It has been a strange summer weather-wise where I live (understatement!), with weeks of unseasonably cold weather, followed by surprising heatwaves, then cold again, then hot. At the beginning of August, we thought we’d seen the last of the sunshine and that fall had moved in way too early—only to have it come back with force around the middle of the month. Now it’s the end of August, but it feels like high summer. 

I’ve been taking advantage of the glorious blue skies and visiting Lakelse Lake Picnic site, aka “my” lake :D, as much as I possibly can, even if it’s just for a quick dip. Lakelse Lake Picnic Site has been a big part of my summer, a source of infinite joy (that’s not an exaggeration) and huge balm for my sorrows, for over 45 years now. A fact that both delights and boggles me! On her golden sands, I feel Holly Smale’s words in the novel from I Know How This Ends to my bones: “Time is somehow before me and also every memory is there too.”

I moved to Terrace in 1979. Driving into town that first time, I was horrified. Had we moved back to Kamloops? The lawns had the same parched, burnt-to-beige color. Every strip of dirt was hard-baked clay. My legs stuck to the ivory vinyl seats of the station wagon. My hair was wet on my neck and glued by sweat to my forehead. It was HOT.

My brother and I unpacked our rooms and tried to explore, but it was too warm. For days, we lived in our sprinkler and wading pool. Then water restrictions ruled; no sprinkler all day. We could fill the pool once a day, but a whole day of three kids playing in one small pool quickly creates a grass clippings and dead bug infested mess. It lost its appeal. One day, our mother, driven to desperation by the heat and our constant whining, announced we were going to the lake.

A lake? Finally, something that sounded interesting. We packed up chips, green grapes, and sand toys, and off we went. Our legs still stuck to the vinyl seats, but now it didn’t seem as complaint-worthy. Plus, though they stung if you lifted them too quickly, they made farting noises if you lifted them slowly. Endlessly amusing.

“We’ll never get there,” we moaned eventually. Then suddenly we were at the top of a hill, and what could we see shimmering blue between the trees and mountains in the distance? Could it be?

“Look guys, there’s the lake,” my mom confirmed.

“Hooray,” we yelled, dragging out the vowels with heady excitement and enough volume that our mom yelled, “Enough!” (It would become our tradition to repeat those exact words, with feverish glee, every time we spotted the lake in the future.)

Walking the paved path to the graveled picnic area and coming upon the incredible, giant fairy tale trees and the glimmering expanse of water that looked golden in the afternoon sun made me, for the first time, think that maybe, just maybe, this living in Terrace idea could be okay.

We visited the lake almost every day for the rest of the summer. We’d work all morning (my mom could bribe us to do nearly anything with the promise of a lake trip), and by afternoon, it would be so hot that even she wouldn’t feel like working. Thus started a habit I’ve kept for over forty-five years: hit the lake as soon and as often as possible.

Now, when I sit on the rough bark of a natural tree bench that I’ve visited for years, squishing sand through my toes, my mind and my body remember my childhood.

In the water, I am forever eight. My feet delight in the soft-as-silk rippled sand under the water. I still alligator walk and do dolphin dives and continuous back rolls; I can’t help myself. I still know the disgusting but hilarious feeling of a handful of lake bottom on my back or head. A weed grabbing my ankle still makes me shriek, and the underwater whine of boat engines still creeps me out. I daydream about mermaids.

Staring up at the sky, I realize that visiting this spot is the most consistent thing in my life. The water has seen every bathing suit I’ve owned. Every person I’ve tried to be, or thought I was, has walked the beach. I was a child here and a dream-filled teen. This site has known my friends, boyfriends, and the husband I had for over thirty years. I’ve been pregnant on its sands and nursed my newborns in its huge trees’ shade. My children played here, and in a seeming blink, I would arrive on its shores and splash in the waves with my adult son and daughter and her husband.

And in between the magical, happiest of memories times, I mourned on its shores too: the passing of my parents, the death of my marriage, and myriad other smaller, though at the time not inconsequential, hurts and questions. How many tears Lakelse’s golden waters generously carried for me—and how much laughter ripples in her waves again, as I introduce my new love to her beauty, and he’s as taken with her as I am. As I dolphin about and alligator walk with grandkids now!

I swim far from shore as a regular form of meditation and appreciation, contemplating the mountains that frame the lake like the protective walls of a giant bowl, admiring all their various shades of hazy blue in the distance, feeling that some part of me will always and forever be both a mermaid child and a mermaid crone in these waters. And in the ever-changing waters of life.

The drive is shorter to me now that I’m an adult, my car has cloth seats that I don’t stick to, and often I’m alone, though equally often I’ll be meeting my kids and grans somewhere on the “right hand side,” and lovely Lee might be driving out after work. But when I get to that particular place on the hill, I still announce, “There’s the lake!” and my whole body feels it: Hooray! Yeah, this living in Terrace idea is a pretty good one after all.

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“Lake Days” originally ran in The Terrace Standard in July 2001, and because I liked it so much, I thought it was a lovely one to share once more, edited slightly to adjust for the passage of time—and my editor agreed. Thus, it was reprinted in The Standard on August 25, 2015. 

In August 2020, I shared it again on my blog here at evbishop.com because Lakelse was still my favourite of favourite places, only made more special by how little it changed over time, while everything else in life seemed to morph at a crazy pace. Case in point, and beyond special, at that time I had two little grandsons to share my timeless beach with. 

Today, August 30, 2025: With the passage (Wow!) of so much more time, and it still being such a special place to me, and having the addition of a precious granddaughter added to my grandsons, as well as a new life partner, I found myself needing to edit this piece again to reflect on and express gratitude for all Lakelse continues to be for me. I fully expect and hope to continue sharing my life with its sandy shores and soft waters, and suspect there will be edited versions and shares in the future.

I hope reading the latest version triggers fond memories of your own childhood. Enjoy these last long days of summer, everyone—and get thee to the lake! ~ Ev