Banff 1959, Part 5: "Crossing the Great Divide"

By now it was almost mid-July. One more month and summer school would end. Murray MacDonald, the faculty member who discovered me at Moraine Lake (see previous post), said I should meet the director.

And so it was that I met Donald Cameron. He gave special consent for me to register. Thus yours truly, who had no funds, became the first-ever (?) “guest” student at the Banff summer school. His decision was also influenced partly because I already had accommodation and meals in town.

Being mostly self-taught, this was an opportunity for me to receive “lessons in Art” from established faculty such as Charles Stegeman, William Townsend of the Slade School in London UK, and Murray MacDonald.

The classes had been in session for a month already when I joined. Great was my disappointment when they went on their next field trip and I wasn’t able to come along. Instead, I had to stay in Classroom #308, Donald Cameron Building. (Coincidentally, many years later, Natasha had her office right across the hall from this very classroom, when she worked there from 1980-85 as executive assistant to Presidents David Leighton and later Paul Fleck.)

Instructions were given to me: “To avoid distraction from the natural scenery, Henri, we advise you to turn your back to the window”. Why this unusual advice? Because I had been asking all kinds of questions, such as: “Those greens, greys and browns here in the Rockies, after awhile they become monotonous. For a start, why can’t we change the colours to make the landscapes more alive?”

Already I had started painting in this way. This led to the faculty’s suggestion for me to put these questions to the test, and seek answers. Hence my back to the window!

Since I’d been in the Rockies on my own the past 2 months and created numerous landscapes (see earlier posts), it was worth a try. After all, the faculty were experienced artists themselves, well-established and respected. And so this great adventure into the unknown started. I began with a blank sheet of paper - - - no guidance of objects or phenomena.
Instead of rendering what’s “out there”, the process is reversed. Now I’d work on drawing out what was within. Soon I was comfortable being alone on those occasions when the others went field painting, and began painting some ‘imaginary things’. (But I still was not too pleased about being left out on the field trips!) However, this challenge gave me a new incentive.

“It’s easier to start an argument than to start a painting from a blank canvas.” (Henri van Bentum)
After doing a series of abstract images on paper, I began to have fun. Soon I had more confidence and started to work on masonite or canvas board. Next came a series inspired by my meeting with the First Nations chiefs (see earlier post), depicting their neglected and declining culture. Being in Canada less than 2 years from the Lowlands, I was taken aback by decline of their culture. 

At the end of the summer school season, an exhibition was held of our work. Great was my surprise when one of the First Nation’s series won not only First Prize in oils, but a scholarship for the 1960 summer session, plus the Purchase Award for the School’s permanent collection. Still to come: one or two more posts about this crossing of the “Great Divide”, Banff, 1959. 

Banff, 1959 Part 4 - unexpected company

To do field painting in a natural environment sharpens the “noticing” and observing senses.Each change of shadow, light, movement, wind, clouds, temperature, plus the myriad variations of the colour Green alone, how and where you put your feet - - - all this and more serve to ‘sharpen the pencil’.

Painting outdoors in the Rocky Mountains is different from visiting as a tourist or hiker. For an artist, it’s not the same, no matter where. The act of painting (or anything done with absorption) can lead to a timeless state of mind. Speaking of things “not being the same”, landscape painting has never been the same since the Impressionists took their art out of the conventional, academic studio environment, and placed it outdoors to capture on paper or canvas. Here in Canada we had the Group of Seven, who came later and were “our Impressionists”.

You have to respect the courage, the challenges that were faced by these painters working in the field. In France --- the Mistral and the fierce summer heat; in Canada, mosquitoes and black flies. Yet, they kept going.[Today the public loves the Impressionists and great artists such as Vincent van Gogh, and here in Canada, the Group of Seven. But that’s easy; after the initial scoffing and mockery, a century has gone by bestowing and recording praise upon praise on these pioneer artists, now household names. ]

Since arriving in Banff early May, I’d done several oil and oil pastels in remote locations throughout the Park. Some days while hitchhiking early in the morning I’d get a ride into Canmore where I did “The Three Sisters” in oil pastel.

Several times I gave paintings to strangers who offered me a lift back into Banff. In those days, I was grateful for the being there, I believed I could always do more some other time. Little did I know what was in the lap of the future, or I would have kept every one. Now I’ve completely lost track of where these paintings are, no record for our archives.

The grandson of Mrs. Parkin, my landlady, lived in Calgary. He visited sometimes, and one day his grandmother said, “Why don’t you take Henri to Calgary, for the Stampede?” And so he did, and I stayed for the full Stampede week. 

What an experience! I have never forgotten this extraordinary spectacle. (Remember at this point I’d been in Canada less than two years, coming from the Lowlands, where as boys we grew up under the spell of Cowboy and Indian movies.)

Back in the Rockies, one morning I’d already spent several hours painting at Moraine Lake when a big van pulled up with several students and two faculty members which later I learned were from the Banff summer school.Earlier, my landlady mentioned “that School” up on Tunnel Mountain, but I’d not been there to visit. (From what I’d heard, I couldn’t afford the fees.) Here's a picture of me painting at Moraine Lake:

The students, all women, set up their easels. One of the faculty came over to me and introduced himself: Manly MacDonald. He looked at the work on my easel, then asked a few questions, including who was I, where did I come from, where was I staying, and how long had I been painting? He also enquired if I’d ever visited the “School”. Mr. MacDonald then said, “I think you should come and visit the School sometime.”

I finished my painting and waited until the group was ready to return, hoping to get a lift. This worked out well.A few days later, I walked up Tunnel Mountain to pay the School a visit.

That July day, 1959, at Moraine Lake, destiny guided me towards an unexpected and unknown road into the future. A path I am still walking. More on this, later. Happy Trails! Henri

Banff 1959, Part 3 - Nourishing substance in an Oil Pastel stick

After seeing the woman sketching here at the seashore, not one but several doors opened into my ‘memory mansion’. Here we are already on part 3, yet, the most important part of the Banff story (other than the memorable experience of simply being there) hasn’t begun. Of course this isn’t a play-by-play colour commentary on the full summer of 1959 in the Rocky Mountains.

Actually my motivation for recording all this is the fact that though I did numerous landscape 
paintings ‘en plein air’ at Banff National Park, it was there that I ‘crossed the Great Divide’. The wheel was set in motion for a major evolution in my work.

But let’s not be too hasty, first things first. On my early morning painting treks into the mountains, I’d see chipmunks and also lots of Gophers everywhere. Gophers would swiftly pop up and down into their holes. They whistled shrill warnings to their family while I set up shop in their neighbourhood.

Since I was always alone in the wilderness, one of the fishermen who gave me a lift to the road leading up to Peyto Lake warned me to be careful not only of the Grizzly and Black Bears, but also the Wolverine. This was good to know. Coming from Holland less than 2 years earlier, I’d never heard of Wolverines.

Anyway one morning I was seated, totally absorbed in trying to capture the intriguing shape and milky turquoise-colour of Peyto Lake. I was looking down on the Lake below, when suddenly I heard a rustling and crackling sound. “Oh-oh! A bear or wolverine!” I thought to myself. Slowly I turned my head around. A few feet away, there was a chipmunk nibbling, very dapper, on one of my sticks of oil pastel! He was holding it gently in his front paws, having already carefully removed the wrapper. A breakfast snack.

I’d come back to Banff soon after high Noon, if I could get a lift. The temperature rose high and fast in these early days of summer. Back in those days, 1959, “Indian Days” were held every summer, just outside the town of Banff. First Nations chiefs of the Blackfoot, Stoney, Blood, and other nations sat outside their large ‘wigwams’. They’d answer questions posed by curious visitors.

One of the Chiefs said something I’ve never forgotten. He said to our little group, “White man is funny, because when we say ‘There are only twenty ocelots left’, some of you would say, ‘Oh, let’s go shoot them, before they’re all gone.’”

Tomorrow, I’ll share with you amongst other events, how I was ‘discovered’, at Moraine Lake!

Banff 1959, Part Two - Wildlife face to face

Memory can be like a clear mirror, but only when what the eye views is “seen” with full attention as things happen. Otherwise the mirror becomes foggy, as if “breathed” upon. Or to put it another way, ‘when we let the film role with the cap still on our lens of the camera’, no picture will be developed. 

Banff in 1959 was a sleepy town.  

There was the classy Banff Springs Hotel; a trail riding outfit for horseback riding, and the Banff summer school up Tunnel Mountain. Banff Avenue had no T-shirt stores, jewellery shops, no Japanese signs in the windows, no mall.

There was a small Western “Chinese” restaurant, typical of the 1950’s, also a grocery store. 

During that summer, a black bear got into the back of the store twice and feasted on the sweets. I say twice; after he was caught the first time (tranquilized and carted off), he came back and did the same thing all over again! Tranquilized again, this time he was taken far from the town, never to return that summer.

Sometimes very early in the morning, I’d go over to the golf course at Banff Springs Hotel to collect golf balls that were here, there and everywhere. I sold these, for extra income. 

On those occasions I encountered the odd coyote or black bear in the distance, but was never threatened by them.

By mid-June, everything came to life. Snow was gone except on higher peaks. Flowers sprung up everywhere. Most to the bears awoke from their lengthy hibernation. Mothers and cubs hung out in the outskirts of town at the garbage dump. (This was 1959, remember.) 

Scolding their cubs, chasing them, getting them out of the trees – this was a sight to behold.

Out on my daily expeditions into the mountains, I’d often spot elk, whitetail deer, Bighorn sheep and mountain goats. And, bears. Now that they were up and around, extra caution was needed.

One morning while in a remote spot to do field painting, I came face-to-face with a big black bear, less than 15 metres away. “Oh-oh. What to do now? I’d been told never to turn my back to a bear. So then what?

I began to whistle a tune. The bear stood up on its hind legs, gave me a good look, and then lumbered off on all fours into the undergrowth. Phew! That was some moment! Another caution: never come between mama and her cubs. (But the trick is to know where the cubs are!)

Late one morning I was painting near a lake. Suddenly something bizarre slowly appeared out of the water. Dripping greenery hung from its long snout. Huge flat antlers, long gangly awkward legs. Had never seen anything like it! Looked like one of Mother Nature’s ‘misprints’. 

Later my landlady when she saw my sketch laughed and exclaimed, “Oh, Henri, that was a Moose!”

 Signing off, ‘til Part 3, coming up. 

 Henri

Crossing the Great Divide, Banff 1959

Something we seldom see here at the sea walk - - - someone sketching. She was a passenger from a cruise ship, or so I guessed. Beside her was a Holland America bag and a Holland America ship was docked nearby. I went over to take a look, her subject was the Olympic mountain range across Juan de Fuca Strait. From personal experience, I know that most outdoor or ‘plein air’ artists wish to be left alone, not disturbed or distracted. So, I quietly observed, saying not a word.

Seeing her sketching lit up my "memory-chamber", transporting me back in time to the spring and summer of 1959 in Banff, Alberta and the Rockies. There, I’d been doing lots of field painting on-the-spot, “en plein air”, like the Impressionists and Group of Seven.

My trip out west began when a doctor specialist in Toronto encouraged and sponsored me to spend some time in the Canadian Rockies, this after having been less than two years in Canada. Early May 1959, I boarded the CPR train from Toronto to Banff. An adventurous and memorable journey in itself, at any time.

It was hailing when I got off the train in Banff. I found a place to stay and settled in to 206 Otter Street (now called “Parkin House” and a heritage building). Next day I was eager to scout the region. A light snow was falling, dusting the streets white. Mount Rundle and Tunnel Mountain received an extra pack of winter’s last visit.

Mrs. Parkin lent me ear muffs and gloves. I’d brought along a small wooden easel, paint box and minimal supplies. The first few paintings were snowscapes.

Within a week the weather was milder, the snow quickly melted. Every day I went out, like the French Impressionists, selected a location and finished a painting on the spot. Sometimes in oil, sometimes oil pastel. By the end of May I’d rendered several paintings within walking distance of town, up Tunnel Mountain, over to Vermillion Lake.

When morning light started earlier, my landlady suggested I get up to Lake Louise. All very well, but I had no car or bicycle. Then one day on a morning walk, looking for a spot, a station wagon stopped. “Need a lift?” I replied, “Where to?” “ We’re going trout fishing, we can drop you wherever you like, for an artist there’s lots to paint in the Park, you know.” Thus began another chapter.

In those days there was little tourism, every morning I’d hitchhike and would always get a lift early in the morning, most often with early-rising fishermen.This opened the way to Peyto Lake, 

Lake Louise, Emerald Lake, Takakkawa Falls, White Fish Lake and Moraine Lake. Getting lifts in the morning was easy, but not always so later in the day. Often I had to wait quite awhile to get back home to Banff.

Many times in appreciation to a driver for the lift, I would give them the painting or pastel I’d just painted (much to their surprise). Unfortunately we have no record of where these early works are now. Thus began a journey, not only changing my life, but also my career. Should you still have time or be interested (what with all the goings-on, such as elections and the economy), then I’ll gladly continue to share the next ‘installment’ of Banff 1959 in a post to follow. Having had many unusual encounters with wildlife, and was often alone in the wilderness . . but that's for next post.

Crossing Lake Titicaca o/b "ss Ollanta", Peru to Bolivia 1969

A reader asked if I could kindly follow-up my story from the Machu Picchu post of September 1. Here goes. (I feel like a mis-gendered "Sheherezade".) After the Machu Picchu visit, I took a train to Puno at the edge of Lake Titicaca to board the ship “ss Ollanta”.

It was almost nightfall. Embarkation process was like stepping into a reverse time zone. Customs and immigration was handled by one official who spoke no English; his office was an old wooden shack, a mottled green. My passport was stamped by candlelight. A full moon was rising on the horizon. I was being shown to my quarters when it suddenly struck me, “How did this antique vessel ever get way up here on the highest navigable lake in the world? And, from where?”  

Here's what the chief steward told me. It all began in the late 1860’s when renowned British shipbuilders Earle’s of Hull, UK received an order from the Peruvian government. It was to build a two 70-passenger vessels, later named “Yavari” and a sister ship “Yapura”. These would provide the only transportation between Peru and Bolivia (Bolivia is a landlocked nation.)

It was to be an extraordinary feat of engineering: somehow, the ship had to get over the Andes Mountains! And, all the way to Lake Titicaca, 3,810 metres above sea level (12,500 ft.).

The ships (with eight British engineers) were brought from England around Cape Horn, aboard “Mayola”, 2,766 packing crates all marked and numbered and weighing a total of 210 tons, plus two crankshafts. These were first transported by train from the port of Arica on the Peruvian coast, inland to Tacna (on the oldest railway line in South America.

Then onwards over the Andes, by mules - - - over a “moonscape of the driest desert in the world with mountain passes higher than European peaks and sub-zero windswept wastes of the Altiplano”. Also something to keep in mind is the air at such an altitude requires for most of us extra oxygen.

For example the “Tren del Sol” (another amazing achievement of engineering) from Lima to Huancayo, which I also took in 1969, carried oxygen tanks in each compartment of the train. “ss Yavari” became the blueprint for “ss Yapura”. Later, she was followed by “ss Ollanta”, and this was the historic vessel I sailed aboard. She had been launched 39 years earlier, in 1930.

Following the Chief Steward's explaining how this remarkable vessel got to Lake Titicaca, (after temporarily being transported into that “believe it or not” realm of amazing human achievement), he proudly gave me a complete tour of “ss Ollanta”. Suffice to say the interior of First Class was elegant and luxurious, with mahogany, rosewood, teak, polished brass everywhere, and lace curtains over the port holes. The dining room featured pure linen, genuine silverware, crystal glasses and decanters; while the galley was a feast for the eye with copper pots and pans.

During my crossing aboard “ss Ollanta”, there were about 20 passengers. The food was five-star. I’d only ever experienced such lavishness back in the late 1940’s when I was a waiter in the top-quality restaurants of Amsterdam and later a dining-room steward with Holland America Line where I served Hollywood movie stars. (More on this some other time.)

Who could ask for anything more, to sail from Peru to Bolivia on the highest navigable lake in the world – Lake Titicaca, the spiritual realm of the ‘Altiplano’ people, with a full moon! Signing off. Henri

p.s. The now-famous reed boats of this Lake are the only reminder of the ancient ways. Imagine the reaction of the native people who first set eyes on the steamships, smoke-spewing metal monsters, which crossed their sacred Lake Titicaca? And what about transportation today? The native people still use their reed boats, while hovercraft and catamarans ply the Lake, to bring the human family back and forth between Peru and Bolivia. Progress! Adios, Henri

Memory Lane

The sea walk is more popular than ever it seems, with this summer sun bonus. The benches are taken most of the time now. No matter, can sit on our balcony and watch the sky, the nautical, human and animal world.

This morning, seagulls in Rambo mode chased away a fish-eagle (Osprey), and, for an encore, a Blue Heron, who’d been waiting patiently focused for its breakfast.

This aggressive behaviour by the seagulls took me back a few years to South Georgia, Antarctica when fearless Skuas dive-bombed penguin chicks (and us too).

Other vignettes came next like frames in a movie, flashing images from the past, each one could be chapter in itself, but this is a blog, so here they are in “point form”. (It’s intriguing how all this is recorded and filed away into that mystery chamber called “memory”.)

-from the Skuas to an Elephant Seal Cub who roared at me like a lion, to the zodiac ride amongst icebergs where we could smell the fishy breath and almost pluck the barnacles from the humpback whales

- to the penguin family who used icebergs as a slide into icy waters

-to Albatross chicks we viewed after climbing a slippery, steep hill for a glimpse of the nests

-the millions of King Penguins, amongst whom we cautiously wandered

-massive Elephant Seal bulls, skirmishing with rivals to protect their harem

-this transferred me to an incident while snorkelling in the Galapagos when a male Fur Seal literally tossed me out of the water

-Blue-Footed Boobies, who performed a dapper parade, showing off their power-blue feet

-while all this talk of “elephants” took me back to The Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka, where I stood amongst the herd

-to 1972, when I spent a week with the Maasai, as guest of a former trophy-hunter turned photographer-guide

-to Kenya, witnessing in the middle of the night at “Tree Tops Lodge” a Bush Baby (a nocturnal creature) with its enormous eyes, sitting quietly on a tree branch right, peering into my window

-a few years later, while on safari in Tsavo Park, a pride of lions having a siesta right in the middle of the road; our jeep coming to a full stop while we awaited the end of their nap

-still at Tsavo Park, when our guide suddenly came upon a herd of elephants, and he told us to be absolutely quiet or else we would upset the bull elephant that was keeping a wary eye on us and who started to flap his ears; but one of the female passengers suddenly started screaming in a primordial outburst of fear. Only the cool and clear mind of our driver got us out of that one! Never experienced a vehicle backing up so fast!

-reveries brought me next to Ibiza, 1961, where I had a donkey who came with rental of my dwelling; one day he hurt his leg against a small boulder on the road as we descended a hill into town; then upon returning from our trip to get art supplies, he refused to go on that section of the road, and made a big detour in a field. He remembered! They’re not all that dumb. And not the only ones with a ‘memory’.