In the evenings, Steve and I eat dinner together out in the balcony garden. With string lights overhead, candles lit on the bistro table, and the surrounding greenery, it feels like our own little private restaurant. On mornings when I’m up early, I’ve taken to writing in my journal out there, while enjoying a mug of hot tea. The space has become a lovely little nook for connection and contemplation.

The veronicas are starting to take off. The plants have grown up to about 40cm, and the pink variety is blooming now. The blues are budding, and it has been a pleasure observing the progress of the flowers. The anticipation is gentle, but oh so satisfying.

Every day the garden has something new to offer. Most recently, I was surprised by the eruption of a batch of mushrooms. They started in the planter with my rosemary, and have now popped up in every single planter in the garden. On Friday, one even came up right in the middle of the mother-of-thyme.

The two varieties of basil that I planted together are doing very well. They are growing plenty enough for our needs. It has been a nice treat harvesting a few fresh leaves here and there to add to our greek salads, or as garnish on other dishes. Maybe I will take a crack at making pesto later this summer!

Of all the plants in the garden, my pride and joy is the boston ivy. Originally, I tied the vines to some twine to help the ivy grow towards the wall. But the suckers were having a hard time getting close enough to the brick to properly attach. I changed tactics, and swapped to taping the young feelers to the wall using masking tape. That did the trick - once the first suckers attached, the vines became quite well established, and continued to spread along the brick wall on their own. Now I’ve removed all but a couple of pieces of tape, as I wait for the last vine to adhere.

It’s remarkable the speed with which the plant has started to cover the wall. By the end of the summer, I think it could be over 60 percent covered. And in future years, hopefully the entire wall will become a mass of green. It has been a very nice offset to the yellow brick, finally bringing balance and greenery to a space that was previously overpowered by yellow and wood tones!

I am curious to see what colour the leaves turn this fall. Likely it will be a mix of yellow and red. As for the other plants, I’m not sure what to expect - however I will be sure to observe carefully. Having these plants in our space is a beautiful way for us to remain in tune with nature, and mark the passing of the days and seasons.

That’s all for my balcony garden update. Thanks for checking in. I look forward to sharing with you what comes next in this space.

One of the maps was of the Mattawa River, and a little blurb on the map stood out.

The section on the map described the Mattawa River Canoe Race, a 64 kilometer paddling marathon from North Bay to Mattawa.

I was instantly intrigued by the thought of participating in this race. First of all, the area is rich both in natural and human history. With rocky cliffs, narrow river passages, and wide lakes dotted with rocky islands, paddling through the area was guaranteed to be worth it for the views alone. From a human history perspective, the route up the Ottawa river and along the Mattawa into Nipissing Lake and beyond was one of the main highways into Canada for early European explorers and voyageurs, and the millennia of First Nations people before them.

It also seemed like a great excuse to use our freshly made cedar strip canoe, and meet other paddling enthusiasts.

Our plans to participate in the race got delayed when the canoe was broken, however this year in March we remembered our dream of entering this race, and upon looking it up realized that we would have enough time to fix our canoe in time for this year’s June 8th race day.

We were working on the canoe up until the last minute, but we made it. On Saturday we were teed up at the start line, the varnish on our canoe still not fully dried. Here’s how our big day went.

Map of the route

The race starts at Olmstead Beach in North Bay, and goes through a series of lakes and riverways that comprise the Mattawa river. The total distance is 64 kilometers, and there are a total of 12 portages along the route, 2.74 kilometers of portage.

Our canoe is 16ft and 1inch long, which put us the “Mixed Rec A” category of boat. The start time for our class was 7:45am, and we had to arrive an hour before the start in order to check-in and sign waivers.

Friday night we drove up and camped at Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park, about a 40 minute drive from the start line. In order to get there on time we were up bright and early at 5:30 am. Much earlier than our usual wake-up time. It was the start of our big day out.

The Start

The day dawned grey with a bit of drizzle, and a fairly strong West to East wind. We were quickly impressed with the many different types of canoe and kayak that we saw at the starting area. There were even people competing on stand up paddle boards!

In our race package we received two t-shirts, a map of the river, and a sticker with our race number, 405, to stick on our canoe. For the day we packed water, granola bars and wraps for lunch, and rain gear. We also had our paddles, life jackets, a bailer, and a throw bag with buoyant rope for safety.

After the first group went out at 7:30am, we put our boat in the water and lined up at the buoys that marked the starting line. At this point we got to chat with a few of our competitors, everyone was really nice and we received a few compliments on our boat.

With a blast of the horn, we were off! We paddled as hard as we could out of the gate, but the field slowly pulled ahead. With us bringing up the rear, we realized that this was going to be quite a long day, and settled into our slow but sustainable paddling pace.

The Middle

The race starts out with about a 20km stretch of paddling across Trout Lake, down the river, and through Turtle Lake to the first portage. During this time, we were passed time and again by the 8:00, then the 8:15 start groups. It was a little concerning. All we could say was thank goodness we had a tailwind.

Next was Pine Lake and the second portage and first race checkpoint. Then another 11km paddle with a tailwind through Talon Lake to checkpoint 2, which we passed at about 1:40pm. We were feeling pretty good about this, as the cut-off time at checkpoint 2 was 3pm.

From checkpoint 2 was a series of back-to-back rapids. In another canoe, I think we would have taken a crack at running the rapids, however we were not willing to risk breaking the canoe again. Steve heroically bore the brunt of the portages, lugging the 65lb canoe down the trail while I carried our backpack and paddles.

It was around this point that we finally overtook another group in the race. It was a pair of teenage boys, and they were struggling with carrying their canoe quickly over the portages, although it seemed they were faster paddlers than us.

After making it through the 5 portages, we finally got to skip portage number 9, which was a tiny swift we felt comfortable running in the canoe.

Portage number 11 was the final checkpoint, which had a cut-off of 6:00pm. We got in just after 4, and met there with Tim and Anne, who were graciously helping us out as our pit crew! They gave us fresh water, a spritz of bug spray, and much appreciated words of encouragement as we headed out on the final stretch of the race.

The Finish

There was a 10.4km stretch from the last checkpoint to the last portage. As we were paddling, it became clear that all the extra water we chugged at the checkpoint was rapidly making its way through our systems. However, there was also a problem - the red canoe with the two teenage boys had appeared again behind us and was rapidly closing the gap. We had to paddle hard to get to the portage with enough time to spare for a bio-break before they arrived, hot on our heels. The pouring rain during this section of the day didn’t help matters either, but we made it!

We exchanged words of encouragement with the boys once they caught up to us at the start of the portage, then promptly left them in our dust and got back into the water to complete the last 3km to the finish line.

It was a great relief to finally make it to the end! The race volunteers even helped us lift our boat out of the water, which was fantastic because at this point we could barely lift our arms. It was just after 6:00pm - 10 hours and 22 minutes from our start time.

After the Race

There was a dinner and an award ceremony held in Mattawa at 6:30pm. The food was delicious, a turkey roast with all the fixings. We got to chat with a guy named Rob and his wife Hilary. Rob set a course record for men’s C1 kayak - he finished in 6 hours and 28 minutes!

We were joking about needing a participation award for our big day out, but it turned out there were only 3 teams in our category. So we got some sweet little woodcut medallions as a keepsake from the event.

After the banquet, we took a hot shower at Tim and Anne’s hotel room, which felt heavenly on the sore muscles! Then we went back to the campsite and passed out.

The next day we took some time to visit the Mattawa Museum, and snapped a pic with the Big Joe Mufferaw statue. He is an icon in the Ottawa River Valley, and stands tall in the area’s collective imagination. There are many wooden statues throughout Mattawa, but this one is definitely the biggest! It is well worth the visit if you are ever passing through the area.

Now that we’re back home, I think it’ll be a few days of recovery before my arms feel normal again. The race was a gruelling experience, and we were certainly humbled and inspired by seeing the speed with which others paddled. Regardless, we had a great time out on the water, and loved getting a chance to meet some other paddling enthusiasts. Overall, it was a weekend well spent and we would do it again!

The ‘lack’ of perfection draws you in. What story of attachment or necessity can explain the painstaking care that is evident in mended objects? To me, it speaks of love, thriftiness, and stewardship.

In looking at brightly embroidered patches on a garment, or delicate golden veins on a piece of pottery that’s been repaired kintsugi style, I become aware of the fine line between useful function and utter disrepair. It’s a poignant reminder that nothing in this life is permanent.

In a world littered with ever increasing numbers of disposable products, engineered to pass in and out of our lives without a second thought, a broken and repaired object is proof that it is still possible to pay attention. It is still possible to look after our things, repair them when they break, give or sell them to someone else when we no longer use them, or salvage and recycle the materials when that object eventually does pass beyond repair.

When Steve and I first built our canoe, we envisioned it becoming something that would remain in our family for many years, perhaps getting passed on to the next generation. To witness the canoe get blasted apart only 6 months after completing its construction was devastating. Nonetheless, we decided to do our best to bring the canoe back to life.

This week, Steve and I are drawing to the close of what has been a two year journey to repair our canoe. After this round of restoration, I think we can safely say:

Come hell or high-water, we will maintain stewardship over this canoe for many years yet to come.

Let’s take a look at the work we did to fix our canoe.

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The damage

The canoe had multiple holes punched into its hull. The gunnels were shattered. A big chunk of the sidewall got ripped out from where the yoke used to be attached. The worst damage was at the bow. It had been three quarters of the way ripped off, leaving only the upper half of the starboard sidewall keeping it attached to the rest of the canoe.

When we built the canoe, we followed a manual with instructions for every step of the way. But there was no manual for fixing a canoe damaged like ours was. We were in uncharted waters, and had to use our own methods and intuitions to get it back together.

Rebuilding the hull

The first step to repair the canoe was getting the hull back into one piece. There were painful parts to this. We peeled off the fibreglass wherever it had become delaminated from the wood, so that we would have room to work on the shattered cedar beneath.

We plugged the holes in the hull using a mixture of sawdust and epoxy.

Where the chunk of sidewall got ripped out, I rebuilt the wall one strip at a time, using leftover cedar strips from the original build. I would trim a strip to size, apply a line of wood glue, tape it in place, and leave it for a day to set before removing the tape and glueing in the next strip. It took multiple weekends to rebuild this part of the hull.

The most involved repair was at the bow. We started on the starboard side, and worked our way up and over, using many jigs to pull the boat back into alignment. We glued up cracks with epoxy and sawdust, and rebuilt missing chunks with wood glue and fresh cedar strips as required. The work was done in small batches, letting a fix for a portion of the damage cure overnight before moving on to the next section and adjusting the jigs as required.

Repairing the hull took us the entire summer of 2022. By the time we were done, the canoe was reasonably back in one piece. All the holes were glued shut and prepped for fibreglass patches.

Fibreglass Patches

The work of 2023 was to do a fibreglass patch any weekend that we were able to get to the cottage. It was a busy summer, with us visiting friends in Nova Scotia, attending weddings in Calgary, and planning for our own wedding in October! Altogether we did not have much time to work on the canoe.

Nevertheless, the repairs steadily marched on.

A fibreglass patch requires a full day. First, the surface is prepped - sanded with 120grit, then wiped clean with acetone to remove any dust. The fibreglass sheet is cut to the right size and laid over the area that needs to be patched. Next, we mix our 2-part epoxy and apply it to the fibreglass, fully wetting it out. Excess epoxy is squeegeed out, and the patch is left to cure for about three hours, until it’s tacky to the touch. Another coat is applied while the epoxy is still green. Then again, another coat after the epoxy has cured another three hours. Each patch receives 3 or 4 coats, all spread out at least 3 hours from each other, making for a 12 hour day.

First we patched the exterior of the hull. Then, we flipped the canoe, sanded and filled the interior surfaces so that we could patch the inside too.

We used strips of fibreglass for most of the patches. In the bow, an extensive patch was required to cover all the damage in the interior of the canoe, so we used a large sheet of fibreglass in this section. I cut the fiberglass into a custom shape so that it would fit nicely around the stem and cover all spots where the original fibreglass had peeled away.

Reinstalling the trim

In March of 2024, Steve and I decided to sign up for the Mattawa River Canoe Race, which is scheduled for June 8th. This was the push we needed to finish up our canoe repairs!

With the fibreglass patches complete, ‘all’ that remained was to re-install the trim. This of course was a fairly involved process, as we had to make new gunnels and decks from scratch. Luckily, the yoke and seats from the original canoe were still re-useable.

Steve took the lead on making the gunnels and decks - cutting scuppers and rounding edges with the router, planing the ends down to fit nicely at the stems, applying protective coats of epoxy, sanding, and so on.

Then came the two person job of fitting the inner gunnels. First we did a dry fit, and filed down the ends of the gunnels until they sat perfectly along the length of the canoe. Then, we pre-drilled counter sunk holes for the screws, which go through the sidewall into the inner gunnels. With that all prepped, we did the real installation, applying epoxy to stick the gunnels to the canoe, as well as hand turning the screws into place. Many clamps are used at this stage.

The decks went in next. They are epoxied in place, and secured with more screws going through the sidewalls and inner gunnels.

Finally, the outer gunnels. The process for installing these is similar to the inner gunnels. First a dryfit and some hand-planing at the ends to get the gunnels to sit flush against the canoe. Then epoxy, screws, and clamps. The outer gunnels are a bit easier to install because the ends can be trimmed and cleaned up after the epoxy has set.

Finishing touches

With less than a week left to go before our race, we are completing the finishing touches on the canoe. We cut plugs and glued them into the outer gunnels to cover the screws from installation. Once sanded down, it gives a very clean finish.

The gunnels, decks, and sidewalls have been sanded flush, all gaps have been filled with sawdust and epoxy, and we are now working on applying coats of varnish. The inside of the canoe and tops of the trim have been varnished, and yesterday we flipped the canoe and worked on the exterior of the hull.

All that’s left is two coats of varnish on the exterior of the hull. We will sand the canoe before each layer, and leave it for a day to cure between coats. That should bring us to putting the final coat of varnish on likely this Tuesday.

It’s been a long road to get here, but it feels great to finally have the canoe ready to go out on the water again. We are very much looking forward to our canoe race next weekend, and all the trips that will come after. Here’s to a summer full of camping trips and breathtaking paddles in the backcountry!

Many of the lessons from those poems have travelled with me throughout my youth and into my adulthood. They range from appreciation of nature (Trees, by Joyce Kilmer), to revelling in the absurd (Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carrol), to recognizing the power of our choices (The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost).

One of our family favourites was If—, by Rudyard Kipling. In fact, my grandfather owned a brass plaque with the poem inscribed upon it. The plaque had been passed down to my father, and it mysteriously was hung on the door of the playhouse in our backyard. I don’t know how many times we read that poem around the dinner table, or how many times I traced the letters of that plaque on those endless summer days in the dry Calgary heat, but it was always there - a part of the tapestry of my childhood.

The poem speaks of winning and losing, confidence and humility, and maintaining equanimity in the face of all that life can throw at you.

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two imposters just the same;   
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

As a child, how could I have known that one day these lines would serve as both consolation and inspiration in the face of my own encounters with adversity?

Honks, tweets, and squabbles (Triumph)

This story picks up four months after the letter I wrote in part 1 of me and Steve’s canoe saga.

The wild geese had returned honking to Ottawa, and as their goslings hatched and waddled along the river banks, so too hatched the plans for our first camping trip of the season with our shiny new canoe. We would go to Big Gull Lake in North Frontenac for the May long weekend of 2022.

On the Friday night before the weekend we packed up our gear, strapped the canoe to the roof of the Matrix, and set out for our adventure. The days were getting longer, but by the time we arrived at the lake, the sun was low on the horizon. We paddled quickly across the lake to campsite number 3, a nice spot on a rocky island, and set up our tent in the dusk of early evening.

The next day dawned windy, and we decided to take it easy for the day. We would paddle out for a lunch somewhere on the lake, then come back and relax at our campsite.

We set out, and spent the morning in the canoe leisurely paddling with a tail wind. There were wetlands on one side of the big island, where we admired the hundreds of jewel-toned dragonflies flitting above the reeds. Then we backtracked and circumnavigated the island where the waters were deeper and free flowing.

The conversation alternated between little tweets as we congratulated ourselves on the canoe we had built, and little squabbles as we tried to decide on a name fitting of her beauty.

As I wrote in the letter, we were still undecided on the name of our canoe. Wild Goose Chaser was my personal favourite, but I had to admit it was a bit of a mouthful. Steve wanted something more noble, yet not too corny, and by the time we got to the narrow channel where we would eat our lunch, we still hadn’t come up with anything that was hitting the right notes.

As we were eating lunch, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding due to the strength of the wind that day. We would be paddling back into a headwind, so we ate quickly and did not waste any time in getting back to our campsite. Looking back, it’s a good thing we didn’t linger.

Ship-shape and shook-up (Disaster)

Something that Steve and I pride ourselves on is maintaining a tidy campsite. This did not come to us naturally. Here’s a photo from the first camping trip we ever took together, back in 2016. It’s a real mess, with random piles of gear and bags and bottles and clothing strewn all over the ground.

Refining our campsite organization started during our trip down Spanish River in 2020. We had to set-up camp each night and break camp each morning. This started out quite slow and awkward, but over the course of that trip, we established and perfected this routine. By the time we were camping on Big Gull Lake in 2022, it was second nature to keep all our gear in a single bag, our food in the barrel, and our life jackets and paddles under the canoe.

When we got back to the campsite after lunch, everything was ship-shape and we did not have much to do outside of relax and read our books in the hammock. From the island’s vantage point, looking into the wind across the lake, we could keep an eye on the weather and retreat into the tent should the forecasted thunderstorms materialize.

After maybe half an hour of reading, we realized that the previously far-off dark clouds had morphed into a massive storm front that was rapidly approaching. It looked like a literal wall - we could see where the water on the lake was getting thrown up as the black turbulence charged towards us.

It was a good thing our gear was already mostly put away: we had three minutes to prepare. Steve took down the hammock, and zipped our books up in the big yellow bag. As an afterthought, I took out an extra tarp and tied it between two trees over the tent and pinned the corner down into the ground as a windbreak in front of the tent. “Should we tie down the canoe?” Steve asked. There was no time - the storm was upon us.

Everything was silent. Everything was NOISE. The wind filled our ears our eyes our lungs our minds. The tarp pushed flat to the ground, pinning me underneath it as I struggled to get into the tent. The tent flapped and shrieked and its metal poles bent under the force of the wind and the tarp. Then in a flash - Steve was gone! He ran out into the winds; into the noise; into the terrible awesome magnificent horrific storm.

RIIIIIIIP! The tarp gave way, leaving behind the pin in the ground with a grommet and some strands of fabric looped around it’s hook. “STEVE!” I screamed his name, over and over, unable to fathom what had possessed him to run out, and terrified to leave the admittedly paltry shelter of the tent fly. Then he was back, and clutching and dragging behind him our beautiful, shiny, and now utterly cracked and fractured canoe.

“The winds took her like a feather - it flew down the island and smashed apart on some trees and rocks” he panted to me as an explanation as we cowered and clung to the canoe and each other for dear life.

“I’m scared”, I whimpered to Steve. We had no choice but to wait it out. There could be no rescue until the storm had passed.

The aftermath

Eventually the storm did pass. The winds let up, leaving behind only a gentle spattering of rain in it’s wake. We emerged from our now misshapen tent to a new world. The aspect of the land had been fundamentally altered, with giant swaths of trees down both on our island and on the shores of the mainland.

We wandered our campsite in a daze, eventually tracking down our life jackets and the tarp which had gotten stuck in a tree.

The canoe was broken. The canoe we had poured our lives into, our greatest triumph, every inch of it lovingly sawed and sanded and polished with our own two sets of hands, was broken and not gonna float. And we were stuck on an island with no means of getting off.

Luckily, maybe an hour after the storm was gone, we heard the putt-putt of a motorboat coming towards us from one of the cottages up the lake. A local had seen us camping and came out to check on us. “Need any help?” he inquired. We took him up on the offer and hitched a ride back to the boat launch, the canoe perched precariously across the back of his boat.

Once back on the mainland, we did not waste any time. We threw the canoe up on the roof of the car, and tied it down as best we could, given the bow was three quarters of the way to being completely ripped off. Then we drove. We drove past locals on ATVs with chainsaws strapped to their backs. We drove past countless fallen tree trunks that had been sawed and cleared from the roads by the locals. We drove past a house with the roof ripped clean off.

And as we drove, we tried to digest what had happened to the land, to the canoe, and to our psyches.

It was on this drive that the poem If— came once again to my mind, dredged up from those distant childhood days of wondering how I might react in a circumstance as grandiose as those portrayed in its lines.

I pulled up the poem on my phone and read it aloud to Steve as we made our way along the windblasted roads.

Like a phoenix, a new dream was rising from the sawdust of our wrecked canoe. We would stoop and build her up with worn out tools. And her name? She was Triumph and Disaster.

I came across this old letter from January 17th, 2022, before we had any idea what was in store for us.

For now, enjoy this little trip down memory lane - this post will be followed by the story of the storm.

Eila and Steve’s Wild Goose Chaser

About this time last year [January 2021], Steve and I saw a video of Xyla Foxlin building a cedar strip canoe on Youtube. It caught my interest, and out of curiosity, I checked the Ottawa public library to see what books, if any, they had on building canoes. I checked out a half dozen books that seemed vaguely relevant and brought them home for my perusal – “just for fun”, I told myself.

One of those books, “Canoecraft”, by Ted Moores, had all the information and instructions one could ever need to build a canoe. I read the whole thing. And the next thing you know, we were cleaning out the garage at the family cottage and dusting off Steve’s grandfather’s tools. Armed with a well-laid plan and the naive optimism only a pair of amateurs could have, we had decided to build our own canoe.

It was a natural progression, see. The previous summer we’d taken a 10-day canoe trip down the Spanish River, travelling over 160km through the Northern Ontario back-country. What with weekend trips to Algonquin and various other paddling destinations, the canoe rental fees were starting to add up. “How wonderful would it be,” we said, “to have a canoe of our own. And while we’re at it, let’s build the thing ourselves!”

There were a few major milestones when we realized we were fully committed to building our canoe. The first was building the strong-back, the table upon which the canoe forms are mounted. The other was buying the cedar out of which the canoe would be built. We built the strong-back in one weekend. “Ho-ho,” cried we, “building this canoe is going to be a breeze!” We also bought the wood that was to become our canoe – ten planks of 16’ long 1x6 select cedar boards.

We set about by first tackling the milling of the wood. The planks we bought needed to be ripped down into ¼” thick strips, so that they would be bendy enough to fit around the canoe forms. Each strip also needed to be routed along its length – one edge in a “bead”, and the other in a “cove”, so that they will fit together nicely around the curves of the hull.

Another thing we had to do was bend the wood for the canoe stems before we installed the forms. The stems are formed of three ¼” thick strips of wood, steamed and bent into shape before being laminated together. The inner stem is pine, because of its light weight and ease of shaping. The outer stem is ash – selected because it is a hardwood that will stand up to some abuse, but still bends well.

With the wood milled, the forms cut and installed on the strong-back, and the stems shaped and in place, construction of the canoe could begin. We decided to build the canoe using various jigs to clamp the wood in place while the glue set, rather than stapling the strips to the canoe forms. Each piece would be glued, clamped in place, and left to set for a couple hours. This meant that we could only do 3-4 strips a day.

As the days passed, the canoe began to take shape. To close the bottom, the strips were cut back to the centre line. From then on, each strip was hand-planed to an angle that fit exactly into the hull.

After completing the hull, we installed the outer stems with epoxy, and sanded the entire exterior of the boat until it was completely smooth. Then, a 6oz. fibreglass cloth was laid over the canoe and we wet it out with epoxy. We did 4 coats of epoxy, spaced about 2 hours apart. The fibreglass was then left to cure. This is what gives the boat much of its strength! It also ensures it doesn’t leak.

Then, we flipped the boat off the forms, and sanded and fibre-glassed the inside too.

The hull of the boat was complete. Next, was the finishing touches. Steve made many jigs for building the canoe trim. He framed up the seats, built the canoe decks, and shaped the yoke. Eila wove the cane for the seats. We cut scuppers into the inner gunnels, and after varnishing everything, the final assembly of the canoe could be completed.

Finally, we had everything in place! We couldn’t wait to take it out on the water – the only thing holding us back was the final coat of varnish. In a perfectionist’s world, the varnish would have been painstakingly applied, one coat a day for a week, until a perfect mirror finish was achieved. But at this point, we’d been building the thing for a whole summer, and there were only a few paddling weekends left in the season! So, after two coats, away we took it on some adventures.

The finished boat is a thing of beauty (if I do say so myself). The first time we scraped a rock we were quite distraught. But she’s held up great so far, and we are much looking forward to the places we will take it this upcoming season.

Her unofficial name is “Wild Goose Chaser”, after the iconic Canadian birds that we shall be paddling after.

I end this letter with a selection of beauty shots!

-Eila

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Plants that keep on giving

On Saturday I had plans to drive from the cottage to Ottawa in order to meet with my friends A and M for lunch. There’s a plant nursery called Gemmell’s along the way that I’ve been wanting to check out for some time now, so I decided to leave early to give myself some time to get some perennials for the balcony. The plant shop did not disappoint!

In past years, I’ve planted the balcony with tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, herbs and so on - a classic miniature vegetable garden. However, those crops are quite thirsty, especially when planted in relatively small containers on a hot and dry 6th floor balcony. When we travelled to Calgary for a week last June, everything died.

This year, faced with the prospect of starting plants from scratch once again, I decided to pivot and try something new. So here we are with a batch of perennials. Once established, they should be fairly drought tolerant compared to the veggie crops.

I’m hoping that these will be able come back year after year. Likely there will be work to fertilize, divide, trim roots, and insulate the planters for cold weather, however it will definitely be worth it if these plants can survive the winters! The prospect of the balcony garden evolving and becoming fuller and more beautiful through the years is really appealing to me.

Design choices for a small garden

In the big planter I wanted to plant a vine that could climb up the brick wall. The back corner needed a shade plant, preferably one with interesting foliage. The two small planters in the front receive full sun, so pretty much anything can be planted there, but I knew I wanted some flowers, and maybe some ornamental grasses to provide a bit of screening and privacy.

Because the space is small, my preference was for plants with smaller leaves that could provide texture without overwhelming. Oh, and I avoided yellow at all costs, as the brick wall is yellow, the wood furniture, planters, and frame are all orangey brown, and the whole space just needs blues and greens to balance it out.

Picking plants

There were SO many plants at Gemmell’s! It was heavenly - so fun browsing around and looking at different plants and visualizing how they would fit in the balcony garden. I wanted to get practically every plant I saw, but the balcony’s space limitations stopped me, and in the end it was probably best for my wallet.

In the back corner, I got a Coral Bells, (Heuchera hybrida) called “Silver Scrolls”. It has beautiful dark green/black veins, with a lighter silver relief on the rest of the leaf. The mature plant should fill out the back corner nicely.

The vine is Boston Ivy, (Parthenocissus tricuspidata “Veitchii”), a vigorous grower that can thrive in a range of conditions. I chose this plant because I really want the vine to succeed, and with the roof over the balcony I don’t think a strictly full-sun vine would be able to grow enough to cover the wall. The leaves are supposed to turn a nice red in the fall if they get enough sun, so I’m excited to see how it looks at the end of the growing season.

I also put in a Mother-of-Thyme aka Magic Carpet (Thymus serpyllum) in the front corner of the big planter. It has tiny little leaves and can spill over the edge of the container, so I think it’ll provide nice texture. There’s potentially room behind it for another plant, but I’ll wait and see how it does this year before making any decisions.

In the front planters, I have Elijah Blue Fescue, Speedwell Skyward Blue/Pink (Veronica Longiflora), and “Blue Emerald” Creeping Phlox (Phlox subulata).

The blue fescue is a nice ornamental grass - I love the fine texture and blue/grey/green hue to it’s leaves.

The Veronicas are supposed to produce tall conical flowers in blue and pink, which I think will add a nice touch of colour in the mid-summer.

The creeping phlox currently has some pretty blue flowers on it, and the finer leaves add a nice bit of texture to the space.

I also inter-planted the herbs I started from seed earlier this year - this year I have rosemary, basil, oregano, parsley, and thyme. Hopefully some of these thrive so I can have some fresh seasonings in the kitchen!

Natural selection

This year of planting, like every year before it, will be another experiment. I’m excited to see what thrives, what survives, and to let that inform my garden decisions for next year.

It should be a great summer of meals out in the balcony garden. The patio furniture is another new addition, and already Steve and I have been eating out there every night for the past few weeks. It’ll be so lovely to watch the greenery expand and surround us over the course of the summer - our very own private patio!

Thanks for letting me take you on a mini tour of my balcony garden. If you would like to see the garden update at the end of the summer, and to receive my weekend blog posts straight to your inbox, sign up to be on my mailing list! I appreciate the support.