One rainy afternoon when I was a teenager working on the farm, my uncle pointed the way to a small attic over the back room and said it had an old box of Grandpa’s pike lures. They were mostly Dardevles, all bearing the teeth marks of pike, with a few plugs and a scattering of elegant copper spoons unlike any now sold. He said they were mine to keep.
I was in heaven. I dreamed of the day I would fish in Canada.
The sky to the southwest was a palette of darkness, gray clouds swirling before the blackness of the horizon. The wind had died, and the hum of a billion mosquitoes surrounded me. No loons called.
Since dawn I had put in many hours, fighting the occasional gusts of wind and rain, hands always on the paddle as I trolled a spinner–minnow rig along the weed edge, my eyes taking turns between the shoreline, the rhythm of my rod tip, and the weather advancing from the south. The fishing was fair, and I’d caught and released a few four- to six-pound pike.
Here I sat, my canoe and me moving in rhythm with the world, tucked in the inlet, having a Labatt Blue and a roast-beef-and-cheese sandwich and feeling really good.
I thought I had some time before the storm arrived, but the wind and rain hit me hard and fast, a sudden solid curtain rushing across the lake. I reeled in, grabbed the paddle, and got serious. In a surprisingly short time the canoe was filling with water and some of my gear was afloat. I was a couple of miles from where I intended to camp for the night, so I headed directly for an old portage where I could beach the canoe and empty it out. In this country, with miles of shoreline thick with blueberry bushes and other vegetation, places to land a canoe are limited.
The opening in the shoreline bushes was a welcome sight. With a final stroke of the paddle, the ponderous, water-heavy craft hit the sand. I reconnoitered the floating gear as I moved to the bow and jumped to the shore. I arranged my gear under the large white pines and, with effort, turned over the canoe and dumped out the small pond I’d ferried across the lake. The rain grew even harder, and I shook my head, gathered the patience born of necessity, and waited.
Less than an hour passed, and the world changed abruptly. The clouds broke and the sun came and went. A loon called in approval. I reloaded the canoe and nudged it back into the lake.
I was in familiar territory, a small part of the maze of blue on green on the Quebec maps, endless lakes interconnected by streams and portages that held a lifetime of memories. Surrounding me as I paddled were years of travel by canoe, camping solo or with friends, the trials and hardships sometimes endured, the magical spots where big pike were caught.
At this point in my life this region holds most of what’s left of my roots. I was raised in dairy country, where the land, people, buildings, and animals had changed little since before the Civil War. It all seemed so permanent, so real and tangible, with generation after generation preceding my mother’s family on the farm. Neighbors likewise had long histories on the landscape. It was all I knew.
That world changed quickly. One by one, family farms disappeared. Young adults migrated to wherever livelihood led. The sudden death of my uncle brought on the unthinkable, and the five-generation farm was soon sold out of the family. I felt I’d lived through the sequel to Gone with the Wind.
My path led to college, work, and a teaching position. Now that my parents, homestead, and most relatives and old neighbors are gone, the lasting feature from my youth is this northern lake country. I felt good being in motion within it.
My home for the night appeared quickly, on a small rise of land covered by spruce and birch. I nosed the canoe into the narrow gap between the blueberry bushes and carefully surveyed the white sand and the path up the hill. No sign of use; only a single moose track led toward the campsite.
I first camped in this spot nearly a half century ago. It may as well have been 500 years. It was timeless.
The campsite hadn’t changed. I put up my small tent, gathered some birch bark and dead spruce for a later campfire, leaned my backpack against the tree where I always lean it, grabbed the lunch I hadn’t eaten, and threw it along with a beer into my
fishing bag.
It was nearly dusk when I slid the canoe back onto the water. A small inlet only a few hundred yards away was a favorite fishing spot, but I didn’t fish. I back-paddled into the narrow stream, clean water flowing past darting schools of yellow perch, and stuck the bow in the sand spit at the stream’s mouth for some stability.
Here I sat, my canoe and me moving in rhythm with the world, tucked in the inlet, having a Labatt Blue and a roast-beef-and-cheese sandwich and feeling really good.
The trip back home, through man-made obstacle after man-made obstacle, lay far beyond the spruces—out of sight, out of mind, and of no concern. I was where I wanted to be.
Fred Prince lives in central New Hampshire and teaches Human Anatomy & Physiology and Cell Biology at Plymouth State University. Although his scientific research has been in a cell biology, he decided long ago not to let scientific doctrine cloud his view of the natural world.
