My watermark is the Rideau Canal. I moved to Ottawa from the Greater Toronto Area when I was 18 years old for university. It was just far away enough from home to feel adventurous, but still close enough that I wasn’t too homesick.

By the time I graduated, I had such a beautiful and strange and caring community that it felt more like home than anywhere else; in no small part due to the Rideau Canal.

Our lives seemed to revolve around this body of water. When air conditioners broke in the summer, turning our cramped apartments into easy-bake ovens, we took to the water to find relief. In the winter, we impatiently waited for news that the canal had frozen over so we could clumsily glide along the longest natural skating rink in the world.

Birthday picnics, beach volleyball leagues, and tarot card readings; sunburns and frostbites; climbing rocks and falling in love. Everything wonderful that we did, we did by the water, and I could not be more grateful that it exists.