L-R George, Charlie, Cara, Grant, Lindsay

I just staggered home from a weekend at the third annual Galiano Island Literary Festival. It was most definitely an honour to attend; here’s my top ten highlights of the festival.

1. Galiano Island Book Store Staff. Lee, Jim, Lindsay, Peter, Seonaid, and Nick are all fabulous people, a unique team and an engaged, community-minded staff who work extremely hard to put on this amazing yearly event.

2. George Bowering. Canada’s first poet laureate may also be the “Keith Richards of Can-Lit”*. Astoundingly, he is also the author of 100 books, and at age 76, partied harder and with better humour than any other author in attendance.

3. Dec 21, 2012. Veteran comedian and former CBC star Bob Roberston kicked off the festival with a hilarious keynote/reading from his new book The Mayan Horror, preparing us for the End of Days as the Mayan calendar comes to a close this December.

4. Bruce Springsteen. As all manner of weather whipped around Galiano Island’s community hall on Sunday afternoon, inside we were treated to a reading by Victoria writer Robert Wiersema on his new memoir Walk Like A Man: Coming of Age with the Music of Bruce Springsteen. Between readings, the Cold Cold Hearts entertained us with Boss songs.

5. Galiano Island Inn and Spa. The headquarters of the festival, and what a beautiful place, perfectly capturing the west coast spirit with just the right balance of rustic chique and boutique elegance. Highly recommended for an easy, upscale getaway weekend from Vancouver or Victoria. Every room has an ocean view and a wood burning fireplace! Great restaurant and bar, too. Owner Conny and her husband are extremely kind and attentive.

6. Charles Demers. Charlie conducted a brilliant workshop on comedy writing that was at once insightful, engaging, and totally hilarious. Listen for Charlie on The Debaters, watch for him on a comedy stage near you.

7. The Hummingbird Pub. Getting away from the crowd at the Inn on Saturday afternoon, I zipped over to the island’s famed Pub and was greeted by Deb, who served me up a delicious bison burger while I sat by the fire with a cold bottle of Piper’s Ale and plunked away on another chapter of my new book.

8. Sunset at Montague Harbour. No, that’s not the title of my next book, just me on my lonesome on a beautiful shell covered beach at the deserted Montague Harbour Provincial Park watching the sun set over the winding channels of the Gulf Islands.

9. Timothy Taylor. The acclaimed author of Stanley Park announced the subject of his next book, a non-fiction story of the intertwining lives of refugees from the Iran-Iraq War who both by chance wind up in Vancouver. He went into much more detail and he instantly hooked everyone in the room.

10. Galiano Island Weather. We experienced it all this weekend: rain, wind, fog, snow, hail, sleet, and glorious sunshine, as spring slammed into winter on the West Coast, one season wanting to arrive, the other refusing to leave. Spring temporarily won the battle; we sailed home across the Strait of Georgia under sunny skies and calm seas.

Thanks to everyone at the Festival and on the Island for showing me a great time.

*a late night Robert Wiersema quote.

The greatest show in the history of Canadian television is celebrating its 40th anniversary. The Beachcombers first aired on October 1, 1972, on CBC, airing for an unprecedented 18 years, making it the longest running show in English Canadian television history.

I grew up with The Beachcombers, watching it every Sunday night at 7pm, immediately following the Wonderful World of Disney, which started at 6pm. Then, the unmistakable theme song of The Beachcombers would start up, with the iconic imagery of the massive cedar log rolling down into the water, which pretty much summed up the concept for the show.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall the day this show was pitched.

Idea man: “Here’s the concept: A Greek guy and his First Nations buddy drive around in their shitty boat collecting logs. Every week. For twenty years”.
CBC Executive: “Gold. Done deal”.

My entire family loved the show. My sister and I loved it for the adventure and sometimes admittedly lame sit-com style set ups, Dad loved it for its spot-on warts-and-all depiction of life on the West Coast, the final frontier, with its scallywag multicultural characters like Bruno, Relic, and Pat, on bashed up boats that could do jumps, adults and kids alike wearing no life jackets ever, scavenging logs for a living, all in front of a backdrop of thick forests and majestic mountain peaks. It was like Dukes of Hazzard on water and 100% Canadian. Mom liked it because it brought all of us together in one room as a family.

When I was in grade two, my elementary school went on a field day downtown to CBC Vancouver. As we were crossing the lobby, our class came upon the towering Jackson Davies, one of the stars of The Beachcombers. He stopped to chat with the class. “Can anyone tell me which role I play on The Beachcombers?” he asked the class. My tiny hand shot up at the back of the class, my glasses fogging with excitement as I yelled out “you’re Constable Constable!” Jackson Davies smiled and said “That’s right, kid. You may have a future at this place”. Years later, as a adult and working at CBC, I met Jackson Davies on a BC Ferry and was able to tell him the story.

Like most once-great TV shows, The Beachcombers sputtered in its later years, suffering from ever-worsening, gimmicky, desperate scripts. Eventually the show was cancelled in 1990. By then, the show was pure nostalgia to me, as my friends and I constantly referenced it, making fun and roasting it but loving our memories of it at the same time.

Decades later when it came to writing my book Adventures in Solitude, The Beachcombers was a major influence in more ways than one. Dad had always compared the real life scallywags of Desolation Sound to those we saw each Sunday night on CBC, something I remembered as I typed out my tribute to the coast.

When I was having great difficulty getting any publisher to even look at the book, everyone telling me it was “too regional”, I kept thinking back to The Beachcombers, and how hugely successful that show was. Not only did Canadians love to see these raggamuffin characters face off against each other and Mother Nature on the wild west coast, but so too did viewers from around the world, making The Beachcombers one of the most exported Canadian TV shows ever. The Beachcombers soaring transcendence, like Relic’s boat over a sandbar, inspired me to keep trying.

This year, the Sunshine Coast Museum has an exhibit chronicling the 40th anniversary of this truly Canadian landmark show. I’ll definitely be stopping into Gibson’s to pay my respects to Bruno, Relic, Pat, Constable, Molly, and the rest.

Watch an entire classic episode of The Beachcombers.

Thanks to Jo-Ann Roberts from All Points West for showing me the awesome video above by Duane Burnett.