Blowdown

I wrote Blowdown shortly after a violent storm in December 2006 that flattened large sections of Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia. Like most everyone, I was shocked by the scale of the carnage and inclined to anthropomorphize the event – attributing it to a malevolent force in Nature.
It’s not surprising people reacted that way. The sacredness of Stanley Park has been recognized for centuries… millennia. To see its giant Douglas firs scattered about like pick-up sticks sent shockwaves through many communities that revere what is perhaps the most precious 405 hectares of vestigial wilderness on the West Coast.
But rather than pin the images I was seeing to my memory board with a vague sense of anger, I wanted to understand the disaster from a spiritual perspective: yes, the aftermath was ugly; yes, it would take years for the park to recover; but storms are a natural catastrophe; it would be a mistake to characterize the devastation as an act of cosmic vandalism.
The process of adjusting my reaction has resulted in a book that’s hard for me to classify. On the one hand it scans like children’s literature, which I delight in both reading and writing; on the other, the themes and language may be challenging even for adults.
For some of the chapters I drew from the legends of the Squamish people as chronicled by Pauline Johnson in her conversations with Chief Joe Capilano at the turn of the last century. But any interpretations of First Nations’ legend, culture or spirituality you encounter here must be understood strictly as an adaptation through the eyes of a European child, trying to understand his place in family, society and nature.
It has taken six years for me to understand this distinction and overcome my deep concerns around issues of cultural appropriation. So even as I acknowledge the First Nations whose legends are part of the fabric of Stanley Park, I have to say emphatically that this story is written from the only perspective I know – that of a European child growing up in a multicultural land, whose first peoples still struggle to gain the rights and respect they deserve.
I have learned much about my world by witnessing and participating in First Nations events and ceremonies. I hope they and any other readers of Blowdown will enjoy this little book in the spirit it has been written.