No kidding, Canuck. When I heard my friend T. abandoned the city to go live for cheap in a treehouse on the beach and was getting by doing odd jobs, I knew he'd "gone Vashon."
Your friend would fit right in on some of the islands off the coast of BC, Gus! Also reminds me of the craft gallery I wanted to see in Vancouver that was closed every day I was there, despite the "open" times on the door, and had a little note taped up saying "We're open on time most days, unless the waves are bitchin."
Are there hippies left on Vashon? I thought it was all well-off commuter suburbs now. Those 10,000 people aren't all living on the beach. And they're not working at the K2 plant anymore.
Salt Spring for sure, Gus, some friends and I looked at a yoga retreat there, right up until we noticed their firm "no alcohol" policy... And then there are the smaller ones that don't allow cars...I was desperately trying to find a picture of this slug biologist on one of the islands (Pender? Saturna?) who is on the news occasionally, he's really funny, and then there's the Hollyhock retreat centre on Cortes, that used to have a class called "Chop Wood, Carry Water, " or what I would call "chores."
@8, my friend T.'s a cheerful handyman parasite on the richies who've moved to (but miraculously so far failed to overwhelm) Vashon.