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When I was a young dad, we visited Booth Bay Resort on Salt Spring Island, the largest one off the coast of Vancouver Island, where my mom would rent two cabins. She’d stay in one and use the second cabin for her children’s families. We’d take turns staying for a few days each. We explored Salt Spring Island for many summers, even after my mother stopped providing a cabin.

After our first visit we took an empty aquarium with us which we filled with sea water and creatures we found in the tidal pools. We learned to aerate the water by pouring streams back into the tank and we let the creatures go each night. We often caught crabs, usually small ones that we found under rocks. Maybe even some umbrella crabs.

Ainslie Roberts is an Australian artist who illustrated aboriginal myths and stories along with text by Charles Mountford in an edition called The Dream Time book. Ainslie Roberts painted the images with confidence and flair, distorting many of the subjects such as placing them on thin legs to communicate the dream-like quality. In my teaching I would use Ainslie Roberts to introduce the idea of anthropomorphizing a subject such as the uprooted tree-hand. Roberts is a fascinating artist.

Ainsley Roberts