My home

I dream of being in a place where the landscape still matters to human life. A place where human life is still influenced by the geography and climate.

I lived in Lillooet BC for a number of years. The first place I lived in that region was on Pavilion Lake. The house was a horror show - before I moved there, there is no way anyone could have convinced me that I would ever live in a mobile home. The house did not matter - it was all the setting. The horror of the inside was offset by the location. I was 25 feet from the edge of the lake - the windows looked out on forest, lake and mountains. Each day the view changed. The lake never looked the same.

There were days when you could not get in or out of the driveway. The nearest stores where 45 km away. A night out for dinner meant going to Lillooet, Ashcroft or Clinton. But it did not matter. The landscape mattered, the weather mattered. I loved going out onto the deck with friends and family and telling them to look over their shoulder at the huge limestone spire looming over the house.

The lake would freeze in or around Christmas and stay so till about Easter. Suddenly I would have a new 10000 hectare field to walk through. The walks I could go on with Laika became all new. The ice changed everyday. The walks during a new moon were amazing, I could walk straight out and not see a single step I put on the lake - I could walk into the darkness. The view of the heavens at night from the middle of the lake was amazing, I could see the milky way and see the comet in the sky.

The lake ice would become amazing at -20 or lower. The ice would shift against itself and send this booming noises through the night. Walking on the lake at times would mean cracks would shoot under foot on the lake.