Sophie Papp and her family had a ritual for the recently departed. Whenever a relative died, she and her brother and cousins would all squeeze into a car and drive to Koksilah River, an hour north of their homes in Victoria, British Columbia. There, they would spend the day swimming in the glassy jade water, letting the current drag them along the squishy riverbed and gazing at the native arbutus trees, whose red bark peeled like crinkly snakeskin. After her grandmother passed away, Sophie—a sweet, reserved 19-year-old with gray-blue eyes and freckles—joined her younger brother, her cousin Emily, and a close friend for a drive up-island. It was September
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