Grounded by Granite, A Memoir by Patti Shales Lefkos

Jeff Green | Jun 01, 2022

Patti Shales Lefkos does not remember the photo being taken that adorns the cover of her latest book, Grounded By Granite, which is a love letter to Draper Lake, the scene of the her first adventures, and the place she returns to almost every summer from her winter home in British Columbia

The book also owes its genesis to the COVID-19 pandemic, in a sense.

In the spring of 2020, it became increasingly clear that the annual trip to the island cottage on Draper Lake where Patti has spent most of her summers since she was a child in the 1940's, was not going to happen.

As she says in the introduction to Grounded by Granite, “The blues set in. Then I felt guilty for being sad. After all, I live in the safe, peaceful woods at SilverStar Mountain, a resort in the Okanagan Valley. Hardly a bad place to be stuck.”

But she said she “longed to visit family and warm my bare feet on the sun-kissed granite on our island.”

She had already launched her first book, Nepal One Day at a Time, an adventure travel memoir about her solo volunteering and trekking adventures in the Nepal and the work that she continues to do for schools in the remote Himalayas. That book had its debut the day before the pandemic struck.

And by the time she was finally able to return to Draper Kaje in the summer of 2021, the idea for Grounded by Granite was already in her head, fueled by hours spent during the winter of 2021 “talking and laughing over the phone with my brother Doug in Oakville, rehashing memories.”

After missing the summer of 2020, “every tall maple or cedar seemed more precious than before,” she wrote in the introduction to the book

The front cover photo of Grounded by Granite was taken when Patti was 2 years old. She does not remember it being taken. It was taken by her grandfather, Will Shales, a graduate of Sydenham High School and Queen’s University, later a science teacher and amateur photographer, as his son Doug, his wife Anne, and their children Doug Jr, Donna and Patti arrived back to Sunset Island, where the Will's family cottage was, and still is, located.

They came from Loon island, separated by 400 metres of Draper Lake, the island that would become the location for Patti's childhood adventures, where the cottage that she returns to every year was eventually built.

The Shales family arrived at Draper Lake in the 1860's, and to this day the Shales and Stoness families, who farmed along the shores of the lake at the time, are still intermingled on Draper Lake and in nearby Perth Road.

The hardships of late 19th century farm life on the Canadian Shield is an essential element of the history of much of Frontenac County, a history that is distinct from that of the more prosperous parts of the county that are located on fractures limestone and better, deeper soil. Farming was always a struggle, as it was for the Stoness and Shales families, who survived through effort and enterprise.

By the 1940's, second and third generations had moved on to cities elsewhere in Ontario and Canada, but were always drawn back home. It was like that for the descendants of the Shales family, and still is today.

Grounded by Granite features anecdotes from the decades that followed, weaving memories of the lake and the lives of the Shales family through 7 decades, years often punctuated with fears of losing ownership of the island. For people with family roots in the area, some of the names and places will be familiar. And for anyone else who has experienced summer weeks or months on the water; the heat of the afternoon sun, warm nights and cold nights, the buzz of mosquitoes, the stories ring true.

Grounded by Granite captures the gradual increase in comfort level on the island as well, the transition from spending a week or two every summer in a heavy canvas tent, cooking over an open fire, to building and upgrading the family cottage, as well as telling the stories of generations of children growing up and growing old.

It is a great summer read, or a cozy armchair companion during the long, cold winter months when sun-kissed rocks are nowhere to be found, certainly not on the Canadian Shield.

Grounded by Granite is available on Amazon and locally at Trousdale’s General Store in Sydenham, Books on Main in Bath and Novel Idea in Kingston. Drop by to meet Patti at the Westport Market and at Jamie Brick’s Fantasy in the Forest Art Show, July 16 and 17.