The accidentally homeless hipster

Three weeks in. And I have accidentally promoted myself from a pink umbrella’d, pumpkin spice latte drinker that was poetry-slamming my way from hip bars to hipster bars in Vancouver’s happiest gaybourhood into Van-city’s best dressed rubber-tramp.

A rubber tramp, is basically a homeless person -a tramp- on wheels. Apparantly, it’s a counter-cultural movement thingy in Vancouver called Vandwelling. Although I haven’t found many other dwellers yet… That is, apart from the couple of big RV’s, parked down the road or parking lots that I found, which all look like nothing’s really happening on the inside. The idea is that instead of paying high amounts of rent (or in my case- hostelprices) you combine having a van with having a home. You learn how to live with only the most essential and you supposedly find your freedom through that. Now, I realize that as a semi-tourist, I am cheating this idea a little bit, I would be living out of a backpack anyways. But still I’ve got to say, there’s something pretty hardcore about this thing that I hadn’t realized.

First of all, this stuff is illegal. Not the kind of illegal that will get you in trouble, but the kind of illegal that will get you woken up in the middle of the night by a police officer telling you to move elsewhere. You’re not allowed to sleep in your van at night, putting me in a constant state of paranoia in the evenings, which will hopefully wear off in a while. But it also explains why all the other van or RV’s look deserted; discretion advised. The one thing I hadn’t however anticipated was the mental stress that urban vandwelling brings with it.  The illegality of the thing – the fact that you have to sneak around and have to be alert and move around all the time effectively brings you to the fringes of the city, where you share your lifestyle with Vancouvers many homeless and less fortunate. The harsh reality is that even though I chose to do this voluntarily, many people living in their vans here don’t and from the outside you see no difference between them and me. The fact that I spend my days on UBC’s campus, sending all kinds of fancy looking proposals to people, makes me feel better about the whole thing, but still.  Essentially I’ve rendered myself homeless in Vancouver, living a lifestyle which is not much welcomed… and it does make you think.

I’m not sure whether I am bringing it across in this post, but it feels like a bit of a social experiment at the moment which is an enjoyable experience in its own way, but definitely not as bohemian and carefree as I pictured it beforehand. Maybe in two more weeks I feel differently about it… Maybe i just need to chill out. We’ll see.

There are however also things that are entertaining about the whole vandwelling thing. There is something extremely absurd about waking up at 7am, transforming your bed back into a bench, dressing up sharply for an important meeting and then exiting your slightly condensed vehicle through its backdoor on a Wallmart parking lot at 8 am on your way to the University to meet a department chair about your PhD plans... This morning I rolled out of ‘Smokey Betty’ still dressed in my fleece pyjama and walked down Pegah’s driveway for a coffee in her upper class North Vancouver area basement apartment. Most of the time I however camp out in the industrial area around Vancouver Film Studios (Oh, the irony).

Urban vandwellings opposite would be backcountry vandwelling, which is completely different, although I still need to get the hang off that as well. Having a spare week between meetings I decided to check out the rocky mountains and my first encounter with British Columbia‘s rural residents was wonderfully peculiar and colourful. 

It started off with a (I presume) mexican truckdriver, who I had mistaken for a gas-station employee at the truckstop where I had decided to spend the night. As he was standing in front of 3 coffeemachines and under a big banner spelling out espresso, I ordered a cappucino with him. The following conversation was filled with confusion and in the end I just opted out and exited the station, wondering why they would employ anyone that hardly speaks the English language. He cut me off at the back of the shop, trying to continue the conversation. Only after making up a boyfriend in the back of the van, he started laughing and admitted that he thought I was trying to get some business out of him, offering him 'company' for a cup of cappucino. As I assured him I was fine and quickly left, he boarded his big Dorritos truck and hopefully continued his route... In any case, he didn't pay me a visit later.

Second up was an encounter with a scary looking dude who started beating his dogs with a stick, as they started running around my van, when I accidentally took a wrong turn into his dead-end roadside community, While driving back out, he pointed a finger at me looked me straight in the eyes and yelled: 'Look what you're making me do!!! hitting my dogs like that...' There was more, but I quickly raced out of hearing distance. Wondering what other kind of types this country was going to throw at me I cautiously entered a roadside diner where I was served a ‘lumberjack sized’ blueberry pie and engaged in a conversation with Craig. Craig is a big BC farmer -the type that matched the size of my blueberry pie- with suspenders, a walking cane and a very cheap, badly glued-on black wig that looked like he bought it from a Halloween costume store. He was however really friendly and tried to recruit me as a farmer. ‘We need new young farmers!’ he said, as he insisted on giving me his paper with all kinds of secondhand farm-equipment. Well… At least I now know where to go when I need a grain-elevator, thanks Craig! J

Right, I’ll top it off, I’ll end with my –almost- encounter in Banff, where my roadtrip took me. I visited the beautiful Lake Louise where I decided to start my day with some early morning hiking. 6.5 kilometre seemed like a nice start. However, adding one more to reach the viewingpoint it ended up being a 15 kilometre hike, as I had forgotten about the way back… Being kind of tired I was very much enjoying the downhill part of the hike back to the lake, when some hikers from the other direction warned me about a bear that was sighted on route, so ‘make some noise’. Great… Not having a bear-bell (yet) I whistled the rest of my way down, while dragging my feet. Honestly, I looked like an idiot, feeling not even half as cool as I pretended to be the rest of my walk. All in all, this was one encounter I am genuinely very happy about that it never happened,..