My name is Kelly Schnare and I’m from Halifax, Nova Scotia. The body of water I’d like to talk about today is Cox Lake. I grew up on its shores. I spent most of my youth playing on its waters whether it was frozen or liquid. Just really enjoyed identifying with that, the islands around it, and the wetlands that surrounded it. It is part of the Birch Cove Lakes area, which is a wilderness area that just got protected which is really exciting. Cox Lake has a feeder pond called Thompson’s Pond.

Growing up in the subdivision that had the pond, I saw numerous cases of people dumping toxic things into it. At one point I didn’t know if I was imagining something or if I was dreaming, but I knew I was awake – I had to pinch myself because it was on fire at one point. This pond that fed the lake that I swam in every single day. It was a really shallow pond and at one point my neighbor who is a food scientist was able to say that there is a beaver dam that protected the drainage so it spread the drainage out from the pond to the lake.

That’s basically what saved the body of water that a lot of people still use on a daily basis. It shaped me in undefinable way just because I was that close to it, and had that daily interaction. I feel like I was very very fortunate.

My father grew up on the same lake system. I think he understood just how important it is to be connected to be a particular place for a very long span of your life. I feel very fortunate and I hope that everybody has the opportunity to experience what I did.