"All that remains for us to do is choose a name for the cottage,"; writes Eric Nicol in When Nature Calls: Life at a Gulf Island Cottage (Harbour $28.95). "This, I feel strongly, is the responsibility of the cottage owner. It is his or her chance to add the final creative touch to this precious asylum from the manic metropolis. In town your address is simply a number on the house or apartment. That won't do for our cottage, which has an identity beyond the prosaic numerals. The driveway begs for notice of distinction. Nameplates such as Bide-a-Wee and Dun Roamin symptomize an imagination that was stunted at birth. The island expects the cottager to do better. Wit's End and Paradise Leased and their cute like cheapen the investment and are likely copyrighted somewhere in the United States. The safest sign is the cottager's name: The Smiths. Or, if identification isn't desirable, for reasons known to Revenue Canada, A.N. Other is presentable, if carved on a nice cedar plaque with a sprig of pine cones. Whichever, the cottage sign is one job that owners really should do themselves. Contempt is easy to come by among the island's tradesmen. It pays to show that the cottager isn't entirely helpless. Money can't buy respect. It can buy everything else, of course, but the pioneer spirit still lives on the island, though it doesn't get into town much. This is why, when I sense that these true islanders are in the vicinity of our cottage, I make a display of simple industry. It may only be my chopping wood, or at least swinging an axe at something hard enough to make a pioneer sound. Or I lug rocks away from the driveway, lugging them back again after dark.

"And any visiting islander will likely find me at the outdoor worktable, labouring over the slab of cedar that will eventually be chiselled with The Nicols. I don't expect this project to be completed in my lifetime. No matter. I'm sure that my children will carry on with the work, much as King Cheops's kids kept puttering away at his pyramid. We all hope to leave something to posterity."; 1-55017-210-7

[BCBW WINTER 1999]