Saturday, September 3, 2016

Corner Store - Michael James

Well, it was too big to be on a corner; instead it was in the middle of a block, the first main block up hill from the ferry, just after the grocery store. That meant you didn’t have far to walk if you only visited those two, the most important stores in Chemainus. Many of the others, with the exception of the gas station and the ice cream parlor, catered strictly to tourists and my wife and I disdained them, preferring to think of ourselves as “local” because we were building on Thetis Island, a thirty minute boat ride away, and thought of it as our future home.

“Chemainus General Store,” Vancouver Island, lived up to its name by carrying everything a householder/builder could possibly want with the exception of the larger materials like lumber and sacks of cement. It would have needed a big yard to include such items, for which there was simply no room down on the waterfront. But construction tools, hardware, woodworking gems from Germany, England, Japan, U.S.A., exotic blades, fishing equipment, lumberjack gear, mechanic’s needs, septic system necessities, cookware, wood stoves, everything to do with distributing and storing water, electrical components, huge reels of rope of all kinds: wire, dacron, hemp, nylon, were almost randomly spread around the floor and on the walls. A person could miss two ferry departures just gawking at all the stuff.
We rarely took the car over to the “Mainland,” as neighbors called Chemainus and other places nearby, because of the lengthy wait for the ferry; we walked or took the motorcycle if we had to go further than town, because bikes were “first on, first off,” on the ferry system, preceding even pedestrians since they loaded so much faster. We rode right past the long line of cars waiting, and plunked ourselves down in front of the first one, often to the driver’s complaints if he was unaware of our privileges, and eased the bike back between the car and the edge of the ramp, then joined the foot passengers. On board the single-decked little ferry there was also a small special place for us which we would jockey into quickly and put the bike on its stand; of course it was in the bow of the boat, next to the loading ramp.
In late summer the wait in a car for the ferry was miserable because there was no shade. Foot passengers could go into the waiting room and sit down, but there wasn’t enough room for the passengers of the cars and others who came on board late. So there was a good deal of incentive for people to walk, which meant that in summer, parking near the ferry was a big problem for all of the holiday-makers who swelled the population of Thetis and Kuper Islands in July and August, another reason to be on two wheels.
Early one summer I struck up a conversation with a young lady working in the store and she divulged her association with the owner, a Dane, her father, who had started the business when he was young. She was a teacher and this was where she worked during her vacation. We chatted amiably for several summers in succession, exchanging views on educational policy in our respective communities, on the behavior of certain groups of holiday makers, and on certain groups of locals, particularly those who lived on Kuper Island, a reservation. She spoke softly when mentioning  them, and I sensed all was not well between Indians and white locals. I was reminded of the times my wife had been asked by ferry deckhands if she wasn’t going to get off at Kuper, she being able to pass for a native very easily. On those occasions she usually moved closer to me and the questioner moved away.
The daughter of the General Store owner confided in me one summer that her father wanted her to take over the business but she demurred, knowing how much money his patrons owed him. The whole of Kuper Island was in his debt and he saw no way of collecting. A white person can go on Kuper only at the behest of one of the inhabitants, and he sure was not about to receive such an invitation. So year after year the Indians kept charging their purchases and the poor old Dane kept getting thinner and more bowed until he finally had to declare bankruptcy and close the store. It never reopened and we had to go to Duncan to purchase  items required for our homesteading, sad to lose such a superb supplier of our needs.

Eventually we had to give up our island paradise anyway for a number of very persuasive reasons unrelated to corner stores.
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