Squirtle Adventures: Where the turtle came from

Day 6 of the 2010 Vancouver Games

Lately, you may have noticed a little, stuffed turtle from Japanese animation fandom  randomly pop up in my pictures on this site.

His name is Squirtle, from the anime Pokemon, and he's my little travelling buddy for the duration of this trip.

Squirtle posing next to a picturesque view of the mountains

surrounding Whistler

A couple of years ago, my boyfriend Marty was about to head off on a northern European cruise with his family for about two weeks. None to happy about leaving me behind in Toronto, I gave him my little Squirtle doll and told him to take a lot of pictures with him in Europe. This was a way for him to share the adventure with me.

He came back with a tonne of interesting pictures of this little Squirtle doll. It also started a new travelling tradition with the two of us.

There is no particular significance in the selection of the Squirtle doll as a travelling companion, outside of the fact that he is and has always been my favourite Pokemon character. He was just small and easy to carry around. You can easily stick him in your backpack and pull him out at whatever convenient time in which you wish to take a picture.

It's similar to the "Flat Stanley" project that is so popular among school children, but the honest truth is that it's really just an easy coping method for when we're apart for long periods of time. It's an easy conversation piece and a way we can stay in touch and together, therefore making the long separation a lot less difficult for each other.

Squirtle at Pearson Internation Airport, waiting to check

luggage in for flight to Vancouver on Feb. 8, 2010

Marty and I each have our own, and the one that we take is determined by who wishes to bring it or have their Squirtle brought with them. For this trip, I took Marty's Squirtle doll that he gave me, as he was again none too happy, this time for me leaving him behind in Toronto.

He then challenged me to try and better his adventures in Europe with Squirtle, reminding me of some of his better pictures with the doll, highlighted by a picture with Squirtle stuffed between the cleavage of some mannequin in Europe.

And sometimes, I have to remind myself that finding weird and interesting places to put and bring the Squirtle doll to is all part of this crazy adventure that is my trip to Vancouver 2010.

At first, mostly on my first day in Whistler, I stuck to mostly tourist events to put him in and snap a picture of. There weren't that many, given that the Olympics had yet to start at that point. So I basically, every time I ran into a statue or monument, I would place him conspicuously within the figure and snapped a picture.

But it all seemed so ordinary and routine. Marty had challenged me to give him something better, something more. And for those who don't know me very well, I don't back down from challenges very easily. But the thing was, I was in Whistler, British Columbia. Marty took this little guy to Europe and Russia. There isn't many things in this small town that can top the kind of history or stories that go with a place like Russia.

So I tried to be more creative. I think my most daring picture involving Squirtle in this attempt was my picture of him perched on top of an Inukshuk inside the Canada Olympic House in Whistler, next to a sign that said "Fragile. Do not touch." Actually, I wasn't even supposed to be that far into the building to begin with as it was an area restricted to athletes only, but I was allowed as far into the lobby in order to get my candid shot.

Still, I didn't feel the interest was high enough. That was when I began asking people to pose with him. Actually, I only asked two people in particular to pose with my little Squirtle doll, one of them being a cameraman for CBC Sports on my first day in Whistler Village.

The man was surprisingly good natured about it, and it turned out to be one of my more fun and interesting shots of the day trip through Whistler Village. It may seem a little strange, thinking that a picture with a little stuffed turtle perched on top of a camera owned by CBC Sports would be my favourite shot after the day, but honestly, there's only so much you can do with snap shots of the mountains. This one at least had a story to tell next to it.

Since then, Squirtle has travelled with me everywhere, in the hopes of finding that perfect shot of the little beastie next to something or someone interesting. He was there when I went to Vancouver and watched Team USA beat Switzerland 3-1 yesterday, and got very drunk in the process, or at least that is what I told my boyfriend when he asked why Squirtle was face down into the table behind me in a picture. He is there every day when I go up to volunteer at Whistler Olympic Park and he was with me today, when I went into Whistler Village late in the afternoon, and encountered some fellows that apparently wanted to put the poor turtle to questioning as to his presence in the vicinity.

And for the record, Squirtle pictured with two Royal Canadian Mounted Police in ceremonial gear - red jacket, puffy pants and their brown, wide brim hat - totally beats out any shot of Squirtle posing with any kind of mannequin on any continent in this world.