North Lake, BC

[twitter]It was deafeningly quiet. 

There was no wind. No rustle of the trees in a forest, or waves lapping from the lake. Everything was absolutely dead still.

I sat outside my friend’s cabin at North Lake at dusk and no matter how hard I tried to listen for something in the world to make a sound, none came. It was just absolute silence.

Eventually, though, it would break. 

First a mosquito echoed in my ear. Then a bird very far off in the distance. The flapping of a dragonfly’s wings humming past my ear sounded as if each beat had been pounded out by Neil Peart in concert. It was the only sound I heard and I heard each flap distinctly.


I had been in silence. Absolutely, complete, utter silence. Even when you sit in silence there is usually something making a sound. Even a quiet city has a hum. There was none of that here. There was nothing.

 Absolute, pure, silence.

Then I heard the wheels of a car across the lake rolling across the gravel road. The voices from a cabin across the lake lifted up. The voice of my son regaling the adventures of the day to my wife as he fought sleep came from the cabin behind me.

The world started creeping back in. I’m adding to the subtle cacophony now with the clicks of my keyboard as I write staring out over the lake.

For a good 2 minutes, though, there was absolutely nothing. I had been dropped in a soundproof box in the midst of the wilderness. And it was wonderful.

Map of the Sunshine Coast

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