My name is Sandra Howgate and I’m living in Port Parry, Ontario right now. I think the water body, and I’ve only realized it now, was Lake Manitoba.

I grew up in Winnipeg although I moved from England when I was seven. My family when I was really young went to visit a cottage out on Lake Manitoba, which is this beautiful great big lake that looked like the sea to me when I was 7, 8, 9, and 10 years old. After that, I didn’t go near a body of water for a long time when our family stopped going.

Later on in life, I discovered paddling and so from Lake of the Woods, Lake Superior, to all different lakes. I worked for Outward Bound, at a camp in Ontario, so I’ve been paddling ever since. I have a beautiful Langford canoe in my garage and I take it out every year and try and find a body of water to paddle on. Lake Manitoba is the lake that started it off for me although I didn’t realize it until just recently.