Blueberry Island

If you came to Lake Fletcher, perhaps the first place we would visit is Blueberry Island. One of the lake's most significant landmarks, my family has always known it by the same name. It was the site of my first camping experience at five months of age, and I have never passed a summer without going there.

It is roughly circular and no more than 25 m (82 ft) across. The southwest side, a lichenous pink granite shelf, offers both wading for small children and a deep dive into clear water. The rest is encircled by white cedar, black spruce and balsam fir. A single windswept white pine rises far above the other trees. The very sight of the island, it's silhouette against the western evening glow, is an icon of peace and solitude, and all that is fair about cottage country.

Beneath the pine is a sunny clearing with grass and hawkweed growing in the sand. This space is private enough for camping, picnics and sunbathing.

My eldest daughter briefly christened it Pride Rock. But the older name has regained its popularity, and is well-deserved. One of my earliest memories involves pancakes endowed with blueberries from the bushes behind our tent and fried on a cook stove.

The diving rock overlooks a wide undeveloped section of the lake, Robinson's Bay. The barn at Robinson's farm still stands, bearing a date from the late 19th Century. One hundred years ago, much of the land around Lake Fletcher had been cleared for farming, but it proved too marginal for that purpose and has long returned to mature forest.

Being exposed on the northwest to the windy breadth of Robinson's Bay, the island is usually free of mosquitoes, yet the clearing itself is sheltered by trees. The water swept past the southern side of the island by wind, is fresh and clean. Across the channel sits crescent-shaped Bear Island, marshy, tangled and impassable.

But Blueberry Island is highly accessible, a popular landing and swimming spot. Unspoken Fletcher etiquette dictates first come, first served. Once a group of people has landed there, no one else will invade its seclusion.

Of course, as everywhere else in nature, you are never alone there. The rock is inhabited by at least one Eastern chipmunk and one red squirrel. The island is separated from the mainland on the northeast side by merely a stone's throw, so the animals may have come either by swimming or crossing on spring ice. Five years ago while my daughters and I were camping there, we had our breakfast packs invaded by a raccoon. It's hard to imagine he lives there; he must have smelt our food and swam over.

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