• Island Life

    Life Is Adventure

    Living on an island in Canada is not for the faint of heart. We get here by ferry, which is frigid for several months of the year. Sometimes the ice and snow make it impossible to get “downtown” to work, and the collection of stores and houses are all shut up tighter than drums. The ferry to the mainland for groceries is habitable only in its belly: the warm inner cabin has huge windows which look out on blocks of ice bobbing in the river. We wouldn’t have it any other way, though. We know when spring arrives before anyone in the city, because the ducks and birds come back.…

  • Island Life

    Why We Love Winter

    Winter on the island is when you learn who your neighbours are. Summer brings tourist and new homebuyers, but it’s in the winter when you can’t get your snowplow out of the ice, or your car slides softly into a snowdrift, that you discover just what islanders are made of. Evenings on the island are not isolating in the least. Your neighbours become your friends, and many times a week you’ll see a couple navigating the drifts with their iPhone flashlights, plates of food, beer and wine balanced on palms or in totebags. We have dogs. Dogs also introduce you to the best and worst of humanity. Living in Toronto,…