I’m originally from Salt Spring, but left after high school to find a life “off the rock.” I landed in Toronto and worked for various Canadian media outlets, eventually moving into freelance travel writing. When my husband and I decided to start a family, it felt right to settle on Salt Spring, where we could have the support of my parents and childhood friends. In 2014, we moved into my granny’s old seaside cottage, with its crumbling roof and 100-year-old apple trees. But within months, my dad died of prostate cancer; two years later, my mum died of a brain tumour. I focused on my career, taking assignments that sent me across six continents, far from Salt Spring and the hard memories its shores now held.

In 2019, while on assignment in Portugal, I discovered I was finally pregnant. I envisioned showing this baby the world while I wrote about it. But when he arrived, everything shut down, and we were stuck. No grandparents, no visitors, no flights; just the three of us in an old cottage on a tiny island.

In that first week, after a tearful call to the public health office, a very kind nurse (and high-school acquaintance) came and did a breastfeeding check through our bedroom window — and left us a Mason jar of her own bleach so we could clean everything coming into the house. But breastfeeding soon became unbearable, and my son stopped gaining weight. I made panicked calls to my best friend’s mum, a retired midwife, who lent us her baby scale to track our newborn’s growth. My husband bulk-ordered formula online. I had wanted my childhood village to help raise this child but, overwhelmed by fear, the three of us barely left the house for months. 

I felt so disconnected from our community, which was bitterly divided over pandemic measures. When my husband returned to full-time work outside the home in 2021, my isolation intensified. Persistent intrusive thoughts about harm coming to my baby led to a diagnosis of postpartum anxiety and, later, post-traumatic stress disorder. Thankfully, with a timely referral to the Pacific Post Partum Support Society, my outlook slowly shifted.

I downloaded a map of island hiking trails and ocean access points and committed to taking my baby to a new one every morning. If we couldn’t see the wider world, we’d discover more of this tiny one together. We spent sunny hours collecting oyster shells and surprising crabs, and rainy ones on soggy forest paths finding mushrooms. These outings reminded me that life contained more than fear and our four walls. I began weekly stroller walks with a few friends through the wildflower-filled sheep fields of Ruckle Provincial Park, the oldest working farm on the Gulf Islands. (My son’s first word was “dandelion.”)

I cried with relief when I got my first vaccine, and again when my aunt visited and could finally hug her great-nephew for the first time. This past summer, they grew potatoes together.

Now, my son happily masks up indoors and trots off to daycare a couple of days a week. The ferries are still running (most days), and we have plenty of bleach. We’re even planning our first pandemic-era trip to the U.K. this summer — and I might even write about it.

If things go according to plan.