Seas and Stories

Today was my last day in Abbotsford. So, we went out to the sea!

But first, an appearance by Pilgrim Marbeck.

Marpeck... Whatever.

First, we went out to White Rock, where we got to eat on a patio out by the ocean.

Ernie said "Over there's the States, so you should feel right at home." Well shoot, I should have brought my passport along, I could have swam home! 

The ocean was at low tide. There were actually people swimming in it, since the sand had been warmed all day by the sun, the water was supposedly about as warm as it would get.

Oh, is that a picture of me? Oops.

I tried to take a panoramic picture, but you can't really capture what it looks like. 

The boardwalk.

What? Another picture of me? Well, you can't see me all that well. 

Looking down the pier.

This is also where they shoot some of the scenes for the tv show Psych, so here I am with that building.

I'm not terribly familiar with the show (although I've been meaning to watch it more). So Mary Ann could have been pulling my leg and just getting me to take a picture with a random building.

After our delicious supper at Charlie don't Surf, we headed out to Steveston, where they shoot scenes for Once Upon a Time, which my roommate is a fan of. Again, I'm not terribly familiar with the names of places, and since these places are actual businesses, they don't keep up the "Once" signs when they're not shooting.

This place was a pawn shop in the show, if I'm not mistaken. It is now for sale. 

The "library." It doesn't have the clock tower that is on it in the show.

The bread shop. 

The toy store

The pet shelter (which is actually just a vacant building, so they keep the signs up when they're not shooting.)

Granny's Bed and Breakfast. 

A pretty stained-glass window at "Granny's."

What's-her-name's house. 

I could have bought a "Welcome to Storybrooke" shirt, if the visitor's center had been open. 

A picture down the main road. 

This place becomes "Atlantic Twine & Net" for the show.

The cannery is a place used in the show, apparently.

This was out by the pier. At the right time of day, you can actually walk down to the boats and buy fresh fish off of them. Yum.

So, tomorrow I will be headed inland to Winnipeg for two weeks. I'm over halfway done with this adventure, but I'm guessing it won't be any less adventurous.

Funny Names and Ship Lists

Today, I may have gotten a little bit sidetracked. I didn't do anything with missionaries. I tracked down my family. It started out when one of the volunteers looked me up on the GRANDMA program (Genealogical Registry And Database of Mennonite Ancestry). She then printed out my family tree and handed to me. 22 pages later, I realized there were a lot of blank spaces. So, I went on a bit of a search.

Ship list records I copied.

My copies of short descriptions of parts of my family's migration to the Molotschna colony in Southern Russia in 1804. 

I found my great-great-great(?) grandfather's baptism record, and therefore found his parents' names, which we had previously not known.

The whole book. I actually had to wear white gloves, and everything, since it's falling apart.

June 2, 1850. at the bottom, you can see the two parents' names, Heinrich and Maria Nikels.

In Markswczysna, Prussia.

The register lists the place, the parents' full names, and then the new church member's name. In this case, Heinrich.

At the end is their age. Heinrich was 15.

These were in a book that were the original records for the church in Prussia. There is beautiful handwriting in this book.

That "W" is amazing.

I wish I could write my name so it looked this pretty.

"Adele Bartel." The woman who sets fire to the rain is in my family.

There were some interesting names.

Erdmann (Heinrich Bartels is not a relation of mine). 

Petronella was apparently a popular name.

In my family tree, I found several interesting names.

"Ancke." Low German version of "Anna."

I couldn't find an origin or comparison for "Trincke."

I couldn't find a comparison for this one, either. It's also gender neutral, although here, it's a woman.

"Maricke" similar to "Mary?"

I wanted to show you the interesting names of the towns themselves. 

I didn't think that we could trace our tree very far back, but we can trace all the way back to this  "Voht," who was born in 1586.

We had a great time at the office. However, tomorrow I'll probably spend a little bit more time on this, but then I'll probably have to get back to the missionaries.

Canadians and Suspension Bridges

Greetings from Canada! I'm sorry for not writing yesterday, but they arranged for me to go out with the archivist and his family and we were out later than I had expected.

So, I left Fresno, and my wonderful host Jean Janzen. I hopped on a plane which took me to San Francisco. I don't have any pictures of flying this time, since the first flight, I was seated right next to the propeller, which blocked most of my view out the window, and the second flight I was seated on the inside.

However, I did make it through customs with little trouble. The officer did look at me a little funny, like he couldn't quite figure out why I was there, but they let me into the country, so I guess they decided everything was okay.

My bedroom for the week.

My hostess, Mary Ann, but together a little "welcoming package." She may or may not be a little bit Canadian.

My own bathroom (with a beautiful big bathtub)

They have this awesome soap dispenser in the shower, which I thought was pretty cool. I may or may not be easily impressed.

The next morning, I went to church with Richard Thiessen and his family. After church, we went back to their family home, where we at delicious soup made by his wife's mom.

Then, we went touring. We made the drive back to Vancouver, which took about twice as long as usual, because there was an accident along the freeway. (Look at me, using Canadian terms, eh?)

First, we went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. You can read more about it at the site here. Basically, it's a giant swinging bridge with some other cool attractions built around it. It's also set in a beautiful forest.

The bridge, which is as high as the Statue of Liberty's shoulder, and moves back and forth quite a bit while people are walking on it.

Totem poles. Welcome to Canada.

The river from the bridge. Unfortunately, it is difficult to show how far down this really is from the bridge.

Technically, the area is a rainforest, so there are lots of big, beautiful trees.

They also have bridges set up between trees, which allows you to walk up among the leaves.

A view of the main suspension bridge from the tree bridges.

A blue heron

The canyon cliffs from the bridge. 

The "Cliff Walk." Another walkway along the cliffs of the canyon.

At one point, the bridge curves out from the cliff.

Some portions had glass floors.

Ferns holding onto the cliffside.

My "host family" for the day on part of the glass bridge.

Looking down at the bridge from above.

After this, we went into Vancouver to Stanley Park, which is one of the largest urban parks in North America. It is right out next to the bay, so I got to see the sun as it was setting over the ocean.

The mountains on the other side of the bay.

Oh, Canada!

Cargo ships in the bay.

Then, we went to a Chinese Night Market. It was an interesting experience. It was mostly just loud and crowded  I bought a few pairs of socks that I thought were fun (plus, they were 3 pairs for $5).

Looking at the market from the edge.

Oh, and there was a giant rubber duck.

I wasn't joking.

Eventually we got home late at night. I was tired and went to bed.

This morning, Richard picked me up and took me to the archives. This archives is a little different. It is set in the Mennonite Historical Society of British Columbia (say that five times fast). It's also run with almost all volunteer help. The building is in an area with many retirees, so there are a lot of people who are looking for somewhere to help. So, it sounds like every day, I'll meet more new people.

The main work area/lending library. 

Shelves. They don't use the term "Collections" here. They use "Fonds." I think it's French. For confusion. 

These movable shelves don't have the crank handles, so one has to pull them, which is pretty difficult, since they're heavy.

This shelf of microfilm holds what they call "EMZ" microfilm. These are German documents that hold information on many Mennonite refugees that were seeking German citizenship. They are digitizing all of the files, and then taking information out of it. Each reel has about 3,000 pictures on it, and after 2 years they're about 1/3 of the way through. 

The TARDIS is feeling quite at home here.

Many things here are slightly British. For example, they say "Zed" instead of "Z." "Holiday" instead of "vacation." They also drink a lot of tea. I'm not complaining. I am, however, afraid they're going to think I'm making fun of them. I pick up very quickly on accents, and sometimes catch myself talking just a bit funny. Yesterday, we had a long conversation about accents. yes, they say "Aboot." Since some people like to point it out, they also say "bag" the same way I do. Oh, and they actually do say "eh" here. I have been counting. I'm up to 15 in the past three days. In our conversation on accents, some of the guys said that they said "eh" as a way of allowing for other's input. I told them Americans must not say "eh" then because they don't care about other people's opinions.

So, I'll see you all later, eh?