Butedale

Butedale was an old cannery - it began at the turn of the century around the time Roosevelt pushed through the completion of the Panama Canal. Unlike the Canal - Butedale has fallen to shambles and Lou - is there to watch as each structure fails and slips back in to the Sea.



Lou is about as real as it gets. So real, we had to mike him so as to capture his stories for the ages. He lives alone at the crumbling Butedale ruins and when he realized that we were people that enjoyed hearing him talk, he proceeded to unload three hours of stories he had on back log, waiting to be set free. Most of these stories involved diesel engines and sunken boats.





These are Lou's animals, Bert the dog and Tiger the cat. Both were born on Butedale - and have never seen roads or cars - they only know Butedale.




A steep river turns a turbine wheel, the wheel turns a V-belt, the V-belt turns a Chevy alternator, the alternator generates 120 Volt AC electricity into an inverter, the inverter turns AC electricity into 12 volt DC lectricity, the 12 volt electricity tops off a battery bank, the batteries run Lou's freezer, the freezer freezes ice cream sandwiches, Lou sells the ice cream to boaters who tie up on the Butedale docks in the summer time.

Lou had us up on one of his roofs for a bonfire.


The land here is impenetrable. It seems inviting from afar, but as you attempt to walk into the wilderness it is impenetrable and uninviting. The temperate rainforest rises from the saltwater along granitic walls dense with thick walls of vegetation. Trails are few and far between. And then there are the horseflies and mosquitos and the bears.




We hiked up to this lake. The mosquitoes were so thick we couldn't open our eyes completely, so we had to take this picture to see what it looked like.


This is one of Lou's sunken boats. He assured us he was only waiting for the next strong low tide so that he could access the bottom of the hull and patch things up. I tend to believe him. He also thinks the diesel engine will start up as soon as he drains the water from the engine block and puts in some new oil - now this part makes me skeptical.