Snowy Owls and the Point Roberts Fiber Fest

A cold, windy Saturday. Typical for a Western Washington February. Powerful gusts shook our old house while rain droplets pelted our windows with an inconsistent, steady rhythm like an experimental percussionist. Alecia and I were inside under a blanket, warmed by our fire, coffee in hand, reading the morning paper—The Daily Herald. One particular article was about migrating snowy owls that were currently occupying a small patch of land in Boundary Bay Regional Park just outside Vancouver, British Columbia.

Having spent the previous week at IslandWood Outdoor School with my students where we spotted two barred owls, this was very exciting to me. The article explained there were roughly 30 snowy owls, that the park was an easy daytrip from Everett, and that they would likely be gone by the end of the month. It also had several spectacular photos of the birds. I was sold, we were going to Canada!

The drive up was wet, but uneventful until we reached the border crossing. It was an unusually short wait and after about twenty minutes, it was our turn to be questioned by the Canadian border authorities. The guard was a younger guy, late twenties or early thirties. He had an eerie resemblance to Aziz Ansari, who plays Tom Haverford on the sitcom Parks and Recreation. We handed him our passports and the questioning got underway.

“Where do you live?”

“Everett.”

“What brings you to Canada today?”

“We’re heading to Boundary Bay Regional Park to see the snowy owls.” Apparently the guard had not been privy to the Herald article because he looked at me as if I had just escaped from a state hospital. I could have just as easily told him we were heading to Kamloops to see the famed somersaulting penguins or that we were off to Whistler to scout out the migrating heard of endangered ant-eating antelopes. His brow furrowed and his previously kind-looking eyes glared at me with cross skepticism.

“What?” he replied in question.

“There’s a parliament of migrating snowy owls at Boundary Bay Regional Park,” I answered unwisely instituting my newly found knowledge that a large group of owls is known to birders as a ‘parliament’. Luckily, the exciting expansion of my lexicon was lost upon the guard. I proudly handed him the newspaper article I had brought along. He gave it a three-second glance before handing it back through the open driver-side window.

“So, you both must work in the conservation field, eh?”

“No, no,” I replied, “we’re school teachers. We’ll be taking lots of pictures that we can share with the kids.” His face showed nothing but utter bewilderment as his shoulders dropped and he exerted an annoyed “Hmpf.” He clearly needed more time to process my statement and he took a lap around our CR-V. He simply couldn’t rationalize spending several hours in the car and crossing an international border to stand out in the driving rain to look at a few birds. Owls were obviously not the type of hooters this guy would ever go out of his way to catch a glimpse of. As he rounded the car, he stopped and carefully inspected something on the front bumper with great interest.

“So you left your kids to come up here for this?” he asked as he returned to my window. At first I was confused, but his meaning dawned on me quickly.

“No, I meant we’ll take pictures to share with our students.” That answer seemed to satisfy his concern, but he still wasn’t done.

“You’ve got a dented plate up front, you know. Did you hit something on your drive?” At this point I was beginning to question the purpose of this Canadian excursion as well as my own sanity. Truth was the license plate had been dented years ago in a rather embarrassing fashion, but considering how telling the truth was working out for me so far, I made a quick decision to go with his diagnosis.

“Yup,” I said with a quick shrug of the shoulders.

“Hmpf,” was his only response. He asked several more questions, all of which I answered as honestly as possible, all of which seemed to increase his distrust, but he finally let us go and on we went.

The park was only a few miles from the border and soon after our encounter with the guard we were very near our final destination. The road ran through acres of muddy fields painted white with flocks of thousands of seagulls, however, it didn’t take long to notice it wasn’t only seagulls dwelling in the mud-covered plains. Dozens of enormous eagles mingled with the gulls. The human equivalent of this phenomenon would be like Shaquille O’Neal teaching a kindergarten lesson. We stopped and got several photos, braving the wind and rain, before heading the remaining short distance to the owls.

When we got to the park, the wind was so strong opening the car door was difficult. We climbed to the top of a dyke that seemed to stretch endlessly in either direction. The slate-colored waters of Boundary Bay crashed in violent waves upon the shoreline. Raindrops and ice pellets stung our faces and hands as they drove into our skin like so many needles. There were a few other hardy souls to the northwest, some with colossal telephoto lenses balanced precariously on tripods that wobbled in the incessant wind. Leaning into the gusts, we fought our way to where the cameras were perched.

In the distance, across piles of driftwood, I saw four brilliant white owls perched on a large gray log. I was already psyched as I squinted to get a better look at the rare birds. I looked at Alecia and noticed she was looking in a different direction. I followed the direction of her gaze and noticed an owl only a few feet from the dyke. Looking northwest, I saw about ten more owls, each no more than twenty or thirty feet away. Their feathers were ruffled and they were bracing themselves against the wind. Their dazzling white feathers gave a strange glow against the gloomy February sky. They sat motionless except for their heads, which swiveled in a smooth gracefulness from the onlookers to the sea. We admired the sight for several minutes before our hands were paralyzed with cold and the camera was so fogged it could no longer take a photograph that wasn’t reminiscent of the blurred images of mythical creatures.

We had planned on taking a little more time with the owls, but the weather simply was not going to allow for that. It was then I happily realized we were within a few minutes’ drive of Point Roberts, Washington. As stated on its Wikipedia page, Point Roberts is “a geopolitical oddity.” It is at the end of a peninsula that extends just beyond the 49^th parallel. Like the entire state of Alaska, it is considered an exclave of the United States because it is not an island, but it cannot be reached from any point in the United States by land. The difference between Point Roberts and Alaska is the Point is less than five square miles in area. Being the maphead I am, I had been interested in that little patch of land since my childhood. We were this close, why not go now?

We drove through the relatively affluent and densely populated Vancouver suburb of Tsawwassen before reaching the border crossing, our second of the day. This particular crossing was faster, but it was surprisingly busy. We found out later that many Canadians enter Point Roberts seeking cheaper gas prices. Immediately after the crossing, we noticed many handmade signs in the shape of sheep placed chronologically like Burma-Shave advertisements. The sheep-shaped signs were promoting a community event called “Fiber Fest” that, as luck would have it, was taking place that very day, February 18. After spending about 15 minutes driving through the entirety of Point Roberts, which turned out to be a depressed looking little place much akin to a very tiny Appalachia, there was nothing left to do but check out the monumental fun that Fiber Fest promised to offer.

Fiber Fest was held at the community center and when we arrived, the parking lot was completely full, so we parked along the main road and made our way to the entrance. A very animated festival-organizer greeted us at the door. “You’re just in time, but you’d better hurry, they’re about to stop selling tickets for the quilt raffle!” We thanked him and told him we’d check it out. Turned out Fiber Fest, though its deceptive name sounded like a dietary convention to battle constipation and irregularity, was a festival celebrating local quilters and knitters and the local Point Roberts talent was impressive. Beautiful quilts and blankets draped the walls in all sorts of dazzling colors. Homemade baked goods and coffee were being sold and the tiny community center was packed with dozens of people chatting and spreading small-town gossip.

The items were mostly out of our price range and we did not buy a raffle ticket, but we took in the energy created by the joyful gathering of people making the most of their otherwise bleak day just like we were and it felt good to share the cheerfulness and warmth with them. 

I love days like February 18. I will remember days like these not because they were outrageously significant or epic or triumphant, but because they are small and special and beautiful. Someone had spent months organizing Fiber Fest and it brought a group of people together for no other reason than to look at their friends’ and neighbors’ crafts, which they had likely already seen, but it gave them a few hours of genuine happiness and joy and they shared that happiness and joy with us. We drove for hours to freeze in driving wind and rain to look at birds, but they were stunning and they brought people together who smiled and pointed and whispered happily to one another because they recognized the unbridled beauty of natural phenomena, which can be as simple as the gathering of 28 snowy owls. My interaction with the Canadian border guard was humorous, but I hope that one day, he too can appreciate these small but exceptional moments, because the Fiber Fests and owls and other little things are worth long drives and border lines and inclement weather because small moments, regardless of where they occur, are the things that make each of our days special and substantial and worth remembering.