“On Friday afternoon, Grandpa was already sitting in the veranda when I reached the top of the steps. He had arrived from the city while I was out fishing. In one hand he held a bottle of Old Vienna. An expertly slanted glass was in the other. Everything looked right, but he shot me a..
Month: June 2025
“From age seven I was the only anglophone, adult or child, Janine permitted inside the house. Yet extreme poverty was not the cause of her reticence. As I stood awkwardly on her threshold for the first time, she made the situation plain. ‘Outside, we’re polite. We speak English in Port or with city folks. But..
“I was out for a pensive afternoon on my own. Fishing would be little more than a pretext for laying claim to a moment of solitude. I looked around the tranquil inlet where I found myself. The clouds were high, and the sky was still bright. A few other watercraft were visible far across the..
The setting of Grand-père Évariste’s waterside farmhouse calls to mind this striking evocation of the region from the Georgian Bay Biosphere Reserve website – https://georgianbaybiosphere.com/ – “The Bay is an amazing resource we must share; seasonal cottager, transient tourist and year rounders… and we must all respect the Bay to ensure the next ‘seven generations’..