AUTHENTICITY :: As the ferry approached the island, I experienced a feeling completely new and foreign. I felt that I was home. I was 18 and the ferry was docking at Fulford Harbour on Salt Spring Island, the largest of the Southern Gulf Islands on the British Columbia coast. I had never been to BC before but yet I traveled over 2,000 kilometres from family, friends and familiar to suddenly sense that I was home.
I was one of twelve Katimavik* participants arriving on Salt Spring for the second of three placements. We had been in Quebec for three months, we were to spend three months on the island and then on to Northern Ontario for our final rotation.
Katimavik was the exact right program for me, floundering at the edge of adulthood without a clue of what I was to make of myself. Katimavik participants did community volunteer work, learned about Canada, learned about the diversity of our Canadian experiences, learned some French (if we were English) and some English (if we were French), learned about responsibility and, if we could get out of our own way, learned about ourselves.
I was not prepared for the impact that Salt Spring Island would have on me. On the surface it seemed like a funky bohemian oasis far from my hometown reality of school, family and friends in Ottawa. But the comfort and freedom I felt immediately upon arrival drew me to quit Katimavik and stay on the island when my group left in March. I stayed for the better part of a year, working various part-time jobs, exploring the islands and finding who I was and what I was about.
Jennifer Breakspear on Chaz Bono :: Dancing To Understand
That discovery, or more accurately, that acceptance, was to shape the rest of my life. I had flirted and flinged with other girls back in Ottawa but always dated guys because that’s what was expected. On the island there was no expectations, no ‘shoulds’. The lifestyle of the island (affectionately called Bed Spring Island by many) was carefree and easy, and in that atmosphere I came to realize that I was not interested in doing what I ‘should’. I came to realize that I am what I am, and at the time the language I used in my coming out was to identify as gay. (Over the years the language has modified, but the significance of that initial coming out to myself has stayed with me.)
Jennifer Breakspear on the luxury of debating same-sex marriage.
I returned to Ottawa and school and familiar but held close the island feeling and the freedom I had found there.
Many years later, my partner and I now live in Vancouver and regularly visit the island. And early this month we journeyed to Salt Spring in an official capacity. We brought QMUNITY – BC’s Queer Resource Centre where I am Executive Director, to Salt Spring Pride for the first time. We marched in the Parade carrying the QMUNITY banner, sold t-shirts and distributed pamphlets at the Pride Festival in the park. The 18-year old baby dyke had come home again, all grown up now, a career queer, ED of the provincial LGTB centre and, by now, a longtime queer rights activist. I stood at the microphone addressing the lovely island queer community and felt it again, I was home. No, I don’t live on the island and may never, but I return when I can and always remember the significance of Salt Spring in my personal journey.
Contrary to what some people say, you can come home again.
