Maple Ridge

Behind Big Apple Food Town (a.k.a. IGA Marketplace), lies a boundary. The long stretch of pavement cracks before submitting to the unkempt growth of alders, cedars, bramble, and high grass. Like a river meeting the sea, these two landforms merge at a distinct but wavering line.

It’s here where Sammy embarks. Within a lunch break, she is able to cross the parking lot and delve into the privacy and intimacy of the woods.

And maybe it is because I grew up in the nearby ‘burb of Surrey (now closer to Maple Ridge via the new Golden Ears Bridge) that I connect with this setting so strongly. Both cities, the products of many jokes and astronomical growth in the past 10 years, are themselves in process of finding their identity.

For this reason in seems that Sammy’s quest extends to the land she inhabits. For instance the cramped, vacant, and un-sellable condominiums (i.e. the set for Todd and Kathy’s Apartment), which sit awkwardly beside undeveloped forests, are by-products of miscalculated risk. And now with the boom in housing prices the bridge has brought, this transformation is still in process.

And it’s inevitable that after such life changes, things will no longer the same. There is no return from Sammy’s loss of innocence. Nor will she recognize the township where she lost it. For both time and place are precious.