Up to Port Townsend, and onto the Border

So after staying up for a couple manic nights, editing, arranging, organizing, fixing and getting stoked, we pulled out again on a drizzly mid-morning. We turn north along west side of the Puget Sound.

The Olympic Pennisula is a massive chunk of continent that seems 3/4s of the way ready to break away from the rest of North America. It stays attached but a good Volcano blast could send it floating away to the Pacific.

We take our time, filming through clearcuts, coastline, firework stands, hydro-electric dams, oysters and a cafe named after our friend in Eugene, Hungry Bear. Finally we arrive in Port Townsend which is the alter-ego of close-by Port Angeles we visited on the way to Victoria. Its kinda a yuppie Popeye town.
The arts are real, the economy sustainable, tourists, wooden boats festivals, actually festivals of every sort.

We stay at a hotel! First time this film. It is cheap cause its right above the bar with a cheesey blues band til 1 am. Fine by me. The room is so cool with a wraparound view of the street corner, tall windows and porcelin fixtures.

I see a flick called Walkabout at the coolest little theatre I've ever seen, called the Rose. About 60 seats, nice screen and sound and a great schedule. I can see myself living here. Plenty of good cafes everywhere too.

Port Towsend was once a bustling seaport mostly because sailing vessels couldn't navigate waters ahead safely. The straits and sounds, the islands and channels, are were too difficult. So Port Towsend flourished with trade and construction, arts, commerce, and heritage.

Then the steam ship was pulled into port and kept going. The new fossil-fueled machines could make the course through the channels to Seattle or elsewhere. Port Townsend's luck packed up and headed out to.

The next several decades saw glorious Victorian buildings fade into pigeon coops and warehouses for the big pulp industries that moved in. For a few decades the forests around the town evaporated into high pollution, low value added pulp and timber destined for a distant shore. The fate of many Northwestern towns.

Then, somewhere along the way, a renassaince occured. Old buildings slowly renovated into use, streets were cleaned, signs painted, festivals planned, boats refinished, tourists and arts solicited. Port Townsend was back in action as the sailboats again cruised into the harbor, this time for more for recreation then trade but this ain't no fakey, cutey town. Sustainalbe industries of all sort co-exist here and everyone here seems oddly friendly. It's got a real edge to it.

Now there is only 1 pulp mill. Also Internet access and good beers too. I'm packing my bags.

The next day we film boats, and visit Port Townsend Hemp Co., open since June 1996. Seem to be doing fine inside a brick and wood Penny Arcade type old Victorian. The townspeople took to this hemp shop without hesitation and now other stores are picking up different hemp specialty items. Some newsracks even had HempWorld and CannabisCanada.

Almost out of time, we get veggie lasagna to-go and eat blueberry pancakes. Roll on to the ferry, head out to Keystone terminal across the sound.

The ferry ride is nice but we are still waiting for a brilliant sunny day to film these emerald islands. A seagull air surfs for the 16mm and soon we roll off and head up the spit of land back to the 1-5 reality.

Bellingham is saved for later. We plan to visit Yitzac, David & Kris at Hemp Textiles International there to get a fiber lesson. Also there is a guy named Dave (are you seeing this theme) who is doing some international sweater making. Hungarian hemp, plied with wool and knit in Ecadour using English designs. I think I want one. We also plan to get some snowboarding action on Hemp boards up at Mt Baker, which is the spiritual homeland for shaggy-haired backcountry snowboard pioneers.

So we stop in at the customary pre-border rest area clean-up and smoke-down session and pull up to the Peace arch border so Eiji can film the big Arch thing marking this imaginary line in the sand. The wait is long and certainly not worth it.

Our turn sends us to the dunce corner of suspicious characters. They asked why we had all this camera equipment and I sez, "we're going to a conference" "oh yeah? what conference?" At that point I was honest which was a turned out to be a mistake. I figure all this hemp thing is legal, legit and normal. Of course border guards have very little knowledgde or interest in things like laws or rights and they proceeded to look for through the van making every adolescent comment about POT, you can imagine without actually saying "marijuana" etc. "You don't have any of that stuff your looking for do you?" "You know we can take your van and all this stuff if we find any of that other Hemp" real diplomats and future policymakers.

Dreadful and aggravating. Like I got time for this shit. Of course we're clean. Why would anyone bring anything into Canada. It's like bringing your own doggy bag of ice cream to the Ben and Jerry's factory. Absurd. I give them a copy of the fine book called "Industrial Hemp" published by Hemptech for use as a training manual to learn a little botony and industry. Educate yourself. Morons.

As it turns out, they kept my duffel bag of clothes and personal stuff and I trying to get it back now. They "forgot" to put it back inthe van. I'll spare you profanities here and let you imagine.

(By the way, Hemptech is coming out with a beauty new book called "Hemp Horizons" this fall).

So the next 2 days is a haze of editing, sound mixing and rerecording. I'm not good at this stuff. I like words and pictures, not wires and timing. Fortunatley Eiji and friend Brad are. They patch wires, push buttons, mix things. I make coffee, roll and doze off.

Sunday, trying to find Super 8 film.

Monday night, we do one more mix down and head down town to Canada Place to load in, get things sorted out etc.

Next film, I want to hire roadies but for now we haul stuff in, set-up the cameras in the symposium room to test. Stash all the gear and head to Days Inn to hook up with Robert, the third leg in the Hempen Road tripod. We review plan for tomorrow and sleep for about 4 hours then up early, down to set up and start filming.