Every year, Ubyssey contributors pool their money together and set off to Pender Island for a weekend full of laughs, friends and making memories.
Here are some stories from students who attended the retreat this school year.
Stargazing
Words by Lauren Kasowski
When I came to Pender Island, I didn’t think my best memory would be eight not-quite strangers-not-quite-friends standing together on the roof in the dark looking at the sky.
Staying at a house on the top of a hill gave us an incredible view of the other Gulf Islands. On the roof, there was a wooden deck with a hot tub to one side and some deck seating on the other.
Being from the Prairies but living in Vancouver, I know how beautiful the sky is but I don’t often get the chance to see it in all its glory because of light pollution and obstructed sightlines. I’d gone out to the roof the first night but with the forecasted rain, you couldn’t see anything except the ferry lights leaving Otter Bay.
The second night, I was engrossed in conversations and forgot about the rooftop. But at some point, someone said that you could see the stars so I (and others) raced up the stairs and onto the slightly damp wood. There was a slight breeze but I barely noticed as I craned my neck upwards.
I was captivated.
There were stars everywhere you looked — a whole 180 degrees and more of glistening stars. As my eyes adjusted to the dark sky, more and more stars appeared. At one point, a part of the Milky Way Galaxy was visible to us.
We easily found Jupiter, which is the brightest thing you can find in the night sky. If you’re not sure if you’ve found it, planets don’t twinkle like stars do. We saw star clusters, found the Big Dipper, tried to find the Little Dipper and even made up new constellations because we didn’t know any others.
In the time I was out there, there were three shooting stars. I only saw one with my own eyes. They pass so quickly — if you aren’t looking in exactly the right spot at the right time, you miss it, only knowing it was there from someone saying something a second too late.
Time seemed to stop when we were out there — I don’t even know how long we were all out there for. But as people started to get uncomfortably cold, they trickled back inside one by one, eventually leaving me and one other on a bench, gazing up at the sky. Her head leaned on my shoulder and I felt at peace as we talked about life.
I think there’s something very intimate and human about star gazing with others. You look up at the sky and realize just how small and insignificant you are — you are a spec floating on a spinning rock in the middle of an inconceivably larger universe — but know that you still matter to those around you. That if you are small, then so are they and as long as you’re in it together, it doesn’t really matter.
I could’ve stayed out there forever but alas, the cold started to seep through my body and I went inside too. But I’ll remember it fondly as my favourite thing about Pender Island.
Eerie nights fade into warm mornings
Words by Emilija Vītols Harrison
I can’t lie, the first night was a little eerie!
In pitch-black darkness, four of us pulled up to what was a veritable mansion, tucked away on what has got to be the highest mountain Pender Island has to offer.
Close to midnight in the middle of nowhere, an older man whose name I do not remember showed us around the property. We were in a strange maze of a house on an island at least an hour and a half ferry ride away from the mainland. It was spooky.
He led us throughout the Haunted Mansion, revealing art that could only be best described as “questionable” and “positively covered in dust and cobwebs.” The basement held a sauna (which no one used), and the roof held a hot tub (which was used nightly).
The small group of us debriefed about the ferry ride (and lamented the absence of White Spot on the ferry we had taken) after the mad had taken his leave. We shared stories over drinks, making the large cold house warm with laughter.
Over the next two days, more Ubyssey friends trickled in. We caused some chaos, we rabbled and roused and most importantly, we played our very own homebrewed drinking game*.
The board design was quickly designed and executed, our vision culminating in a board game of ultimate destiny.
Quickly the game spiraled into everyone arm wrestling each other, wherein we all learned who was lying about working out (hint: it was me) and who was the most stubborn loser (hint: it was also me).
*The Ubyssey does not promote/condone/endorse this kind of behaviour probably.
