More at Mabel lake

Sunday 29 th July  Picture the following,  a beautiful midsummer evening with the girl of your dreams, or guy if you prefer, on a lake in the middle of nowhere, hidden lake to be precise, slowly paddling in a bright yellow canoe for two as the sun sets over the mountains in the west. The water surface is so still that the soft cumulus clouds reflect back as if there was no up or down and the mountains recede to ever darker hues of blue.

We gently approach a pair of Loons as they stroke slowly away from us only to be heard later calling to each other with the plaintive cry that only loons can utter. The sun sets further and the reflections of tree lined shore darken into the night. We paddle back to the shoe and pack to drive home for a wine before bed. All true last Wednesday except that the girl turned out to be Art, my host.

On the way home that evening we stopped off at a neighbor  of Arts' so that he could show me his unique home, a veritable tree house in the forest, three levels high supported by poles cut from the forest. Each level was honeycombed with rooms of varying size and cluttered with debris of many years of remote living. At one time there were goats in the lower floor while he raised 3 children in the upper stories. A waterfall chuckles in the back while a generator purrs in the front to provide electricity for essential living. Not surprisingly his wife left him when the all three children were under four. I am now back on Vancouver Island where I am going to do some exploring in a great little camper van courtesy of Michael and Darlene.