Sweet relief of spring

The residents of the Ferme Fleur de Lys were ill prepared for the challenges of living in the isolation and physical challenges that the winter brought to Canoe Point.  They described it being a "rather big pill of ice to swallow".  Even their address, Sicamous, was identified with a place that had a road.  In a sense it was the presence of a road that made a place come into being.  They became intimate with the surface of the lake during the winter; the time when the lake is covered with ice but yet not strong enough to support anyone, or when there was too much snow on the ice to allow for passage, or when it becomes "milder and the surface of the ice is wet slush like ground salt". 

In these conditions spring was welcomed with relief as much as joy.  In this photo Charles writes of his wife Caroline who "walks with her cane without too much valor but loving the hot days and surrounded by the pure air that smells like pine and springtime flowers".

Kuddly enjoying sleeping among the violets