Author Howard White has captured life on the Sunshine Coast in 50 funny sketches in his latest book called Here on the Coast, which is subtitled Reflections from the Rainbelt.
White said in compiling the book, he set out to write about the character of this part of the coast, ranging from Port Mellon to Lund and its farther reaches, which is sort of a thumbnail description of his entire career to this point, he added.
The prolific, award-winning writer and publisher said many of the ideas for his latest book sprung from a column he writes for the Coast Reporter, which is the Peak’s affiliated newspaper on the lower Sunshine Coast.
“That’s the basis for the book,” said White. “I drew the collection from columns stretching back to 2007. I had to rethink and rewrite a lot of them.”
White said the Coast Reporter’s editor had called him and asked him to write a regular humorous feature that talks about what it’s like to be here.
“I thought, okay, I can certainly give that a whirl,” said White.
A lot of the book’s stories have to do with people and the many characters who populate this part of the coast. Having lived more than 70 years on the coast, White’s met a lot of them.
“These are people I’ve known and met who couldn’t sort of exist anywhere else,” said White. “We have a unique lingo here, we have very distinctive obsessions to do with the weather, the tides and catching BC Ferries, becoming very expert at avoiding the lineups.”
White said the title for his book just came up because when trying to figure out a title, he noticed one phrase that was repeated all of the way through the book, innumerable times, was: here on the coast, we do this, here on the coast, we do that. Thus, Here on the Coast.
While White’s book is a humorous take on Sunshine Coast life, he said he did not set out to be a humourist, but he just noticed it happening at a certain point.
“I guess it’s a gene you either have or don’t have,” said White. “People who know me find it a bit ironic because I’m not a knee-slapping kind of a guy, but when I sit down to write, it just seems to work out that people end up chuckling. It was a wonderful discovery for me that you could make people laugh.”
White said people around the Sunshine Coast are quite extraordinary. He said there is a real range of socioeconomic status and he’s able to key in on the diversity. He said, for example, there’s a story about the multimillion dollar escape that actress Michelle Pfeiffer built up in Bute Inlet.
“In a weak moment, she went to Lund; I don’t know how she ever ended up there but she decided she liked it and took a trip up to Bute Inlet and in a beautiful little bay, she bought an old homestead and built this incredible Hollywood-style log mansion,” said White. “I was just going by it in my boat and wondered what the hell was going on here.
“I believe she’s had enough of it now and it’s for sale, but I thought wow, there’s a strange thing happening on the BC coast so I wrote a little piece about that.”
People come for scenery, recreation
White said people are coming to the Sunshine Coast because of the scenic values and recreational values, whereas when he grew up here, there was none of that.
“Nobody would ever have thought about saying it’s a beautiful place,” said White. “They were there because of the fish and the logs.”
White said the book is ringing a lot of bells for local people. The new people who have moved in during recent years, for them, it’s “all very exotic.”
They don’t know a lot about the old stuff and the characters who used to be here, said White. For the people who do go back to those days, it’s a real trip down memory lane.
“It’s fun to be able to ring a bell for people and help them think about something that was a big part of their life that they haven’t thought about for a long time,” he added. “It just helps to put together a picture of this place where we live and make people stop and think about what a remarkable place this is. It really has a unique character and we should stop and admire it more often.”
While there are stories about the past, White said there are also stories about living on the Sunshine Coast today.
“It’s still a great place to be,” he said.
Here on the Coast is available at harbourpublishing.com.
