Really, all this in 48 hours??

We're finally on our way. Len is with me the first 10 days in Canada, then I head to USA for 12 weeks. I've enjoyed months of people thinking I'd already gone and being surprised when I turned up - the new unreliable Ludi. It was even better to offer something and have it welcomed as unexpected.

For those who just want a quick guide to the photos, I've tried to give not much more than that. It's mostly an aid to my memory and a tribute to what I've experienced. I wanted to be more detailed than Facebook encourages, and more private. It may not be 'feelings' enough for some, I'm up for improving on that! If you want to know when there's a new chapter, let me know.

Our Bradford-Amsterdam KLM flight was brought forward 4 hours so we left at 4am and had over 6 hours waiting in Schipol airport. That's where Len learned Bezique and beat me in both

contests.

And on the plane we were in separate seats which meant we had neighbours to chat to, Len with someone who had lived in Vancouver, me with a Iranian student Emma speaking a BBC-English that hardly exists now. She gave recommendations of where to eat Persian in Vancouver, and reckoned Vancouver only pays lip service to First Nation indigenous rights. Maybe we'll see.

Conversation and 3 films helps 9 hours go by. An Arabic slapstick comedy about a sheep bought for Eid being stolen. Then Judas and the Black Messiah, an account of police infiltration and murder of the Chicago Black Panther Chapter led by Fred Hampton. The ease with which the armed state will attempt to obliterate a serious challenge... Fred Hampton united working class resisters from Black, White and Puerto Rican groups, which is why it's a White guy in the film also saying 'No more pigs in our community'. FH was 22 when he was murdered in a police raid, having first been drugged by a police informer. And finally Herself was an antidote: a feisty but ground down heroine gets friends and community helping to build her a house: the joy of struggling together for something worthwhile makes life worth

living. Even though the house was burned to ashes on the night after it was completed...

Finally arrived in Vancouver Airport at 4.30pm, having left Amsterdam at 4pm! Time difference.

Greeted by First Nation sculpture, token or not, and onto skytrain to Vancouver. It's 2am for our bodies, but too early for the long sleep. From the Sylvia Hotel it's 20 yards onto the beach. A laid-back, tidy but not over-managed beach, one of many. Walking into Stanley Park, I get greeted by Roo from Hebden Bridge, fellow Choir Commoner, here with her family. Within hours she's announced it on commoners members facebook with the response from Ellie: Commoners are like rats, never more than 300 yards from one. Vancouver is a surprising place. Amazing.

Stanley Park could be England. Bowling green, neat gardens and then wilder forest. Canada geese.

Len found a supermarket - bananas and rice cakes and then the long sleep.

Our first morning. Len has an 8.30am tour at a needle-exchange project - he's looking to be a social worker here some time. I wander down the beach to a ferry to Granville Island. More like a water-taxi with fixed routes. Nora O'Grady was a local politician. At the Blue Parrot in Granville Market, blueberries are in season.

We meet Nathan. He's another Commoner connection, Al Wallace's close college friend, Nathan is a retired community planner with Vancouver government (or is it British Columbia?). Except not retired in that he has a meeting that afternoon with the Housing Minister,

along with community reps from this Granville Island area, to persuade them to stand more firmly for community interests. The city planners want to take advantage of leases coming up for renewal, by moving residents to other areas and sell the land to developers for high-rise apartment blocks. They bring in money to the government budget. Sounds familiar?

While Len does other social-worky stuff, I'm at the Spartacus Bookshop, which is really friendly except to Cops, who are banned from the toilet.

Deep in a government tourism website, I find there's a Squamish nation youth pow wow. My research is paying off, because I know that pow wows are Indigenous celebrations designed for anyone to be welcome. So we rent bicycles, get totally lost in Stanley Park, finally make it over a mighty suspension bridge to the reservation in north

Vancouver. Its maybe a mile square of low housing, with a fenced-off field at one side where the pow wow is held.

CAN$15 in (£10) to get into a festival in a field with food and clothes stalls and community organisations. A fete, organised in a circle leaving a large area in the middle. Totem poles at one side. The grand entry is half an hour after we arrive, a guy with a microphone and speaker in no regalia at all, introduces dozens of people who are in amazing regalia. All ages. There are maybe 500 in the audience. Its impossible to tell but I guess we non-native are in a small minority. Its sunny and the atmosphere matches, friendly and enthusiastic. We eat huge slabs of fresh-smoked salmon.

Certain types of regalia are noticeable - feather headresses, and bum-dresses, I don't know how else to call them. Big variety of colour. There are introductions, and a procession to drums. And more

self-introductions, including from each of the dozen on the organising committee, who are clearly immensely pleased with what they've done - this seems to be the first one after COVID lockdown. One family seems to have been instrumental, but there are a lot of references to the person who led the organising before, who has since died.

Most of those in regalia have numbers on. During the rest of the weekend (it's Friday today), they will compete at traditional dances, and at drumming, for cash prizes. Pow wows like this have grown in popularity over the last 20 years in Canada and in the USA. They bring together native americans on the reservations with those outside, and others. They have helped revive the dancing, singing and drumming, and a sense of native american identity. There is discussion that I've read about, on the consequences of competing for cash which is in no way traditional. Overall, they are very positive platforms for defence and extension of the rights of descendants of those who lived here before settlers came and took the land.

So we cycle back, get lost again, hand in our bikes at the last minute, and get some rest. A pretty good full first day. Tomorrow another adventure - up into the Rockies.

PS, this is the grand plan: Canada with Len til 25th July; Seattle for two weeks, including Rod's friend Mary; cruise along Alaskan coast plus The Nation magazine’s onboard politics talks; a week in Salem Oregon including a trip down to the redwoods and a day volunteering on the Hood to Coast relay run with Jeff Hart; train across to Chicago to volunteer Sept 1-4 at the Haymarket literature festival ‘Socialism 2023’ (Angela Davis, Naomi Klein and dozens of others); a week in Madison WI with Nancy and Mariamne; train to San Francisco to meet Merle, via the Grand Canyon; trip to Yosemite Park; road trip with Merle back to Madison; two weeks in Madison, no doubt with visits to Mississippi and great lakes; back home October 20th (maybe, I'm not sure I'll want to).