Your feature says spending time in the Aleutian Islands off Alaska made Rachel Buxton “more appreciative of life in the real world” (‘It’s beautiful to be alone’: the joy and pain of life on a desert island, 7 September). I think Buxton left the real world when she returned to “civilisation” from the islands.
Since retiring in 2001 at the age of 52, my husband and I have occasionally lived on a 14km-long island, population not much more than 10,000, on British Columbia’s Pacific coast. Before that, when we were gainfully employed as educators, we worked happily for 27 years in small, isolated, fly-in-only Inuit communities, in Canada’s high Arctic.
Also, for the last 22 years, Clive and I have been fortunate enough to have our own piece of wilderness – gifted to us by my mother. It is a very small private island, where we have spent as much time as possible away from the “real world”, with one dog, many seals, mink, otters, whales, terns, eagles, crows, gulls, oystercatchers, Garry oaks, wildflowers and the whispers and shouts of wind and waves. Life is good.
Alix Whitfield
Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada
• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
