Passage Island Retreat

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I then checked the roof above the wall unit which stood pretty much in the center of the house. Sure enough, the heat of the day had caused the roof to expand, and it was now arched 1/2 inch higher than the cabinet.

Concrete and mild-steel rebar expand and contract at about the same rate-but not plaster. Plaster is like china, with no flexibility at all. It would simply snap, with a loud report, leaving a hairline crack from which a bit of fine powder would drift down to the floor. We had to put up with this problem every warm summer day until the once-solid sheet of plaster had been reduced to irregular segments, roughly 18 inches across. That fall, we redecorated with latex paint, which filled the thin cracks and provided the flexibility demanded by the roof.

Passage Island has been home for 19 years now. During that time our little development has enjoyed leisurely growth. There are now 13 houses, plus another three under construction. One-third acre lots are no longer available for $6,200. It comes as no surprise to us that island living has become quite popular with Vancouverites. Prices on Passage Island now start at $50,000.

Though life here hasn't turned out exactly as I pictured in early 1968, it's fabulous in ways I couldn't then foresee. Our two sons, Kim and Chad, joined us in 1971 and 1975, and it's hard to imagine a place where children have a better chance to grow up like Huck Finn. The boys have total command of the island. They've rigged the giant trees with swinging lines so they can move about at bird level. We swim before breakfast and catch fish from our front yard. Yet there are responsibilities, as well as play. Six cords of firewood have to be cut each year, much of it from driftwood on the beach, and both boys are competent, careful boatmen. They have gained a sureness and a self-confidence that come only from experience. In sum, our family enjoys the advantages of a remote lifestyle, yet we are only 45 minutes from a major city.

Of course, because of the 500-foot-deep channel between Passage Island and West Vancouver, tasks that are simple for people on the mainland take on new meaning for us. Kim and Chad go to school in West Vancouver, so by 7:00 every weekday morning, rain or shine, we've descended our counterbalanced gangplank (built to handle the 16-foot tides) and are motoring toward the marina. We don't just run down to the corner for an ice-cream cone. An attitude of resource conservation comes naturally when groceries are passed from rocking boat to dock, and trash must leave the same way. It's automatic to switch lights of when not needed; leaving one on might mean getting up in the middle of the night to start the generator.

Building Canada's first shell structure was not without its problems, but Julie and I wouldn't exchange the house or our lives on Passage Island for anything else we know. Here we are much more in touch with the things that we think matter: watching a family of eagles cavort on updrafts while we breakfast, observing the rise and fall of the barometer for a clue to tomorrow's weather, picking fresh wild blackberries on an afternoon stroll, letting the chameleon sea prove once again that it never exhausts its storehouse of color. Thanks largely to Passage Island, my wounds from 1968 have all healed, and even the scars are hard to find.

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