26 June 2021 – “Siempre hay algo,” as a philosophical collectivo driver once told me, high on the Peruvian altiplano: “There’s always something.”

And indeed, just as COVID trends offer us cautious new freedoms, along comes the Heat Dome to imprison us once again. Only (!!) 33C today here in Vancouver, but headed for 39C by Monday, with 45C or more predicted for the Interior. (And that’s before we talk Humidex.) Not the weather for vigorous outdoor activity.

Yesterday’s visit to a cool, shady lakeside trail therefore had extra value: it felt like a final treat before 4-5 days of renewed lock-down.

Rice Lake lies within the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve in North Vancouver, with some 100 km of trails on offer through the forested slopes. We did a short, simple loop around the lake — proof that delight and beauty bear no necessary relationship to length or difficulty of the walk.

A gravel trail through the trees …

with bird song in the trees, ferns & moss all about, and numerous nurse logs on view, complete with their offspring.

We were particularly taken with this pair of adult siblings, their arms thrown companionably over each other’s shoulders.

I was definitely in a BC forest, by a BC lake, but I am imprinted by my decades with the Canadian Shield lakes of Quebec & Ontario.

As we stood at a viewpoint and looked down-lake, I felt all those other eastern lakes right there with me, dancing in and out of the one that was physically before my eyes.

I began talking about the other Rice Lake of my experience: the one that belongs to the Kawartha Lakes and lies south of Peterborough, Ontario, on the Trent-Severn Waterway. It is named for the wild rice that once grew there in abundance, but was drowned out by the rising water levels that followed Waterway construction.

Once home, still deep in lake mode, I browsed for images of that other, eastern Rice Lake.

And found this one:

Yes of course they are different: a mountain backdrop here in North Van, a granite outcropping there in Ontario. But … just look at them!

One specific lake, another specific lake, a cavalcade of memories. And, finally, just … lake.

My lake imprint.