Cabin at Singing River by Chris Czajkowski ~ 1991. This edition: Nuk Tessli Publications, 1997. Foreword by Peter Gzowski. Softcover. ISBN: 0-9681775-0-6. 149 pages.
Chris Czajkowski, born in 1947 and raised in England as the only child of a British mother and a Polish war refugee father, grew up surrounded by industrious creativity. As a young woman, Chris travelled the world, hiking in lonely places and working on farms, eventually fetching up in western Canada in 1979, milking cows near Salmon Arm, B.C.
Salmon Arm – with a population of 17,000 people not a particularly large metropolis – proved too crowded for Czajkowsky’s liking, and she headed even farther west, across the Coast Mountains and into the remote Bella Coola Valley some 250 miles out of Williams Lake, where she was invited to build a cabin on the Trudy and Jack Turner wilderness farm near Lonesome Lake, a day and a half’s hike on foot from the nearest road.
This is the story of Chris Czajkowski’s first cabin, how she built it mostly by herself with mentorship from the Turners, teaching herself to fall trees and erect log walls and finally, two years or so after her start, put on a roof. The eventual cabin was more than a modest log shack; it turned out to be a handsome and very livable house, where Chris spent the majority of her time for a number of years, occasionally going out to civilization to work and earn some much-needed cash.
Czajkowski was already an accomplished visual and textile artist, and she eventually found her writer’s voice as well, when her lyrical letters to Peter Gzowski’s Morningside CBC radio program caught the imagination of Gzowski and listeners across Canada.
Cabin at Singing River is a fascinating depiction of an adventurous life beyond the ken of most of us, but those of us familiar with the region are perhaps the most aware of the magnitude of what Czajkowski and her fellow wilderness dwellers accomplished in making themselves a viable home in the bush; this really is The Wild; one truly is alone and in charge of one’s destiny out there beyond the end of the last road.
Upstream from the Stillwater, the river splits and runs in braided skeins through dark strands of cedar, an Emily Carr landscape of green and gloom, a prime place for mosquitoes in the summer and grizzlies in the fall. Pale cottonwoods send vast, corrugated trunks into the canopy, and devil’s club writhes like a mass of spiny snakes beside the boggy creeks. The remnants of the settlers’ trail are visible in places, but it is rarely used and no longer maintained. Great windfalls cross it in hopeless tangles, and much of the original route has been obliterated by the vagaries of the river…
Chris Czajkowski is a highly individual and very opinionated person, and this comes through loud and clear in Cabin at Singing River and in subsequent books. She has little time or patience for dilly-dalliers, and visitors coming into her solitary domain had better keep themselves up to the mark or risk a keen critique in her writings; she’s not averse to publically calling out those she considers naïve, pretentious or unprepared.
To me, city people are frighteningly alike, aspiring to be carbon copies of each other. Their programmed world gives them no chance to grow as individuals; not only are they unbelievably ignorant about what goes on beyond the limits of their lives, but they also surmise that anything outside their range of experience is inferior and not worth knowing.
Yeah, there’s a strand of judgementalism running through these pages, taking away some of the shine on what is otherwise a deeply moving appreciation of the natural world, and the truly admirable exploits of the memoirist. But more often Czajkowski is deeply appreciative of her neighbours and friends, the unique individuals who make their homes way away from the easy-come amenities of the more “civilized” parts of the world.
This first beautifully written account of her life-so-far is in my opinion one of Czajkowskii’s best, though every one of her subsequent books – Diary of a Wilderness Dweller, Nuk Tessli: The Life of a Wilderness Dweller, Wildfire in the Wilderness, A Mountain Year, And the River Still Sings, among others – follows much the same pattern. All are very readable.
Full disclosure: I’ve had some brief interactions with Chris Czajkowski over the years, and several prized pieces of her artwork grace my walls. I admire her greatly but find her a bit intimidating, too. I suspect she is a stalwart friend to those she allows into her inner circle. I happily purchase each one of her books as they appear, for personal pleasure and for knowing how much she depends on her writings to put food on her table; she’s perennially struggling to make ends meets, because even the most self-sufficient of remotely lived lives require resources from elsewhere and infusions of cold hard cash.
My rating for this one: 8.5/10
Leaves & Pages 
This sounds amazing and just the kind of book I love: I’ll be sure to look out for her work.
I remember trying to read this back when I was in high school and reading everything I could find about BC. But I also remember finding Czajkowski insufferable and too happy to make quick – and harsh – judgments about people. Maybe I’d feel differently these days but that passage you quoted set my teeth on edge. On the other hand, the temptation is still there because I do love to read about these wonderfully remote parts of our province.
I read her books with mixed feelings, for sure. In particular as Czajkowski has no hesitation in mocking some of her paid clients from her alpine guiding days and also, more disturbingly, her more recent unpaid internees/helpers. Sometimes she names names. I find that very uncool. This first book is mostly about her own exploits and the wonders of nature, and quite enjoyable except for a few jaw droppers like the one I quoted. On the other hand, she walks the walk, as it were, putting demands on herself far in excess of what she expects from others. A complex personality, and beloved by many in the area, I hasten to add. The Chilcotin and Bella Coola valley tend to attract/form rugged individuals, in every sense of the word!
Whenever I visit Vancouver Island, every other year, I go into book stores and head for the local history/local memoirs etc to see what I can find. I’m sure if I’d seen one of her books, I’d have snapped it up. Even with the caveat about her attitudes, I might still track her down.
My last two trips west have netted me The Curve of Time, From Highheels to Gumboots and (no connection) Gumboot Girls. All stories of tough, adventurous women.
Czajkowski’s books are probably worth searching out; they’re mostly lovely except for the odd bit of snark, which can be jarring. They should be available in the library system, one would think. In particular her fairly recent fuller biography, And the River Still Sings, which is an overview of her life. She’s done an awful lot in her time; she is in her early 70s now, and she remains very active in her Chilcotin community. A tough, adventurous woman for sure, and outspoken, too, so I guess that’s part of the package!
Re: your other books referenced. isn’t The Curve of Time Wonderful? Haven’t yet read the other ones.
Yes, I’ve read them both, and loved them. Another Gumboot Girls has just been published (last month). Dancing in Gumboots. Both books are about young women ca 1970 who headed out to the west coast to find adventure or escape lousy relationships or just see what was out there.
By the way, for fun, here are my Vancouver Island holiday snaps from Sept http://www.dalyght.ca/vi2018/index.html
Oh, grand photos! I greatly enjoyed the peek at your latest trip west. Thank you for sharing. We didn’t make it to the Island this year; we’re hoping to squeeze in a visit in the spring, though because of the travel time (we always figure two extra days because of the ferries) it might not happen. I hope it does; one of those special places. Your book recommendations have been duly noted – those sound grand.