These pictures were taken on April 21, 2007. This was the date of my next trip to Fort St John.
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FORT ST JOHN - introduction
Dawson Creek
In Dawson Creek, there are many businesses with names and purposes similar to that of those in Fort St John.
photographs: Dawson Creek's Masonic Temple which has a restaurant below which serves chicken wraps and salmon melts. I tried the chicken wrap which was delicious.
photograph: The Cedar Lodge Motel in Dawson Creek.
photograph: Dawson Creek's bus station. My vector of entry, always, into Dawson Creek.
photograph: Not to slavishly photograph similar buildings of Dawson Creek and Fort St John, I thought that I would include this building in Dawson Creek which has a kind of Planet of the Apes look about it.
photograph: The Traveller's Inn in Dawson Creek. When I was staying in Chiang Mai, I also stayed at a hotel called, wait for it, the Traveller's Inn.
photograph: The Pouce Coupe water cistern. Not as graphically resplendant as the Fort St John water cistern.
It was Sunday afternoon, and I thought that I would take a walk through Dawson Creek.
There are sure some gorgeous women in Dawson Creek.
photograph: White Spot in Dawson Creek.
photograph: The Dawson Creek hospital.
photograph: A bunch of supports for football practice dummies. A little dog was in the picture so I decided to include her in the picture as well.
photographs: 8th Avenue in Dawson Creek which looks like 100th Avenue in Fort St John which is Fort St John's main arterial thoroughfare.
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THE NORTH
There is a new movie with Charlize Theron and Woody Harrelson called 'North Country' which is set in Minnesota. In Dawson Creek, we (in this case, when I say "we", I mean "I", just like Victorian Englanders did) refer to that as "South Country" as Minnesota is even further South than Vancouver.
My friend from Britain, Steve Cleary likes to talk about people from "the West". I am talking about "The North".
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FORT ST JOHN
"It's Better To Travel" -Swing Out Sister
First impressions:
The bus trip was a pleasurable roll through hills of green and gold. I saw a deer running across the meadow. There were as well the inevitable cows in a farm along the highway.
On the way to Fort St. John in the town of Taylor, there is a mini-zoo. Hmm, I might visit that one day...
Photographs: Rolling into town on the Greyhound, these are the first visual impressions of the town at the Greyhound station.
The City of Fort St John is noticeably larger than Dawson Creek. Fort St John has 15,000 people while Dawson Creek has 11,000 people.
Being farther North than Dawson Creek, it is about a couple of degrees cooler here.
The town is a lot larger than Dawson Creek. I got here at 9 am precisely on the dot!
From Dawson Creek, the trip takes exactly one hour with no stops in between.
It did not take me long to accidentally stumble upon the White Spot restaurant where I will have a meal. I visited the Fort St. John branch of The Northern Toybox which is the local version of 'Toys R' Us'. There is a Dawson Creek branch as well. This store is very much like The Games People in Gastown, Vancouver, and is also reminiscent of The Kid's Market on Granville Island, Vancouver.
I walked around. The people here are tremendously friendly. Just like Dawson Creek.
I walked to a residential neighbourhood. Usually a block is composed of four corners and contains houses. I walked on a triangular mini-block.
I saw a sign that said that a certain movie theatre was closed and to go to Totem mall for the Aurora theatre. That 'Totem mall' part of the sign was spelled, "LIDO IS CLOSED SEE US AT THE AURORA IN TOT EMMA LL" Emma. Reminds me of a most beautiful blonde-haired girl that I met in Vancouver. She is amongst the most beautiful women that I have ever met.
I went to a restaurant named Lynne's restaurant. Lynne is the name of a friend of mine in Vancouver who happens to be a hemiplegic. I thought of her when I saw the restaurant and thought, "Why not, I will go in for a meal." Well it turned out that the building was composed of two halves, one part being a restaurant, and the other side being a convenience store. As it turned out, the restaurant was totally closed, ergo half of the building that is Lynne's restaurant turned out to be closed. Kind of like Lynne.
Speaking of signs, I saw a Dairy Queen sign that read
PEEL IN
FOR A
BANANA SPLIT.
One half of the sign of concealed. The concealment was so contrived, that from the angle of the part of the sign that was effectively obcured, it read, PEE FOR BANANA!
I should have taken a photo of that for National Lampoon Magazine.
On the rest of today's itinerary, I plan to go to the Aurora theatre and to watch a movie. I will go to White Spot for a meal. And I will return to Dawson Creek on the 7 pm bus. The trip costs $13.68 cdn each way, it is not an expensive excursion, and not a bad way to spend the day.
Written in Fort St. John
At the Fort St. John Public Library
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Prolegma: Fort St. John is one of the oldest settlements in Canada. The early traces of it could be traced back to 1799. In the first few decades of Fort St. John's erstwhile incarnation, the site of the Fort moved many times. About five times.
The town was registered as a town at around 1956. In 1960, it had the status of a city.
Going to Fort St. John is like going in a time machine to see what Dawson Creek will look like in about twenty years from now. Dawson Creek has a population of about 11,000. And Fort St. John has about 18,000 people.
The hill that runs down Fort St. John from the Library and the Cultural Centre to the museum is very much like the hill that is 8th Street in Dawson Creek.
I walked around and at one point as I sat down on a bench outside a Church, a good song was on my radio walkman, Blind Melon 'No Rain'.
photographs: The hill that is 100th Avenue in Fort St John.
A Fort St. John pet store, located across the street from the Greyhound Bus Station has a wonderful variety of pets. There is one aquarium that had a clownfish, and guess who that reminded me of? Finding Nemo.
I went to the Condill Hotel. Now this is my kind of hotel and for anyone in Vancouver on welfare looking to relocate, giving you the name of a hotel that you could make a beeline to after getting off the Greyhound bus should be a bit of a help. I met a friendly Native guy there named Leo. I should have stayed and talked longer. He said that the town was positively booming, and that the Pub of the Condill Hotel needed two grill cooks, right now! He said that he was looking for two men to work in the oilfields of Fort St. John. He said that the job just requires walking. One has to stop in some placers the size of a glass of beer, and he demonstrated unsing a glass of beer, placers with a spike. He said he made $17,500 in 3 months! One of the few jobs that pay more than that is Alaska King Crab fisherman, and Alaska Ophelio Crab fisherman who get paid on average of $16,000 a week!!!! And that is just the pay for a deckhand. The captain of the ship gets much more. At any rate, Fort St. John is booming.
In fact, in Fort St. John, there is at least one 'Help Wanted' sign on every block!
After, I went to the Totem Mall. Unfortunately, they only show movies during the evenings there. Then I went to WalMart. I was looking for a Nintendo GBA game called Fire Emblem which is supposed to resemble Lord Of The Rings; The Third Age.
They have this in Dawson Creek! When I first arrived here, I thought I was the only one for miles around to have a Nintendo GBA. I felt pampered; with a unique luxury.
Far from it, for they sell Nintendo GBA and games at Zeller's and at WalMart in Dawson Creek and Fort St. John.
The museum of Fort St. John was excellent. I saw some dinosaur tracks for the first time and was shocked at the size of them. No wonder the Chinese as well as the Europeans believed in dragons. They must have seen a lot of dinosaur tracks, bones, etc.
There was an excellent representation of a Native teepee. I wonder how they or anyone could survive in 60 degree Celsius below zero in something as flimsy as that. My conclusion is that during the winter, they lived in other structures. They must have!
At the museum was a very nice replica old log cabin. I could see myself living there with a small potbellied stove and a cast iron griddle.
photographs: The entrance to the museum. It is a wholesome and solidly built house.
photograph: Me, your guide on this photographic trip to the Fort St John museum.
photograph: A picture of a Native Teepee containing some of the relics of that old historical culture.
photograph: The digs of an 18th Century fur trapper. I wouldn't mind living in a place like this out in the bush far away from anybody if if had electricity and internet.
photograph: The museum display of an old tyme one room school house. Multitasking was a requirement as the teacher was required to simultaneously instruct a schoolroom composed of 5 grades of elementary school students.
photograph: Cats, cats, cats, porcelain statues of cats. There are some white blue, as well as green eyed cats. There are a few Siamese cats. Each cat represents a girl I have... kissed.
photograph: A museum display of an old fashioned hospital room. The photo of King George the Sixth and the Queen Mother are cleary visible above the bed.
photograph: A display of dentistry in times way past.
photograph: A cozy kitchen.
photograph: It's me!
photograph: A bedroom, that is like, those old songs from the radio still seems new and fresh today.
photograph: A general store.
photograph: Dinosaur footprint.
photograph: An old fashioned living room.
photograph: An old Church. It must have been really interesting to go to this Church when it was active. I love those old and small Churches.
photograph: An oil derrick erected outside the Fort St John museum.
photograph: Torch in a Fort St John Park, near the museum.
Out and about. I walked the expansive wheat fields of Fort St. John and I was the only one there for miles around. So much nicer than the congested city. Cities are overrated. Small towns are underrated.
I went to White Spot and had a club sandwich with Caesar salad. I went to Dairy Queen for desert and had a caramel sundae.
photograph: The Fort St John water cistern.
photograph: A picture of the Fort St John water cistern with a quarter pipe ramp in the foreground.
Walking west, I saw the Fort St. John pump station. It looked like a solitary woman's breast replete with a cement nipple on top. But the most amazing thing about it was how it was painted. It was a colourful mural. I remarked to myself at the time that this would look awesome on L.S.D.! It was quite a psychedelic structure.
I walked through Kin Park, Fort St. John, recalling that there is a Kin Park in Dawson Creek.
Fort St. John has a nice vibe. The people there are friendly. People smiled at me.
When I left Fort St. John, I walked past the building that is FM100.1 The Moose, which is a radio station. Naturally I tuned my radio walkman to this frequency.
The trip from Dawson Creek to Fort St. John takes exactly one hour. The trip is so profound that it might well be described as more of a one-hour teleportational process where one is not only teleported to the destination, but also teleported to each point in between, and consecutively I might add, on a second-by-second basis!**
Written in Dawson Creek
Dean Noble
October 28, 2005
Dawson Creek
**Teleportation. FORT St. John. The word 'teleportation' was invented by Charles Fort in 1905. The word for teleportation that was used before was 'apport'.
The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line. The shortest distance between two points is teleportation.
Teleportation would be used to travel between planets which are thousands of light years apart. Rather than teleport from a ship to a planet's surface, after the ship itself has teleported across space, why not cut out the middleman, in this case the ship, and teleport directly from one planet surface to another?
There are birthdays, and there are teleportation days, B days and T days which are anniversaries to commemorate when one has arrived on Earth.
The part of you that falls asleep and wakes up is with you at all times even during the times you do not feel sleepy.
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FORT ST JOHN - part two
On April 21, 2007, after over a year of not having gone anywhere except Pouce Coupe, I went to Fort St John for the express purpose of snapping some photos. I also wanted to cover ground that I had not covered before.
In constructing this posting, I would rather write first and let the text guide the pictures rather than letting the pictures dictate the text.
I woke up at 7:20 in the morning, as the bus was going to leave at 8:00. I remember still being in my apartment at a quarter to eight, but luckily the bus station is just three blocks away, and walking briskly, got on the bus. The weather was obviously, decidedly cloudy and I thought of turning back. Then, it occured to me that this weather is very British, and thus, I decided to press on.
The bus left on time, and as soon as the bus moved, I put away the Nintendo DS along with the stylus as I was playing solitaire on Club House Games. The sideways moving fields seen out of the window of a moving bus were vast and undulating through windswept miles of golden grass and blue mountains. The first time one goes to a place always seems very long. However, this trip did not seem to take long at all.
As I arrived in town, I immediately started to snap some pics. Fort St John like just about every town has a Masonic temple. I first started to notice Masonic Lodges when I was in Prince Rupert when I saw their familiar compass and right angle ruler under the archway of a doorway which presumably opened directly to a set of stairs leading to an upstairs chamber.
This Masonic Lodge also has that emblem carved into the steel handrails of the staircase. This something I have never seen before.
photograph: Fort St John City Hall.
photograph: RCMP detachment station. Police Blotter 17, and Police Blotter 22...
Next was a walk through the streets of Fort St John. I walked up the main street of downtown, and then I turned left at 100 Avenue and walked to take a picture of the Fort St John RCMP station. The City Hall of Fort St John was a picture I had to be sure to take. Interestingly, I noted that the architecture of the City Hall of Fort St John is similar to the architecture of the RCMP station of Dawson Creek. The architecture of the City Hall of Dawson Creek is similar to the architecture of the RCMP station in Fort St John.
I next took a picture of Lynne's restaurant. Most intriguingly, I saw Lynne in a dream last night. I entered a rooming house. I immediately turned left to a set of stairs that went up, turned right and then then led to a door. I walked through the door, turned left to walk down a hallway, then turned left again to go through a long hallway. A chest of drawers was in the middle of the hall, to the left. That is when I saw Lynne. She was wearing a grey beret and a light purple sweater. I asked her.
"I am thinking of moving in here. What does you room look like? I would like to see as an example."
"I am busy right now, I am on my way to something."
"Could I see it? Well I already seen it, Lynne."
She groaned. She did bring me to her room, but I do not remember that part of the dream.
The next part of the dream reminds me of running with one of my adoptive sister and adoptive brother. My stepmother was running after us first at the food court of a mall, then, at an airport. I told my adoptive sister and adoptive brother to run on, I will stop her. I stood with my arms extended, ready to shield against her and stop her. My stepmother ran right through me! And then she ran to them, leading them, turning left through a hallway.
I teleported to a video arcade where I saw her. She had a full hair of black and she stood tall, with an erect carriage. She was wearing a red soft cotton trenchcoat*. It was a rich red of cherry cinnabon. A customs agent told her that part of the airport was forbidden. I remember that even though I saw my stepmother, I made sure to stay where I was. Even in the dreamworld, if you do not like someone in this world, you will not like them any more in the dream world. I remember seeing relatives that I did not like, in their younger form of course, and not wanting to really talk with them.
I am an old hand at this. I was not surprised at all that my stepmother ran right through me. I have written extensively explaining this. In the article that I wrote, 'Timeless', I wrote that in the fifth dimension, everything has the same density. Densities are only just a set of dimensional coordinates and interchangeable on demand. One can walk on air, and swim in the floor of an apartment room as if it were water.
This everything having the same density is something that I since read as referred to as the 'aetherless aether'.
See:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/discussionboard/cd/discussion.html/ref=cm_cd_dp_th/104-3110766-3979926?ie=UTF8&cdForum=FxZ58KVEERYS5E&asin=0393308359&store=books&cdThread=Tx2UP7TJA3M0XWA
Next, after eating some sushi bought at a local supermarket, I walked through the quiet neighbourhoods of Fort St John.
I thought of the water cistern and knew I had to photograph that, what with the paintings and murals emblazoned thereon. I went to the liquor store to get a couple of beers.
I decided to walk to the street the liquor store was on in the direction of the water cistern and that included a walk past the legion. I snapped a photo of the tanks where there was stickers of Britain and Canada. This reminds me of my friendship with my British pal Steve Cleary in Thailand. This also makes me think of my perpetual admiration for England and how I might one day visit England which is the Spiritual Home of the English Language.
photograph: A stone cairn monument with torches to honour and commemorate Canadian soldiers past and present who have died in the Call of Service, including those fighting in Afghanistan.
Happy coincidence. That street which the liquor store was on is the street the water cistern was on. I hit it exactly!
Trying to remember this trip in chronological order, I then walked past the Cedar Lodge Motel which I decided to take a picture of since there is a place of that name here in Dawson Creek. After that, I passed a Church.
Then I went to the museum where I took a set of photos. See above.
I went to Wendy's for lunch. I had the double cheeseburger combo to go and I ate the lunch at the illuminating torch moument.
The torch is at the park in Fort St John which also has some interesting metalwork creations.
photograph: The Movie Gallery in Fort St John.
photograph: The Dawson Creek hospital. I already appeared on the internet in surgical scrubs. I used the intensity of the paranoia associated with that energy, and wearing the straw fedora that I wore in the smile for you in the last posting, when I walked out of the hospital after walking through the halls for a few minutes, I imagined when I walked out onto the streets and anyone who would have seen me walking out of the hospital that I was a doctor, exactly like Hannibal Lecter.
I left the hospital quickly. The spirits of those recently dead always are around hospital halls. That kind of dreamlike insight always emerges for me at hospitals.
Walking around, to places I have never been to before, extending the perimter of the life boundaries of the places which I walked, however slightly, I walked past this Sikh temple.
There is culture from parts far flung here in the North evidently, as I happened upon this Buddha statue sitting on a wrought iron portico.
At one point, I saw a large female moose. It was grey with tan speckles. The moose was tall and slender. When I saw her and ran towards her with my camera, she ran away into the maze of suburban houses in the cul de sac where I saw her. This is the first time I had ever seen a moose. They show up in Dawson Creek too.
I think she was female because she was slender and not thick at the chest like males. Also she did not have antlers.
photograph: The playground of the Peace River Valley.
The Plain of Jars, the graveyard of cars. In Fort St John, at these very fields, is a graveyard of cars as apparently, people have left their old cars here in this field to die a slow and undignified oxydizing death.
photograph: A walk further along the fields.
photograph: The highway to the West of Fort St John.
photograph: People up here drink Red Bull. I see these cans everywhere.
photograph: A view of Fort St John.
photograph: The Fort St John bus station.
Fort St John is a nice place to visit.
Dean Noble
Dawson Creek, BC
April 22, 2007
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Like teleportation, my next post will be from somewhere else.
Dean Noble
