Of hippies and henchmen: Long Beach, Tofino

           "There was a time, apparently in the late sixties and early seventies, during the free-love and wandering hippy movement- an era which I was too tardy out of the womb to take part in, and so, like one who arrived at Woodstock the day after the concert, when everyone else was leaving and bursting with loquacious panegyrics about the incomparable affair, I was left to cuss at the dumb luck of being born in ‘66- there was a time when hordes of young folk lived on Long Beach, near Tofino, in squatter’s huts made out of driftwood. They caught fish, played music, drank wine, made love, and lived with nature, like a long lost band of space-wanderers, finally rendezvousing in a remote area, on a remote planet, and having there a celebration for a good long while so as to get to know each other once again. In fact, this utopic lifestyle went on for almost ten years, until the mob of un-free citizens and their henchmen ran the freedom-lovers off the beach and back onto the pavement.  ..."

 

Excerpted from IN AND OF, by Jack Haas