Remembering the past......

once there was a little girl who lived in the wilderness.... (seriously folks) and had a stellar few years as a free spirit.... so long ago.. i would think about 1955 or so... the wilderness was Knight Inlet on the British Columbia coast ... my parents were homesteaders of the coastal variety.... we lived in Sargent Pass and live in a float house which was attached to the shore with boom logs..... our water supply was a creek behind the house.... our heat was our cookstove and in the shed was a generator which ran an hour a day.....our house was tiny, consisting of kitchen/living room, small bathroom, one bedroom and my 'bedroom' which was the pantry/closet.....i have fond memories of using a blanket, which was held up by the canned goods, to cover my bed, and myself 'reading' books.... or just pretending with my teddy and 'nelly' the elephant.....i was either the nurse or the teacher... and of course teddy and nelly were either patients or students... my outdoor playmates were usually my stuffed animals or Squeaky the cat or sometimes the boys that lived further down the Pass....

such a life i think... my father made me a 'boat' with a wooden box, where i spent many hours... eventually i learned how to use the real dingy and spent a lot of time on the water... my lifejacket my mother made by hand... she used Kapok for the stuffing and i NEVER went outside without it being on... Squeaky the cat (in lower pic) doesn't appear to approve of being with me.. but i owe her my life... one time i was out on the float and was playing with 'princess hair' kelp and slipped on it... into the water i went..... i remember it only too well... as i was floating away, i wasn't concerned with drowning, i knew that i would end up on the shore nearby... mostly i was worried about being eaten by a whale... anyways back to the cat... i guess Squeaky knew that i wasn't supposed to be floating away because she went back in the house and wouldn't leave my mother alone, kept going to the door and eventually scratched my mother... my mother finally figuring out something wasn't right, went outside and saw me floating away... there was no dingy (it was with my dad who was logging) so she grabbed the pike pole and held it out to me.. after that i guess she watched more closely and Squeaky got well treated for the rest of her very long life....






































to be continued......