C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

TheJoumry Home 185marked my life. It was the sight of a hummingbird, brown and iridescent red. Istood looking down on this little miracle trying to convince myself that it reallywas a bird and not a moth.On our return to Parksville we were caught in a social whirl among neighbourswho were mostly retired English people: tea-parties, picnics, joy-rides nlled thedays. Three things only remain in my memory: certain sunsets seen fromQualicum Beach, bathing in the shallow Pacinc bay with never a soul overlookingus and visiting a shy Scotsman. Gwen would sit in his verandah sketching the bay,while he and I browsed in his cosmopolitan library; his books were his bestfriends.Our next small excursion was the climbing of Mt Arrowsmith, 5,400 feethigh. Standing on the summit, we felt as if we held Vancouver Island in the palmof one hand; the clearings in the great forest below were no larger than a pockethandkerchief. We could see the mainland beyond the sound as we stood there onequal terms with clouds and snowclad peaks. Far below us was a deep, green lakeand to northward there were other lakes below the main range of Arrowsmith.That world was like an opal.We soon set off on another camping expedition, making for Great CentralLake in the heart of the island, travelling by "stage" motor bus through rawcountry and magnincent forest to Alberni. We slept in the Ark, a tiny hotelfloating on a lake, built on logs and anchored. Next day we went by gas boat, threehours' journey up the lake to our camp, a dirty cabin with a boat, clean linen andnrewood all let out to us for a dollar a day. Our solitude was complete. Gwen andI pitched our sleeping bags on a rocky knoll above the lake, with pointed £Irs allround and brilliant stars over head.Next morning, we all set out early to walk 12 miles to Dalla Falls, but after threemiles D.D. returned to her sketching. This country was like the North, it wasoutsize, immeasurable, untamed. We walked beneath enormous trees, past hugeboulders embedded in turbulent rivers and had to cross them by rough bridgesof felled trees and at last we came to the thundering waterfall. After a 24-milewalk, we had early supper on the knoll and again slept out under the stars. Twodays later we were travelling back by the "stage" to Parksville, with a blood-redsunset in the west and Mt Arrowsmith, now deep purple. looming overhead.When we left Parksville we made the CPR journey in stages, so as to passthrough the Rocky Mountains by day. Trees were beginning to colour up for thefall; maples were red. dogwood deep crimson, poplars gold and green and some-