In the Alpine – an illustrated journal of Kokanee Park
Editor’s note: We’ve got something special for you today on Aspects from our (very) talented hut custodian, Petra Hekkenberg.
Petra’s been our hut custodian up at Kokanee Glacier Cabin since 2021. In that period she’s developed an intimate understanding of the park and the area surrounding the cabin, and lucky for us, she’s got an aptitude for writing and illustration!
When one spends time outside in a natural environment, it’s hard not to feel connected and sometimes transformed by where you are, and no doubt Petra’s felt this way. Her insight and love for the environment has manifested itself into her daily cabin journal.
The illustrations and writing from Petra’s journal have made their way to print under the title “In the Alpine”, which we’ve previewed here. Additionally, Petra has done some video work up at Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park, footage that was used in the short film “In Your Mind’s Eye”, featuring excerpts from the park’s logbook dating back to the 1970’s - this award-winning film is available to view in full below.
If you enjoy the preview here of Petra’s work, make sure to support her by purchasing a book (link below), but for now, enjoy the foreword, a few illustrations, and the short film!
Photo: Whitney Taylor.
Foreword
Once I get up into the alpine, I don’t usually want to go down. This is not only because I once said that hiking back down is like doing the dishes. It is because in the alpine I feel alive, at home, and everything around me seems to make sense.
In 2019 I emigrated from The Netherlands to British Columbia because of its mountains. The Alpine Club of Canada hired me in 2021 as a hut keeper and park operator in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park, a park just outside of my home in the Slocan Valley. The shifts would be from two to six weeks long, looking after the cabin, the visitors, and the park. In November I spent five whole weeks by myself, taking care of the cabin in the newly arriving snow. To me, being able to work and live in the alpine for weeks at a time is . . . quite hard to describe, frankly. In a world where perfection does not truly exist, it feels awfully close to just that. It is a feeling of belonging, and of deep love. I have always found it hard to have an outlet for this love.
The mountains don’t give hugs. I cannot take them home with me or call them up after dinner for long and deep conversations about life: the type of conversations that I do feel like I am having with nature when sitting on a mountain top.
The alpine. I long to keep it and to express my feelings for it. That is how this illustrated journal came to be. Before I started working in the park I told myself I did not want a day to go by without consciously taking in the beauty; without pausing to be one with my surroundings, to be one with myself.
Every day during my shifts in the park I sat down with pen and paper to express myself. I drew what felt valuable to me that specific day, or maybe something I had seen days earlier and I knew I had to get back to it. Whenever I could, I would draw sitting in the park on a rock, in the alpine meadows, at a creek or in the snow; at sunset, sunrise, awaiting new guests to arrive, or looking at a storm rolling in. There were days I had to find shelter from the rain, the thick smoke of wildfires nearby, or from one of many November snowstorms. Other days I didn’t find the time to sit down until after dark. On those days I would draw inside, in a cozy corner of the cabin, working from a photograph that I had taken that day, or from memory. Sometimes I drew something memorable that I could see right from the chair I sat on. I created a deeper bond with my subject, exploring every detail of it.
I also wrote. I wasn’t sure if writing would suit me, but I started with a few sentences and noticed that the longer I was there, the more I wanted to write down. The thoughts tumbled from my mind onto the paper. I started a sentence without knowing the end of it, or with my thoughts already two lines ahead. The letters got smaller as the season passed, so I could fit more onto the pages. Drawings and thoughts were starting to compete.
Near the end it was as if the journal was starting to be in control of me: all day long I found myself hunting for subjects, for beauty, excited for what I might find. I realized it had taken me well beyond the alpine; it had changed the way I look at the world around me. Then my season ended, and with that, the journal.
I did not have plans for the journal when I started it, I just knew it would make me happy. By sharing it, I hope it will make others happy as well.
Petra Hekkenberg, 2022.
The film
Experience Kokanee Glacier Park through landscape video and excerpts from the park’s logbooks, which date back to the 1970s. In Your Mind’s Eye offers an intimate take on what the park means to those who love it.
Tom and Daphne, who have worked in and enjoyed the Kokanee parks for most of their lives, go through the park’s logbooks, reading some of their favourite excerpts. Snowshoeing between Kokanee Glacier Cabin and the historic Slocan Chief Cabin, they give voice and feeling to the collective memory of the park, as it is recorded in logbook entries. Before they leave, they write their own.
Landscape footage was filmed by Petra Hekkenberg through 2021 during her time as an ACC hut keeper and park operator at Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park. Her friends and neighbours Whitney Taylor and Sam Harrison contributed, respectively, with the additional footage of Daphne and Tom, and the soundscape and music.
Petra Hekkenberg
Petra Hekkenberg grew up in the Netherlands, where she graduated with two bachelor’s degrees in Product and Public Space Design. At her graduation from Design Academy Eindhoven she received the Connection Award for excellent interpersonal skills. But design is not her only passion; for some years her focus laid on her volleyball career, after which she travelled to Southern Africa for the wildlife and to volunteer at Penduka Namibia, a training centre for less privileged women. Returning there every few years, she has now designed and built 3 playgrounds in the townships and remote villages of Namibia. Petra came to British Columbia seven years ago - as she says: “to live in a cabin in the woods for a year,” - and instantly fell in love with the mountains and small villages of the West-Kootenays. In 2019 she became a proud Permanent Resident of Canada. Petra currently works locally as a freelance designer & artist, part-time at Kokanee Glacier Cabin as a hut keeper and park operator, and part-time as a cycling trip leader in Europe for Backroads. A full schedule, but for her a perfect mix of nature, people and creativity! Petra is based out of the small community New Denver, BC, which serves as her biggest inspiration ever since she first set foot there.
Photo: Whitney Taylor.
In the Alpine
Artist and designer Petra Hekkenberg kept this illustrated journal while working as a hut keeper and park ambassador at Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park in 2021. Over three seasons she spent time each day drawing in this alpine environment and writing down her observations and thoughts. These authentic journal pages invite readers to step into the experiences of a nature-loving new resident of Canada, and into the Park itself.
This journal is a tribute to Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park and the people who have worked hard to protect it for more than 100 years. It is hoped that this book will inspire others to be outside: to visualize, love, protect, and take in the beauty we are so fortunate to have in the Kootenays.
Softcover: 96 Pages, 9 x 5.6 Inches. English. ISBN: 978-1-7781325-0-6.