Return to Solitude

The summer may be over but British Columbia treasure Grant Lawrence visits the podcast to discuss his latest book Return to Solitude about life in Desolation Sound.

It's been over a decade since renowned broadcaster and indie rock musician Grant Lawrence launched his writing career with the award-winning Adventures in Solitude, yet some things never change - including the winding Sunshine Coast Highway, close calls at the BC Ferries ticket office and carsick children. But this time, Lawrence returns as a husband and father, not as the vomiting and nerdy kid dragged along by his athletic and unflappable parents.

Grant shares how to get Wi-Fi in Desolation Sound and what people from Savary Island actually think of him.

Adventures in Solitude by Grant Lawrence
Return to Solitude by Grant Lawrence

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

In between filling in the cracks is those that are on the run, because they realize that desolation sound is really in a way beyond the end of the law, beyond the beyond the reach of the law. And so various people end up there hiding out whether it's from the law, or from responsibility, or life or society, or whatever. And that leads, usually to a lot of great stories whether they want me to tell them or not.

Amy Mair: 1:00

Hello, welcome back to the Red Fern book review. I am your host, Amy Mair. And today I'm joined by British Columbian author, singer and broadcaster grant Lawrence. And he's here to talk about his new book, which has been sitting at the top of the DC bestsellers list for months. And it's called Return to solitude, more desolation, sound adventures with the Cougar lady, Russell, the hermit, the spaghetti bandit, and others. And if you're from British Columbia, undoubtedly you know him. And I have many listeners that are not from the area. So this will be a fun introduction for you. But I'll tell you just a little bit about Grant. He's currently currently is the host of CBC music top 20. And he's the author of four best selling books for adults and a couple of children's books. And he came on my radar with a beloved book he wrote in 2010. And this is the sequel we're going to talk about today. But that was about adventures, and solid was called it ventures in solitude. So with that, I just want to say welcome, Grant.

Unknown: 2:11

Thank you very much, Jamie. Thanks a lot for having me. And happy to be here. Thanks for the kind introduction.

Amy Mair: 2:19

So what I wanted to start with, I've had, we've been kind of chatting back and forth over Instagram this summer. And you haven't been super easy to get a hold up, because this is your moment. Summer is where you zip around the sound. And also you've been busy promoting your book, and I wanted to ask you, you haven't just been filling up Urban Libraries or public spaces, you have a different way of promoting your book. Can you tell me tell the listeners what you've been up to this summer?

Unknown: 2:49

Yeah, I mean, first of all I do. I do check out in a way in the summer I go to desolation sound I was finding it in the past that when I was doing, you know music festivals, and taking summer jobs and things like that, I was actually robbing myself of time and desolation sound, which is my favorite place in the world. And that's the subject of adventures and solitude and return to solitude, I suppose it's both the setting and the subject matter, the people are really the subject matter the place is the setting. But that's where I like to be in the summer. And it's really off grid. And it's hard to communicate, it's hard to get a signal, the cell tower is placed very poorly in the middle of nowhere. So you have to like get in a boat, go out to the middle of desolation sound, float in the in like four or 500 feet depth of water and pick up your signal and then you can communicate with people. But yeah, so it's challenging to pull off communication, but that's also a good thing. Because it's nice to just check out but the shows that you're referring to. I've been a published author, as you mentioned for 12 years now. And in the first several years, I would pretty much I mean, I would do I'd read anywhere I'd read at a garage door opening. I mean, I would do library gigs. I'd be in the back corner of bookstores, I'd be you know, anywhere and everywhere. They would have me and then I kind of had an epiphany. It took a while. It took a long time but I had an epiphany after about seven years of doing this this type of book promotion that I was before being an author. I was a touring musician, and we would never do free shows we would we would do paid gigs you know you five bucks at the door whatever. 20 bucks at the door depending on what year was, and I thought to myself, well, maybe I should be putting on a show instead of a reading in the corner of a cafe or something like that. Maybe I should have more showbiz elements because that's the world that I come from. And Stuart McLean, who's one of my great mentors and friends, and great CVC hosts from vinyl Cafe, and very sadly passed away. And he did a touring show where he did stories he wrote, read the stories and had favorite musicians play the shows, one of which was my wife, Jill, Barbara many times. And so I thought, well, maybe I could do like a West Coast, kind of almost like a tribute or a version of what Stuart McLean did nationally. And so I started doing these types of shows before COVID, very gingerly started out I remember, the first one was on Bowen Island, Dustin Bentall, actually had a big role, a musician, big role, and convincing me to do it. And it worked, the show sold out. And we and my publisher said it would never work. But my publisher has been telling me various things that won't work for many, many. As much as I love them, they can sometimes be a little negative. They said that nobody is going to they said the purpose of doing a book reading is to sell books, no one's going to buy a ticket and buy a book. But I thought, Well, when I go see when I used to go see Stuart McLean, that everybody would buy a $50 ticket. And then they all line up at the end and buy a book because they liked what they saw is just like buying a t shirt at a concert or a record at a concert. So I thought it would work. And sure enough, the first show on Bowen Island back in 2017, or something like that sold out, and a small theater, which is what I like. And then from then on, we've just had this really great run. Now, of course, we've had the pause the COVID Pause. But we we don't when I say we it's because I work with musicians. And we kind of have like a little touring. Like a like a tour group. In a way I've got a revolving cast of musicians, my wife being one of them. And, yeah, we go around the province. And my kind of rule of thumb is I like islands and resort towns, because I'm old now, you know, I don't want to be in some crappy downtown bar or something like that. I want to be in a nice place. I want to go see nice places. If I'm going to go if I'm going to leave the kids or whatever I'm going to leave home I want to go to a nice place. So that's the concept. And it's been a real joy. It's been and just I mean, I don't know when this is going to when this is going this podcast is going to drop. But you know in September when we're talking I'm about to do two shows Saltspring and Harrison hot springs this weekend. And then later in September, Gabrielle Allah and Galliano. So those types of shows with community halls, small theaters, that sort of thing, and it's just a lot of fun.

Amy Mair: 8:20

Now, can you tell people who pretend someone doesn't know about desolation sound? Can you describe it to people? And I'm sure that describe it now. But also, I want you to describe it the first time you saw it, because when you saw it in the 70s, for the first time, it was a very different place.

Unknown: 8:41

So yeah, it was I'll describe this in a couple of ways. First of all, what you have to picture is British Columbia, has a very, very complicated coastline. It's one of the most complicated coastlines in the world. And when I say conflict, complicated, I mean, as jagged, does lots of ins and outs. There's lots of little inlets. There's lots a huge deep inlets. There's lots and lots and lots of coastal islands and it creates a real web of ocean ocean passageways. And so if you've ever been to Tofino, a lot of people have been to Tofino and Vancouver Island, beyond Tofino beyond the end of that road across the ocean is Clicquot sound, which is a collection of inlets and islands. Tons of people have been to Tofino very few people have made the crossing to clockwise sound, though of course, it's totally worth it. Lund British Columbia, which is the very end of the Sunshine Coast, the end of Pacific Coast Highway One on One that stretches from London all the way down to Chile goes right through downtown San Francisco and LA beyond Lund, if you get in a boat and go out into the wild blue yonder, that's Dessel Asian sound. So desolation sound is a saltwater, oceanic paradise of mountains and inlets and islands and passageways, where my father decided to build a family cabin. Way back, he, as you mentioned, he bought it in the 70s built a cabin right around the early 80s. And we've been there ever since. And I was a little kid, when we first found desolation sound when my my dad first came across it. And to me, it was not the place that that I wanted to be. It was total wilderness. And it looked dangerous. It was either forests and cliff or ocean. And there didn't seem to be any in between. You know, at savory Island, you've got your forest and you've got a beautiful white sand beach, then you've got the ocean. There was no in between. It was just trees, Cliff ocean. And so that was a bit tough for a six year old kid. And the other bit of trauma that I experienced back then was my dad would fly a seaplane he had his pilot's license, and he had this horrible bucket of bolts piece of crap, see plane, like a beater of a plane, you don't really want your planes to be beaters, you know, maybe your car fine. Maybe a boat, not a plane. My dad's plane was a piece of junk. And I remember when I was six years old, I still between vomiting. On the inside of the windshield, I have this memory of looking over. And it was a deafening seaplane because the engine was right in between me and my dad, it was stick out into the cockpit. And I remember, my dad would tip the wings back and forth. So he can see out the window, a desolation sound below and that would make me even sicker. And but I remember when he tipped it over to my side, so I could look down, I looked out the window. But right below the window, I could see the kind of the door the metal door of the plane. And the door was rattling so hard that I could see screws loosening with the vibration in real time like screws that, in theory hold the plane together. So those are some of my earliest memories of, of desolation sound.

Amy Mair: 12:26

Now, you mentioned in your your the sequel that you've written, you talk about your daughter Gracie getting sick on the highway going up to desolation sound and you talk about it almost like you know the first time she's riding a bike or something like that. And it's fallen off the biker. And I and I thought that was really interesting because you you talk about this transition that you made in your own life where this was kind of the last place you want to go. And now it's the very place you want to go. And when did you make that transition?

Unknown: 13:00

Yeah, that's a that's a good question. I mean, so I've been through a few sort of love hate ups and downs with desolation sound. So when I was at six year old boy, I was really thinking like what fresh hell is this, my dad was very adventurous with all always drag our family to wilderness locations. And I was a nervous, nerdy little kid and really wasn't into it. But then, as I got a little bit older, eight 910. I did get into it, because we were there so much. And there was a hermit, who lived beside us who ended up becoming quite a good friend and quite a quite a mentor for me because he was so different than my dad. He lived in the wilderness, he smoked pot, he drank none of these, what my dad did. And so I was into it then. But then when I turned into a teenager, a rebellious teenager, and really got into music, I wanted nothing to do with the cabin, nor the wilderness, I wanted to be in the city with my friends. And I formed a band and eventually spent the next 20 years in downtown cities all over the world. But then once the band retired, or at least started slowing down, I realized that I my family still had this retreat, I was so fortunate and privileged to to still have this retreat, and I thought, well, maybe it'd be worth going back up there and checking it out. Nothing had changed, still spectacular, still beautiful. And I basically fell in love with it hard as an adult, and you can't drag me away from the place now. And and so those that was sort of my roller coaster, and then I realized that there are rites of passages. And so getting there whether it was by air or by car when I was a kid just equaled vomit like weather, you know, throwing up in the sea plane, or throwing up in the car on the very, very windy, Sunshine Coast Highway because as I mentioned earlier, complicated coastline. When you have a complicated coastline like ours, you get a curvy road that has to follow up that coastline and go around all those bays and inlets and coves, you know, you got Oregon, the roads straight as an arrow not so much in BC. And so those curvy roads would also destroy my stomach, and I would puke all over my mom puke all over the backseat, Puke everywhere. And I didn't really think of that as a rite of passage or a generational thing until I had my own kids strapping them into the back seat. And yes, as you allude to my, if you could ever, it's very strange to have a nostalgic feeling for vomit. But when my when my daughter vomits now I say it in the present tense because she's still doing it. And we fish tail into the URL scope ferry terminal when we do the URL scope, Ferry Terminal walk of shame, past all the other cars, you know, with with my daughter covered and throw up to the washroom at the front of the ferry lineup, I realized like, wow, this is like a family tradition that's spanned generations. This is amazing. So yeah, that these are the sorts of things that you realize my wife is is not quite as, as warm and fuzzy about these memories as I am.

Amy Mair: 16:46

Okay, so that kind of, I wanted to ask you, you mentioned the hermit, and that's Russell. Right. So yeah, that's Russell the hermit. So I want to talk about the kinds of people that are attracted to this place. And first of all, does everybody up there have a nickname, or?

Unknown: 17:08

I pretty much and I recognize that early on. Because I don't know if it is because people don't remember each other's last names, or they meet in passing. And they need some sort of shorthand, to remember who everybody is. But, you know, back in the Pioneer era, when I was doing research for the first book, I would realize that everyone was like, you know, everyone was, you know, Marcel was nicknamed Frenchie, or it was all based on nationality or background, or there was, you know, Tommy the Greek or there was Sven the speed, you know, there was all these sort of, wherever they came from, were the nicknames. And then, and then some of them started getting nicknames for the practices that they they did. For instance, the Cougar lady was nicknamed the Cougar lady because she killed a lot of Cougars that tormented and hunted and stalked her livestock. And then Russell the hermit, obviously, was the hermit of desolation sound. And so yeah, these these nicknames are kind of like beyond the end of the road shorthand, you know, and they still exist to this day. I mean, the guy who collects the garbage, the one garbage collection that we have in desolation sound is in a wonderful place called refuge Cove. And the guy who's collects the garbage is known as garbage date. And, and not the, you know, most wonderful nickname. I wouldn't want it on a, you know, an epitaph or anything, but that's how he's known. And people it just rolls off the tongue. So yeah, it's, you know, there's packrat Mike, and there's prawn Bob, and there's Karen, the mayor, and there's handy candy and St. Ghee, and all sorts of all sorts of nicknames up there for sure. Like Sesame Street, or something like Yeah, I mean, I don't think I have one or at least I don't know about it. Might have one that maybe, is not that they don't want to reach my ears.

Amy Mair: 19:25

So it, it's safe to say that if either you're looking to get away, if you're going up there looking for something new, or possibly you're hiding out from something, that's also a thing, right, like,

Unknown: 19:38

yeah, that, you know, the reasons why I mean, the first of all the, the area for many, many hundreds and 1000s Hundreds and also 1000s of years, was the NN still is the territory of the cloud, who's the Telamon and the Humboldt Whoa, First Nations and they would use is the area for, for clam gardens and for winter camps and all. There was villages everywhere and there's still mittens everywhere. And when the Pioneer age happened, people were tempted by what was advertised as, you know, Virgin farmland. But when they would get there, they realized it was actually a very, very difficult area to farm because a lot of it is hard granite bedrock, some people pulled it off, some people didn't. And then the next big wave of immigration after the pioneers was the back to the landers, and the hippies, of the 60s and 70s. And a lot of them were on the run, you know, they're running from politics, they were running from the draft, they were running from the rat race looking for a new start. That was that whole back to the land movement. And it's sort of happening again, right now in Canada, and driven mostly by economics and real estate, which is interesting to see. But really, then there was the cottagers after the back to the landers, cottagers and vacationers started coming in, in the 80s. And in between filling in the cracks, is those that are on the run, because they realized that desolation sound is really in a way beyond the end of the law, beyond the beyond the reach of the law. And so various people end up there hiding out whether it's from the law, or from responsibility, or life or society, or whatever. And that leads, usually to a lot of great stories whether they want me to tell them or not.

Amy Mair: 21:58

I was in desolation sound a few years ago, and I'm curious, maybe you even know this person, but I was on Cortes at the pub there. And this young woman comes up to the table and she she reminded me of Tinkerbell she had a hair cut, like like a pixie haircut. She was dancing around and she comes up to the table and she goes, hello, and has this very pronounced kind of British Londoner accent. And so I asked her, I said, Oh, where are you from? Because I'm thinking she's studying or has a work visa. She's like, I'm from here. Anyway, she, she said her mother was was English. And so she has adopted this accent. I just it was so eccentric. And it was just interesting.

Unknown: 22:46

Yeah, I'm not sure of the eccentric British pixie that you speak. For Tez. The only? I'm not sure where you were on Cortez. Were you in gorge harbor? Yes. Yeah. So usually, I'm on the other side of Cortez at squirrel Cove, which is kind of the entrance to desolation sound from Cortes, but now but I'll keep my eye out.

Amy Mair: 23:11

Well, why don't you Why don't you do a reading for us?

Unknown: 23:14

Sure. Let me just take a sip of water. Okay. So, I'm going to read from the book. I'm going to read from the section about a dear friend of mine is no longer around, named Bernard the German. And he was a huge he was known as the giant of desolation sound. And he was a very gruff man. He was born in Germany right after World War Two. And so he bore the brunt of the guilt of that nation. After World War Two, even though those that were born, you know, they had obviously nothing to do with it. They and so but he did have a chip on his shoulder because when he came to Canada, he faced abuse for being German. And so he had a kind of love hate relationship with his German heritage. And sometimes you work very proudly. Sometimes he had to hide it, but he was a total character and he was very, very large man. Well over six feet tall, and his favorite summer outfit was fairly European. In the very warm hot summer days of desolation sound, Bernard the German love to wear a purple speedo and a white bucket hat and nothing else. And he and during the summers he would often look after his granddaughter Bernadine, so I am going to read a story about one summer afternoon And when Bernard was looking after his granddaughter one afternoon, the friendly loyal soil said that again. One afternoon, the friendly lawyer, Darrell wanted to treat his wife and Anita to an outing up to Stewart Island for her birthday. And so they arranged for their young daughter Melissa to be babysat by Bernard and she could play with the granddaughter Bernadine. So Darrell and Anita thought that both Bernard and his wife Patricia would be there to look after the children together. But when they dropped off their daughter, only Bernard the German greeted them from the rocks in his purple Speedo. Bernard Where is Patricia? Oh, my wife was out hiking with handy candy and she won't be back till dinner. But don't worry. I'll look after the kids. You know, Bernard. It wasn't exactly what our neighbors Darryl and Anita were expecting. But Bernard had plenty of experience with kids. He had raised two daughters of his own and he looked after his granddaughter for much of the summer. So Darryl, and Anita dropped off their daughter and they headed out of the inlet in their boat. It was a beautiful summer day. So the girls then age eight and 10 Dawn their swimsuits to dive off the rocks. Bernard semi watched from a deck chair and cracked a fresh beer up at his cabin. He was just about to take his first sip. When he heard screams from the shoreline below. He jumped out of his deck chair and spilt beer all over himself and pounded down his rock staircase to find the young girls hopping about unsure, waving their arms and rubbing their legs and yelling in pain. When he calmed them down enough for an explanation, he found out that they had spotted a dreaded red jellyfish floating near them. They initially thought the jellyfish was dead, so they poked it with a stick and switched it around in the water. Unfortunately, unlike the much more common and harmless White Moon jellyfish found throughout desolation sound, the elusive much larger Lion's Mane jellyfish, which is bright red, can give you a nasty sting. Whether the jelly is alive or dead, especially when it's long, stringy tentacles which can stretch out for several meters come in contact with your skin. The jellyfish that the kids had played with was still alive. The girls had unwittingly swum through its tentacles, and their legs were in burning discomfort. Bernard stood there towering over them contemplating what to do. Then he remembered a remedy for jellyfish stings that Hugh the oyster farmer had told him about a while back, urine, human urine. As the girls rise in pain, Bernard considered his options. Should he whip out his wiener schnitzel and urinate on the girls? Would Darrell and Anita mind with the girls stand still if he peed on them? Or would he have to chase them around? What do you have enough urine for both of them? Or would the remedy be worse than the sting? Please open make it stop. Sreet Bernadine is granddaughter, and so Bernard slowly reached down for the waistband of his Speedo when suddenly he heard laughter and conversation floating across the blue water of the bay. a flotilla of kayaks filled with tourists was rounding Salina point following the coastline toward them. You can see a lot of strange things and desolation sound, but Bernard figured that peeing on children shouldn't be one of them. Instead, he hustled the girls up the stairs and into the cabin, where he rents the affected areas with cool water. Then he gave both of them some Benadryl. Within a few minutes. The girls were asleep on the couch and see none worse for wear. Bernard, the babysitter, went back out on the deck and settled into his chair. Now where was I? Oh, yeah, he cracked a fresh beer. What he didn't know at the time was that vinegar works just as well as urine on jellyfish sticks. Go. That's a true story. What year would that have been? I have no idea. 2005 Maybe? Because

Amy Mair: 30:09

that seems very 1970s. Like, no, well, I'm gonna be sort of half watching. And

Unknown: 30:15

yeah, he wasn't that. You know, by by, by the time kids are eight and 10 years old and desolation sound, they're, they're pretty much on their own. I mean, we, we do not helicopter parents, our nine year old. He's allowed down to the dock on his own, he's allowed to swim and stuff like that, but we make sure he's wearing a flotation device and we're around but we're not like right over top.

Amy Mair: 30:46

I'm sure they will be very grateful for that later.

Unknown: 30:49

Yeah, our six year old daughter a little different or a little bit more on her.

Amy Mair: 30:55

Okay, so another question, I want to ask you this book, really, I think the difference in this book, you have many of the same people or call them characters. But this is through the eyes now of being a father and husband. So how is everything changed for you? We talked about it a little bit earlier with your, your daughter and some of the memories that you know, they're sweeter now, but also, how was how was it changed for you? And what was I should ask? I should start by asking what was Jill's first reaction? When she realized that she wasn't just marrying you? She's?

Unknown: 31:34

Yeah, I mean, I think Jill is still coming to terms with that. But she married both me and a place and you know, she she can only I can handle a lot more of the cabin than she can to her credit. She did do an entire month there in July, she's a little bit more of an urbanite than I am, or at least I am now. So that but she does, she has embraced it, she has no choice. There's, I think, if we want to remain Mary, that was kind of a, you know, a deal breaker right at the very beginning that I let her know about is that this cabin is near and dear and very, very important to me. But though, and you know, so those are all changes. I mean, when I rediscovered the cabin, after my band wound down, I was quite single, I had been single for a while. And so there really was a lot of solitude up there. You know, it was just me, very contemplative. My parents weren't coming up as much anymore. It was, I had a lot of alone time up there. And that's when I started meeting the characters and all the neighbors. And, and things have definitely changed now, because I often have my wife and two little kids with me, which is great. They're going to love it too. You know, I mean, they did the month with me in July, but on Labor Day weekend, I will say that none of them came with me at all. They they had all figured they had done their time at the cabin. I wanted to go up again. It was a glorious weekend. And but they were like No, no, we're done. We want to play with our friends down in the city. And, and that's fine. I'm, I have no problem returning to solitude on my own.

Amy Mair: 33:35

And I wanted to conclude by asking you what to people on savory Island think of you?

Unknown: 33:41

Well, that's a great question. I've written a lot about savory island as a kind of juxtaposition to desolation sound. Yes. Like I mentioned it earlier, that savory Island is the beautiful white sand beaches. And it's just Oh, my goodness is just so so much of an easier place. You know, desolation, sound barnacles, seaweed cliffs, currents, and, over unsavory, everything sand. I mean, it's quite up to the top of the hillside where there's 100 foot for trees, and it's still sand, you know? I mean, it's a giant sandbar and kids can ride their bikes everywhere or walk barefoot everywhere. And there's a general store and it's just a kind of an idyllic summer setting. And desolation sound is also idyllic and very Mediterranean and very, very beautiful. But it's a rough place. It's you can you can scratch yourself up pretty quickly if you don't if you're not wearing the right footwear or the right gear. So to answer your question, for whatever reason, even though I tease, savory and savory people all the time for being incredibly good looking and you know, like Abra ambience fit shed come to life and various other descriptions. I did an event on savory. In the summer, Jill and I did one I did the readings and Jill and a couple of other musicians played songs. And of all the events that I have done around the province this year, for return to solitude, all the shows, the savory one sold out the fastest by far is sold out in a day, two days maybe completely sold out. I mean, both the promoter and I could not believe it. We were both kind of shocked. And so I was I was a little bit nervous booking the savory show, but clearly, they're they're into it. They don't mind the teasing. I'm

Amy Mair: 35:54

okay with that. I want to thank you so much for joining me today. That was so much fun.

Unknown: 35:59

Okay, thank you very much, Jamie. It was a pleasure being your guest. And thanks for having me on.

Amy Mair: 36:04

Thank you. Thanks so much to grant for coming on the podcast. That was a lot of fun. And I particularly liked his reading about phenom to German. Anyway, I also want to let you know that on social media on Facebook and on Instagram, I'm going to be giving away a signed copy of return to solitude to local listeners, so check it out there. You can find me at Red Fern book review on both Facebook and Instagram. So thanks so much for tuning in. And I will talk to you soon