Cypress Finale

It is the end of an era for our family. After 67 years at Ghost Lake Cabin in the Cypress Hills, my parents and aunts sold the cottage. I went out for a last visit in July, and spent part of my days drawing and painting.

 The first thing that strikes me when we drive east towards the Cypress Hills from Medicine Hat, are the enormous skies with puffy white clouds as far as the eye can see. The sky feels like a huge bowl above your head. In the evenings, we go up to Lookout Point, to Grandma and Grandpa Rae's bench to watch the setting sun turn puffy white clouds to every shade of pink, orange, red, purple and blue.

We spend lots of time on the front porch communing with the lodgepole pines, birds and scolding squirrels. The wildflowers are always amazing.

Cabin details remind me of my childhood and my daughters' years at the cottage. The snap of the latch on the screen door takes me back to crafty days, painting rocks, doing batik, weaving lichen and noggin knockers  into wall hangings and my girls making quilts and sun prints with grandma Maxine. 

 These are the trademark logs of Ghost Lake Cabin, their beautiful details fully visible inside and outside the building.

I fully intended to paint this scene but never quite got to it. And then the moment was lost. This is Grandpa Rae's odd penthouse bedroom above the biffy, defying gravity and all architectural logic and yet his beloved night time haven.