The Stories That Brought You Here is a home-spun podcast by resident Chris Wakaluk about the people who have built their lives on Pender Island. Each episode chronicles various unique parts of a person’s life. Below is an excerpt from a recent episode with Jule Roper. The full conversation is available at tinyurl.com/juleroper.
“I fell in love with the islands. I discovered that on the most northern part of Vancouver Island. When I was in my early 20s, I lived in a school bus in Port Hardy, right on the water. The high tide washed against the wheels of our bus. It had skylights, bay windows, and never was finished. We lived in an unfinished, beautiful state. I fell in love with living on the ocean there. We’d turn on the headlights and watch as the plankton made glimmering lights, phosphorescence. They would flicker in the ocean and make these dazzling colours.
“Soon after that, I made another trip, this time to Lopez Island, in the American San Juans. My friend Josie took us to this most beautiful spot, a state park I believe. It was on a very high cliff, overlooking the ocean, and it just took my breath away. And then a short time later, I got a call from my brother Chris, and he said, ‘guess what?’ And he told me, ‘I fell in love. I fell in love with Pender Island. I just bought 10 acres, and it’s just like that land on Lopez.’ When I came to see it, it was so beautiful – south facing, oceanfront, with arbutus and moss, and a cliff.
“So I followed my brother to Pender. I was 27 and was able to come almost every weekend, and more than that, actually. I usually came for three or four months a year. I had a lovely job that afforded me an opportunity to work at home a lot. So I came with the plan of building a cabin on the property on the 10 acres Chris had, at the end of the road, where there was sort of a cul-de-sac. I found out years later it was a legal easement for the guy next door. Luckily, he decided not to make a big issue of it, which was very lovely because he could have driven right through the thing we built.
“My friend Rob Storrie helped me build a shed that I was going to sleep in while I worked on my cabin. There was no power up there, we only had a hand saw; so we kept the lengths, it seemed easier. So this silly thing was over twelve feet high, because that’s how long the 2x4s were. And it was really small, you could hardly lie down on the floor of it. It wasn’t more than 8×10, it was a bit odd looking. And then, we started building my cabin.
“And that’s a story.”