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Reveal or Conceal?
A Circuitous Path to the Sundance
The First Step
Serendipity marks my personal experience with the Sundance. In the
spring of 1995 , I was a third-year undergraduate at the University of
British Columbia satellite campus at Kelowna (now the University
of British Columbia–Okanagan). During the Easter holiday, my par-
ents arrived from Calgary for an extended visit with myself and my
spouse at our home in Oyama (about midway between Vernon and
Kelowna). We had recently acquired a twenty-foot motorboat with a
sleeping compartment, a fridge, a stove, and other amenities to spend
weekends on the lake. We decided it would be a lovely way to spend
an Easter Sunday with my parents.
When we arrived at the marina, a golden eagle, sitting high in a
nearby tree, drew my attention. I perceived it to be very distressed and
was convinced it would not survive. As I watched, I was overcome by
an intuition we ought not go out on the lake. There was not a single
rational reason that this should be the case, as the sun was shining
and the lake was calm. I hesitated to mention it to my husband, who
is generally inclined to go along with such intuitions because of their
relative accuracy. Finally, I drew him away from my parents and di-
rected his gaze toward the eagle. We stood for a few minutes discuss-
ing its condition, and I expressed my apprehension that we should
not go out on the lake. My husband wondered if it would be fair to
my parents, as this would be their only opportunity to see the lake.
In the end, we agreed to take the boat out, and I tried to rational-
ize my feelings about the eagle by telling myself it was likely old and,
perhaps, starving.
A few minutes later, my mother and I were sitting at the front of
the boat, gazing at the hill, when we spotted a group walking along
the edge at the top of a cliff about seventy-five feet above the level of
the lake. We noticed a young girl walking some distance apart from
the others. I had barely said, “Oh, my God, she’s going to slip” when,
sadly, she did. She landed on the rocks at the water’s edge, and we
sped toward her. We called 911 to provide directions to the accident
site. By the time we reached the rocks, others had climbed down the
