Text 28775, 83 rader
Skriven 2012-08-26 22:15:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip 5
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A bit of a foreword on both Smithers and the wedding guests: the
area is home to the Wet'suwet'en Indian band who compose about 10%
of the population. They are part of the Carrier tribe who in turn
are part of the Athabaskan language group, the same as the Dene
around Yellowknife. Right after WWII a lot of Dutch immigrants
arrived in the area, just as they did in my home town. They
preferred rural to urban and the government of Canada steered them
to places where there were plenty of jobs. Cobden had a mine;
Smithers had lumber mills. Almost every Dutchman, regardless of his
occupation, dreams of becoming a farmer. The new immigrants there,
mostly single males, went to work as loggers or in the lumber mills
but bought land as soon as they had saved enough money to do so. Some
became butchers, sausage makers and cheese makers too. And being
young single males a lot of them married Wet'suwet'en women. So
there are a lot of Metis there but they self identify as "Dutch
Indian".

I didn't know this before but Warren is 1/4 Wet'suwet'en. Cinnamon
and Charlie are both Dutch Indians (and both gorgeous as a result of
them having the best features of both races). The oldest generation of
wedding guests were mostly a mixture of old Dutch farmers, a few
with Dutch wives but mostly Native ones and older Native couples.
The next generation was almost all Dutch Indian. And the third
almost everything but predominately different shades of Dutch Indian.

The hall was a wonderful old log and cedar sided rural community
hall in the mountains on Drift Wood Canyon road. It was surrounded
by a large field where a tent pavilion had been set up for the
ceremony. There were Saskatoon bushes all around and we were that at
the peak of the berry season and took advantage. A lot of guests
arrived the night before or early that morning with campers and RVs
which all got lined up in a neat row at the rear. Out came the
tables and coolers. We wondered up and down the line meeting people
and sharing beer, snacks and salmon jerky. I sampled at least nine
kinds of jerky: natural, soy sauce marinated or brined and then
either air dried or smoked over alder or maple. Delish!

The dinner was a Potlatch (Indian version of potluck) and the best
wedding buffet dinner I have had in years. There was two of
every dish made by two competing little old ladies each trying to
outdo the other. There was more salmon jerky, six different
grilled, barbecued or baked salmon dishes, grilled halibut steaks,
fruit pies made with Okanogan apples, pears and peaches and local
raspberries, blueberries and Saskatoons, Dutch sausage and cheeses
as well as the usual buffet offerings and in deference to Mark's
heritage somebody googled up recipes for cabbage rolls and perogies
and made a pretty decent batch of them. Rather than wine and
champagne we had a huge variety of very nice local micro-brewed
sparkling ciders; peach, pear, raspberry and ginger-apple.

Young Lexi has turned into a real femme fatale... as I said she was
quite smitten with Neekha's half brother when they met but... at the
wedding, when a whole bunch of his half brothers, step brothers and
male cousins arrived he abandoned her to go horse around with them.
She sniffed, batted her eye lashes, flipped her hair and went off to
chat up another boy. Later at the dinner when Draiden walked by her
table with a plate of food from the buffet table he looked at her
wistfully as if he was getting up the courage to ask to sit with
her. She ignored him, leaned forward and stared intensely into the
eyes of the other boy until he blushed. She also danced with him
exclusively when the music started. Draiden has been crushed into
oblivion!

Sunday: I cancelled the hotel reservations at the spider palace and
the Peace River place and re-booked the Super 8 in Grand Prairie and
one of the places in High Level instead. The same guy has five
motels and restaurants in HL. We always stay at the cheapest oldest,
one but eat at the newest, best one. The first leg of the return
trip was Smithers to Grand Prairie, a long hall we got in around
midnight long after the pool was closed to Lexi's disappointment. I
don't recall where we ate enroute; it couldn't have been either
memorable or horrible.

Cheers

YK Jim


... Road trip! Whoo Hooo!

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