Kira Bay, All Day

The original plan was to leave this morning to rejoin HQ2, but after seeing the kids having such a spectacular time together, we just couldn’t break it up so were invited to stay for another day. Everybody was up by the time Ana and I dinghied into shore, and Kira was busy making bacon and wild blueberry pancakes for breakfast using those berries we picked a few days back in the Benjys.

Ana and I grabbed coffees and set up on the loungers by the water with books and spent a lovely hour relaxing and reading. The cabin library included a book on Canadian inventors and it was fascinating. Canadian inventors have been responsible for creating nearly every piece of communication technology that exists in the world today - from wireless voice transmission, to fiber optics, to radio, to pagers, to the internet, and even the personal computer. Other Canadian inventions include peanut butter, commercial jets, the snowmobile, sonar, lacrosse/hockey/basketball, the jockstrap to protect the aforementioned testicle-crushing sports, the electric wheelchair, Botox (you’re welcome, Hollywood), IMAX, Standard Time, insulin, the electron microscope, plexiglass, the electric oven and Easy-Off oven cleaner, the Robertson screw, and so many others. A man named Reginald Fessenden, whom I’ve never heard of, was the most prolific Canadian inventor and received hundreds of patents in radio and sonar technologies. But the common theme running through all these inventions was the lack of follow through. In the vast majority of cases, the commercialization of the inventions was bungled or the inventions themselves were stolen, ripped off, sold early for a ridiculously low figure, abandoned, or otherwise wasted. And most of the inventors had to move to the US to get the financial support they needed and bring their ideas to market because the Canadian government and investors would not support them. The ones that didn’t ended up penniless. It is a happy story, but also a very sad one.

The rest of the day was spent in an island way - walking, frog-spotting, powerboat rides, swimming, eating, drinking, and a volleyball rematch where the kids got their game together and whipped the adults properly. During a powerboat ride we visited their neighbours (several kilometres away as the lots are enormous) and saw the pile of beautiful cedar posts and 2x8x12s they had cut from their own cedar trees using a sawmill, which were being used to construct a new deck. I hadn’t even really noticed the towering cedar, pine and hardwood trees everywhere and the incredible value they represent on these lands.

We barely saw any of the kids the entire time we spent at the cottage. They were completely consumed with each other playing board games, volleyball, badminton, swimming, dinghying back and forth to the boat, snorkeling, playing with the dog, watching tv, and really having the time of their lives.

It was a glorious day and we finished it with a sundowner then slowly gathered our things, said goodbye to our hosts, and dinghied away for the last time. Upon boarding the boat I smashed my ankle into steering pedestal, cranked my head on the gangway, scraped my hip on the corner of the counter, then caught my finger in a hatch hinge. Being exposed to large, wide open, luxurious cottage spaces during a boat trip does have consequences.