Hanna, at age seven, is the older daughter of friends Sean and Patty. It’s July 2001, the Canada Day long weekend
at the Pender Islands Beaumont Marine Park. All of the children we are camping with, including my own, have spent
most of the day at the seashore, collecting and observing. Here, Hanna has just found something good at the shore’s
edge, and she beckons for the others to come and view her new treasure.
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The beach is a mystical place, especially for kids. It’s the zone where familiar and new worlds intersect. It’s all very exciting.
Then there are the sensations ... sun on bare skin, sand between bare toes, and the cool of the water. The sea is full
of strange new life forms, and discoveries abound. There’s a little danger, too. Children can sense it in the tone of an
anxious parent’s voice. Still, the kids are usually set free to explore – under a watchful, if perhaps distant, eye. It’s one
of the first tastes of relative freedom in life.
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And then, as the heat gathers like a huge ball on the afternoon sand, there’s the cold and sugary rush of ice cream,
popsicles, freezies and pop … it’s no wonder they never want to leave, and probably one of the reasons we aspire
to live on the waterfront, as adults. For so many of us, it’s a place of such vivid memories.
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Mark Heine