4 Breaking reasons to feel sparkly
It’s that sparkly time of year when visitors go home. A thrill runs over Pender Island like a ripple in the water. Yesterday, the librarian helping me said happily, “It’ll be so nice and quiet on the island!” This is a place with a lot of summer homes as we’re close to two big cities, Vancouver and Victoria. Also, while our locale isn’t as madly popular as Barcelona, Amsterdam or Athens, like those places, the increase in tourists here in the past several years has been noticeable. It’s part of a worldwide phenomena called overtouristing, which the American news website Axios calculates exists in 63 different countries.
Now, Pender is not part of what’s being called a global crisis in tourism. However, those of us who live here year-round are beaming at one another. The sun is out—it’s slid into summer in September—and it’s the closest we’re going to get to a hot season this year. Days are warm, nights are cool enough to sleep beautifully, thank you.
Tourists bring income to the island which allows us to have stores and services. For which we who live here are devoutly grateful, amen. Please understand I don’t want all visitors to stay away. If you have ever lived in a remote location with not so much as a grocery store, you will understand the value I place on being able to drive five minutes and buy apples.
This small island is not Venice, with its 20 million tourists annually. But the differences between the last week the tourists are here and when they go is noticeable. It happens in four categories.
1 Roads
Pender Island has narrow, twisty one-lane roads. Why did the driver in the red BMW have to pass me and the car ahead of me, going 95 km in a 50 km zone? Granted, it was one of the only straight stretches on the island, but they might have hit one of the many deer who leap out into the road and then that fancy car would be a write-off. Or, more worrying, they could’ve sideswiped one of a group of people who were walking along the road. Island pedestrians have a sense of self-preservation; there aren’t sidewalks here and the roads have very narrow shoulders. When walking, we tuck off the road as best we can. I’ve seen tourists wander four abreast and take up an entire lane.
At this halcyon time of year, most of the cyclists have also left. Swarms of them arrive on the island in summer, more every year. I suspect few of them know what they’re coming to: this island is all hills. And when there’s one or more bicycles, cars back up behind them.
It takes a maximum of two minutes for the drivers of cars to get impatient.
I’d like to think that residents of Pender know what to do in terms of passing bicycles. That is, don’t pass going around a corner when you can’t see if there’s a car coming. Don’t pass going up a hill; there’s no visibility. Emphatically never pass going uphill and around a corner.
This summer, driving to visit friends, I got stuck behind two cyclists, a parent and a child, one after the other, who were biking up a big hill with a corner at the top. The child was leading. I wasn’t enjoying crawling behind them in first gear but under the circumstances, it seemed my best option. A big black SUV behind me swung out to pass. As the SUV passed me, then the parent, then the child, all of us in the same burst of speed, I was pretty much quivering with horror, waiting for a massacre. It didn’t happen. That time.
2 Ferries
In the summer, BC Ferries makes announcements, frequent ones, as in, “This ferry goes to Galiano Island, Mayne Island, Pender Island and Salt Spring. These are our only stops. Please ensure that one of these is your destination. These are our only stops.” Ridiculous? Of course. And yet every year, people get on the wrong ferry and then freak out. Or they and their vehicle don’t get off at their stop. “We have reached Galiano Island. If this is your stop, you need to be on the car deck. Galiano Island traffic is now disembarking. Please, if this is your stop, you need to get off now.”
Friends of mine coming via Vancouver were on a late-night ferry that stopped at Galiano and then came to Pender. When the ferry was underway, they were surprised to hear an announcement that the ferry would be making an unscheduled stop at Mayne; a passenger needed to be let off.
Really? That’s a big ferry burning a lot of fuel, along with a full crew, not to mention hundreds of passengers who’ve just been inconvenienced.
And oh man, coming from the mainland, a person has to have ferry reservations months in advance, or, coming from Vancouver Island where there are no reservations, arrive at the terminal anywhere from one and half to two hours early.
3 Parking
There’s a good chance residents can now find a parking spot at our little shopping centre. We call it a mall but anyone from a city just snickers. A few stores glommed together with a parking lot doesn’t actually count.
As an island resident, I feel parking is a god-given right. In tourist season, it’s hard to find a space to park to go grocery shopping. Sometimes there aren’t any. Islanders either shop early, never on weekends, and sometimes I look at the parking lot and decide I can live without ice cream, an onion and siracha sauce for one more day. Earlier this summer when I went to my favourite beach with a friend, the parking lot was full and we had to park way up the hill. My sense of indignation made me realize that in some sense, I felt I owned this beach. Five or six people were okay, but not a crowd. “Mom, that is such a first-world problem,” I can hear my daughter say, smiling. And guess what, the beach is for all of us to enjoy.
4 People-pressure
As well as the natural beauty, one of the reasons that many of us enjoy living on the Gulf Islands is less population density. This changes during tourist season. The last time I came home from Vancouver, there were so many people on the ferry that for the first time in my life, I felt claustrophobic. It has to do with expectation, I’m sure. What I feel as normal is the light winter traffic. This time, however, it was the last week of summer and many families with kids were travelling. Also, there was a tour going to Salt Spring with two buses on board and, in my fevered imagination anyway, a hundred and fifty of this particular group, excited and speaking loudly, wandering up and down the aisles or standing in front of big windows taking selfies. I didn’t know the Gulf Islands rated tour buses.
The gold season sets in
But now, September is a golden time of year. The extra bodies have gone, the cars and motorcycles, the bike tours with their vans. The psychic weight that presses on full-time residents from a much higher population than usual lifts. I can almost hear the collective exhale of relief. People aren’t getting left behind on ferry sailings. There’s parking at all the Pender beaches. The grocery store is accessible anytime. Inside, the long lineups to check out groceries have disappeared.
Like the southern Gulf islands, of which Pender is one, the northern Gulf islands are also popular with summer visitors. Years ago, after the Labour Day weekend, the Denman Island ferry instituted what became a ten-year tradition. On the first sailing after tourist season, the ferry made a joyous circle of the bay and blasted its horn, celebrating the return to normal. I get it. Isn’t this the sweet spot of the year?
I am setting up some happy fall routines for myself that include working on the third book in the Jorrie magic young adult series. What have you got planned?