Summer in BC, According to the Writers of The Summer Book
If you’d never been and we were to say, “British Columbia”, would your first mental images be of mountains, forests, and ubiquitous rain? As residents, visitors, and the writers of The Summer Book (Mother Tongue Publishing) will attest, there’s a lot more to know about summering in our westernmost province. They’ve shared ten lessons to pass along, which might inspire your own summer there sooner rather than later.
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Here are ten lessons on summer in British Columbia, from the contributors to The Summer Book:1. There’s never a shortage of dolphinsIn Grant Lawrence’s essay “40 Dolphins for 40 Years,” even birthdays and beer in Desolation Sound won’t stop the dolphin pod.2. Celebrate summer in a forest near a lake…On the Sechelt peninsula, generations of Swainson’s thrushes, robins, parents and children feast in “Love Song” by Theresa Kishkan.3. …or race to the patioIn Daniela Elza’s essay “Stairway to Haven” a rooftop patio overlooking False Creek becomes a sanctuary from the bustling city of Vancouver.4. Houses come in many coloursIn Fiona Tinwei Lam’s “The Pool”, a first generation immigrant family adapts to a quirky, turquoise home in south Vancouver with the help of a backyard swimming pool.5. Parents can want, tooIn “The Boy Who Climbed Trees” by J J Lee, two sons ask bold questions at the top of a tree in a park in New Westminster.6. Two girls can get up to a lot in tidepools“My Summer As a Boy” by Briony Penn recounts one summer on the shore of the Salish Sea on Salt Spring Island.7. Summer style is relativeSarah de Leeuw was 11, in June 1984, in Port Clements, Haida Gwaii, when she found what she wanted at the thrift store, in “Beige Corduroy Coat Worn Over Turquoise Bathing Suit.”8. It really was “this big”DC Reid recounts the largest salmon he’d ever caught fishing in the cool hands of water in the Nitinat River, where the elk stride, in “A Man and His River.”9. British Columbia’s answer to Waterworld is much, much better than the movieA floathouse is a wonder world surrounded by water in the Tla-o-qui-aht territory of Lemmens Inlet, in “Immersed’ by Christine Lowther.10. The Provincial Park offerings of mountains are expected, but no less breathtakingMemories of summers long ago swim past eagles, mountains, White Rock, Diamond Head, and Rebecca Spit in “Where Are the Snows of Yesterday’s Summers?” by Brian Brett.10. It can change even the most diehard summer-hatersSunburns and drizzly Liverpool were Des Kennedy‘s only memories of summer, until he arrived at last on Denman Island, in “Coming to the Love of Summer.”
Mountains and forests, sure, but definitely no rain.* * *Thanks so much to the contributors of The Summer Book for sharing these lessons, and to Mona Fertig at Mother Tongue for helping out, too. The Summer Book is available now.
