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2022 Sort of Travel Diary
Michael Kluckner
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Artwork & text © Michael Kluckner, 2022
| After returning from the month in Sydney,
we had little desire to travel due to the ongoing COVID
restrictions, but I did take time away from paintings and book
projects to begin a new Moleskine sketchbook. As I get older, into
my 70s, I find I have less motivation to draw everything that
comes my way – either I'm more selective, and not seeing much, or
else I'm slowing down. Who knows? For what it's worth, and for the completeness of the record, as it were, here's what got into that little book during the balance of 2022. |
Vancouver – wondered whether to paint these up ...?
The notorious arson of a heritage house at 3737 Angus Drive in First Shaughnessy.
Stayed in limbo for 4 years while the owner fought the City on whether it should be rebuilt. Demolished late in 2022.
Alberni Street, making room for the rich. The pencil perspective test for an 11 x 6 inch watercolour that will go into a future book.
Lagoon Lodge on Gilford just north of Robson in Vancouver's West End. Pencil sketch redone as a small watercolour for a future book.
Exploring in the BC Interior; waiting for a ferry; a few days on Next Gen Hippie Hornby Island with friends Lauren and Jim.
Waiting for another ferry...
Galiano – Christine was speaking to the garden club and I went for a walk.
A great few days at friends' little place near Sechelt, with the distant view to Vancouver Island.
Could we move there? No.
| On the left, a quick sketch of Skookumchuck Narrows on the
Sechelt Peninsula after a loooong hike. On the right, a trip to the Okanagan to see old friends, with two days in a pretty nothing motel. Compared with the Vanishing BC travelling days of 20 years ago, British Columbia has changed a lot: many more people, expensive but mediocre accommodation, and much evidence of people displaced from typical houses in their former communities into campgrounds and trailer parks. The number of people living semi-permanently, even in roadside pullouts, is huge. |
| Summerland, much much better than anywhere in the North
Okanagan, and we almost bought a sweet little house on Juliet
Street but decided against it, as we really don't want to leave
our Vancouver neighbourhood and friends.... Seeing only the storage shed noted in the sketch brought to a close our great adventure of building a cabin in 1982 on the Five Mile). |
| The Kruger homestead, I was told by a guy who may have been
Jonathan Kruger, the former Penticton Indian Band chief. A
picturesque place at the northwest edge of Skaha Lake, just at the
point where Highway 97 changes direction and runs along the
Penticton-Skaha waterfront, that I've looked at for years and
finally decided to draw and colour with the pencils. I've added
this place to my Vanishing BC pages
in the hope that a local historian will fill in the details. There
is a Kruger Mountain and other spots in the South Okanagan bearing
that settler's name. Below: a week in the USA, mainly in Portland with stops at Tokeland on the Washington Coast and Seaside on the Oregon Coast en route. The Washington Coast part reprised an earlier trip in 2012. |
| Didn't do much drawing: we were too busy exploring
neighbourhoods like Division-Clinton (where we stayed) and
Hawthorn. Compared with 2012, the downtown seemed pretty empty.
Lots of homeless, but not nearly as concentrated as Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside. |
Camas is a little town east of Portland, upstream on the Columbia River on the Washington State side.
A final day in Portland's beautiful Japanese garden, a reminder of the last trip before Covid, to Japan in 2019.
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