The Shadowlands: Camping on Galiano Island

I have just spent the past day and a bit recovering from the 3 day camping trip that Cassie, Mel and I took. It wasn't that laborious, but something about sleeping outdoors always makes me very tired by the end of such an adventure. We took the ferry from Tsawwassen on Thursday to Galiano Island and stayed at the Montague Harbour camping ground. It is quite a beautiful little spot and was rather peaceful. According to the park warden, we had just missed a group of 145 high schoolers who had been on a biking trip and had stayed at the site the night before. We actually saw some of them heading down to the ferry as we left the dock, so that must have been the tail end of the group. He mentioned that they were going over to Salt Spring Island next, so it's a good thing we didn't decide to go there instead. It would have been really annoying to have so many people around us when all we wanted to do was get out of the city for a few days.
I particularly enjoyed this trip because it reminded me of camping in Ontario even though we were on the ocean. I haven't been exposed to much salt water marine life since I grew up around the infamous fresh water oceans of the Great Lakes, so getting to see crabs, starfish, a sea anemone, and clams that spit water through the sand was pretty damn interesting to me.
Cassie gave Mel and I a brief lesson on Coastal archaeology in BC and showed us how to distinguish shell middens along the seashore. I like knowing the history of places that I am staying in, although sadly, I probably won't ever work on a Coastal dig because it just doesn't interest me enough beyond curiosity. I feel this way about prehistoric archaeology in Ontario as well. I haven't minded the few times that ASI has sent me out to work with other crews who work on the native villages, but by the end of the day I am usually bored of measuring palisade post holes and looking for pottery. The most interesting sites to me, are contact sites, where the so-called prehistoric and historic populations mixed usually through trade although sometimes cohabitating as well.
Anyhow, I have digressed. Galiano is very lovely and peaceful and I would go back there again if I am back in BC for an extended period of time, like a vacation of more than a week. The only thing that was slightly off-putting about the experience was the obvious dislike that some of the islanders have for 'mainlanders'. You'd think that people would just be nice to one another regardless of where they are from. I understand that the islanders live on Galiano to escape a busier lifestyle, and that they probably tend to think of outsiders as imposing on their tranquility, but at the same time, city folk also go there to experience the same things albeit in a briefer span of time. You would hope that they would respect the tourism that funnels cash into their businesses, but some just don't see it that way at all.
We went into the town area on Friday to get some juice at the grocery store/garage and Cassie said one of the local men who was standing there made some comment about the Simple Life while staring at her. I can't imagine a ruder comment because we certainly don't act, dress, or disrespect people like Paris Hilton, and nor was our camping trip meant as some little jaunt to experience 'hardship' or a different side of life that we know nothing about. Off-hand remarks like that are annoying because this man doesn't know us or our backgrounds, he just knows that we aren't from Galiano and therefore, we aren't truly 'roughing it in the woods'. I know I shouldn't be up in arms about this, but it sucks to have a comment like that even vocalized. Besides, if this man had thought about the implications of that comment, he would know that on the Simple Life, those girls go out of their way to find the most hick-like places in the US and go out of their way to belittle local citizens like himself. That was hardly the goal of our trip.

Anyways, here are some pics from the trip.