The Curve of Time, by M. Wylie Blanchet
After her husband passed away, “Capi” Blanchet packed her 5 young children up onto their 25 foot motor boat and embarked on a series of travels in and around the inside passage of western British Columbia, in search of old Indian villages and other bits of Canadian history. The amazing part of this story is that this was in the late 1920’s!
The individual essays in this book were remarkable, interesting, daring and unbelievable. Capi and her children had close encounters with wildlife (bears and cougars), treacherous tides, and poor weather but at the same time met kind strangers living in the remote forests of BC’s west coast and followed in the footsteps of some of Canada’s earliest explorers and settlers.
The book, however, is really not much more than a personal travel diary. It lacks the benefit of an insightful editor who might have been able to suggest an overarching theme to tie all of the stories together and provide some kind of denouement. Reflecting on my own travel diaries, of which I have many, I can see they really serve more as personal memoirs than essays for public consumption. That said, I believe there is enjoyment to be found in reading a travel diary as it happens if you have a vested interest in the person travelling or the places being travelled to. As stories of past events, however, aren’t they just a little ponderous? Maybe the trick with Blanchett’s book is to read one entry per day, and pretend events are playing out in real time.
Rating: If you are an overachieving outdoors-person or lover of the wilds of the BC west coast then buy yourself a copy. Otherwise borrow it, or even give it a pass.