Kahlil and the Big Tree

They were just beginning to be sufficiently settled when the fall rains started off with a three-day inundation. It trapped a group of Carmanah Forestry Society volunteers who were there to build hiking trails. They were helmed by Khalil, who did the bulk of the boardwalk work in the Walbran. Boardwalks were trails built off the ground out of cedar shake for preservation purposes; under Khalil’s direction, the work was exceedingly well done. The group got drenched. Sid, who was supposed to be coming to pick them up in his van the following day, had abandoned them. The family were sort of sitting on their laurels having brought this group into “well-healed” dryness and comfort when the following morning the siblings were talking to Khalil, and discovered...

”What do you mean you've never seen the Big Tree?!” (You of all people?!) This was vastly inappropriate. (And Khalil Really wanted to see it.) The Big Tree was the one found by English Jon in 1991 while he was working for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, and indeed he did, giving them first dibs on his find. Jon had discovered the sixth largest tree in all of Canada. WC² built a trail to the tree and put a small platform on the ridge beside it, insider knowledge at the time. It so happened that the “Big Tree” sat directly across the “Walbran Creek” from where Khalil got arrested and where Rolly had his last stand. In fact the kids had explored and figured out the precise area where Rolly must have come ripping down the roadside slope to cross the river during his escape. Rahab initiated this trek in the hope of perhaps finding her lost Bible, which may have been preserved somewhat in its carrying case. Impossible.

True to form the siblings opted for hiking down to the Big Tree via the river (not like anyone was going to put out by driving the group the long way around to the trail access to come at it from the trail direction) in order to take Khalil to see it. They had been doing this the entire summer, rock-hopping. Rock-hopping was only an option if it wasn’t at all wet, as then the rocks became very slippery. They had hardly ever tried it during the wet; stepping was still a possible option, jumping? Not a chance! They embarked with Khalil along with a few hangers on from the previously bedraggled trail crew. The group was as follows: Rahab, Zeb, Zur, Khalil, and hangers-on. They soon discovered a problem; there was a brand new up the ante that hadn't been apparent through the dry summer months; a new two tone algal slick on all the rock side surfaces that had just been introduced by the brand new clear-cuts that had transpired the previous fall and throughout this summer/fall. The green algae created an extreme slick on all the rocks, new growth due to the nutrient flushing the new clear cuts had caused on the entire watershed. This made even stepping to wet rocks next to impossible...

The real problem was that the siblings had simply never seen what a three and half day autumn rain was going to do to the high water mark; they had no clue as to the rain swell condition of the river on this stretch, and no clue that the trail they knew by collective memory down to each and every rock, -nearly the entire route was going to be submerged.

Entrée up the ante #2: Rahab transferred her jacket to Zeb because he’d fallen in the water and gotten wet. He next fell in up to his chest, wearing her jacket, which happened to have a little jewel-case in the pocket, which happened to have five tabs of acid in it. Which were now suddenly wet. Being of the waste not, want not mindset, which was deeply drilled into their cerebrum, they dropped them then and there; Rahab dropped two. Khalil did one too, no hesitation. This was before they really knew what they were in for. The hangers-on were not aware of this wee development, and the family were such stoic trippers that they would never know.

After several falls of the same sort the group started losing members as they realized this was a little more than they bargained for, whereas the siblings and Khalil were still of the mindset “it's just water”. By the time they were approaching the bend in the river where the stream morphology was about to change rather drastically, the group lost the tough-guy of the bunch who looked like a football player, with some sort of cute/lame excuse. Anything female had been the first to go. The “hangers-on” had dwindled down to one, a lean middle-aged man in his early fifties.

They were also pushing it in the extreme in terms of departure time because Sid was coming at a certain time to pick up the group, and would leave at a certain time, and was the sort who would abandon people rather than deviate from schedule, so that was weighing on everyone; it was just a matter who was it going to dictate and where.

The bend in the river really upped the ante. It was here the channel started to narrow as it was gradually forced into a small canyon. The wall on the other bank was a wall, -a sheer rock face that went straight up over 40 feet. The boulders in the riverbed were huge in size, meaning often several were of diameters around 8 to 18 feet. What the siblings found was that their normal route was completely submerged at this juncture and this forced them way up onto the other bank, -into much bigger rocks (and actually the rock-face itself that was the other bank), which meant all of a sudden they were looking at scrambles and climbs of up to 14 feet as they descended on pretty sheer wet surfaces. It was really difficult and slow going. When this started, the older man pointed out, “We shouldn't be doing this without a rope.” –Well duh. They all knew that, wished they had one, they just hadn't anticipated needing one... the question was not whether they needed it (they did) but whether the fact that they needed it was going to be something that stopped them.

After repeating these dangerous climbs once or twice and clambering generally, the senior of the group finally looked Rahab square in the eye and declared, “You're all crazy”...and literally fled back upstream. It's not like Rahab (or anyone else) wasn't interior-ly questioning this very nub at the moment, which made it doubly hard to take when someone subscribed to the opinion so strongly they're literally taking off as fast as they can manage. But the fact was they were just lucky he didn't see what the next leg entailed.

When they finally made it to the point where they normally crossed the river, the entire crossing was submerged. These were large, large boulders you either stepped or jumped to. The issue was they all knew the morphology at this juncture very well. The entire river was shunted into an opening of less than five feet wide! Imagine the velocity. The river was not only confined to a chute, it vaulted over a waterfall. Going into that opening, even without swell conditions, it was much too deep to touch bottom. The walls (where there are some) were too sheer to get a handhold on anything (but the sheer force would certainly prevent that anyhow).

Here's the kicker, the waterfall was not a big one, close to fifteen feet high perhaps, a straight drop. But it falls onto a flat rock, which was normally slightly above the water surface. So if you did happen to fall into the water at this stretch, the force is such you're pretty much guaranteed to go over the waterfall, and there's no water to fall into! You're going to get slammed into a pancake.

So here's the debate: the siblings (if not Khalil, exactly, but they were the sort to keep him informed) -knew exactly what the risk was. They also knew the riverbed so well; they knew where the rocks were under the water. In fact Rahab posited, “We can't use our normal route because some of the rocks are too deep underwater.” (This was actually a result of her testing the first route. She could tell the rocks were too deep and the water could sweep them away.) So they opted to check the other route (-starting from the large, large rock that blocked the flow where the river would otherwise run) -onto a chain of rocks where the distance between each rock was at least jumpable and the water was expected to get no deeper than around knee height (stepping onto the tops of the rocks). Hence the water wouldn't be able to suck them away, so long as no one slipped. It was the only other possible route; there had only ever been two.

Rahab's concern was to get the crossing done before they peaked on the acid if they were going to do it. The second real kicker was the looming time constraint due to Khalil having to go back to the city with Sid. Khalil had in town commitments; it was a ride he could not miss. They were going to have to cross a second time and go back the river route. They had no choice; the other route back combining the trail and the road was serpentine and around six kilometres long. It would take so long to walk that way they’d be guaranteed to miss Sid.

They were actually put in a position where the goal of making it to the Big Tree for Khalil was weighed against risking their lives because they could not make a mistake, -as under these circumstances, a slip equated with a fall, a fall equated with getting sucked into an inexorable water vortex, and the vortex was going to spit anyone over the waterfall at gravity induced speed onto a waffle iron, in a canyon where there was no foreseeable way of to getting to shore in a torrential river, even if they weren’t too injured to do so. No one was going to be able to retrieve anyone from the water; there was no access downstream. Not to mention they were over 45 kilometres from the nearest telephone, and had no way of carrying an injured individual back to camp. All this was immaterial to the fact that the injuries resulting from getting sucked over the waterfall would likely be severe enough you were immediately going to drown. (You’d hit so hard you’d be knocked unconscious, unable to swim. If you survived and managed to make it far enough downstream, hypothermia compounding injuries was a very serious matter due to remoteness.) Not only were they going to have to leap the gauntlet gambling with their lives, if they were going to commit to this endeavour so that Khalil got to see the big tree, they were going to have to commit to doing it twice.

Rahab took off her runners at this point. Zur opted to keep his on, as he preferred them for grip. Zeb? -On. Khalil? He opted to start doffing all his clothes except his T-shirt, as in why get them wet? But he kept his hiking boots on still. Naturally Rahab was the one who opted/had to go first. Now the chain of rocks they had to traverse at the crossing was not riverbed rock, -i.e., not smooth and rounded, (a good thing). It was jagged and large and came out of the little canyon. The unfortunate part was that there was one jump that had to be made in the middle; at the point of the jump you'd be negotiating footholds on these jagged type rocks under a foot or more of torrential current (they were barely even visible), and the waterfall itself was less than fifteen feet downstream. There was no riverbed in between those big rocks; the water was too deep. If you slipped and missed, you would never touch bottom. Rahab jumped it and put out her hand for Zur so he could make the jump; he refused and told her to stand out of his way, just be on hand in case he slipped. His lips were starting to change colour and he was starting to tremble from the effects of the cold and adrenalin. Zeb and Khalil each made the jump on their own. They made the crossing rock to rock to the other side.

The ensuing slope up to the big tree was very steep and like the rest of the route, they knew it down to every handhold that must be grabbed (right or left hand depending, that also had an order), knew every footstep. Once up (say about 90 feet of climbing) –WC² had a platform built around the base of the tree you could sit on, on the slope side. And that was where they peaked. Khalil was jigging around not quite buck-naked, he was so pleased they were “here”.

It is at this point Rahab observed for the first time a massive scar he had on his left calf. She felt a tremendous pang at the pain reflected in the scar. The musculature was completely laid bare the entire breadth of it. She could see every cord like an anatomy diagram. It was shaped like a diamond without the edges, like a two pointed paisley nearly five inches wide, and traversed from not quite his ankle to nearly the top of his calf. She deduced from its appearance that she was looking at muscles that regenerated; she could hardly imagine what might have happened to cause such a scar. But she felt it far too sensitive to ask; she did not want to bring this memory of Khalil’s into the content of the trip. Khalil was free and being himself and she was looking at him as himself, it was reciprocally understood and he was happy in it, -and that meant, ignoring the scar which was not him, but happened to him. But Zeb, who tended to be utterly upfront and will broach anything, broke the silence; he asked Khalil what happened...

It turned out it had to do with his mandatory service in the army in Singapore. Of course countries that have mandatory military service usually put it to good use; in this instance, Khalil was recruited to build a bridge, which meant giant iron girders. He was the lead carrier on a girder that the entire group happened to drop. Being the lead, he didn't see the collapse coming; he did not get out of the way in time and the girder came down on him alone, in fact, the girder came down on his lower leg. And crushed it. And yes, as Rahab had deduced, he was bedridden for many months as all the calf muscles re-grew themselves. (The leg had to be kept open to drain as well.) You would think they'd discharge someone who'd been injured like that... It was no surprise he refused to go back.

The paradigm captured in Khalil’s scar was the blood-price/sacrifice of the individual to the State. The other paradigm that was sonically in play, in diametric opposition to primordial ancient Eden that they were visually, sensually immersed in, (sitting by a tree that was easily 2000 years old) -was the screeching, tearing, grinding, continual roar of a grapple-yarder operating directly across from them on the other side of the river. Down on the riverbed walking the river, the sound of the river was so much they could not hear it. Up there in on the crest, it was the only thing they could hear. It was like hearing Death, in terms of earth's death, in an un-remitting grind at full volume. And they knew what those things looked like, the effect they had. As they take every log up the slopes (or down them), dragging them via cables with huge iron mandibles, they tear a gouge for each log they bring onto the landing, leaving actual individual scars on the landscape. The logs the yarder was grappling were the trees Rolly had tried to stop them from taking, in the clear cut both he and Khalil and the entire protest had tried to stop in their last stand, all fruitless in the face of this machine operating now.

You could tell by the sound of the dragging (literally the amount of sonic crashing and tearing the log is making in its wake, and how loudly the grapple-yarder roars), when some of these corpse trees were larger than others, and at the sound of a particularly large one, Khalil mentioned how they had found a stump, almost directly across the riverbank from this one, that was nearly as large as this one. Here by the arbitrariness of humanity's mark, this one was still standing, and the other was not. And one wonders how much these trees were like siblings in terms of the scope of time they stood there, thankfully one gets to hope there isn't a sense of loss between the trees themselves, because that would be insurmountable. It is sort of a priceless irony that as a human it is you who perceives the loss, maybe just you sitting there. Khalil in his existing circumstance may have been the only one who truly perceived the loss in the moment in the qualified sense of having witnessed it all firsthand, and having directly attempted to stop it. All that is distilled in the sound vs. the landscape, destruction vs. Eden, the greed, the pain of the earth; the fragility of something so totally intractable and immovable it has survived and stood for 2000 years. The paradox that humans, with their transient passage in time and finite short lived existence have the capacity to wipe out this timeless existence within a matter of hours.

The recognition that their tracks were of so little meaning in the face of such an existing scope of time, yet here they were fighting for it, a battle that had proved hopeless and pointless, for they knew in full irony that while half of the valley got preserved due to their little protest, the land they were sitting on, and the tree they were sitting beside, is still unprotected. The logging industry has always known where the goods are, and Deliberately insured they'd Have the Heart of the Valley. They were logging it as fast as possible. Khalil and the siblings were sitting in the centre of the Heart, the bottom centre of the Valley where all the biggest trees lived; it is not protected. Manifest in the grapple-yarder operating across the river that day. They knew full well that with it unprotected, the industry had every intention of ripping the Heart out, and was set on clear-cutting the side of the bank they were sitting on as well. That's the future. And all who were privy and present held much the same query in their hearts, what have you got left, if you rip out the Heart?

They didn't know if the tree they were beside would get to live in the future, or not. It's coveted. So they were here, now. They were among the rare people to perceive this Eden; perhaps in the future, it won't even be there. (And if the logging didn't get it, they knew climate change likely would.) First the increased strength of the winds would vie for the trees downing the largest and so many more (41 hectares of Stanley Park Old Growth lost to one windstorm (actually a Class 1 hurricane) in 2006, a known statistic only because it is the largest downtown park in NA). Next, the sea itself might swallow.... Rahab sat in a doomed place. At this point the primordial Eden is a mere tattered fringe that is left; humanity has consumed it across the globe so far they are sitting a mere six kilometres from the final edge of the last Sea, and yet the grapple-yarder NEVER stops. Living there, doom is all she sees; the Beauty that surrounds her reflects a loss that silently screams to infinity. To look at it is to suffer, watching the clear cuts go in, listening to the chainsaws. Every moment in the forest brings her to the question of the loss of the quality of perception itself (and thereby quality of existence).

That's how fragile the space/place is. (It's still there today though.) After peaking they came back down the embankment, re-charging for what would be a long difficult trek, with a supreme hurdle to start. Time is ticking against them, but they opt to lie out on the rocks in the sun and get warm, dry out for a little while. Details like this are important. For example, Rahab may be the only person who has ever traversed, via the river itself, from the point where they had just crossed in front of the “canyon” to Fletcher Falls at the juncture where the South Walbran tributary meets the West. (They were on the South.) It was a summer jaunt because it could only be a summer jaunt. She started the hike first thing in the morning, arriving at the waterfall leading into the canyon around 9:00 am. There she stripped and jumped into the river and swam the entire route to the waterfall, walking and climbing where swimming wasn't possible. This was when she discovered how totally un-traversable this stretch of the river was. She found that the canyon went nearly the entire stretch, and the walls on each side got so high as to reach around 90 feet, and were sheer and high in general. It was one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen. Given it had taken her around 45 minutes to swim through and traverse the canyon, she knew anyone who fell over the waterfall, even if they survived, they had no chance of getting out of the river any time soon. They’d be trapped the entire way, nearly to the juncture where the South Walbran met the West.

Now the Walbran is cold water. Cold meaning, it was the second coldest water-body Rahab and the family had ever swam in. The one that rated first for them was Englishman River Falls, the river coming off a glacier fed lake. There isn't much of a degree colder you can find anywhere. The Walbran was so cold you’d feel a chemical reaction start around your heart inside your body after a few minutes in the water, very much akin to chemical heat packs. That sort of thing you do need to account for, which is why Rahab started in the morning, calculating to be at the Falls for the peak heat of the day when/where she could warm herself in the sun for quite some time before she made the attempt to swim back.

Now in October the following year a group (part of the Toronto pack, along with English Peter) -really mistook the fact that Rahab had made this little trip. It so happened when she swam downriver and came out at the falls (her lips were blue), there were actually quite a few people swimming at the Falls she knew who were as naked as she was, including a few from this group, so they remembered she had done it. (It was a fine afternoon, in a friendly amicable way.) She had come out of the water at the bottom of the Falls, and because no one anticipated anyone coming up that way Peter had nearly jumped out of his hide upon seeing her; he been dozing, sunning on the rocks, and she was soundless. She startled him by shaking the water out of her hair.

In the following Fall the Toronto group and Peter hiked the same area and decided to see how far they could hike down the canyon. They inevitably got trapped. They were so trapped their only option was to jump into the water in their clothes; they decided they could swim out of the situation back to camp, after all, they reasoned, Rahab had done it. If Rahab had been privy and present (late in the afternoon, in October), she would have told them they were Out of Their Minds. First, there's no way out of the canyon. Second, you must backtrack and hike back because, you can't get wet! Because, they had no dry wood they were going back to, no fire to start properly, no way to warm themselves after, no base camp, and they were soaking their clothes! So the entire group nearly got hypothermia, in fact one or two came down with it, or got awful close. And they wouldn't have been able to get to a hospital soon enough. They barely made it through the night.

So warming yourself on the rocks for a while can be a vital thing (as can be not getting wet). It’s not just a pastime. It is while sunning on the rocks that Khalil remarked how “free” the family was. They were free in terms of their willingness to accept the risk of trying to live out there, free in terms of the home-schooling, the drugs, and living life in a trajectory so far off the common cultural map it was completely their own. They were free in terms of what they were doing in the moment, but that was directly related to the fact that they had a base to go back to; that was what gave them the ability to accept risk. And that base took preparation, organization, leadership (in a patriarchal authoritarian model), a lot of practical fix-it and recycling know-how (backed by a killer collection of tools), a “blood is thicker than water” (or anything else) family cohesion, and an exorbitant amount of work.

But for the moment, they relaxed. You have to know when to relax and take the sun in. It is lying in the sun Khalil was saying, “Your family is so free.” How they took whatever came at them and rolled with it, how they weren’t scared, but he was summing it up as, “You're so free.”

How laden a context this was. What Khalil perceived as free carried a price. It was not really free; there was order under the sense of anarchy, and sacrifice under the order. There was a price in this moment, the price she paid mentally in the moment, for the moment, how horribly fraught she felt with the crossing still in store (and not just because it was a scary prospect in itself). In addition there was how horribly fraught she felt for putting her siblings in a life-threatening risk. In that sense there was a terrific mental price on her for Khalil’s sense of freedom in the moment, which she was internalizing every moment of this trip. But her demeanour was calm and free, even smiling. In part because, that is what she has to provide to the ones she's responsible for, to make sure they all get through it, and feel sure that they can and know it can be... fine. If you can’t step up and greet the challenge and embrace the experience, what's the point otherwise? If she cannot internalize the stress, it has the ability to erode and weaken everyone. Under the circumstances, they can’t be subject to fear; it will only compound the risk. You have to be serene. As the oldest, it’s imperative. There were only two moments in this position of eldership within her family that she was always in, that she lost her grip. This wasn’t the day.

The sense of “free” was also based on the underlying order of knowing every foothold. It was only due to their ability to act as guides. The route being taken over and over was the only thing that permitted them to take these risks, their sense of familiarity with the limits, and their ability to bear the price of risk-taking. (When Khalil made the jump at the crossing, Rahab described the shape of the rock underwater to him beforehand so he could anticipate the footing.)

Beneath all that was the burden Rahab existed in perpetually; in every waking moment she existed in sacrifice inside a relationship that sacrificed her. For her there is nothing free about where they are, there was a dark underside no one knew about that she internalized inside a complete secret at all times. Khalil had no comprehension of the price she paid to be free in the moment, what she paid so she could be here this moment, what she paid so that the moment could be free for everyone else. There is no sign, only serenity, but to hear someone describe the beauty of their freedom stabbed her deeply; she was forced to question its falsehood. It was true, but in a perverse way it was up to her that it seems true. Or is it up to her to blow it up and destroy the experience for everyone?

The whole trek back all Rahab sees is the same fractal patterning portrayed differently in each individual river rock, (this recurs every river trip she takes), but there's no time to sit and stare even though it’s the most amazing thing... It was not until they made it back to their camp safely that Rahab broke down and cried because of the moral price tag she felt, the enormous guilt of putting her siblings at risk. Only her mother saw it. Rahab always had the uncanny ability of maximizing the time out on these jaunts, but nearly always showed up back home at precisely the moment her mother began to wonder where she and the children were, saving her the price of worrying. It was the same on this day too. And when they awe them emerge out of the bush it was priceless, Khalil a wet mess with one hiking boot on, one hiking boot off (mercifully dressed). The parents reacted by collapsing in laughter because it was so typical of Rahab, as she was showing up bedraggled like this, (one boot off, one boot on) when she was a toddler. Sid’s van was idling and the whole group was loaded in when Khalil ran for it. Sid had been waiting 45 minutes, so they’d held him up to the utter max. But they made it, and Khalil thanked them later for this trip because it turned out to be a very long time before he ever set foot in the Walbran again.