Enjoy your visit — or else
by Kate Zimmerman for the North Shore News
THE schoolmarm buried within me is clamouring to get out.
We all have one, and it’s no insult to modern schoolmarms or schoolmen to say so. The schoolmarm is a persona that derives from latter-day archetypes, probably Victorian. She’s bossy, knows it all, and brooks no opposition. She may no longer wear a bustle, but she might as well — she’s all business.
If this description suits you and you happen to be a teacher, don’t be offended. Simply be pleased that you found the right career. That take-charge quality is crucial if you’re going to be a teacher anyone pays attention to, and the nicest teachers can — and do — turn it on and off. They can freeze the soul of a five-year-old with one stern word if required, but they rarely unleash their awesome power.
My awesome schoolmarm power is screaming to be unleashed. It wants to leap out of my open maw and start throwing its insanely huge weight around. The reason is plain: summer visitors. Visitors to the North Shore must be catered to, yes, but they must also be bossed and managed within an inch of their lives.
That’s my theory, and I might as well have stepped out of Anne of Green Gables for the brute imperiousness I long to exhibit as a self-appointed expert on this locale. I am Anne’s Mrs. Lynde times Marilla Cuthbert, multiplied by three. When informing my guests of my plans for their day, my demeanor makes Hitler’s speeches look meek.
Perhaps this rings a bell with you. Those of us with inner schoolmarms find it impossible to imagine that visitors (the welcome ones, at least) would descend upon anybody who lives in North or West Vancouver and be left to their own devices.
Why would we allow houseguests to sit in our living-rooms twiddling their thumbs and leafing through TV Guide when they could be teetering, screaming, above Lynn Valley Canyon on a rickety bridge? It’s free, to boot.
And I ask my fellow schoolmarms: Should an amateur gardener be permitted to leave these environs without a stop at Park & Tilford Gardens (“Also free!”) for a fragrant ramble and a few gasps at the impossibly verdant fuchsias overhead? Even if we have to handcuff these guests to our car’s bicycle rack and whisk them at full speed down Mountain Highway, they must be forced into touristy pleasures.
It’s all about showing off. We want our friends and relations to see why we live in what might amount to shacks in their own more reasonably-priced cities. We want them to marvel at the magnificent cedars towering over our houses. We ache for them to see a bear and get to take away their one lifelong bear story — every Canadian’s birthright. We need to flaunt the innumerable splendours around us, and bask in their reflected glory.
“No, I do not garden,” we will acknowledge as visitors look askance at the dry turf and overgrown shrubs in our own back yards. But then we can add loftily, “Why would I bother when I’m living in such a naturally beautiful place?”
Likewise, most of us do not have an ocean view. But we can take out-of-towners to Dundarave or Ambleside or Deep Cove for an evening picnic that is sure to knock hem out. And that view is free … as we will be sure to note in one way or another.
To this dictatorial end, for months I have been writing a personal guide to the area for the Toronto friends with whom my family is swapping houses. Truth be told, I am more excited about their coming here than I am about going there. I wish I could personally ferry them around town to my own family’s favourite haunts — the less obvious ones that they might otherwise miss in their enthusiasm to cross several bridges and see, say, Granville Island. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. A few hours “over town” is permissible.)
One thing is clear. If I were truly filling the shoes of a martinet by playing North Shore tour guide, there would be no sleeping in. I would blow a trumpet in the morning to wake them up, then zip them to Deep Cove to breakfast on a Honey’s doughnut and rent kayaks for an hour or two on the peaceful waters of Indian Arm. I would march them to Lonsdale Quay and point out the excellent crepe stand and the oyster vendor and the glowing, jewel-like mounds of B.C. fruit, and show them exactly how a child must climb the sculpture at Waterfront Park. I would reveal the intriguing new Iranian food mart and café on Lonsdale, and boast that there are so many Iranians here that the second language in North Shore schools is Farsi.
I would force our householders at twig-point — the whole family, nobody staying behind in the gloom to watch Maury and eat Jos. Louis — along my favourite walks, along Lynn Creek, Lynn Headwaters, Mosquito Creek, and through the woods and onto the rocks at Lighthouse Park, preferably with picnic in tow. Children would be rewarded for exercising against their will by a trip to Big Pete’s on Lonsdale for comic books.
My bosom as full of hot air as a conceited thrush, I would insist on these newcomers sampling pizza from Colosseum and stopping in at Casual Gourmet for the delicious surprise of it. Delany’s — in Edgemont or West Vancouver — would be a must for coffee, La Regalade or L’Emotion for dinner. If they refused to gasp at the glory of Granola King granola I wouldn’t answer for the consequences.
Not all my energies would be devoted to promoting this particular neighbourhood. Several B.C. products would also receive their due. My pals would be ordered to part with some substantial coin for wonderful Salt Spring Island cheese, if only because they can’t get it in Ontario, and sourdough breads from Terra — the fig and anise in particular. And if they wanted to drink anything other than B.C. wine or local beer they would be sternly chastised.
Yes, I’d be a regular drill sergeant, an incomparable pain in the rear, a scoffer at the concept of my visitors’ free will. I would drive them nuts. And afterward, they’d remember their holiday on the North Shore as one of the best they’d ever had.
Too bad I won’t be here to ruin it for them in person. Armed with my personal 10-page instructive manual, various impersonal guidebooks, numerous pamphlets, and articles efficiently clipped from newspapers and magazines, they’ll just have to muddle along on their own.
Writing > Humour
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