I never caught his name, but the gentleman that innocently meandered toward us on Third Beach this past Tuesday was memorable none-the-less. We noticed him earlier in the day as he moved about the beach, chatting with some guys that were sitting on some logs that jut out into the water, and later as he waded into the frigid water, floating in the ocean with only his face and toes bobbing above the waves.
As he made his way out of the water, he moved slowly to where my two friends and I had a beach picnic spread out for the afternoon and were sunbathing. He mumbled something, giving away his German identity, but thoroughly confusing the rest of us. He didn’t seem to mind, and settled close by, leaning back casually on one of the huge logs that dot the beaches in Vancouver. My two companions decided to cool off in the ocean, so I took the opportunity to grab my notebook and started talking to this character.
He was a small, fit older man who obviously had a love of the outdoors: his wrinkled skin was leathery tanned. His black swim trunks clung damply to his stout legs, and he wore a small denim hat upon his head, which he removed briefly to run his fingers through his brownish-red hair before plunking it back down.
“I was here yesterday and today,” he said when I asked him if he came to the beach often, “I came all the way from New Westminster because I love it here.”
He told me he had moved from Germany years ago to work as a draughtsman in Canada, and has mapped the entire Horseshoe Bay area for the water and sewer board, streets and land contours, from a small plane. “I like forestry mapping the best,” he says, “because I get to be in the forest.” He laughed to himself, adding “except I like going home the best because I get to have a hot shower or bath after camping for a week.”
When he first moved to Canada, he tells me, “if somebody would have told me,” he paused, recalling the memory, “the cedar trees, how huge they were… I wouldn’t have believed them.” He shows me with his forearm how big the cracks in some of the fir trees can be, with a sense of awe that he hasn’t lost over time.
The conversation ended as naturally as it had started. He moved away a bit and took some biscuits wFrapped in plastic from a black backpack he had hidden in the logs. He munched them solemnly and slowly moved off down the beach as my two friends returned from the water. We laughed about our chance encounter with the German while watching him wade out into the ocean once more to float on his back, a little brown figure appearing and disappearing with the roll of the waves.
