Time: Not on Our Side

All of the Sunshine Coast, like Gaul, is divided into three parts: Gibsons, Roberts Creek, and Sechelt. Roberts Creek is by far the smallest (only 3,300 people here), but it is also by far the most distinctive. Gibsons is famous for being the slightly picturesque town in which the CBC filmed a very popular and soapy kind of TV show many years ago (before we got here, which is now 16 years ago) and is the first stop for tourists getting off the ferry. Sechelt is the Coast’s town with the largest population, but it is in most ways even less memorable than Gibsons. (Well, they both have marinas, wonderful ocean views and lots of trees, but in Sechelt the trees are mostly gone until you get up into the mountain areas.)

Roberts Creek, by contrast, has barely any town and no business to speak of or to see, by intention. In the 1960’s, lots of American boys facing the draft and Vietnam made their way to Canada as draft dodgers and Canada welcomed them. Lots of them made their way to Roberts Creek, where they continued the leftist, hippy, free-wheeling life that had inclined them to want to avoid Vietnam in the first place. And many of them are still here, working to keep Roberts Creek as it always was. In 1994, Roberts Creek embarked upon a town plan which was intended to solidify the common view of the Creek: nature (including substantial amounts of marijuana growing) not commerce. There are only two roads that go through the Creek along the north-south route, and according to the town plan, neither of them was to have any business on them. Only one little east-west street, about a block long, was zoned for commercial enterprises. So, you could drive through Roberts Creek on the highway and never even know that you had been there. All you see are trees, which obscure the ocean.

Back before the town plan was made, there was a plant nursery that was visible from the 2-lane highway, but it wasn’t accessible from the highway. Across the road from it was a dog kennel, but I think it must have been a home business. And there was the Peninsula Motor Inn, which featured ‘E OTIC DANCERS.’ I could never decide whether their letter set had no X or whether they wanted you to imagine that they had dancers with an R rather than an X, but just didn’t want to say so. Anyway, the Pen Inn, the nursery, and the dog kennel were grandfathered in.

And that is how it still is, 14 years later. No visible business on the highway for a ten-mile stretch beginning with the beginning of Roberts Creek, and ending with Roberts Creek Provincial Park and Rat Portage Hill. On the other hand, it is not exactly how it still is. The Pen Inn burned down and hasn’t been replaced by anything yet. And that little commercially zoned area has filled out quite a bit. Fourteen years ago, there was a library/post office building, a general store, a hair salon, and ‘The Gumboot,’ a hippy café. On any sunny day, you could go there and the place would look like it was hosting a touring company of Hair. Lots of long hair, lots of wild beards, lots of long, Indian skirts on the girls who carried babies in slings on their back. Lots of bare feet, even, as well as the smell of dope and incense. And if you wanted, Erica Snowflake would arrange to take you on a fairy tour of the local mountains. The walls featured art of the original period.

I haven’t seen Erica for the past couple of years and the hippy quality of The Gumboot has decidedly deteriorated, although people are still very friendly, and there’s still a very 60’s wall painting (see picture above). The Gumboot itself has spun off a second business, a restaurant for fine dining. The owners built a large greenhouse next to the restaurant to ensure that their dining patrons have the finest of fresh lettuce and whatever else can be grown in greenhouses. The original Gumboot specialized more in granola and huevos rancheros and big plates of fried potatoes. Ah, well, time passes and all things change.

There is also a new building complex called ‘Heart of the Creek,’ tastefully built, that houses a woodworking school (where the students and teachers make exquisite little boxes and cabinets that are priced in the thousands of dollars), a large kayak and other adventure equipment rental store, an osteopathy/acupuncturist office, a health food store where a pound of organic flour will cost you around $3, and a clothing store that specializes in things made of hemp and organic cotton. The clothing store also sells and uses incense and among their dwindling stock of 60’s goods you can yet find a string of Tibetan prayer flags. I bought some because I’m afraid the Creek is in need of a few prayers.