Tales from Deadman lake

A composite of these posts is now in book form as Tales from Deadman Lake and Between Thought and the Treetops.

Waiting

     Being seventy-four in the age of covid, I take what time on the water I can. Canada remains ten months away, if then. Nothing is certain. Who knows what 2022 will bring? Time has shrunk our original northern Manitoba bound party of five to three due to covid vaccination restrictions. I not only understand the regulation, but approve of it. We make decisions in life and are bound by them.

     Only floated the canoe a half dozen times this year on cabin free water. Water, forest, sky and the occasional wild plum near the carry-in. On each outing I had a grandson in the bow seat, an eleven-year-old and a fifteen-year old. Neither time did I fish a lot. Honestly, I no longer care if I catch anything, or throw a lure, Mostly I'm happy to move the canoe around with hopes of setting the kid up front with good casting angles. I suppose you could say I've become a good grandpa, but that wouldn't be true. Simply put, I'm as selfish as ever and am only doing what I want to do. Call that a life lesson. What goes on between the ears doesn't matter near as much as what's happening in the real world. For me, it's a sharing thing that probably works on the soul a whole lot more than sitting in a pew. My Uncle Emil called wilderness water the cathedral of nature. If a little sweat is shed, so much the better

     On our paddlings, the boys caught a few fish and perhaps snagged a memory or two that will visit them a few decades down the road in a dream or a moment of "I remember when."