Voices
I Would Love to Live...
Video Transcript
Background Description: A black and white photo shows a young man with an axe in hand standing on a beam of a partially built log cabin. The title is, “I would Love to Live ...” Another photograph of heavily snow-covered landscape appears. A skier is in the lower left. The trees weighted-down trees cast long shadows.
Rode speaks: In the late 1930's Gus Johnson built the Alpine Club cabin on Mount Seymour using logs hauled by horses.
Background Description: A shot of a completed log cabin in winter appears.
Rode speaks: After he finished the structure, members put on the roof, installed windows, the floor and the stairway. When I began staying there, I built more bunks upstairs where we had the women’s and men’s sides.
Background Description: A photo shows a group of around fifteen young men and women relaxing together inside the cabin. One character has an accordion.
Rode speaks: Downstairs there were a kitchen and living room. We had a big wood drum heater, and an iron stove in the kitchen. Our water came from a pump and well outside. We basically went on weekends. In the evenings we square danced and played records on a Victrola, rehashed old hiking trips and planned new ones.
Background Description: Three woman in hiking clothes and gear are standing outdoors in this thirties photograph.
Rode speaks: On Thanksgiving we would have turkey dinner.
Background Description: A table is covered in pots and plates with a group of people sitting around it. A man is cutting the turkey.
Rode speaks: The roasted turkey was from Woodwards store and carried up. We also had a yearly work-bee for cutting wood. The women would stack it or pick blueberries and make pies.
Background Description: An action shot shows a skier skiing off the roof of the cabin down snow that slopes to the ground.
Rode speaks: In the winter we sometimes got a tremendous amount of snow. It built up over the kitchen windows and we got up on the roof to dig the chimneys out. At times we could actually ski off the roof.
Background Description: A colour photograph shows four people shoveling snow on a sunny day. One man is up to his chest in snow.
Rode speaks: The snow pressure over the years pushed on the cabin, what we called “snow creep,” and gradually pushed it to the down side. Inside we had a plumb bob hanging from a nail on the wall to a mark. We knew the cabin had moved because the plumb bob would move off the mark, and the window panes were offset. Then we had to get up and dig the snow off the roof.
Background Description: A colour shot shows a woman rappelling down the side of the cabin. A person is spotting from the window.
Rode speaks: In the summertime we would practice rappelling out of the windows using a hook we had put high in the wall. We used ropes, no modern gear.
Background Description: Seasonal shots appear in sequence. We can see the weight of the snow by how the trees look like snow people rather than trees; next, a summer shot of a lake with a perfect reflection of the forested and rocky surroundings; followed by a lake-shot with a backdrop of fall colours appearing between the evergreen trees. The last shot shows the fall colours along the edge of the lake.
Rode speaks: There was always something to do, winter and summer. From the cabin we hiked to different locations on the mountain. We enjoyed swimming in Mystery Lake but it was always fairly cool. We gave names to some areas that are still used today.
Background Description: A black and white photo of a snowy landscape shows hills of snow marked by many ski runs. This is followed by a shot of four skiers eating outside with their gear all around them.
Rode speaks: We had lots of great hikes to the peak of Seymour following different routes, and to other mountains in the area.
Background Description: A shot shows a man heading up a sloping ridge with his skis over his shoulder.
Rode speaks: One spot, Hoot Owl Ridge, we skied down 2000 feet, what we call now ski mountaineering. All the good times we had on Mount Seymour I would love to live all over again.
Background Description: A tinted photograph shows undulating hills and sporadic evergreens weighted by snow, with both hills and sky lined by peach highlights. The shot dissolves to the first image of the man with his axe, standing on a beam of a partially built log cabin.
Acknowledgments: ‘I Would Love to Live …” was written and developed by North Vancouver Museum and Archives volunteers Doreen Armitage and Caroline Milburn-Brown following a number of interviews with Mount Seymour pioneer, Howard Rode. This vignette, which features Howard Rode’s photographs, was created during a 2009 Centre for Digital Storytelling Workshop. It was organized in support of the Virtual Museum of Canada’s project, ‘Climbing to the Clouds: A People’s History of BC Mountaineering’.
Music: Five Card Shuffle Trio for Piano and Cello by Kevin MacLeod. http://www.incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/
