Meet the New Neighbors!

It’s been a very noisy past few days on our normally quiet road. Roberts Creek is noisier than Point Roberts because we are closer to roads that permit speeds of 40-50 mph. Also, ambulance sounds are more common as late night drivers fall off the road and into the ditches with remarkable frequency. Nevertheless, it’s still a pretty quiet place compared to the city.

The sounds that one really doesn’t like to hear are the noises of big chain saws. There’s plenty of arguing about how many trees ought to be cut up on the mountain, but we can’t hear the sounds of those trees being cut. On your own street, however, it’s a very big noise. And if it goes on for very long, it does make me wince.

This particular noise was issuing from a house up the road that was recently sold. I’ve walked and driven past that house every day or so for the past fourteen years and never gotten a clear look at it. On foot, you could stand at the edge of the driveway and actually see the shape of the house, but driving past, you knew there was a house there only because there was a driveway and a trash can on Wednesdays.

The first few days, the noise was identifiably chain saw. The third and fourth days were different: at first I thought that it was a helicopter overhead, but it turned out to be a very long logging truck, loaded right up with 20-30 foot trimmed logs from that property up the road, now driving very slowly and very noisily down our road. Then, later in the afternoon, the helicopter sound started up again and eventually a second fully laden truck came down the road past our driveway. And the next day, the same.

Many trees-now-logs have by now passed by us so, today, I walked up the road to see what had transpired. And there was the house, never before seen clearly but now in full view. Logs still piled up, so presumably the big logging trucks will be back on Monday bringing us again the sound of destruction of the owner’s and resident animals’ habitat.

Roberts Creek is famous for its trees, so it always puzzles me that people buy property here and then proceed to cut down all the trees. If you are going to build a house, you obviously have to cut some trees so you’ll have space for the house. But clearing enormous spaces of trees or of cutting any trees when the house is already built seems to me to want an explanation. I’m told that people worry about having the trees fall on their houses and that’s why they cut so many. And it’s true that tree branches often come down in the winter winds and damage roofs, but that requires the tree to be very close to the house. Some people may be just taking a little profit as the trees are worth a lot if they are cedar or fir ($1,000 or so/tree, they say), and real estate prices have gone up here sufficiently that a quick profit may be needed. Some people are said to want more light. But then, why buy a house in the northwest where it is mostly grey (even on the Sunshine Coast) and mostly forested and not very light? Maybe it is just a manifestation of humans’ desire to improve things or at least to change them or to make them more like where they came from (the prairies?). Maybe it is just a yearning for a creative touch, for making what is in some way different and thus one’s own.

Whatever it is, I hope it isn’t followed by a need for a lawn, a riding mower, a weed whacker, and then a leaf blower, but I won’t be surprised if they and their accompanying noise all appear, as the days and seasons go by.