A child-sized adventure on Russell Island.

It is late August when we make our fifteen minute crossing to Russell Island at the entrance to Fulford Harbour at Saltspring island. Some of us paddle our venerable wood and canvas 'Chestnut' canoe while my daughter's family row 'Edith' our 14 foot dory. Almost calm, a blue sky, perfect conditions for introducing two of our grandchildren to the pleasures of outdoor adventure and messing about in small boats among the smaller Gulf islands. This one, so close to home, is part of a national park and has a long association with Maria Mahoi a person of Indian and Hawaiian descent who lived here in the first half of the last century.

Today is all about making a child-sized afternoon’s adventure with time for a picnic lunch, a walk around the island and lots of play time allowed for on the rocks and white shell beach at the south end.

 I have brought my Samsung mini camera today so I find myself making images that fit well into its special characteristics. I race after the children as they run over the shoreline. Camera held low in front, I snap photographs literally on the run. I catch Katie in mid stride on a rock top and Adam deep in play mode. I snap a quick shot between Katie’s legs as she playfully tries to block my taking a picture of Adam at work in the sand. These are unusual photographs, and in an age of grinding repetition by the million a day of very similar scenes and approaches to composition these
unusual conditions have perforce created original images.

We will walk down to the old historic house and back along the bluffs on the seaward side, brushing through the dry grasses and crunching arbutus leaves underfoot and I record it all: this time on Russell Island, this moment in our lives.