Struggling with loneliness, Kelowna woman becomes best friends with ducks
At first, it was about connecting with the birds. Now she connects with herself at Rotary Marsh
You've heard of the Birdman of Alcatraz. Now meet the Duck Woman of Kelowna.
For four years, Ketrena Schultz has been coming to Rotary Marsh north of downtown to connect with an ever-changing group of ducks who seem to follow her around as she strolls the boardwalk and, occasionally, feeds them.
"I've become like a piece of furniture," Schultz told Radio West host Sarah Penton. "All the people that wander through here know me and more ducks just arrive and I'm just sitting there quietly and I just find that they come and they join me.
"People think it's always all about the food. But it wasn't about that."
Schultz started coming to the marsh one September weekend years ago.
The 46-year-old art therapist had gone through what she described as a "rough time" and many of her friends had moved away. She was struggling with loneliness.
"I had been totally hermitted away," she said. "I boxed myself in my home and I was just sort of shut down."
Coming out of her shell started with a trip to the beach. That's where she met her first duck pal, who she named Fiona.
"She kind of waddled towards me and I had a little giggle," Schultz recounted. "And [after] about the third call, over she came, and she just rested it right in front of me, laid down nose to nose. We were literally about 10 inches apart."
Since then, she has befriended other ducks, and given them names, like Peter, Scarlet and Francine, a.k.a. Meeps: "She makes this funny noise — meep, meep, meep, meep, meep, meep — when she comes."
See Schultz walking with one of her feathered friends:
Fiona, the first duck she met, hasn't been around for a long time but now other ducks have become part of her crew. She might have about a half a dozen feathered friends flocking to her at any given time.
And these days, she says, going to the park isn't just about the birds anymore.
"Meeting the duck was a connection of something that I was missing in my life... it was just neat spending time with some entity, energy that was just quiet and peaceful," Schultz said.
"It just grew into this ongoing practice and I finally got to a point where I wasn't going for the ducks anymore. I was going for me."
Listen to the full story:
With files from CBC Radio One's Radio West