Books by the Lake

This is a remembrance from the 1950s (I think) about a woman bringing five children up alone: really alone -- in the winter, they lived in a house in the woods with the nearest neighbor at least a mile away, and had school at home. In the summer, they piloted a 25-foot boat among the bays and islands of British Columbia, again rarely seeing other people. Muriel Blanchet did everything from chopping firewood to repairing boat motors; she had no choice. She doesn't spend much time writing about family dynamics and we only get the sketchiest impression of the characters of the five children. Mostly, she describes the sights they saw on their voyages, the islands, shorelines, and animals; the rapids, rocks, and coves they navigated through. There were occasional moments of mild drama, such as huddling uneasily on the boat while a cougar prowled on shore; the motor dying and Blanchet having to tow the boat thirty miles to a sheltered spot where she could take the motor apart; climbing a mountain, spending the night there, and having to descend in a dense fog. Some of these narratives made interesting chapters, others less so, I thought. Certainly, it all comes across as quite idyllic.

It's a lost world that Blanchet is describing. Such activities as logging and the shooting of cougars had already removed part of the wildness of the area. She mentions resenting it when a new cabin was built in a previously deserted cove. This is the inevitable doublethink of people who try to get away from "civilization" -- just by being out there, they're pushing the edge of "civilization" out. People still think the same way now; they go someplace deserted, and then think, oh no, there's people here: well yes, there's you, at the very least.