Dara Poon

I started the day in darkness, and finished it in darkness. As night set in, I started feeling drowsy quite quickly, since I had hardly gotten any sleep last night. Total 34.7 km + 200 km + 23.9 km = 258.6 km for me today.

https://database.randonneurs.bc.ca/event/5587 The annual Remembrance Day brevet often has horrible weather. Last year, it rained so hard that nobody rode it. But today's weather was perfect: sunny, with light winds, and slightly chilly. After not having ridden my bike at pace for a month due to illness, then solo parenting duties, I was eager to go out for a nice long ride and soak up some sunshine. I rode with Craig until Tsawwassen, and with Douglas until the Boundary Bay Dyke Trail in Delta. On that fine gravel trail, though, I couldn't quite keep up with him, and watched him very gradually recede further and further over the next 10 km until I lost sight of him altogether. I then had to finish the second half of the brevet solo. Elapsed time 8h40m. The official brevet route was a few hundred meters short of 200 km, so I overshot the finish and turned around.

Suffering from insomnia, I left the house early, thinking that I could ride to the start at a relaxed pace. But I ended up having to ride in circles for half an hour to avoid standing around in 5 ℃, even after taking the slower Crabapple Ridge route.

After a hasty breakfast and goodbye, I raced off to try to arrive at the Swartz Bay ferry terminal before 07:50. I was watching my speedometer the whole time, making sure I wasn't slacking off. Towards the end, I left the Lochside Trail and switched to the highway, because I felt that I couldn't afford to waste any precious seconds on indirectness, hills, and intersections. I got to the ticket booth at 07:45, perfect timing, except… oh wait! There is no 8 am sailing. Scheduled departures are at 6 am, 7 am, 9 am, 10 am, and 11 am. 🤣 Since I had to wait around for an hour, I'm just going to take Translink on the mainland to meet a friend for lunch.

This post discusses some deeply unsettling events in Canadian history — events recent enough to be traumatic to people who are still alive today. The Kuper Island Indian Residential School was part of a Canada-wide program to exterminate indigenous culture by separating schoolchildren from their families under the guise of providing them an education. This school was operated by the Roman Catholic church from its founding in 1889; in 1967 the Canadian government took over its operation, until it was closed in 1975. The Kuper Island school was particularly cruel to its students, since its island location secluded it from public scrutiny and isolated the students from the outside world. It earned the nickname "Canada's Alcatraz". Some students deemed "problematic" at other residential schools were transferred to Kuper Island to control them. There is a CBC podcast series (https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/kuper-island-transcripts-listen-1.6622551) about the school. It's… very heavy listening. Among the atrocities and tragedies mentioned in the podcasts are: - In 1959, two sisters tried to escape by boat at night and were never seen again, presumably drowned. - A student, Richard Thomas, was said to have hanged himself, days before his graduation. Just before he died, he was on a phone call where he had mentioned that he couldn't wait to get out and tell the world about what goes on at the school. That conversation was overheard by a school administrator. Priests and nuns then marched students out to look at the death scene (presumably staged to appear as a suicide). - Children were served meat when the site was being inspected, then were ordered to give the meat back as soon as the inspection was over. - Some boys were groomed for sexual molestation by a priest who became overly friendly with them. - Multiple girls were sent into a dark laundry room for chores, and ended up being knocked out and raped. - Priests roamed through the dorms at night and sexually abused children. - Rape babies were said to have been disposed of in an incinerator. - Priests accused of sex crimes were transferred to other residential schools. Only one, Glenn Doughty, has ever been prosecuted; his prison sentence was three years. Kuper Island has been renamed Penelakut Island. The school was demolished and burned in rage by the community after it closed. Penelakut Island caught my attention for my annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation ride this year because there was recent news that 50 additional student deaths had been discovered, bringing the confirmed death toll to 171 (https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/archival-research-has-found-171-confirmed-deaths-at-kuper-island-residential-school-50-more-than-previously-thought-11032118). I was planning to take a look around the island, but that didn't end up happening. At the Chemainus BC Ferries ticket booth, I was told that the entire island was a First Nations reserve, and visiting the island required prior authorization — which would be impossible to obtain today since the Penelakut Band administration office was closed for the NDTR holiday. I was actually fine with that: it would have been awkward to wait around for the next ferry to get off the island anyway. I ended up taking a joy ride on the ferry without disembarking (Chemainus → Penelakut Island → Thetis Island → Chemainus). I had other ideas for spending the extra time, namely riding by Shawnigan Lake and Malahat Drive, then visiting an old retired colleague in Victoria. — Other NDTR rides: https://komoot.com/collection/3879108