Edith Iglauer is the author of five books, most recently Inuit Journey and The Strangers Next Door, and many articles in The New Yorker and other publications.
During my thirty years living on the waterfront of British Columbia, I have always had some sort of container in which to sit on the water. My first boat was a ten-foot dinghy that my late husband John Daly, a commercial salmon troller, equipped with a small electric motor to surprise me. He had the bizarre idea that I, a sometime canoeist from Ohio, could manoeuvre a boat on my own around our capacious Pacific coast harbour. The electric engine would be ideal for me, he thought. No rope to pull to start it up! No gasoline tank on board!
I had my car at the hotel but snow was expected, and driving home alone in a snowstorm around the hairpin curves edged with deep ravines on Highway 101 was the last thing I wanted to do
