Letters Home #44 💌

Writing from: Banff, Alberta

Dear Ones —

This month marks 20 years since I first moved to the Canadian Rockies.

Anniversaries naturally give us pause for reflection. Some evoke sadness, others nostalgia. This one, the anniversary of my arrival at Banff National Park’s Bow Lake in 2005, evokes equal parts awe, gratitude and bewilderment. I didn’t set out to be transformed, but that was the move that changed my life.

In those twenty years, I have established my career, met my husband, built businesses, started a family, and bought a home. If I had stayed in Ontario, closer to my childhood roots, my life may have followed a similar trajectory. But it’s the underlying life force, the flow, and the momentum that shifted that first summer at Bow Lake, like a railway switch suddenly moving me from one track to another.

In my writing courses, I talk about the “inciting incident” (you may remember this from high school studies on story structures and Freytag’s Pyramid). This is a pivotal event that disrupts the protagonist'…