because he really was just a dumb kid trying to earn a living. There was another incident where I opened a woman's purse, reached in, and came out with a handful of loose weed, then another, then another. It was funny because she just stood there smiling like it was no big deal, and saying: "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize there was a bunch of loose weeds in my bag."
There was another guy who explained to me that he and his wife had just married and the bag was a gift and please don't seize it. I was in the midst of telling him, "just go away with it, go now!" when the boss came up and quickly grabbed the guys baggie from his hand. When he was gone I just looked at the guy and said, "sorry, but next time one of us tells you to just go away, you should take the advice."
Needless to say, by the end of my shifts, I could have smoked my hands!
By the final day I got quite comfortable with my crew, most of whom, no all, took a shining to me, listening to my cycling stories and getting a charge out of my humour.
Here's one of my jokes I pulled. When I was in Deleau, at the lawn-mower-race-redneck-fashion-show, I found a calf-birthing glove. That's a clear plastic glove that fits all five fingers and stretches like a condom right up to the wearer's armpit. I'd stuck the thing in a bag and basically forgot about it, until the last morning of the festival, when I found it in my pack. We were on the early shift that day and had a huge line-up waiting for us to let them in. Just before we opened the gate I walked up to the crowd, slowly pulled the birthing glove over my hand, forearm and down past my elbow, then looked at the crowd with a menacing smile and said: "Okay, who wants to go first?"
The few looks of horror quickly developed into ribald laughter. Later on, when a couple mounties approached the gate, I slipped the glove on again and approached: "Okay boys, which on of ya wants to go first." They too laughed, and so did a few of the organizers who'd come up to the gate to meet the horsemen.
So, all in all, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I got to inject a little fun into what can be a difficult situation, impressed my bosses, and best of all, got invited back next year! Now that's saying something.
There's more than 2000 volunteers at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, and in any given year there are maybe 100 newbies, and only a few get invited back. I met several people, including my one boss, who have volunteered there for over 30 years. In fact, most people volunteer for more than five years. Its the same with the crowd, nearly 25 percent of the crowd have been attending the festival for over 20 years, and more than half for over five years. I know this because they did a roll call from the stage. Most festivals are lucky if they can get people to come back two years in a row, let alone 5, 10 or 20! It says something about the festival.
One of the other bright lights was the way we volunteers were treated, which was very well. They fed us three good meals a day, in a staff kitchen that could serve 2500 a meal, gave us all free t-shirts, and we all get discounts at the festival-run music store. That's a far cry from my experience a couple years ago in Salmon Arm, where they charged over market price for the t-shirts, fed us fast food and Tim Hortons donuts, and basically ran off anyone who showed intitiative or came up with a good suggestion.
Of course the best thing was the music. I got to hear Los Lobos, who are still a great rocking band, and one of the world's best banjo players, Bella Fleck, caught a Tom Snyder show, heard a great Aussie band named Cat Empire, sat through a very funny Randy Newman solo performance, and discovered a female blues singer to rival the likes of Joplin and Holliday. Her name was Ndidi Onukwulu, from Toronto. I swear kids, she's the best. None of the grating of a Rita Charelli, and though she certainly has the chords to scream like Janis, she was able to inject the sensitivity of Billie Holliday into her tunes. She's trouble folks! At one point during her mainstage show she actually came off the stage, went into the crowd, and made every last one of those folks you see at these things, sitting in lawn chairs, get up off their tushes and dance. She was so good I bought her CD, which I rarely ever do. There were lots of good jam sessions, one in particular featured Los Lobos with a horn section called The Iguanas, Mexican rock with horns.
Sadly, because of the odd work schedule they had for me, I missed a lot of the music, but what I did catch was great.
Another hilight of this festival was the food, not just the staff food, but the stuff out on the midway. It was the best I've seen at a festival since my days in Courtenay. Out of 30 booths there was one hot dog seller, the rest were all exotic, traditional and health food from all over the world. People were raving about the food, both backstage and in the crowd.
If there was any drawback to the festival it was the lack of shade and crowd cover. The festival has had a history of inclement weather, so it baffles me why they haven't developed crowd cover, although on this weekend it was all sunshine and heat. There were however many places to soak ones head, and a cold shower in the heat of the day was easy to obtain.
While I was busy busting people for contraband, eating, and catching music, Guill made friends with a couple and their two spoiled kids from Minnesota. He pretty much got adopted by them and became close pals with their four year old boy. The two were quite inseparable, and the boy was getting a big kick out being tossed in the air by Guill, who stands well over six foot, or 2 meters. Unfortunately, just before the Randy Newman concert, Guill was giving the boy a spin and managed to drop him right on his head! Oh, it sounds awful, but the little guy sort of bounced and was okay, but poor Guill was so upset. He laughs about it now, but he never quite got the boy's trust back.
Met a few folks I knew at the festival: a couple I'd met cycling a few years ago, the twin sister of a friend of mine from Victoria, one of my bosses was quite familiar, but neither of us could put a finger on it, and once again the Dodsworth family from Nelson, who I'd met earlier in my trip at Ogema, showed up. However, it wasn't like in BC where I'll know every second person at a festival. Most of the folks at this festival were new to me. It is also worth mentioning that the crowd here was totally diverse, all ages and colours, although sadly lacking in a strong Metis or Native contingent.
As festivals go, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd mark this one as an eight. An eight because no festival ever gets a 10, because they made me work a little too hard, and because they didn't have enough bicycle racks, were a little short in the toilet department, although not nearly as bad as some places I've been.
Each night after the festival closed I rode my bicycle the five K back to the campsite, under a half moon set in a sky full of stars and a light north wind off the big lakes. It was quite beautiful, and nice way to wind down after a day of fun. On the last night I was later than usual, having attended the staff party and stuffed myself with pizza. A heavy dew had settled on the ground and low cloud, like fog, had moved in. It was about 3 am when I rode back to camp and there was a haunting silence to night air after all the music and excitement of the weekend.
The next morning Guill and I unceremoniously loaded up his Honda Civic with his gear, my bike and BoB, and my gear, and made tracks out of town. That afternoon we had lunch in the park at Portage La Prairie, where a week earlier I'd met up with my brother Doug. We never saw him. Later on we stopped in at Sidney, where I left a thank you note for Amanda and her friends, who'd helped me sort out my wheel problem on Canada Day. That night we stayed at Spruce Woods Provincial Park, where it rained, and rained, and rained, and rained.
Last night we were in Estevan Saskatchewan, down in the south, where we split a motel room and got on one another's nerves a little. Today we drove through the Big Muddy country, visiting towns like Melita and Killdeer. We were going to stay at Wood Mountain tonight, but opted instead to come to Val Marie. In three days we have covered a length of ground that took over two weeks for me to plow through on the bike.
Tonight, after a good dinner, I chased Guill off to the bar so I could have some time to write. He came back a while later, told me he was having fun, and not to wait up. I'm hoping a night out will loosen him up.
Unfortunately, I don't think things are going to work out as far as Guill and I making songs of my poems is concerned. He's far too distracted and in a hurry. Then tonight he broke a guitar string and announced he'd brought no replacements. He's young, maybe in 20 years, but not now. I will continue to travel with him for a day or two, or more if things go well, but methinks I will soon ditch him and get back on the bike.
Not sure where I'm going next. The Edmonton Folk Festival has said they want my help, but I'm still not convinced I'm going there. All I really know is that the summer has just begun, so this adventure is probably just getting started.
Stay tuned.
Hope you're all well.
Will
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