The island as a body, read for its contents.

A bluff above a marsh in Nanaimo, and a question that is already a kind of taking.

One bluff here above a marsh, one there in the Ogilvies. Carrying both in the same chest.

Whose bluff, whose marsh, whose watershed. A question set down for the length of an afternoon.

Twelve weeks out from the vote, and the words on the masthead matter less than the person on the ballot.

There was no clean map of Vancouver Island’s mountain ranges, so I drew one.

Vancouver Island isn’t just where I live, it’s where I belong.