My Watermark is Windermere Lake, British Columbia.

On a late summer's day in 2014, I was captivated by the whirling world beneath me. Under the looking glass of the Columbia River’s surface where Lake Windermere narrows again into the Columbia Wetlands, lightning red fish were moving all about in a frenzy, uncertain about the long, slow moving shadow I cast along their watery enclaves. I’m not sure which one of us was more mystified. Only my second time on a stand-up paddleboard and my first time ever witnessing spawning Kokanee, I wavered precariously to bend lower over the spectacle, allowing balance to become an afterthought.

Later, in the minutes before the sun disappeared behind the Purcell Mountains, I sat dangling my feet in shallow waters shared with flocks of geese and cattails. A dragonfly landed on me with an electric buzz. After the business of summer, I relished in the quiet moment floating along, and used the energy it gave me to paddle against the current on the way home southward, grinning with the certainty that I had made the right decision to move to Invermere and work for the good of freshwater and all of the wealth that she holds.