| Alec Tidey is a professional hockey player
turned businessman. Neither career has called for construction skills. "I
only know two things," he says. "Make it level and make it square.
And I don’t mind the bull work." When you’ve heard this, and
then you see the summer house that he and his wife April (above) have built on
an island off British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, you think: My, but this
man works wonders with basics.
Of course, he’s got affability and an athletic physical confidence on his
side, not to mention his wife, who is a landscape and interior designer, decorator
and stylist (see her on HGTV’s Take It Outside) and no stranger to so-called
bull work herself. In fact, given the couple’s double dose of energy and
style, the biggest wonder of this do-it-yourself project is that they were able
to stick to the diminutive vision that April had at the beginning.
"What I wanted was a beach shack," says April. "I didn’t
want a big, fancy, Vancouver kind of house that was going to need lots of maintenance
and I didn’t want the typical dark woodsy cottage. I wanted something that
was like the beach, a place where it would feel like you were living outside."
Alec and April come to the island throughout the summer. Their days are packed
with the kind of lazy-busy outdoor activities that make for memorable summers-even
if your memory is fuzzy on what actually happened and when. Call it island time.
There are walks and clamming, fishing and bike riding. There are quests to find
the perfect stone to place on the deck and occasional excursions in the boat to
other islands, or to the mainland to stock up on fruit and vegetables at a farm
market. And there are sprawling dinners out on the deck with family and friends.
One of those friends is Heather Ross. Heather is a Vancouver painter and photographer
who is the proprietor of the gallery/boutique Heather Ross In House. April met
her when she was sourcing items for Take It Outside, and the two women found that
they shared views on art and design-and that they also shared a connection
to the island. Heather had spent her childhood summers there until her family’s
cottage was sold when she was six or seven years old.
"I remember sitting in the boat and crying all the way to the mainland when
we left for the last time," Ross says. "When April invited me to come
over for the August long weekend, I felt that it was a gift to be able to return."
Her photographs of this visit, shown on these pages, pay homage to uncomplicated
summers by the sea and reveal a love of simple pleasures that she and the Tideys
also share.
Weekend Warriors
On the first morning of that August weekend, it was sunny after weeks of rain
and they all swam and played volleyball on the beach with April and Alec’s
children, Bridget and Matt. April and Heather took a long walk around the island
and found the cottage that had belonged to Heather’s family, stopping in
at an antique store where April bought an old bird’s nest.
In the afternoon, Heather began to feel anxious about the dinner party that was
planned for the following evening. There were 16 locals invited and a handful
of other guests Alec had welcomed from a passing sailboat. April didn’t
have a set menu in mind other than "probably some seafood." Nice and
casual-As long as casual didn’t turn into chaos, Heather thought.
There was virtually nowhere to shop for food on the island, the cabin’s
kitchen had minimal facilities and no electricity (the refrigerator runs on propane)
and there were only potatoes, corn and basic groceries on hand. "I started
nudging everyone along," Heather says.
Alec set out in the boat to fish and April threw some buckets in the old truck
they keep on the island. She, Heather, friend Tracy Dixon, and April’s pug
Ruby drove over the bumpy road to the other side of the island to collect clams.
They had cut it a bit fine and were almost too late for the magic moment when
the tide begins to slide over the sand and the clams come up to the surface ready
to be scooped into buckets with bare hands. Ruby was swimming around their knees
by the time they were finished, but they had the clams.
Alec was successful too. He had trapped crabs to complement spring salmon caught
the day before (his favourite fish, as it suits his famous marinade-see
page 59). As for the rest, April called her sister Lisa Clothier and asked her
to bring a salad and tapped island neighbour Mary Fawley for dessert. Done.
With a menu established and supplies secured, Heather
and everyone else could relax again. In the morning they took their coffee and
walked down the boardwalk to the freestanding deck in the meadow, revelling in
the sun and doing nothing for hours but keeping a watch for dark clouds.
Preparing and serving dinner was easy. Crab, mussels and potatoes were steamed;
corn and salmon grilled; garlic chopped and put on almost everything; salad and
blueberry cobbler thankfully received. People served themselves, the weather held
and there was plenty of food.
For Heather, it was as she remembered her early summers here-or perhaps
as she wanted to remember them. "April and Alec have the real thing. It’s
what they try to show in lifestyle ads but this isn’t manufactured. There
are dogs greeting each other, neighbours walking across the field with a blueberry
cobbler, all ages, everyone welcome and getting along. It’s casual, warm
and relaxed."
It is island time as April and Alec want it to be. "Summer living is about
living," April says. |
