A Shawnigan Life

All my life, Shawnigan Lake has been the one constant place that I considered home.  It began for me on my first birthday in May of 1941 when my father passed me to my mother in our rowboat at the Cliffside wharf.  She missed and I sank like a stone.  She jumped into the water and hoisted me, spluttering but unhurt, to safety, a sort of accidental baptism.  As a child I spent a significant portion of my time in that same water, swimming amongst the islands of the Lake, particularly Isla del Sol, given to my mother by her parents in 1927. 

As a youth I brought my scout troop to camp on Long Island, brought my friends to the island for endless days of fishing, surfed on the stern wave of the Forest Nymph and hiked to the top of Baldy Mountain.  With friends I camped out on the sawdust shores of Grant Lake and on the banks of the Kosilah, drove bald-tired ancient Austins in winter over the sway backed logging road bridge on the way to Port Renfrew and tramped over the Kinsol Trestle when we could still fear the arrival of the Youbou train.  I remember when the glorious steam whistle gave way to the blat of the new diesel trains.

Scarcely a pleasure matches the excitement of flagging down the E&N passenger train at the Cliffside Whistle Stop for a trip to Victoria.  There were times when ice prevented access to the island and times when the lake flooded so much that docks jumped their pilings.  I learned to handle a cross cut saw, chop wood, light wood stoves, maintain coal oil lamps, gut fish, tie knots and catch crayfish with bacon fat.  It was too much fun!

On the darker day when my stepfather died of a heart attack, it was the kind Ray Dougan of Shawnigan Garage that came down the lake to Isla del Sol to tell my mother of his hospitalization in Vancouver.

As an adult I worked in the north, the Kootenays, Victoria and internationally, but at the centre there was always the Lake and the island that my mother deeded to me on my 21st birthday and to which I would always return.  Two wharves, three roofs and solar power later I have lived full time on the island and joined in the wider life of the Shawnigan Community to pay back some of what I owe to this wonderful place.