Disaster in Paradise

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Amanda Bath. Disaster in Paradise

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Christopher and I fell in love on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, in the summer of 1992, two years after we first met at his family’s summer cabin there. We sat down together on the rocky shore, as the moon scattered a pathway of diamond light towards us across Lake Huron, and made plans for our future. “Could you live in Canada, do you think?” Christopher asked me. I assured him that I most certainly could. One city was much like another, right?

“Right,” he agreed. “How would it be if we moved west to British Columbia?”

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The day dawned as perfect a summer’s day as you could wish for. The glass crystal that hung in the kitchen window sent rainbows of morning sunlight dancing over the walls and ceiling. A chipmunk scurried along the window ledge among the leaves and tendrils of Virginia creeper that had smothered the east wall and gradually crept across the windowpane. We hacked it back whenever it threatened to hide our view behind leafy fingers of soft green light.

A longer email from Loran, sent in the early hours, described what he was observing in Gar Creek. My heart sank as I read about the increasingly powerful surges in water volume. I wrote an email to everyone in the community describing my concern that the bank might give way under the pressure from the one culvert that was channelling almost all the water. I wrote, “I wonder if Highways could be persuaded to come out to clear the blocked culvert? It would also prevent the road itself from washing out.” Then I shut my MacBook and hurried to get dressed because Jillian and I were going to Kaslo.

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