All things considered, I’d rather be in Tuwanek, for me a most unwonted place, filled with old but vivid memories from my early years, and periodic trips down memory lane on subsequent day trips to the rainforest village area.

I love the word unwonted, for all its unfamiliarity, and despite its similarity to the word unwanted, which sounds pretty similar, despite have a completely different meaning and emotional impact. The word “unwonted” sounds familiar, but it means extraordinary, unusual, and exotic – exactly the opposite of unwanted.

What makes this tiny point of land so special? Mostly it is special because of the flood of memories evoked when I remember summer holidays in my parents’ cottage, just a few hundred steps from the beach.  My parents bought the property for use by the family after buying a summer vacation property on Savary Island, further north past Powell River which had never really worked out well because it was simply too far to get to for a short holiday.  It took virtually a whole day just to get to Savary Island and another to get home at the end of the holiday.

There were two main benefits of buying in Tuwanek, after their experience on Savary Island.  Tuwanek is a drive of less than an hour from the terminal at Langdale, where the ferry delivers cars from Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver. So we could leave our home in North Vancouver, catch the ferry and drive to the cottage in a little over two hours, assuming that we caught the first ferry and didn’t have to wait for the next ferry.

Travelling all the way up to Savary Island is a long trip, with two ferry rides required, and the family taking its’ own water transportation to get to the island as there is no ferry to Savary Island, not even today.  That means a boat, which was a major expenditure for my dad and mom.  Sechelt is a lot closer, with only one ferry to catch, and it is on a road directly accessed from the Sechelt Inlet Highway.

It’s proximity to West Vancouver also meant that as we kids grew older it was practical to go up for a weekend, instead of reserving it for long holidays.  But even with easy access, comparatively, it became increasing a rare weekend visit once we went off to university or into other pursuits as young adults.

It did serve as the location for my honeymoon (of sorts) after I married my second wife.  I don’t know if she ever felt that we really had a true honeymoon, already having had a couple of kids before we got married. It was a great place all of us to holiday, and we loved spending time at the beach with the kids in the water.

Eventually my parents no longer used the cabin, and sold it to my sister, who lived there after returning from eastern Canada, where she worked for the New Democratic Party in New Brunswick.  To this day she still lives on the Coast, buying a small farm on the road to Port Mellon.

 

The original inhabitants of Sechelt are the Sechelt Nation, a British Columbian First Nations band who call themselves shishalh (or shishalh Nation).^[3] Before English was spoken, the town of Sechelt was called ch’atlich in she shashishalhem (the Sechelt language).^[4] For thousands of years, the Sechelt people practiced a hunting and gathering subsistence strategy, making extensive use of the natural food resources located around Sechelt, and its strategic location for access into the Sechelt Inlet. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Synonyms & Antonyms for unwonted

Synonyms

aberrant, aberrated, abnormal, anomalous, atypical, especial, exceeding,exceptional, extraordinaire, extraordinary, freak, odd, peculiar, phenomenal,preternatural, rare, singular, uncommon, uncustomary, unique, unusual

Antonyms

common, customary, normal, ordinary, typical, unexceptional, unextraordinary,usual