The Adventures of "Juniper Jools" and the Legend of the Lost Cove.

It was a dark and stormy afternoon, or was it early morning? It was impossible to tell as today was a magical day...the day of the Summer Solstice, the day that the sun stands still and time is held in suspended animation. A day where magic can happen. This was the one day that Jools knew if she was lucky and searched hard enough, the long lost and forgotten Tiddly Cove and its treasures might finally be revealed to her.


The rain forest trail ahead of her exhaled great plumes of mist from its trees like a dragon sitting fat and happy in its lair. The mist ascended across the branches and emerged from the forest, hovering eerily at the edge as if lying in wait for it’s next victim. Jools wasn’t long into her run, about 20 minutes or so, but she knew the journey would be full of perils that only mystic and magic can bring. But she had on her trusty baseball cap and had strapped on her iPhone, because it was time to save the world!


Little by little the cloud of mist took on a dark color. It throbbed and hummed and carried the smell of bark and earth. But the smell couldn’t mask the stench of impending doom which was lurking just out of sight. Behind a berm on the edge of the trail, Jools saw the danger too late. As she ran by, the deadly nightshade plant growing in the gloom let out a puff of putrid fumes and Jools sank to the soggy, peaty ground in a toxic stupor; her mind swimming with visions of magic spells, witches and medicine men.


Some time later Jools awoke in the dark as if from a dream. She wondered out loud how she had survived. And as she struggled to sit up, the answer came to her. Her baseball cap had fallen down over her face when she fell to the ground. Not only did this extraordinary cap have an SPF of 50, but now it had saved her from the toxic fumes of the deadly nightshade plant by mimicking a gas mask. She was alive! And alive enough to feel something chewing on her foot. She sat up and watched in horror as a giant black slug chomped greedily on her new organic runners.


“Strewth! I am Juniper Jools! A woodland specialist, not a woodland slug dish! “ She exclaimed out loud with some impatience. She quickly sprang to her feet, tacky with slug slime, and sped away into the dissolving mist. It was time to get this show on the road.


Jools ran for a while and found herself free of the misty trail and running down a narrow road which snaked its way towards blue sky and the beach. Her running shoes were still a little tacky from the slug slime, but she jogged effortlessly downward. She heard a flutter and from the corner of her eye, she saw a single crow settle on a nearby tree. A little further down the road she again heard a flutter, but the single crow had multiplied and was now three. As she neared the bottom of the road, the three crows became five and instinctively Jools knew she wasn’t exactly out of the woods yet, so to speak. She picked up her running pace as the crows gathered menacingly on a telephone wire, cawing loudly. The single crow had now become a “murder” and Jools was the object of their wrath.


The nearer she got to the beach, the louder they cawed. As Jools approached the birds, one of the crows deliberately and abruptly swept down from the wire and viciously pecked her on the back of her hat. The crow was quickly followed by the rest and she was soon engulfed by the whooshing and flapping of crows intent on pecking her to death. She tried to outrun the mass of swirling birds, but it was no use, they were all around her. She tried to beat at the birds in flight, but was outnumbered and the flapping and cawing intensified. She quickly stopped, dropped and rolled into a protective position and with her left hand protecting her head, she used her right hand to intuitively pull out her trusty iPhone which was strapped safely in her pocket. She knew she had the perfect “scarecrow” in her iTunes library. Working quickly, she tapped on Celine Dion and let her rip full blast in the direction of the crows. The shrieking strains of “All By Myself” was more than enough for the terrified crows to take to the air and swoop off towards the beach.


Jools quickly headed in another direction, towards the base of a steep hill. She was no stranger to running hills, but this one was as steep as the side of a tall building. After about 10 minutes her heart was beating its way right out of her chest and the sweat poured off her like shower water, but she was almost at the top. Her legs felt like jelly and she was thinking about slowing her pace when all of a sudden, the road began to move backwards. Now she was running, but not going anywhere. The faster she ran, the faster the road flung her backwards. What trickery of nature was this? She had somehow found her way onto the treadmill to hell.


From the corner of the her eye she thought she saw an escape route and took it. Jool’s sprang lightning-fast sideways through a small gap in the thick vegetation lining the roadway and found herself lying on a dark and narrow trail entrance which had been invaded by laurel, blackberry and ivy. She pulled herself to her feet and brushed herself off. It had been another daring escape and she felt breathless and a bit woozy. She wearily pressed onwards along a winding path which led out into a beautiful forested glen. She realized she had entered the majestic Valley of the Giants, a legendary stand of old growth Douglas-firs, cedars and hemlocks. Jools knew that in the woods the trees could talk and she felt the magic heavy in the air. She was also weary and even though the woods here were very dark, she rested for a while on a rotting nurse log.


She tried to shake off the sleepiness which was attempting to envelop her when she thought she saw something move in the dark in front of her. She needed to get a better look so pulled out her iPhone and tapped on her handy flashlight “app”. As the torch lit up the darkness, the ground in front of her began to move. Jools gasped wide-eyed at an incredible huge mass of spiders swarming on the ground; giant hairy spiders, creeping along the ground, moving slowly towards her.


“Spiders! Why’d it have to be spiders?” Jools shrieked.


To be or not to be was not the question. She really didn’t want to “be” right now. She backed up slowly and silently cried for help. Of all of her many fears, this was by far the worst. She continued to back up slowly, fending off the advancing spiders with a long stick. Before long she found herself back to back with a bold rounded hillock of bare granite. She clambered up it and watched with despair as the spiders too began to climb. The other side of the hillock revealed nothing but a swirling mass of mist below her. Then miraculously she heard a whisper on the air, a response to her earlier cries.


But wait, she thought, what exactly is it telling me? It sounded for all the world like “hump”? Or maybe “thump”? Or ”dump”? Puzzled, Jools strained to hear the murmur over the drone of the spiders now in full pursuit of her. As the spiders reached the top of the hillock, Jools got it!


“You can’t be serious trees? You really want me to “jump” into that swirling mass of air?”


“Yesssss” she heard, as plain as day.


So Jools jumped and her short life flashed quickly before her eyes. And after that it seemed like a week, then an eternity, then an eon had passed before “sploosh”! She landed in the water. She sank deep, ten or twelve feet, and stopped, then started to float upward. The tide, apparently, was in. As soon as she broke the surface and got a breath, she yelled a wordless cry of victory. She was in Starboat Cove, a small basin of water off Atkinson Point. But the sea was roiling, wind and rain lashing into it. She began swimming in the froth, aiming for the shore that didn’t seem that far away. But the sea had other plans for her, and she felt herself dragged further and further out by an unknown force.


Jools was pulled out of the small cove and round a rocky bluff into a smaller, deeper bay. The cove was sunny and bright and littered with logs. She was in Caulfeild Cove. The current carried her up to the beach and tossed her gently ashore along with a handful of purple starfish, colorful sea anemones and hermit crabs. Jools lay still for a moment and tried to catch her breath. The cove was more of a rocky outcrop than a beach, but just beyond the rock and sand was an area ablaze with brilliant color. It was home to a diverse array of wildflowers in full bloom such as sea blush, camas, and cluster-lilies. And all around her was the buzz of pollinators at work. It was then that Jools realized that she had found the lost cove and the hidden treasures were the beauty, fragility and biodiversity of this precious natural environment. None of this could be seen from the road or trail high above, an area that had, over time, become invaded with alien species. The cove had been renamed many years before and now only a handful of old timers know it by its former name "Tiddly" and know of the treasures it holds.


It was the best of times and the worst of times. Jools was elated at her discovery of the lost Tiddly Cove, but she wasn’t home safe yet and magic still filled the air. She set off running with a new found energy and headed for home. It wasn’t too long before her home came into view in the distance and she let out a sigh of relief which might have been a tad too soon. It was then she noticed a large clump of giant Japanese knotweed on the side of the trail and before she had time to think, it was too late. She felt something thick and woody entwine around her left ankle and instantly she was flat on her back as the knotweed dragged her fully into its impenetrable thicket. She looked up in horror as the giant knotweed stems writhed like the serpents on Medusa’s head and she could feel herself losing consciousness.


Then out of nowhere she heard a voice. “Jools? Why are you lying on the ground?”


Jools recognized the voice immediately, it was Gene, her neighbor, and by some great miracle of nature, the sound of his voice had broken the evil magic of the giant knotweed and it was once again just a large and overgrown weed on the side of the trail.


“Hi Gene, I’m okay, I just lost my footing that’s all.”


But she was more than okay, she was Juniper Jools and she would live to run another day!

The Souls You Meet

You meet people who forget you. You forget people you meet. But sometimes you meet those people you can’t forget.


I used to see an older man running with his dog. Actually the man shuffled more than he ran, but I saw him almost every morning while on my way to work, or on my way home from work after a long night shift. I recognized him from television years ago...he was a news reporter on one of the local TV channels who has long since retired. His dog seemed old and grey and struggled a little to keep up to his owner’s shuffle, but they ran together regardless of the season or the weather. I often wondered about this man and his old canine companion. Did the man have a wife at home or did he live alone? How long had he been running with his dog? How far did he run? How old was his dog? Where did he live? What possessed him to run every single day?


One day I saw the man running without his dog and I presumed that the old dog was ill, or had died. The man ran alone for quite some time after that and I noticed that as he ran he just stared at his feet and his shuffle seemed even slower than it was when he ran with the old dog in tow. Then one morning I saw the man running with a new dog; the dog wasn’t a puppy but seemed young and fit. The old man’s familiar shuffle almost had a bounce to it and he held his head high as the new dog pranced happily alongside him. Whenever I saw this man and his dog I had the urge to wave, or honk my horn, or to shout out a “good morning” to him. He had become so familiar to me that I felt I knew him.


I no longer work those early mornings, or night shifts, and very rarely see the man and his dog any more except on the odd occasion that I might have an early errand to make in town.


Now, some years later, I am the runner and during the last few months I have assembled quite a collection of colorful characters I encounter regularly during my runs. Many are now so familiar to me as to become an extension of my neighborhood.


First there is the man I see always standing in the lighted window in the handsome house down the street. Is he washing dishes or making a pot of coffee? From my running point of view on the road, I can only see his silhouette, but if it’s light enough out and he can see me, he will wave earnestly as I run by and suddenly in the dim light of the early morning, I no longer feel alone.


Then there is the young woman who walks a rather overweight Golden Retriever, very slowly. She tilts her head to one side as we pass and says good morning with an almost sympathetic smile. I just know that silently she is lamenting to herself, “poor thing, exerting herself in that exhausting manner, why doesn't she just get a big dog and walk nice and slow like me?”.


I always look forward to seeing the friendly landscaping crew working on the lot at the bottom of a very steep hill. They have transformed a weedy, grassy area over the last few months into a stunning garden of Eden. Usually I’m stooped over, almost on all fours at this point in my run, as the hill is incredibly steep there, but everyone waves and sends a mellow nod my way. Soon the project will be completed and except for the sound of the birds rejoicing in the beauty of their new garden, this part of my run will be silent once again.


At the top of this steep hill I often see a lady through the stained-glass windows of her lovely home-office working on her computer. She has a very beautiful grafted twisted tree in her lush front garden which intrigues me. The tree has such a unique shape and almost looks like a giant bird’s nest in the winter. I cannot help but stare at this tree each and every time I run by. The woman eyed me suspiciously at first, but now she barely glances up from her computer at my familiar neon-yellow jacket flitting by. I guess I am no longer a suspicious figure in the rain. Then a funny thing happened; I was reading a gardening book which was full of hand-drawn illustrations and as I flicked through the pages I saw the object of my curiosity: the twisted tree. The illustration was uncanny in its similarity to my twisted tree and its surrounding garden. After a little investigation, I discovered I have a published author and famous landscape architect in my running neighborhood. Oh, and the mystery tree? It’s a Camperdown Elm.


Often I see a dedicated couple walking their elderly Golden Retriever with obvious mobility problems. The dog walks tentatively on it’s two front feet while the owners support its rear end in a special harness. This undertaking appears particularly arduous to me, but obviously is a labor of love for the couple. As we pass and mutter “good morning” to each other, I smile in silent admiration at the couple’s dedication to their family pet. That’s puppy love for you.


Then there is the black Labrador dog who actually runs himself while his owner escorts him from the driver’s seat of his black executive BMW. At first I thought this was due to inclement weather in the winter months, but it’s now late spring and the dog still runs alone with the owner driving slowly beside him, even on a warm sunny day like today. The dog is amazingly well-behaved and never strays from his task at hand. He runs all the way down to the beach and back up again and always with a large doggy grin on his face.  He’s probably a very fit dog which is more than I can say about the owner.


Occasionally I see a man walking a dog who often shouts as I go by “will you run for me too”? The people and dogs in my neighborhood always elicit a smile from me and make me feel welcome. I like the people I meet when I run and my neighborhood is getting bigger and bigger all the time.


Not all my encounters have been great, but the not-so-great ones have thankfully been few and far between.


The old man and his dog still linger in my thoughts. I haven’t seen him for quite a while. I hope he’s still running with his faithful companion by his side. And the thought strikes me that maybe he is the reason I find running in the morning so precious.

The Bear Necessities

I live in black bear habitat, an area blessed with many green spaces containing streams and creeks which form natural wildlife corridors that extend into residential areas. Since my running so far has been through the winter and early spring months, I haven’t felt any real cause for concern knowing that the bears were safely hibernating in their dens up in the mountains. But it’s now early June and the bears have been out and about for at least a month or so, and they are surely hungry after their long winters’ nap. I know it’s only a matter of time before they leave their playground in the mountains and come to my playground down here in search of easy food sources.


I know that not getting along with the bears is not an option. They have become so well adapted that the placement of a community in their home range doesn’t faze them. It’s up to us to accept the fact that bears live in close proximity and we need to educate ourselves on the do’s and don’ts of living with them. Keeping this in mind, and knowing that West Van has several sightings and bear encounters each year, I decided to do a little research on black bears with the hope of increasing my knowledge and therefore my safety if I ever had a chance bear encounter. My findings were interesting, sometimes amusing, and dispelled a few myths.

• Black bears are a highly misunderstood species and many people have an exaggerated fear of them. “People can live with real bears. It’s the bears roaming the wilds of the human imagination that are impossible to get along with.” (Dave Smith in Backcountry Bear Basics). 

 This is me alright. I have had a longstanding, reoccurring dream about being chased by a bear around the old neighborhood I lived in as a child. This has likely fueled my fears about bear encounters.

• Every year, millions of people in N. America encounter black bears; yet, between 1900 and the summer of 2005, only 57 people were killed by black bears. Meanwhile, 50 Americans are reported to die annually from bee stings, 300 Americans died from domestic dog attacks in the USA in 19 years (between 1979 and 1998) and 2 million people die worldwide each year from diseases that are carried by mosquitoes.

Apparently you have a better chance of winning the lottery than being killed by a black bear!

• Most fatal black bear attacks have occurred in remote areas where bears are unaccustomed to people.

This is somewhat reassuring, however, some of the trails I run on feel like they are pretty remote early in the morning.

•  Current evidence suggests that menstruation does not increase the likelihood of an attack by a black or grizzly bear, but tampons are recommended over pads. 

 Where on earth did this myth come from anyway?

• Black bears’ lives are ruled by fear and food, in that order. Bears do not understand English or French, but they do understand a language of dominance and submission.

This is good,  I’m sure my panting and groaning and incessant nose blowing while running will alert any bears of my presence along the trail. Or I could try singing, I’m sure that would scare the heck out of them right of the bat.

• Always be alert to the possibility of a bear encounter by looking for signs of recent bear activity. Signs can include scat (droppings), tracks, evidence of digging, and claw or bite marks on trees.

So far so good, I haven’t seen any signs of bears...just very large dogs.

• Although bears have injured people in national parks and campgrounds where food is scarce. There’s never been an injury at a garbage dump. When there is so much food around it's hard to tempt them with food. More importantly, only those bears that feel comfortable will come close. Most dumps are closed to the public now, but for decades, people and bears mingled daily at hundreds of dumps with hardly a problem.

Well I can safely say I run through neighborhoods with backyards filled with fruit trees, bird feeders, smelly composts, barbecues, and garbage cans left outside. Surely this is as good as a garbage dump to a bear. I’m thinking most bears given a choice would choose the residential backyards for an easy smorgasbord versus foraging along a trail.


Looking at the bear facts, I’m feeling more confident about running in bear territory. It sounds like the odds of actually having a bear encounter will be minimal, if one even happens at all. The next time I run with my head down looking for scat, tracks and other bear signs, I must remember to lift up my head and whistle a happy tune, perhaps something that goes like this:


Look for the bare necessities
The simple bare necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife
I mean the bare necessities
Of Mother Nature's recipes
That brings the bare necessities of life.