There’s a powerful song written by Michel Conte, sung passionately by Sandra Le Couteur, which is often heard in my home. It’s called “Shippagan” and it tells the story of a man who has left his homeland in New Brunswick. He misses Shippagan as much as his ancestors who were forced to leave l’Acadie in the 1800’s. And like his ancestors, the Acadians, he will wait a long time to return to Shippagan, where the sea and the sky are one. Living in a strange place he cannot be himself, and so he longs for the day he will live in Shippagan once again.
I am moved every time I hear that song. How fortunate to be so connected to your land and your community, to know this is where you belong, where you can be yourself. Perhaps westerners move around so much because many are still searching for that place. As a child growing up in southern Ontario, I often went to the river, half a block away. I loved the way it travelled so surely, and I welcomed the company of the willow trees reflected in the river. But the trees, the river, the community, they do not call me back. I have travelled in most of Canada’s provinces, and lived in several of them. I admired the people and the various landscapes of this beautiful country; but when I arrived on Bowen Island sixteen years ago, I knew I had found my home. Besides, there was not much further to go and still be in Canada.
I could be myself here, a self inspired by the sea, the forests, the islanders who nurtured my songs, plays, books and poems, supported my concerts and festivals, and challenged my solitariness. A self greatly expanded to include the land and an entire community. The more I committed myself to the community, the more my stories and songs grew out of the land and the people, the more I became truly myself. I love this island passionately. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed the friendship of many islanders. With their gifts and their love, they changed me and the community in some way, and I hope I did the same. Many of these friends are gone, moved on, passed on. The people come and go but the community remains, working together to care for each other and for the land.
My first home on Bowen was a lovely suite in Tunstall Bay. Almost daily, I hiked down the path to Cape Roger Curtis with sandwich, thermos, tape recorder and writing pad stashed in my backpack. It was the most splendid office I’ve ever had – with a grassy seat on a bluff overlooking Georgia Strait or a log on the sandy beach. It was there I wrote many of my songs and poems, and so when the house was sold I left with a heavy heart. Then I discovered Deep Bay, the Lagoon, Crippen Park, and a few paths less-travelled. A new place for inspiration. These days I admire the impressive presence of Sleeping Woman Mountain from my front window. I enjoy waking to the songs of Winter Wren, Raven and Western Tanager, tending to my vegetable gardens and fruit trees, and anticipating the music of Bridal Veil Falls in the winter.
The song, “Shippagan”, often brings tears to my eyes because I know how I would feel if I left Bowen Island. I would miss it terribly - miss my daily walks into the forest, over the bridges and up to Killarney Lake, miss the Lagoon - in the spring to watch the parade of goslings and ducklings, in the fall to catch the Coho spawning. I would miss my book clubs, my writing circle, my francophone women’s group, and other associations I belong to, as well as the serendipitous meetings of friends in the Cove, the intense discussions over coffee. I would miss those who made music with me, made merry with me, made changes, made waves, made peace with me.
One day on the ferry, an elegant woman, a visitor to the island, chatted with me as we sat on the sundeck admiring the curves of the Coastal Mountains and the islands of Howe Sound framed by wispy clouds. “I’ve been on the Alaska Tour,” she told me. “It’s not more beautiful than this. Just longer.” Sometimes it’s easy to overlook this beauty, to stay below and get some work done. But I remind myself to get up to the sundeck and appreciate the magnificence that is Howe Sound, to feel the same awe I experienced on my first ferry ride to my chosen home. This land. It doesn’t belong to me. I belong to the land.
