Meet Me Back Here Edition 

Although Meet Me Back Here, Alright? is a fictional story, inspiration came from countless tiny moments which dotted my young life, giving colour to the characters, settings and plot points of the book. Here are the top 7 real-life places that inspired the imaginary settings of Meet Me Back Here.

No.7 THE BOAT CLUB
“Every other afternoon I bike to the ferry and cross a skinny part of the St. Lawrence River to get to the harbour on the mainland, in time for the dinner shift at the boat club. I work in the members-only clubhouse, serving preppy old people from the city in my navy polo, khaki shorts and white Keds. Sometimes I roam the boardwalk to make sure everyone who is checking out the sailboats is supposed to be checking out the sailboats or tell people about the night’s specials and invite them into the dining room. Rich people’s children come and jump off the docks into the water at sunset and the crew team from St. David’s come to practice. The Kayak and Canoe Club teaches kids how to wear life-jackets properly and it’s all an extremely lively place until October comes and everyone goes away and I don’t have a job anymore.”

Where I’m from, you can’t drive very far without spotting water. Lakes, rivers and creeks bend across the land, breaking up earth which is stockpiled with conifers, and irrigating acres of farm land. Boat and yacht clubs are plenteous, ranging from the quaint and comfortable to the large and luxurious.

I have never worked at a boat club, neither have I ever been a member of one. But I have spent many summer and autumn mornings sitting by our harbours, watching life work around the concrete piers or wooden boardwalks. I have squinted under the sun at noon and watched the sparkling water of the St. Lawrence River push against the rocky shoreline, sometimes quietly, sometimes violently, while seagulls screech from the top of a lamppost.

In places like these, characters and the lives they lead almost build themselves. I see someone in my mind’s eye, I hear their voice, and a scroll falls open before me, a long papery canvas waiting for the ink and paint of a life that could be.

No. 6 THE HOSPITAL
“Grandma’s hospital room is narrow and windowless and has a sliding door, which stays open most of the time. A nurse sits right outside the door at a desk and stares at Grandma or at the screens monitoring vital signs, and talks to other nurses about shoes they bought at the mall.

I have to tell Dennis the Security Guard that Miller is my cousin on account of FAMILY ONLY so we can both go in at the same time…

I know Miller feels awkward and scared and uncomfortable. I could tell the second we walked through the main entrance downstairs and he saw patients in wheelchairs smoking cigarettes outside and people losing their hair because of cancer treatments and crying families huddles in the cafeteria because of bad news they’ve just received.”

My first memory of the hospital was visiting my father after he was paralyzed because of a spinal cord stroke. I was eleven. My oldest sister had just celebrated her first wedding anniversary and in two weeks she would give birth to her first child. Over the fourteen years that have past, trips to the hospital have come in bunches or after long stretches of freedom from emergencies. But every time I navigate the underground parking garage or step through the sliding glass doors that do not say “Welcome Home” or “Enjoy your stay!” but are marked with words like “EMERGENCY” and “ICU”, I stand a little bolder, I breathe a little easier because I have visited these spaces dozens of times. They are halls I have paced and prayed through, waiting rooms I have lounged and laughed in, and chapels I have wept in. And although I have never personally suffered from medical dilemmas, I love people who have and who do suffer today. So, whenever a trip to the hospital comes along, I look into the eyes of others, who are weary and so sick of being sick, and the only thing I can offer is a smile. I don’t know what it tells them, but I hope it tells them that they are not alone.

No. 5. THE FERRY
“And then we walk onto the ferry together, climb the stairs to the viewing deck and sit on a bench. With sailboats gliding on the horizon and the September sun setting, we manage to talk about everything that matters.”

When I was seven or eight, my dad took me on the Wolfe Island Ferry for the first time. We parked in the asphalt parking lot near the dock and walked onto the white barge as ferry operators directed vehicles onto the loading deck. It was cold and the sky was spitting at us, so Dad and I sat sheltered under the viewing deck. I remember sliding on the chilly metal bench seat until my hip hit the side of the boat and my nose almost touched the window pane. The window was round and made me feel like I was in the submarine from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the river throwing stormy, angry water at me as the ferry cut a path to its destination.

The horizon was fog and silver, with waves turning into whitecaps, and the sky was heavy with clouds. When the ferry docked at Wolfe Island, the cars, vans and trucks offloaded and new vehicles took their places. Dad and I never got off the boat. We sat, still staring, still feeling like we were about to plunge 20,000 leagues.

No. 4 THE POOL
“I haven’t been inside the pool since grade nine when my PE class learned how to play water polo. I imagine my former classmates and me bobbing around in our school bathing suits and trying not to drown…The shiny chlorine water is placid, but the navy lines on the bottom of the pool appear to wobbly slightly. There is red, white and blue bunting decorating the walls.”

All my memories of Olympic-sized pools, high dives and springboards come from my local YMCA and the pool at our university. My high school never had a swimming pool. When I started writing the first draft of Meet Me Back Here, I happened to be watching swimming on TV. I thought, “I’m going to make one of these characters a competitive swimmer.” Yes, my process is that complicated.

No. 3 THE MOUNTAIN
“There’s a footpath that dissects the woods behind my house. It inclines almost invisibly until you notice your calves start to hurt. Sophy calls it The Mountain because Bristol and I called it The Mountain when we were little. It’s not a real mountain, of course, it’s just sort of a really big hill. Once you’re at the top there’s a field surrounded by trees and it’s all natural and wild with tall grass and purple and yellow flowers.”

The Mountain isn’t a real place. But there is a field behind my grandparents’ house and if there was ever going to be a doppelganger of the field in the story, that field would be it. Truth be told: I didn’t have it in mind when I started writing Meet Me Back Here.

One day, after my brother bought the property, I was visiting and I walked and walked until I reached the fence at the back of his field, and on the other side of the fence was Sophy’s field of “Wild Mountain Thyme”. I love when I see things I thought I made up.

No. 2 WOLFE ISLAND
“Woolf Island takes up the skyline. The wind turbines turn slowly. The trees are silhouettes because of the sunset, and yellow lights from windows glow in distant homes.”

The “Woolf Island” in Meet Me Back Here is not the actual Wolfe Island that sits along the St. Lawrence River, though it did inspire me to put Alex’s small town on an island like it.

The first time I went there, I was too young to remember. What I do remember is when my sister and I visited on my eighteenth birthday. It was November and it was raining. We drove and drove around the line-less country roads, and parked under the towering wind turbines, just staring up.

In the summertime, the fields are golden and the ditches are full of Queen Anne’s lace. Every once and a while, whether you’re walking or driving, you’ll look over your shoulder and catch a glimpse of windmill blades, turning silently and slowly in the August humidity.

No. 1 HIGH SCHOOL
“Today at school there’s a pep rally and we have to sit on the gym floor because our school isn’t one of those fancy catholic schools with auditoriums and cushy chairs like the school Cece goes to. Kids from the fancy catholic schools call us hicks because we don’t have lines on our main roads and because we only produce farmers and football players. We only get to sit on chairs when it’s something important like Remembrance Day or because someone has died. So during the assembly today we have to sit cross-legged on the dusty gym floor, cramped inside the dark with only random spotlights shining on the student council rep and the cheerleaders as they bounce around in front of the stage…

And I sit there while my brain starts to melt and my feet fell asleep, wishing that this stint of my life was already over.”

I don’t think I need to say anything else about that one 😉