Sara Lake

It has been 4 years since my last post. Maybe I'm taking this Kanjaku thing a little too far? Well, with my new canoe, and camera, and Wanda I headed north for our summer vacation. We stayed at the most excellent Cluxewe Resort and Campground in cabin #3. Excellent. Right on the beach. But I digress.

Sara Lake is a little lake a stones throw from the "Eastern tip" of Marble River Provincial Park. Most people going to the park are looking to kayak or canoe the ocean. Sara Lake is overlooked. But not by us. 

I had scouted out places to paddle the day before and was delighted to find that some good soul had cut away the two large trees that previously has blocked access to the put in. The trail from the road is root-bound but easy to navigate and takes about 2 minutes to traverse. The put in is a typical muddy-bottom shallow space beside a small grounded - well what would you call it - raft? Not really a dock. But Wanda was able to get in without getting her feet wet. 

On the water it is a short paddle to the two sheltered bays surrounded by lush water plants and Sweet Gale. We idled in and out of these bays, enjoying watching the thousands of tadpoles cruising along the copper coloured bottom in the shallows. White and black winged dragon flies rattled past us and we observed a dragon fly larva eating a tadpole. Then we watched a loon dive for fish. 

A small beautiful piece of nature and calm which probably sees few visitors. A shame really, because it is a great place to while away a few hours. 

Pixie Lake

The road from the main to the put-in is overgrown and has two large deep puddles. We waded in to test the depth before putting the Tracker in 4 wheel drive and fording through. At the lake edge a swarm of wasps arrived to examine the hot vehicle.

I stood back nervously but James was brave.

After a few minutes the wasps lost interest and we put out onto a strange and eerie world. the shoreline bristled with dead trees, watershield decomposed under the sun, dark deep water slid under our hulls.

We did not see any pixies, but at one point James commented that it was the sort of place you thought you might look into the water and see ghostly white faces looking back with dead eyes.

Memorable would be a word to describe the experience.

Here is a photo album of the paddle: http://www.homestead.com/rrpowell/files/PixieLake

Sedge Bending

The world if full of grand vistas. People flock to the Grand Canyon for example, or the Rocky Mountains. People huddle their houses together for a view of the ocean, to take advantage of a steel and glass cityscape, to share the sight of a volcano. There is, on the other hand, no rush to view alleyways, boarded up factories, or a vacant lot.

Here on Vancouver Island, you can view a volcano, a beautiful cityscape, and everywhere the changing plane of ocean. It is a common blessing, like being Canadian, like shopping in a super market. It comes with the territory. We sometimes stop to wink at each other, "can you believe we have it so good?"

Evan so, and perhaps because we are saturated by the ubiquitous privilege of our situation, there are beauties we miss. In the brace of affluence it is actually the case that saturation can be the problem. We have the good life, but it has us too, in it's teeth, and it is biting down hard. We are overweight, we are stressed, we are depressed, we are trudging along. What good is it to live in paradise if we slave each day to stay here?  That my friends, is the middle class dilemma.

Sedge Bending might not be the antidote to that, but it might not hurt. So let me tell you how it works.

The Sedge Bending Formulas 

The intro formula: 1 self powered water craft + 1 quiet shoreline with sedges - all electronic distractions = Bliss

The committed formula: 1 beautiful self powered water craft + 1 quiet shoreline with sedges and a few other specific features  - all the distractions of electronic life + a list of "experience enhancing" extras = Bliss2

I agree, the formulas seem too simple to really work, and to be frank, they only work for a certain segment of the population, maybe 10%. But if you are in that 10% you could be missing out on, well, bliss. So might not it behoove you to read a little more about it?

 
The Sedge Bending Secret 

The secret to sedge bending bliss is the Vita Ora. Vita is the Latin root of vital, and generally refers to life; and ora mean edge, rim, border, boundary /coast, coast-line. Thus it is the vital edge, the border of life, the rim of vitality, or the boundary of being.  This is the place on a lake that biologists call the Littoral zone. It is a biogeographic region where conditions are favourable for life. Not just sedges, but rushes, reeds, auquatic plants cluster along this threshold between the relatively barren deep water and the dryer expanses of land, dominated by the light soaking conifers and angiosperms.

In short, there is a magic region of water loving plants and animals that for some of us, not only epitomize life, but impart it to us just by going there. We come alive in this district of dragonflies and redwing blackbirds.  We feel at home amide the frogs and turtles. We belong.

Are you a Sedge Bender? I'd love to hear from you.