Recalling a simpler, kinder time while growing up
VANCOUVER — It took Nahanni Arntzen many years to appreciate her early childhood in the B. C. wilderness as the daughter of two young hippie tree planters.
She was born 39 years ago in a teepee on a sandbar nine miles up the Kingcome River on the west coast of B. C.
Her father, Daniel James, caught her in his dirty hands. Her mother, Jenny Arntzen, was back planting within a few days. He was 20; she was 19.
Nahanni Arntzen has warm memories from those early years in makeshift camps of dogs, riding in the back of trucks, sleeping in tree boxes, stealing mouthfuls of icing while the cooks weren’t looking.
Arntzen, who now lives with her husband and three kids in Portland, Ore., didn’t think much about those early years until after her second child, daughter Olive, was born eight years ago.
Wanting to show Olive photos of herself as a child, she asked her father if he had any. In response, he dropped off roughly 500 slides shot during his tree planting contractor days in the 1970s and 1980s.
The slides don’t only tell the story of one child’s life; they are a snapshot of a rich period in B. C.’ s history.
Tree planting got its start in the early 1970s after logging practices in B. C. were leaving large swaths of bare earth.
The duty to replant was first delegated to loggers’ wives but that proved insufficient. So forestry companies started offering reforesting contracts.
What she found in those boxes of slides was so precious, she’s launched a crowdfunding initiative to turn them into a photo book.
There are photos of her being bathed in an old- fashioned tub that isn’t attached to plumbing, of long- haired hippies strumming guitars in tents, of primitive camps perched precariously on the sides of mountains, of scruffy tree planters caked from head to toe in dirt.
For Arntzen, they brought back a flood of memories.
“I remember bears coming into the camp,” she recalled. “I never felt they were dangerous because it was always kind of exciting. We got to bang pots and pans. The noise and the dogs would scare them off.”
Without even a telephone, the planters enjoyed a world unto themselves, an isolation that would be unthinkable today.
For entertainment, they used to rip novels in half so someone could read the first half and then pass it along to someone else while finishing the second half. Tattered, ripped up novels lay scattered around the tents.
The hippies weren’t drawn to the jobs only out of idealism; the pay was great. “A lot just worked for four months of the year and were able to live on that.”
Arntzen’s aunt and uncle, for example, lived in a school bus while tree planting and then headed to Mexico to surf and hang out in the winter.
Her parents met in high school in North Vancouver. Their friendship blossomed into a romance that ended when their daughter was two.
They both went on to find other partners, have several other children each and lead full lives. James lives in Lions Bay and works as a home- renovation contractor while Jenny Arntzen lives in east Vancouver and is completing her PhD in an art- related field at the University of B. C.
The Arntzen family is well known for its many artistic gifts. Nahanni’s aunt Holly Arntzen achieved fame as a singer. Arnt Arntzen has carved out a name for himself as an artist and furniture maker. Her grandfather, Lloyd Arntzen, is a jazz musician. His kids and his kids’ kids are musicians.