Japanese Glass Balls

an excerpt from 'Salt in Our Blood'
by Joanna Streetly, Tofino

The following excerpt from Joanna Streetly's book 'Salt in our Blood, An anthology of westcoast moments', is a story by Neil Buckle, long time resident of Clayoquot Sound.

" The glass fishing floats from Japan were a dime a dozen on the beach. We had all these glass balls stored in big piles behind the house."

" One day—I forgot what year it was—it would have had to be '56, something like that—I came home from work. It was March, I think, and Mum was all excited."

" Oh there's glass balls everywhere! All over the beach!' she said"

" She'd made little piles of them all around, because they were mostly grapefruit size and some, oh, maybe football size, and orange size. Our neighbour, Paul Norton, came along in his jeep and said, "this is the way to beachcomb. I'll just drive along and you guys throw them in!"

" So we just walked along, picking them up, one each side of the truck. We had 236 glass balls in a mile and a half of beach, from our beach to Green Point."

" There was sort-of an unwritten code that from Greenpoint on the Incinerator, was Peggy's turf. Before that there was the Donahues at Lovekin's so they had from the base of the hill to Schooner Cove. They could do all of Schooner Cove if they wanted, which they did often."

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Joanna's book is full of fascinating moments of westcoast life. A 'must have' for Tofino fans. Pick it up at a bookstore near you. In Tofino it is available at Wildside Booksellers on Main Street.

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