Our summer last year started with a road trip. An epic family road trip that saw us meander through the interior of British Columbia, spend a few days with me quilting (teaching) with the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Modern Quilt Guilds, and then hopping on the ferry for a week of camping on Vancouver Island. It was a magical family vacation for us.
Thank goodness our kids are adventurous travellers and don't get car sick.
We did the trip with the modern conveniences of hotels when we didn't want to camp, grocery stores to stock our bins of food at the campsite, and Goretex. So it was both inspiring and deflating when I started reading The Curve of Time while we were on the Island.
M. Wylie Blanchet wrote The Curve of Time, documenting the summers spent on a boat with her five children. The would leave from the coastal home that looked like a fairy's log cabin to board The Caprice as summer began. Up the water ways of the BC coast, both Island side and coast side they would explore. Just her and the kids, and usually the dog. And this was in the 20s and 30s!
Here I was thinking we were brave for a 2 week road trip in our German engineered station wagon.
The stories in the book are haunting at times, light hearted at times. They tell of the growth that happened among the children, of the joys of discovery, of the tension of travel by sea. Mostly they tell of the challenge of motherhood. Because even when you are battling current, ghosts, and storms you are still raising your children. It is a most definitely enlightening tale of mothering, amongst all the scenery, sailing, and adventure.
On that same trip we were on my husband coined the now often used family quote: It's only an adventure when not everyone who left returns, otherwise it's an excursion. The Curve of Time is certainly a book to inspire exploration and install an adventurous spirit in any woman. And to encourage this mama herself to find a few more excursions for her family.
