end of the season

The summer season is over. Most of the summer people have gone back to the city and their summer homes are being closed up for the winter. Only a few year-round residents remain here in the Kawarthas.

The Sturgeon Point Union Church, a non-sectarian, and oh, it must be said, most clearly Christian, meeting place, is also quiet again. On a Sunday morning in the summer, it was possible to hear the the congregation joining their voices in robust hymns, hymns which with their sober and triumphant chords can still bring a lump to my throat and cause tears in my eyes. The huge songs were swallowed up by the overhanging branches of the tall pine trees, some notes soaring into the blue, blue sky, the highest notes splintered into ever thinner vibrations amongst the blinding rays of summer sunshine shattered, reflected into millions of shards of light by the rippling waves of the lake.

There are a few Sunday sounds, still. The construction crew doing the renovations on the cottage by the lake aren't there on Sundays. The cottage sits on huge metal supports, propped up off its foundations to allow a basement to be built under it, quietly resting, waiting for the returning growl of the small bulldozer and the cement mixer and the hammering of the weekdays. But there are a few sounds of the remaining year-round residents, the man tinkering in his garage, the voices of family up from the city to visit with a retired parent. And there is the sound of dry leaves underfoot and the softer muted sound of footfalls on a blanket of pine needles on the road.