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Showing posts from January, 2013

Elsewhere Part II: Extremes of Beauty

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Growing up in Canada, I took a lot of things for granted: peace, education, health, plenty, hope. Included in these Canadian benefits is easily-accessible natural beauty. There is plenty of it to be seen just by travelling in Canada, but my most memorable engagements with extreme beauty were in two of the extremes of the country: Vancouver Island and Newfoundland. In August 1975, my parents, siblings, and I travelled by train to see relatives on the West Coast. There, of course, natural beauty is everywhere. 1975 Lake Garibaldi 1975 The Sunshine Coast Two of the weeks were spent on my grandmother's piece of land in Mud Bay, beside the Strait of Georgia near Courtenay, on Vancouver Island.  1975 Mud Bay at low tide One day, we all went even further west by crossing the island  to  Long Beach , a  place of extreme beauty with its  wild, cold gigantic waves and gigantic rocks to clamber on.  An aunt and uncle and four cousins lived on the same property as Grandma, and we had brough