MAGAN'S WORLD: MANCHÁN MAGAN's tales of a travel addict
HOW ABOUT a summer spent hovering over a sea of ponderosa pine and spruce, prowling along a walkway on the lookout for fires? Forest lookout towers are the ultimate form of escapist summer accommodation. These timber or metal shelters built at high points in forests all over the world need to be manned in summer to monitor lightning storms and the smoke signals of developing infernos. While the use of surveillance planes has meant the number of US Forest Service lookouts has declined dramatically in recent years, they are still in use across the US and in parts of Canada, South Africa and continental Europe. Twenty years ago it was a common summer job for maladjusted hermits, misanthropic loners and neophyte naturalists – I applied for two posts in British Columbia in the 1990s, but was rejected, probably on the grounds of the frenzied gaze I had at the time.
I, like all the other oddballs who used to apply, was inspired by Jack Kerouac's summer on a lookout tower in Mount Baker, Washington, and his references to it in Dharma Bums, where he described his surroundings as "unbelievable jags and twisted rock and snow-covered immensities, enough to make you gulp".
Nowadays, most fire lookout jobs are voluntary, and the increased popularity of outdoor pursuits mean a regular trail of hikers and picnickers interrupting your solitude. The most practical way to get to stay in a tower is to rent a decommissioned one from the US government. For about €30 a night you get a mattress, a wood-burning stove and 360-degree views of the Garden of Eden, with perhaps a few packrats and termites thrown in. The lookouts rarely have running water or electricity, unless the Gods unleash their fury upon mankind, in which case, bolts of electrical current will come stabbing down at you and termites won’t seem such a problem. See recreation.gov.
A more practical form of summer accommodation is the student apartment blocks which UCD, Trinity, DCU, Queen’s, UCC, NUI Galway, Maynooth, and UL rent out between terms at rates as low as €70 per week, if taken for a number of weeks. Student accommodation for my generation consisted of seedy digs in damp redbrick terraces, and the idea of willingly holidaying in such places is unthinkable.
Yet, last summer I spent a pleasant week in the cell-like anonymity of a box room in UCC student halls, gazing down upon chirpy Corkonians leading their self-satisfied, somnambulant lives along Mother Lee, sucking from its teats like Hindu penitents at the Ganges. My narrow bed and built-in desk brought back pleasant memories of college days, although tinged with the poignancy of missing out on all the fun of term-time. It was like coming to a party a day too late; taunted by the after-glow of revelry. Campus apartments have few double rooms and so are best suited to the unhitched: a club on tour, a gang of singletons, or families with teenage progeny who all demand their own room. The altruistic benefactors of the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland (a recherché raggle-taggle of antiquaries, Georgian-loving aesthetes and landed dowagers who donate art to public institutions) raved to me about a weekend they spent at UL while on a cultural jolly. It rekindled memories of their salad days and brought them in touch with the next generation for whom they strive to secure works of art.
For me, UCC offered an affordable way of feeding and sleeping my stage crew and co-actor during a run of my play. The cheap food at the County Hall canteen and the campus restaurant helped with production costs, and the free Wi-Fi, free parking and use of the laundrette made life easier, leaving me time to fight the inevitable wildfires that ignite on theatrical tours.
* manchan@ireland.com