A message on my web site leads to a meeting with Vancouver-area collector Dave Dixon. His home is just off South West Marine Drive, in one of the most exclusive and sought-after areas of the city. Even in dreary mid-January, it is the picture of old-worldly charm. And so is he, in his large study-room lined from floor to ceiling with record albums, reel-to-reel cassettes, DVDs, videos and 78 rpm records, all meticulously filed and catalogued with neatly-typed labels. "At one time I had over 6,000 78s," he says, "but now I'm down to 2,000," as he motions toward a section of tightly-packed records, covering an area perhaps six feet wide by eight feet high. After a lifetime spent collecting and researching music, especially early jazz, he knows whereof he speaks. An ex-CBC employee, he has hosted a jazz program on radio and still presides over a group of enthusiasts which, after 40 years, still gets together -- though now, he admits, only once in a while -- to share their passion for jazz. He spent 15 years collaborating with Vancouver jazzophile Tom Lord to produce an complete and exhaustive listing of every jazz recording ever made (originally produced in print as a multi-volume series, it is now to be found online at www.lordisco.com/). Dave very kindly presents me with a DVD of all the label scans from his own collection (plus a few more from other sources that he has accessed over the years). Along with a few records and record sleeves, he also freely gives me something which seems to me very precious: a 7 inch 78 rpm 'Playtime' record that he has owned since his own childhood, many years ago. Naturally, it is in mint condition. 01/10

"I'm glad you've decided to use other peoples' scans now, instead of bringing home any more dirty old records,' my wife Nadine says one day. "Keeps the basement from getting any more filled up with junk." However, a few days later, I tiptoe in the door with a couple of Russian and Chinese-language 78s (Tashkentskii Zavod and Oriental Record). "How could I help it?" I plead. "The labels are so interesting -- look! And they were practically the only records left in the store. Only 50 cents each! They needed a good home." She rolls her eyes to the ceiling.

Actually, this month I got the best haul of records in a long time without having to do any searching at all. Finally got to meet Canadian collector Ed Wolk, a retired CBC employee who lives in Vancouver. We had tried earlier in the year to meet but somehow the wires got crossed. Ed has a marvellous collection of 78 rpm records and related music history ephemera, including phonographs -- and even Beatles memorabilia. But his pride and joy is an incredible collection of record sleeves, the result of many years of patient acquisition with a discerning eye. The graphic images featured are stunning. They would make a highly interesting coffee-table book; he hopes one day to publish the same. Now, with plans to return to Ontario, he has decided to part with some of his collection rather than pay the cost of transporting them back east (78s being relatively heavy and fragile). Having checked my web site, he has filled six twelve-leaf albums with records that I did not have, and most generously presents them to me at no charge. He says he knows I will appreciate them (which I do). A true gentleman. 07/09

An early-summer RV camping trip takes Nadine and I south into Washington State, turning off the I-5 at Sedro Woolley to cross the Cascade Mountain range before heading back north across the 49th Parallel. It's beautiful country, quite varied scenery, and the weather is starting to pick up at last, even though there is fresh snow on the side of the road in the high passes (in June!). We camp at Winthrop, a throwback to gold rush/pioneering days, featuring raised wood-plank sidewalks. Lots of trendy pseudo-antiques, but nary a 78 in sight. I screech to a halt at every 'Antique' sign we pass along the way out of town, but score only a couple of records (50 cents each) at a little place called Riverside: a Victor 'coon' song from 1900, its label in very nice condition, and a Challenge from 1923, to replace the cracked one in my collection. But it's back across the border in Canada, in B.C.'s Okanagan country, that I find the best haul. Ten -- count 'em -- ten! Jelly Roll Morton 78s. Reissues, but still, to my mind, highly collectible. Three on the Hot Jazz Club of America label; two on Commodore, and one each on Temple, Biltmore, British Vocalion, Jazz Man and British Rhythm Society. "I'll sell the ones I don't need on eBay and pay you back," I promise Nadine after she has forked over the cash for them (the owner knows their value, and it's more than 50 cents). "I'll believe it when I see it," she replies grimly. Also thrown in with the package are a splatter-vinyl Morrison from 1959 and a hard-to-find Minerva from 1936 in really good shape, again to replace the cracked one in my collection. After that gross self-indulgence I'm not allowed to spend any more on records, but I can't complain. 06/08

A side-trip to Milner, B.C., an old-timey farm settlement about to be swallowed into the gaping maw of neighbouring Langley, itself a one-time farm community that has morphed into another dreary sprawl of industrial parks, condo developments, fast-food restaurants and shopping malls. I drop in at the area's last surviving genuine antique/junk shop. "You like 78s, don't you?" the owner says, remembering my previous visits. "Just got a pile of them in. They're in the back." I'm filled with hopeful expectation, but I'm soon disappointed; it's all dreary big band stuff from the 1940s, on dreary-looking labels like Decca. I come across Flanagan and Allen's "Run, Rabbit, Run," which I remember from BBC radio broadcasts in the 1950s, a great record which I'd love to have bought, but unfortunately a big chunk has been broken off. I put a couple of 1940s labels aside, thinking maybe to pick them up. Then, right at the bottom, like a flake of gold among the grit in a miner's pan, there's a jewel: The Memphis Five on HMV from 1923, Who's Sorry Now b/w Snakes Hips. Even the Langley By-Pass, with its endless RV, boat and car lots, doesn't look quite so bad any more. 06/08

Nadine and I timed our fall trip just right. The weather was unbelievable, beautiful every day, which after the lousy summer makes us appreciative. There was plenty of room at all the State campgrounds we visited (except for one Saturday night on the spectacular west coast). The magic began when we crossed the bridge over Deception Pass. Cotton-ball patches of mist were beginning to form over the water along the cliffs. I'd brought the camera, but cursed myself for not making sure it was loaded with film; it was too late to find a store. However, after checking in at the nearby campground, I realized it was indeed loaded and scrambled down to the shore, managing to get a picture just before the evening mist came rolling in from the sea (left). Orcas (killer whales) were surfacing farther out in the water, though I didn't manage to catch them on film. What a scene!

The next day, after passing by newly-harvested corn-fields, the golden stubble shining in the morning sun, we got to the ferry, where we watched harbour seals working the water for salmon and sunning themselves on nearby rocks. After a half-hour trip we reached Port Townsend (below), a little jewel of a town with lots of character, and many lovely well-kept old houses. After visiting a farm market in the uphill part of town we were just getting back into the RV when I heard the sound of an amplified bottleneck guitar playing country blues.

Returning to the market, we were treated to a two-hour live concert by an amazing solo musician. It turned out to be one of those experiences that (hopefully) will stick in the memory forever. The whole scene really was "America The Beautiful" encapsulated. A short cordoned-off street lined with heritage homes, farmers at their white-draped stalls selling organic fruit, vegetables and flowers, the clear blue sky above, the warm sun shining on our backs as we sat on a bench listening. Why didn't I have one of those new-fangled phones that can capture video clips and sound? I hadn't come across any collectible 78s as yet, but it was just as much of a blast to be listening to these John-Henry-steel-drivin'-hammer, mama's-been-gone-too-long songs rolling out one after another, the sounds of ragtime, Bukka White, Leadbelly, Mississippi John Hurt . . .

I should have gotten a picture of Charlie, the improbable-looking mutt with the body of a greyhound and the head of a German Shepherd, who belonged to a friendly lady sitting next to us. Or a shot of the two-year old boy dancing with abandon to the sound of the musician's guitar, while the old ladies from the local care home, clutching intensely-coloured ball-shaped flowers, struggled by on the way back to their bus. Or the sunburnt, hippie-looking young woman in her ragged-fringed long gown sitting on the kerb, who pulled a cell-phone out of the long string-bag tied around her waist and called all her friends to come and enjoy the free music. Why didn't I get a picture of the musician's fingers working the strings of his battered National steel guitar, which itself was a thing of rare beauty?

Later, I learned that the musician, George Rezendez, was to be one of the featured entertainers at the coming weekend's annual Wooden Boat Festival.

Over the next few days of searching, I visited several antique/collectible shops -- or attempted to, as many were inexplicably closed or clean out of records. "Oh, we had a whole wall full of them back there but the owner sold the lot just a few months ago." "78s? Not any more. Used to have a bunch but I only sold one in 10 years, so I figured they were just taking up space. Sent 'em to auction."

At last I was told by another customer who overheard me asking for them that there were some at a nearby store. We found the sign -- "Antiques - Collectibles - Glassware" outside a large building which offered a spacious parking area. A sign nailed above it read "Shop." Yet another large hastily-painted sign read "Sale." We went in and moseyed around among the piles of clothing and other stuff, but could find no sign of any records in either of the large rooms. Nobody was around, so I went to the adjoining house to ask. The very pleasant lady who came to the door informed me, "The store's across the street. The signs are here because we had a garage sale last week." After apologizing for the intrusion, I crossed the road, where a dirt track led up into the woods. Nothing up there. Strange! I was beginning to feel like the blues singer who complains "if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all." With a sigh, I gave up.

Somehow, I had got my heart set on finding a Black Swan, but after another two days of travelling and searching, all I had come up with was one that promised "Your Parakeet Can Teach Itself To Speak." Well, as Nadine said, at least it was a bird record.

My luck turned a bit the day before we were to return home. On the way out of town I came across a few 1950s labels -- after risking my life by sprinting across a busy six-lane highway to the antique store (rather like Eddie Murphy in a similar scene in the movie Bowfinger). At another town we passed through I spent over an hour going through a huge stack of 78s in an antique store which yielded little more than two or three 1950s-era labels. The stock had been well sifted through by others.

Eventually I got home with a couple of dozen new labels. A couple more I had ordered off eBay arrived the next morning, so my collecting lust is temporarily sated. Overall, a fine trip. 09/07

Every year, for the past 30 years or more, we have taken a holiday in the B.C. Interior at our friends' trailer, located on the beach at Okanagan Lake, between Summerland and Peachland. Usually we are there in August, when the weather is hot and dry, but this year we are earlier in the year. The weather is somewhat iffy -- alternating between hot and cold, windy and wet. The second day we are there, Nadine finds a large 'rattler' in the lane (left). That's me nearby (pretty smart to be barefoot, eh?). But after some research, it turns out to be a bull snake, which has similar markings to the rattlesnake but is not as venomous.

The next day, I have a hankering to go on a local record-hunting trip. It's rainy, so we can't be sunbathing or swimming, anyway. As we set off, I remark to Nadine, "I'd really like to find a King Oliver record one of these days. All the places I've been to, I've never even seen one. That would really make my day."

We take the highway toward Kelowna, but turn off toward a place called Fintry, which is on the 'back road' to Vernon, a little town to the north. What an incredibly tortuous road, twisting and turning -- snake-like -- along the steep hillside above the lake, with views of distant hill-ranges. We connect with the main highway again at the historic O'Keefe Ranch, north of Vernon, and begin searching for the addresses of antique and collectible outlets I've lined up in advance.

Four hours and half a dozen stops later, I've come up with absolutely nothing. "Looks like I'm going to be skunked for the first time in a long while," I mutter. It's mid-afternoon by now and we're ready to give up, but at the last stop, I hit paydirt. The very first record I pick up is a King Oliver and his Syncopators from 1927! The second is a Bix Beiderbecke from 1932! Soon after, I find a Columbia Patriotic Series label from 1914, then yet another King Oliver from 1930, and an Original Dixieland Jazz Band record from 1921, both in mint condition!

Two hours later, I have a stack of collectible labels and great music for $50. Needless to say, I'm ecstatic. Plus I have something to do at the lake besides sitting in the sun -- gloating and cataloguing! A couple of days later I can't resist returning to double-check for something I might have missed, and find in other corners and under tables a Johnny Dodds and his Black Bottom Stompers from 1927, a 1950s Japanese King Record picture label in mint condition, a Columbia children's record from 1927, and more. It's been a good trip -- and meanwhile, the weather improved considerably. 06/07

There is a buzz around Vancouver over the annual swap meet at the Croatian Cultural Centre, where local record dealers get together and bring in their stock to dispose of. It's a nice Sunday afternoon and I get there right on time, but every parking spot for several blocks around the hall seems to have been taken. After circling around unfamiliar and irregularly-planned streets and back alleys, cursing, I finally get lucky, grab a spot and hurry in.

It's busy, and there's a driving beat to the music being played over loudspeakers. Many of the buyers seem to be hippie-looking freaks from the 1960s. Every table has a line of people flipping through the stock. I do a quick cruise around the hall, looking for 78s. Not a sausage. I give up and start checking out jazz and blues on LP, a medium I do quite a bit of listening to.

It seems to me that records have a sort of 'bite' that is totally absent from the CD. Rather like the difference between letterpress and lithography. Litho is so nice and neat and clean, but old-fashioned letterpress, where the type is crunched into the paper rather than just laying on top of it, has a tactile quality that to me is infinitely preferable.

CDs are great for being able to have access to acoustic-recording-era stuff you would otherwise never have heard, but the steel needle chugging along between the walls of the original 78 rpm groove is the best for actually 'feeling' the music of the period. I spend every last cent in my pocket and come away with Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller (is there a trend here?), Angola Prisoners' Blues and the one dud, a Louis Armstrong double album. 04/07

I stare at the computer screen. The 'toolbar favorites' is before me, and the temptation is strong to take a quick look at eBay, the global flea-market-on-steroids. I promise myself I'll at least refrain from actually bidding on anything (I've already spent too much lately via PayPal). "But I can always just 'watch this item,'" I say to myself, "and see what it finally sells for." Next thing I know a wonderful label scrolls down the page, and I've just got to have it, and I've made an offer. The price is not bad, providing I don't get sucked into a headstrong bidding war. After a nerve-racking fifteen hours I find I have 'won' it and the record that has already cost me $6.50 U.S. ($10 Canadian) is going to cost another $15 U.S. ($20 Canadian) in mailing costs. Dang! Thirty bucks gone and I haven't even fingered it yet!

Well, I reason, a) I'd have spent more than that on gas driving around checking out antique stores, and b) I'm sure I would never have found incredible labels like the beautiful Beka (above) in 50 years of scrounging around. But, truth be told, buying stuff on the Internet really doesn't compare with finding something cool and really cheap from a neat old junk store after having spent an hour or two searching through boxes of dusty old records.

I'm reminded of the days when I was an amateur racing cyclist. Back then, I always used to feel guilty about taking a bus or car ride. To me, it always felt like cheating, because it was physically effortless (sad to say, I no longer feel that way). eBay is the same. You don't expend any real effort. You just make a few little mouse-clicks, and it's all over; the thrill is gone.

I decide to allow myself the indulgence of buying one record a month on eBay over the winter, just to improve the quality of my collection, but in the summer 'hunting season' I'd sooner take the trouble to drive around and do the searching. That makes me feel better. Now, excuse me, I just have to check something. Just a few minutes left on that eBay record auction I'm watching . . . 03/07

My wife and I drive into the B.C. Interior via the Coquihalla Highway to help our friends close up their lakeside cabin at Summerland for the coming winter. The driving is great once we get past Abbotsford, where a severe multi-vehicle crash has slowed the traffic on both sides of the freeway to a long, slow crawl. The truck's canopy having been removed for the trip, we're light in weight and make good time.

The mountains are incredibly beautiful in the late evening sun, the deciduous leaves in the gulleys turning to sheets of red and gold flame. We catch sight of three moose, two females and a young one, standing by the roadside just beyond the toll-booth at the summit. On the long descent along the Coquihalla Connector into Peachland, the rising moon is almost full, casting an elongated reflection on the perfectly still waters of Okanagan Lake, which stretches into the far distance where the lights of the little town of Penticton are glimmering. In the other direction, the twinkling lights of the sprawling city of Kelowna cast a glow in the darkening sky.

It's a short leg to the turnoff to the cabin, which sits on the water's edge. Access is along a gravel track, just wide enough for one vehicle (at one time, it was the main highway from Kelowna to Penticton), which hugs the foot of the bone-dry hills. We crawl along at 10 kmh, strange after the 100 kmh four-lane highway.

Sometimes the loose shale of Rattlesnake Hill, back of the cabin, falls on to the road (left). The next couple of days are spent working. It's lovely weather, and the lake, smooth as a mill-pond, is still just warm enough for a quick, refreshing swim. We take a different route on the way back, the Crow's Nest Highway, which winds tortuously through the mountains. It's not as fast a route as the Coquihalla, but it doesn't have a toll-booth. Single-lane much of the way, its many hairpin turns and curves make it hard for impatient motorists to pass the big trucks which also use the route. We screech to a stop at a promising-looking collectibles store in Olalla, which I'd never noticed before. I would have liked to say I found an ooh-la-lah! record in Olalla, but unfortunately there's nothing worth buying in the dusty crateful parked just inside the store's door.

We again come to a stop in nearby Keremeos (below), a rambling place mainly consisting of roadside fruit stands sitting on a convergence of road, river and railway. A huge wall of a mountain, its sides streaked with cascades of shale, towers above the town.

In a junk store on its single main drag, its dark and dusty aisles jammed with an indescribable amount of stuff, I had previously picked up an old German record. The store used to be a sort of secondhand-cum-hardware-store-cum-social centre for the locals, who would drop in off the street to hang around, smoke and gossip. But the store has changed hands, and has been gentrified. It's open-plan, and the friendly atmosphere has been cleared out, along with all the interesting junk.

I see a few carefully-positioned 78 rpm albums, none of which interest me, tagged with high-price stickers. Then I catch sight of some records underneath a linen table-skirt. I'm interested, but soon disappointed. There's nothing there worth bothering with except several copies of a European label named Tono, featuring accordion music. Although it doesn't drive me wild with desire, it's a label I don't happen to have. I choose one at random, which is marked 50 cents, and take it to the clerk.

"That come from under the table?" he asks.

"Yes," I reply.

"They're not for sale," he says reprovingly. I'm astonished. What? He wants to hoard records of accordion music? They're going to form the core of his economic retirement plan?

Reminds me of the time we were in an antique store which was being advertised with signs reading "Big Close-Out Sale! Everything Must Go! Owners Retiring!" (Two years later it was still there, featuring the same signs). A fellow-customer asked the old crone operating the store what she was asking for a bow-fronted china cabinet sitting there.

"Oh, that's not for sale," she replied. "That's worth money, that is." 10/06

A last trip with the camper van as the summer (and the road insurance on the van) comes to an end. It's a beautiful day and my wife and I head up to Squamish, 40km or so north of the city of Vancouver. It's one of the most scenic routes in the world, the kind of road that car manufacturers choose to show off their new lines.

Climbing out of the city's haze, the air is clean and fresh, the sunshine invigorating. The highway twists and turns as it clings to the rock-face, with sheer drop-offs to the dark waters of Howe Sound, hundreds of feet below.

Road crews are at work almost the whole length of the "Sea to Sky Highway" as it is called (right, shown passing by the shoreline at Porteau Cove), which is being upgraded to carry four lanes of traffic to the world-class ski village of Whistler in readiness for the Winter Olympics of 2010. It's a daunting challenge for the engineers. Massive granite boulders, as big as cars, are piled up wherever the road-shoulder allows. Rock-crushing plants have been installed here and there to convert them into fill. Traffic is heavy, a steady stream both ways, so there is little chance for me to break concentration to take in the magnificent views.

The pull-offs along the roadside are occupied by rows of dump-trucks and crawler-excavators. I catch glimpses of strings of tree-covered islands rising from the waters of the inlet, the nearer ones a dark bottle-green, gradating to lighter shades in the distance, like a Japanese wood-block print. We pull over at the foot of Stawamus Chief, a spectacular wall of granite towering above the little town of Squamish, and enjoy a cup of tea while watching the climbers high above.

In the far distance there's a snow-capped mountain with a spiky point, clear as a bell and beautiful as a picture-postcard. We turn off the highway into Squamish, which used to be a rough sort of place, populated in the main by heavy-drinking loggers. There are still lots of pubs and truckers around, but with its proximity to the outrageously expensive real estate at Whistler/Blackcomb mountain ski resorts, it's becoming trendier. Upscale condo developments are springing up all around (a 2200-foot one right by the railroad tracks will cost you a mere $400,000).

We can't stop commenting on the freshness and beauty of the day. I'm looking for a junk store I'd visited a few years ago, when I'd picked up an early Brunswick label, but it's disappeared. A thrift store yields the only 78 record I saw all day, though we visited several excellent second-hand stores. I hesitate about spending 50 cents on the Linguaphone label (not because of the price, but because of the design), but later I'm happy I took it. After lunch we take a walk along the dike bordering the Squamish Estuary (above left).

A sign sitting in the street warns of an "active bear" in the area. It's one of the prime viewing-places in the world for bald eagles, which congregate here by the thousand during the salmon-spawning season. There are none around today.

Returning to the van, we cross the street to check out a wood-turning shop. It's a fantastic place. The owner, a white-bearded giant named Martin Thorne, is of the gentle, kindly type, who provides an endless supply of special grass-seeds for the flock of pine-siskins fluttering back and forth from the trees in his yard to the bird-feeder. He has spent his whole life creating art from wood, and marvellous stuff it is.

His huge, airy shop is filled with chunks of wood of rare beauty, in various stages of transformation. Much of his raw material, the maple burls and driftwood, has been obtained from local loggers, who know of him and his love for his art. His creations, which are mostly turned on a massive lathe, are amazing. He is patient with us, and generous with his time, but we try not to overstay our visit.

We decide to visit nearby Brackendale, another prime place to eagle-watch, but don't stay long; it's a bedroom community without a heart. The sun is dropping in the west and it's time for the long trip back. We bypass Vancouver and head east to Mission Raceway. Mount Baker, the snow-capped dormant volcano just across the border in Washington State, is roseate pink above the darkening farmland. The sunset is awesome, with ragged patches of dark cloud below the higher pink ones, illumined by the last rays of the sun. For once, we get the right exit to the raceway, where Ian, one of our three sons, is doing quarter-mile runs in his Honda CRX. He has his best run yet, 11.1 seconds (he's since lowered it to 10.9 seconds at 135 mph). Click on pic to see all the action (worth it to see Ted dance!) A fun day. 09/06

We decide on a quick two-day jaunt down to the U.S. to visit Whidbey Island, a narrow, crooked sliver of land west of the sprawling metropolis of Seattle. It's perhaps 50 miles long and five or six miles wide, part of the fractured coastline which clearly speaks of geological fault-lines.

I have a hankering to revisit the antique malls and junk stores I'd found on previous trips. On the way down there is initial disappointment at finding that one of my favorite record-finding haunts near Bellingham has gone out of business. We carry on, turning west off the busy I-5 at Burlington. The view from the bridge connecting the island to the mainland across Deception Pass is spectacular. The island retains its quaint rural character, though traffic is heavy on the single highway which runs its length, especially busy when the ferries have disgorged. Small settlements have grown up around the forts that were built along the coastline at different times to guard from invasion, from nineteenth-century block-houses to concrete World War II gun emplacements.

We visit Langley, a charming and picturesque harbor village with lots of excellent antique shops, but nothing in the junk/collectibles line. When I started record-collecting I was searching only for different sorts of labels but now am also looking for 20s jazz/dance band music, especially Joseph C. Smith and Ted Lewis. I pick a few up in visits to four or five places. On a previous trip, in the little fishing port of Anacortes, I'd spent hours in a music store going through boxes of 78s which had been shoved under the racks of CDs to find a very few records, and then, by the cashier's till, saw a stack of 78s someone had recently dropped off. Among them was an American Record Company record from 1905, the one with the Indian listening to a phonograph, which I got for $3. This time around I'm happy at snagging an outstanding '50s label, the Gee, for $1. I'd been listening to Isham Jones on a CD and find some of his records too. Piron's New Orleans Orchestra playing New Orleans Wiggle-Shimmy looked intriguing, at least worth a $1 gamble, and it turns out to be really awesome music. For a total of about $20, I get some great music (the Dominoes, on the Federal label, I pick up for $2 and it's doo-wop at its finest) and some pretty good labels. I found everything the first day, nothing the next. I'm always hoping to find something like a King Oliver on Gennett, but jazz and blues records in the Pacific Northwest are as rare as hens' teeth. 09/06

Kelowna is the biggest of several townships dotting the BC Interior. With an ever-increasing flood of retirees heading for retirement there from the Lower Mainland and Alberta, it is fast reaching big-city status. The older, brick-built part of town sits at the end of a floating bridge crossing Okanagan Lake, the largest of a string of lakes threading through Ponderosa pine-dotted hills. We're on holiday in the area, but (as usual) record-hunting is on my mind. We stop in at an antiques-bookstore sort of place and ask the clerk if he knows of any old record stores. He sends us around the corner, where there's a hand-painted sandwich-board sign reading 'Records Upstairs' on the sidewalk outside a clothing store.

Taking leave of my wife (for some inexplicable reason, Nadine doesn't like to participate in rummaging through piles of old records), I zoom past the racks of chic dresses to the back, where a narrow, creaking staircase leads to the upper floor. Rows of wooden racks containing vinyl LPs run the thirty- or forty-foot length of the building. I'm the only customer. The clerk is busy wrapping up some LPs to put in the mail; he tells me that sales come mostly through the Internet.

"Got any old 78s?" I ask.

"Through there," he motions, and I enter a curtained-off L-shaped back room. It's like something out of Dickens. The walls are lined with LPs here too, but crates of 78s are piled up in one corner. It's ten in the morning, and the sun is still going up in the sky, but the room is already hot and stuffy beneath the flat roof.

I start working through the piles of crates, lugging them from one stack to another as I go. It's disappointing; there's nothing worthwhile. An hour goes by. I have worked up a sweat and my hands are filthy. Just as my wife returns, I come across some good stuff in the last couple of crates, the ones tucked around a corner that are hard to reach. Four Original Dixieland Jazz Band records in a row, all from 1918, in near-mint condition, and some later reissues of early jazz classics. I'm very excited. $25 for the lot, and I happily walk out into the bright sunlight with my treasures. No special labels, but some wonderful music. Back at the cabin, gloating over my finds, I become convinced I must have overlooked the Original Dixieland Jazz Band recording of Livery Stable Blues backed with At The Jazzband Ball (the first jazz record ever made), and two days later make the 30km drive back into town for another look. Strangely, I do find a record featuring those same songs, but it's a 1939 Dixieland revival release by Muggsy Spanier. Weird!

P.S. I like to muse about what life-stories these old records might tell. The ODJB Victors, for instance. One of them bears a sticker that reveals it was bought in St. Louis, Missouri. It would likely have been bought by a young man, because at that time men, rather than women, had the primary buying power.

His parents hated the crazy music, pontificating that jazz signified the downfall of civilized society. He was just about to join the Army when the First World War came to an end, and frustrated by having missed the chance to get in on the excitement, decided to head out west instead. The records were part of the essentials he could hardly live without.

The packing-crates were sent downriver to New Orleans, on the way passing by the paddle-wheeler on which his idol Louis Armstrong and his fellow musicians were thrilling the white passengers with 'Dixie-land' jazz. From there they were carried down the Gulf of Mexico to the Panama Canal, across the neck of land linking North and South America before turning northward to Vancouver.

Having arrived in this hick town some months earlier, the young man was disappointed that no one had even heard of Louis Armstrong or the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. After checking through the stock of the English Record Store, the only one in town, which carried nothing at all in that line, he instructed the jazz-ignorant clerk to order their latest release.

Three weeks later, returning to pick it up, he was at first upset and then amused to find that the Canadian Victors were handled by a firm in Montreal, whose 'latest release' was a record he'd already bought some months before in St. Louis. He paid for it anyway, concluding ruefully that jazz, which apart from his new wife had been the most exciting thing in his life, was something he would just have to manage to live without.

A year later, the new-fangled radio became all the rage, and the precious records sat in his Victrola cabinet, unplayed through all the years of the Depression into the '40s, when the big bands made Dixieland jazz a thing of the past. In the '60s, his sons discovered them and played them once or twice, mocking his taste. He thought rock and roll banale, an insult to the very name of music, while remembering the antagonism his parents' generation had felt toward jazz.

In 1965, after a lifetime spent working at the bank, he moved up-country to Kelowna, a favourite haunt for retirees because of the apple-blossoms and the clear, warm days. They bought a lakeside place and fed the ducks every day. After his death in the early '80s, his wife hung on to the Victrola and his favorite records, until she too passed away in the mid-90s. After the kids had taken a few mementoes, the estate-brokers came in and everything was shipped off to auction. The Victrola went to an antique shop, while the records were carted off to a dealer's store and dumped in a darkened corner . . . 07/06

We take a ten-day camping trip to the Kootenays, an area of southeastern B.C. up against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Schools are not yet out, and holiday season is not yet in full swing, so we don't need to book camping-spots.

The roads are super-quiet. We drive for miles on end without seeing another vehicle in either direction. The scenery is magnificent, even through the rain -- it pours every single day. We splash through the puddles to visit a Doukhobor settlement at Grand Forks, see the wartime internment camp for Japanese-Canadians at New Denver, enjoy a private mining museum at Kaslo, luxuriate in subterranean hot springs at Ainsworth, along with a bus-load of kids on a school day-trip.

A thunder and lightning storm passing overhead at Halcyon Hot Springs forces management to evacuate the pool. Sitting in the van eating lunch, we watch the cloudburst carving ruts in the embankment we are parked on. The place I am most impressed with is Nakusp, an old mine-ore transfer station which has a beautiful mile-long lakeside promenade with a million-dollar panoramic view. With thunderheads piled up high and lightning flashing over the distant mountains, while the setting sun illuminates other peaks, it is visually breathtaking.

Completing the circle route back home, we pass through Vernon, a neat little town with some fine old brick buildings, somewhat unusual in this part of the country, where almost all houses are wood-framed. On a previous visit I'd found an antique store with a low-ceilinged, dark and musty basement jammed with third-rate furniture. A search through stacks of 78s piled on shelves, with hardly enough light to read the labels by, had yielded an Okeh record featuring the Norfolk Jazz Quartette, but my hopes for another good find were soon dampened. The basement is closed off, the genuine antiques have gone, giving way to trendy bric-a-brac.

However, on our way out of town we spot another antique store which proves to be the real deal. In a cramped little room in the basement (of course), where there's hardly room to turn around, I spot a few boxes of 78s, the records wrapped in old newspapers, jammed under the LP racks. Yes!! There's nothing like the hopeful expectation of going through boxes like this and unearthing a nice label. I find a Berliner Concert Grand from about 1907 in great condition, with a brass ferrule at the centre, a Guardsman, and a lovely Chinese label, a Butterfly. Plus I get some good early jazz by the Charleston Chasers. Another worthwhile trip. 05/06

Fellow worker John Kremmer phones me one Friday night from his home in nearby Abbotsford, B.C. "I found something here in the local paper you might be interested in," he says, knowing of my record-collecting habit. "Between four and five thousand records for sale. Only four hundred bucks for the lot." He already has it figured out how much that is per record, but I hesitate. What would I do with 4,000 records?

"I phoned up already to ask about them," he continues. "They have LPs, 45s and 78s, the collection of an old radio DJ that recently died. His family just wants to clear the stuff out of the house."

My interest wanes when he mentions LPs; I'm trying to think of ways to get rid of all the duds I already have. When the subject is delicately mentioned to my wife, she is not too enchanted with the proposition, to put it mildly. "What part of 'NO' don't you understand?" she says.

I'm still chewing on the idea, tantalized by the thought of all those records. There just might be some good labels . . . but within the hour, John calls back again.

"Bought 'em myself," he says proudly. John's like that; he can always spot a good deal, and is always ready to take a calculated risk to make some quick cash (legally, of course). Every Monday morning when he shows up at the office he always has a story about what he picked up from a garage sale over the weekend -- which might be anything ranging from a fully-equipped RV to a boxful of Veggie Tales videos. He's got boxes and boxes of 'collectibles,' and when he finds himself temporarily short of cash will hold a garage sale. It's something he actually enjoys doing.

"Got the records home over the weekend -- six truckloads," he laughs at the office the following Monday morning. "Too many for the house. I had to put some in my shop." John has a smallish house with a large shop out back for the printing business he runs as a sideline. That night I go over to his place to help him sort through the records.

The basement is stuffed solid with six-foot-high stacks of LPs. The 45s and 78s are piled around the presses in his shop. John's wife Jeannie isn't in the least bit fazed. She's used to his deal-making -- parked in the driveway are two or three trailer-campers he's in the process of selling. Some of the LPs are collectible, but being more interested in the 78s I soon gravitate to the shop, and spend many happy hours going through them. My collection is given a real boost with a couple of crate-loads. After clearing out more in one way or another, John finally gets an auction house to take the leftovers, and winds up more than doubling his investment. Like I said, he's that sort of guy.

A camping trip in the States means one or two likely-looking antiques/collectibles outlets are hurriedly checked out. A sidewalk sign in a small community somewhere in Oregon leads me to a huge garage-like structure set back off the road, hidden behind some other stores.

I greet the owner, who sits there alone among racks of LPs that reach up to the roof, maybe 20 or 30 feet high. What began as a collecting hobby for him has become an uncontrollable monster that has overtaken his life and, he freely admits, even threatens his marriage. He has boxloads of 78s behind his desk; they are hard to get to and I honestly don't have a lot of time; we have a long drive back to Canada that day. I manage to quickly go through what I can reach, but they mostly seem to be Decca recordings of Bing Crosby and Perry Como, nothing of label interest except one Actuelle label that I didn't have in my collection.

I feel guilty about taking his time and not being able to spend more than $2, but he doesn't seem to mind. He's even willing to take the 78s I want to unload the next time I am in the area. I think he has enjoyed having someone sympathetic to talk to, and I have enjoyed listening.

A while later we pull into an antique store in northern Washington State. It's getting late in the day. I don't see any records right off the bat, but there's a few racks of interesting-looking hardback books, which I pretend to browse through while keeping an eye out for records. My wife, though, is more direct, and asks the guy behind the counter if they have any 78s.

"Sure," he says. "In here."

He opens the door to a room at the back in which there are boxes and boxes of them, piled high. My eyes bug out, my adrenalin surges.

"Can I take a look through them?" I ask, dry-mouthed. "No, the owner won't let anyone touch them," says the clerk. "But he's said he'll let the lot go for $500."

Oh, wow. That's so tempting . . . but $500 US is like $800 Canadian. And how to get them back into Canada? I'd have to rent a truck. Then I start thinking about the complications, like the hassles at the border crossing. I have visions of guards checking through huge ledgers to figure out how much of a cut the government will take (free trade? What a joke). And then, where would I store them? My wife doesn't give it a second thought.

"Time we should be going," she announces. But a year or more later, I still harbor regrets . . .