Iolaire is the name of the property I inherited from my Uncle Jim in New Brunswick and it is situated between Boisetown and Doaktown about an hour north of Fredericton. My uncle chose the location of this property well as it offers a wonderful view of the river valley and my closest neighbour is across the road and 200′ up river completely out of my view. The people who own the camp are quiet folks who, like many in the area, live elsewhere and use the property as a weekend retreat (by the way, in Ontario vacation properties are referred to as ‘cottages’ but in New Brunswick they are called ‘camps’). Their camp, like most in the area including mine, is simple and the focus is towards the river.
Last weekend I was out walking my dog Hunter and I noticed my neighbours were in so I dropped by to say hello. I make a point of getting to know my neighbours because you can’t have too many friends and we all keep an eye out 
for one another’s property. As I walked up their drive they were on their deck trying to realign their television dish. He was hanging off the side of the deck playing with the angle of the dish through the trees and she was looking back in the front window of the house checking to see if they were getting reception on the television. As they fumbled along I couldn’t help but think this was the modern equivalent of playing with the old ‘rabbit ear’ antennas we used to have before cable (recognizing that younger readers may not realize what I am talking about). I offered to help and Don thanked me but said it was really a 1 person job and he already had his wife ‘helping’ as he said. I then turned to see where he was pointing the dish and asked if he might have to cut down any trees to improve the signal.
“Well Jim, being this close to the river the government folks don’t let us cut down trees.”
Looking up through the canopy of branches that was quickly filling up with newly budding leaves on what was a beautiful spring morning I noticed that there was an almost unimpeded view of the sky and replied, “I guess you’re fortunate that you have this window through the trees.”
“Well, to be honest, the government inspector who was through here last week won’t let us cut down trees but he didn’t say anything about cutting the tops off…”
And with that, as he smiled I looked back to what I previously thought was a lucky unimpeded site line through the trees and saw the tops of two pine trees neatly cut off with the tree tops laying on the ground.
You gotta love Miramichi logic…
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