A dolphin of Desolation. Photo by Kevin "Flo-Ro" Rowan

“There is always something to see” – Russell Letawsky, Hermit of Desolation Sound

That credo came true again this weekend in the Sound, as myself and several close friends were treated to a spectacular show of oceanic nature at sunset… earlier that day we had heard that a large pod of Pacific white sided dolphins had been spotted a few different times in our inlets, and were putting on quite a show, leaping out of the water and showing little fear of boats, swimming right up and around them.

We were off on our own adventures in a different part of the Sound when we heard about the dolphins, and thought for sure we’d have missed them when we got back to our cabin hours later. Amazingly, the pod was still there, and we were able to power Big Buck$ over to see them. I pulled up and stopped the engine a couple of hundred metres away so as to not disturb them and view from a respectable distance, when to our shock and delight, they all headed straight in our direction not once, but several times, swimming around and right under old Big Buck$.

In thirty years of off-and-on visits to Desolation Sound, I have never seen anything like it. Besides being with my wife, friends and family all weekend, it was the best birthday gift I could have ever hoped for.

What’s your favourite wildlife encounter?

Here’s the video:

Thank you, book gods!

From the publicity peeps:

“CBC personality Grant Lawrence released his first book, Adventures in Solitude, in September of 2010 (Harbour Publishing), and it’s been a wild ride ever since. In April 2010, Adventures in Solitude won the BC Book Prize for Book of the Year. Since then, the book has been the #1 BC Bestseller for twelve straight weeks, and continues to be in the top ten of various national bestsellers lists. Adventures in Solitude is Grant’s memoir of his time spent at his family cabin on the wild west coast of BC, and is titled after the New Pornographers song of the same name.

Throughout the summer, Grant Lawrence will be making select stops at festivals, both musical and literary, across Canada.”

Grant Lawrence’s Summer Tour Dates

Fri – Sun July 15 – 17 – Home County Folk Festival, London ON
– hosting the mainstage Friday and Saturday night, with an Adventures in Solitude workshop on Saturday afternoon at 1:30pm at the South Stage w/ local London musicians Eddie Jeanveau, Marty Kolls and Sam Taylor performing songs mentioned in the book.

Fri – Sat Aug 5 -6 – Regina Folk Festival, Regina SK
– hosting the mainstage Friday night, and taking part in a storytellers and songwriters workshop on Saturday afternoon at 12:30pm at the Sunlit Stage #3 w/ Shotgun Jimmie, Rah Rah, and Jeff Straker.

Sun Aug 7 – Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts, Sechelt BC
– doing a reading / talk / signing at 10:30am at the Festival Pavilion. Other authors attending include Margaret Trudeau, John Vaillant, Timothy Taylor and many others.

Sat Aug 13 – Refuge Cove Gallery, West Redonda Island, Desolation Sound BC
– the last book event of the summer, and it’s in Desolation Sound. A free, afternoon event featuring a reading / talk / signing, and a special musical performance by Jill Barber. This event is boat-access only!

Rebecca from Mount Pearl Newfoundland shows off her Amor fati tattoo in Toronto.

One of the main characters in my book Adventures in Solitude is a Toronto businessman turned Desolation Sound Hermit named Russell Letawsky. He was a student of philosophy. While he was in Toronto, he specifically became fixated with one of Nietzsche’s favourite phrases, Amor fati: Latin for “love of fate,” or more specifically, “love your fate.” In Nietzsche’s 1882 book The Gay Science, he writes:

I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.

The passage was one of the catalysts for Russell to leave Toronto’s rat race and wind up in Desolation Sound, and its a credo that he’s stuck with all of his life, and has subsequently played into mine as well. Imagine my surprise when I received a Tweet from sweet Rebecca Gladney of Mount Pearl, Newfoundland, who picked up the book at her local Chapters. She was moved enough by the philosophic poetry of Amor fati to get it tattooed on her inner forearm!

I was able to meet Rebecca at the North By Northeast Music Festival and was delighted to see the tattoo in person.

Amor fati,

Grant Lawrence