My Watermark definitely has to be Lake Ontario. I spent so much time in Lake Ontario. I was a sailor. I windsurfed in it. I swam in it.

One of the most profound Lake Ontario experiences I had was when I was 9 or 10. We had one of those ungodly cold stretches in the winter. I remember, the lake froze all the way to Wolfe Island. Older people have told me it used to do this more frequently, but I only remember this happening just the once in the 18-19 years I lived in Kingston.

I remember it froze all the way across, but there wasn’t any snow. The snow had all blown off. So it was just an immense skating rink. For the week it was like that, I was on it every day and we would play hockey. It’s terrifying when you’re playing shinny and you miss the pass. The puck goes two miles out in the middle of the lake. We had to bring a bucket of pucks, but at some point we all got too nervous about skating way out there.

I got to ride in an ice boat too, which was a one-time thing, but it was terrifyingly fast. I just remember thinking, this is not for me.