When I’m writing this, it is a flawless day on Pender Island, one of 200 breathtaking Gulf Islands nestled in the Pacific off British Columbia’s coast. I’m hiking through an enormous old-growth forest where time has stood still with majestic pine trees that have stood undisturbed for centuries. I’m awed by this impossible silence with a sense that uttering a solitary word would be a terrible trespass.

I lower myself onto a cushion of golden pine needles and emerald moss. My back is against an ancient tree that will be here for hundreds of years after I’m gone. I let my mind wander wherever it wants. It arrives at an image of Jim Morrison. Jim, first and foremost a poet, sitting beside me, his fertile mind absorbing this unfathomable tranquility. Can he hear the forest breathing? Out comes his ubiquitous note pad, forever recording his thoughts.

I hike back to the narrow country road that leads me to the cozy ocean-view cottage loaned to me by dear friends. A strange mist is forming on the water. I wander to the end of the dock to observe a mysterious white fog form a seemingly impenetrable barrier on the ocean. Jim is beside me again, watching in wide-eyed wonderment as a dark form takes shape in the shroud. I imagine Jim whipping out his notebook as the ghost ship emerges slowly from the fog. A writer in his element at a place called Poets Cove.