“Let’s skip breakfast and just go,” he pleaded.
“But we haven’t seen a moose yet,” I whined half-heartedly. “Or the resident groundhog.”
I thought about the Tattler Cabin visitors who’d had infinitely more interesting experiences than us. They almost all had multiple moose sightings. Some had seen the Northern Lights. They’d cooked gourmet meals by firelight and done industrious things like taking out all the cabin windows and washing them in the lake. They’d made love on picnic tables and had mice spring from the food cupboard. They’d rebuilt the fire pit and seen bears while using the outdoor latrine they called the Thunder Box. Basically, these people had surpassed us in almost every single way.
Here are some fun entries from the Trip Log that we found in the cabin, in no particular order:
June 18, 2011: A little fun in the sun on the picnic table (Don’t worry — on a towel).
Sept 16, 1993: It rained all day but we were still stupid enough to come here. We saw two moose and five ducks yesterday and a Great Herring today. We are eating our lunch of tea biscuits that my mom finally didn’t burn.
Captain’s Log Star Date 598: Spock and I stayed here over night. Mosquitoes so bad Scottie beamed us up.
Date unspecified: A strange combination of striking beauty and obnoxious friends. We appreciate the hospitality of dry bum wad.
Sept 28, 1999: We got drunk enough to solve all the problems of living with women. So you can imagine how drunk we were.
Aug 9-11, 2003: House Party — Dean made a dead rat dance.
Aug 2007: My brother’s friend and I carved swords out of sticks. After, we started duelling. We made the ends of big thick sticks sharp and hit each other. Majority of the time we hit each other’s sticks so hard that they broke. We also hit each other. Ryan, Age 12.
How could we leave Tattler Lake without experiencing something extraordinary and writing it down for future cabin inhabitants to read? How could we admit that all we saw was a beaver and a frog, and that we hid in the cabin most of the time and ate dehydrated turkey tetrazzini out of a bag? Someone had to be mauled by a bear this morning over breakfast, or we would go down in history as the most boring couple that ever stayed here.
I explained this to my husband as he stood in the doorway swatting at deer flies. “Give that to me,” my husband said, pointing at the Cabin Trip Log. He furiously scribbled in it for a couple of minutes and then handed me back the following entry:
July 27-29, 2011: After a short canoe ride of four to five minutes, with time out for a five-mile hike, my wife and I arrived at this cabin to find five moose dancing with a groundhog while a beaver played the harpsichord. Shortly afterward, I had flagrant relations with my wife several times at the fire pit, while the Ghost of Gulaf looked on and took notes. The following day, while my wife cooked beef bourguignon from scratch, I tore down the cabin and rebuilt it myself using only one nail and my teeth. This, after we had driven every last snake out of Tattler Lake and murdered every mouse in a four-mile radius. My wife skinned all the mice and made a lovely mouse fur blanket out of them for future cabin visitors to enjoy on cold nights.
“Ready to go?” he said. I was packed in less than five minutes. My husband may not play hockey or know twenty different words for snow, but he knows how to tell a good camping story, just like all Canadians.
~C.S. O’Cinneide
Elora, Ontario
Up Close and Personal
My dad taught us Trudeau boys how to paddle a canoe pretty much as soon as we could walk. And like many Canadians, I’ve spent loads of summer nights out under the stars, beside a campfire… getting eaten alive.
~Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
As I shifted the canoe into a more comfortable position on my shoulders, I thought to myself, it wouldn’t be so hard to take if it wasn’t for the buzzing. It was the fourth day of our backcountry canoe-camping trip in Halfway Lake Provincial Park, and I was finally starting to find a certain rhythm in traversing the portages, those narrow trails that get you from one lake to the next. Even the motion of hoisting my end of the canoe to my shoulders was much smoother than it had been on day one.
It was hot, especially in my rain gear, but I’d take sweating any day over the threat of those itchy little needles wielded by the swarming mosquitoes. As I plodded along, my vision a bit restricted by the fact that I was at the back end, a cloud of hungry insects hovered.
Small blessings, I thought to myself. Focus on the small blessings.
Fresh air and a break from the city were what my friend and I had come for. Halfway Lake is northeast of Sudbury in Northern Ontario. We hadn’t realized the downside of canoe tripping this early in July was twofold: first, it was prime time for mosquitoes, and second, many of the portage trails had not yet been cleared. This meant occasionally having to step over huge trees that had fallen across the trail, not an easy task when carrying a canoe or a heavy backpack.
Still, there had been rewards. This far north there were few other canoe trippers and we had seen plenty of wildlife, although no moose as yet.
There was a definite feeling of accomplishment when we finally slipped the canoe back into the water at the end of the portage, loaded up and headed out on the last leg of the day’s journey, our destination a campsite on a point of land. After arriving, we unloaded our gear and became quietly engrossed in the myriad tasks involved in setting up the campsite.
That’s when our visitors appeared.
I sat on a weathered pine log, barely breathing, and watched as a female moose made her majestic way into the small cove adjoining our campsite. I’d seen these mighty mammals before, but never this close, and never for this long. I wanted to fully savour the experience.
After a few minutes we noticed a disturbance in the underbrush near the shore and, suddenly, a second slightly smaller moose with small, fuzzy antlers emerged from the woods with long, gangly strides. His coat was changing — part of it was light brown, and part a dark brown, almost black. Despite his messy appearance the moose calf captivated our attention as he waded through the still, shallow water, hauling out lily pads and eating them with obvious relish. As his mother watched indulgently, he at times plunged his head into the water up to his ears to pull out particularly tender specimens. As he fed, he gradually drew nearer to our campsite, occasionally lifting a dripping snout to glance around, until he was about 100 yards away.
Much as we enjoyed observing the moose, we needed to get our camp in order before darkness fell. As we resumed our work, I accidentally stepped on a twig. In the serene and silent surroundings that little noise resounded like a gunshot. I shot a quick look at the young moose just as he flung his head in alarm and scrambled awkwardly onto the shore.
When nothing happened, a few moments later he cautiously waded back into the water to continue his meal, and we in turn resumed our nature observation.
Our canoe trip ended the next day, and we headed back to the city. Still, the magical memory of watching two moose up close and personal has lasted for decades.
Creatures like moose personify the wonder of the Canadian wilderness. Being fortunate enough to see them up close underscored for me how fortunate we are to live in a country that still has open spaces where such creatures can live and move freely.
~Lisa Timpf
Simcoe, Ontario
Rising to the Occasion
You were created to overcome every obstacle, to rise above every challenge. Not just to survive — to thrive!
~Joel Osteen
Perspective by Fire
Wherever people are suffering, make it your task to serve them.
~Pope John Paul II
In just the same way a rolled up newspaper flashes, fully consumed when tossed into a campfire, I watched a family’s home explode into a ball of flame. Then the neighbour’s place flashed — and the next one on the street — and the next. I stood watching them burst into flames, falling like dominoes. In a matter of seconds an entire city
block had succumbed. And my job was to help stop it.
On May 3, 2016 a relentless forest fire raged through Fort McMurray, taking with it ten percent of the town’s structures. What a day to be a firefighter. A city of 100,000 was entirely evacuated. The RCMP was in the streets, pulling people from their cars and telling them to run as fire approached the road. Parents ran with suitcases rolling behind them and babies on their backs. Empty cars sat with doors wide open as bikes, wagons, scooters, and foot traffic weaved chaotically between them. It was like an Armageddon movie. But it was happening before my eyes.
My first assignment was the hospital. Hot embers and smoke were blowing across the highway, and the high occupancy building was a priority. I hopped into a pickup truck with a few other firefighters and raced to the hospital. We set up sprinklers around the building as nurses hurriedly loaded patients onto city buses. I climbed to the roof and opened one of the hallway standpipe systems, stretching out the hose and giving the end a quick tug to start the water flowing. I began soaking the roof as burning flakes rained from the sky. When I finally looked up, I nearly dropped the nozzle.
My city was burning.
The high roof of the hospital provided a surreal view of the inferno. Time seemed to slow down as sirens, the whir of helicopters and emergency radio chatter all blurred together. Smoke billowed from Beacon Hill, just to my left, where my childhood home stood. My parents had retired to Lacombe, Alberta, and I’d been living in the house while renovating it for them, and all my things were there.
I knew the odds weren’t in favour of it lasting. Embers from Abasand, a small hamlet to the west, sailed past my helmet as I stared, stunned. For all I knew, these were pieces of my own Abasand condo falling around me.
I punched in my dad’s number and the answering machine beeped: “Hey Pops, I’m not sure if you’re watching this on TV or not, but, um… the fire has gotten into the city. Looks like the house is gone. I’m gonna be busy, but I’ll call you when I can. Love you.”
My next task was to fight my own despair, to keep working despite knowing that I had just lost everything I’d ever worked for. No one can ever teach you how to do this. I wanted to crumple into a useless heap of futile tears, but I knew — if I had the smallest chance to keep others from suffering their own losses, I had to take it.
On the second night, at 3 a.m., the fire jumped a river and ignited some grass next to the water treatment plant. If that thing lights up, I thought, we lose. There would be no more water for our hoses. Also, just up a steep hill about a kilometre beyond the plant was another neighbourhood, still untouched.
We moved into the third day of the fight. We had put water on more burning houses in the last thirty-six hours than many firefighters see in a whole career. My eyes burnt, from a combined lack of sleep and the relentless stinging of smoke. The blisters on my feet throbbed, threatening to burst with every additional step. Everything hurt. I felt like I had just run a marathon carrying sandbags. At this moment, pulling a fully charged hose-line up that hill looked like scaling Mt. Everest. It was the last thing I wanted to do. I felt a lump grow in my throat, and a warmth flushed my face. I can’t do it… Dear Lord, I don’t have anything left.
I dropped the hose, gasping for air — defeated.
Then I glanced up the hill and I saw one of my officers. Earlier I had seen him wrapping his entire foot in bandages, replacing bloodstained pieces of cloth with fresh ones. His feet had looked raw; most of the skin was missing. But there he was, dragging hose up this hill with quiet diligence.
The fire caught the first tree on the forest line and it flared up. I coughed and squeezed my eyes tight to clear my vision. Swallowing hard, I pushed down the knot in my throat. Lifting the hose over my shoulder, I started to climb. If he can do it, so can I.
Not one of the houses in that neighbourhood was lost. Neither was the water treatment plant.
A couple of days later I saw my childhood home for the first time. As I neared the plot of land that held so many memories, I thought I would cry. I stepped out of my car, still in bunker gear. My boots left footprints in the white ash that dusted the driveway, looking just like those left by astronauts on the surface of the moon.
Then it started to come back. This was where I set up my first lemonade stand, which taught me my first lessons about money. This driveway was where I fell off my bike, scraping my knee countless times trying to learn how to ride. The number of jump shots on that bent, melted basketball hoop had to be in the millions. That lawn I hated to mow, but taught me about responsibility, still showed a few bits of green. The brick chimney still stood, and the fireplace at its base sat charred, reminding me of the stockings that hung above it every Christmas. I learned how to kiss under that tree in the yard, how to pray in that living room, and how to cook on that stove that was now nothing but a warped shell.
I stood there, a defeated firefighter who had lost both his family home and his condo to the very thing he trained every day to fight. All I had left was the time I had put into the relationships in my life. The love I had given. The time spent on others. Now was the test of how much that would come back.
Standing there, I could still almost feel the incessant buzzing of my cell phone against my leg while I worked on that hospital roof. My phone battery died quickly that day, trying to keep up with all the messages, phone calls, notifications and concern from people who loved me.
Maybe, I realized, I hadn’t lost as much as I thought.
~Anthony Hoffman
Fort McMurray, Alberta
Running Water
It takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal.
~Joaquin Phoenix
It was a hot summer evening in July, and I had accepted an invitation from my friend John to visit him and his family on their farm. Driving out from my home in Port Alberni earlier in the day I had been able to appreciate the full beauty of the place, nestled beneath the Beaufort Mountain Range in the middle of Vancouver Island’s west coast.
The family showed me around their dairy farm, home to about thirty black and white Holstein cows. The fields were quiet and tranquil on this lazy Sunday afternoon, and the creek that poured down out of the mountains sparkled in the sunlight as it ran through their lush green land. Now it was evening, and I listened with curiosity as they told me that one of their cows had gone into labour out in the field. I was very interested in seeing the birth of the new calf, and really wanted to stay, but it was Sunday night and I had to get home and prepare for work Monday morning.
I walked out on the sundeck and gazed out over the field, watching as John’s dad rounded up the cattle to bring them in for the night. I then went to say goodnight to everyone. It was getting late and I had a half hour drive home.
On my way out the door I heard John’s father yelling frantically from the field, “Bring the John Deere! Bring the John Deere!” The family became very excited and everyone ran out on to the deck to see what was happening.
We could see their dad down by the bank of the creek. Apparently the cow in labour had wandered away from the herd and managed to slip down the muddy bank of the creek into the cold rushing water. The bank was steep enough that the tractor was needed to pull her out.
We all ran through the field to the creek while one of John’s brothers raced to the barn to get the tractor.
As we reached the creek we saw the poor cow was submerged up to her neck, with the cold water rushing around her. By now there was some panic because the tractor needed to pull the cow out was very slow, and still had some distance to cover from the barn to the creek.
Suddenly one of the girls yelled out: “The calf is coming. Look, see the hooves!” The cow was now in full birthing mode, in the middle of the creek, and the calf was being born under water.
Everyone was now panicking as they tried to get a rope around the cow to pull her up on the bank, but the fast running current kept taking the rope downstream.
Again I heard someone shout: “T
he calf is coming. Someone has to jump in and help!”
It had been a hot day, but by now the family had changed into jeans for the evening. As the only one still wearing shorts, I was chosen to jump in! When I entered the water I was shocked at how cold it really was and, as I waded out to the cow, I found myself in ice cold rushing water up to my chest. At that moment I realized the calf was really coming — and right now.
Within minutes a sixty-pound calf was born right into my arms! But when I realized the little guy’s head was still under water I began to panic and started yelling for help. I knew that calf would not survive unless we could get his head out of the water. I heard a splash, and moments later another pair of arms arrived to help. We got his head out of the water, and then because the creek bottom was muddy and uneven we needed more help to carry the calf to safety. So a third person joined us in the icy water, and the three of us managed to float/ carry the newborn calf to safety. The tractor finally arrived, so the rest of them were working on getting the cow out of the creek.
Now our next major concern was trying to get the calf warmed up. I was shivering, but the brand new calf was in real danger. One of the boys took off his T-shirt and handed it to me. I began rubbing the newborn with it to warm him up. I was cold, numb and excited, but also now fearful that the calf would not survive. As I rubbed him fiercely, my thoughts were totally focused on getting him warm so he might have a chance of survival. The others had managed to rope the cow and were pulling her up with the tractor, while a few of the boys got behind and pushed her up the creek bank to safety.
The cow was now safe, and the calf was still alive. Now we had another problem. Because the cow had given birth in the creek, her afterbirth had washed away, and along with it her scent. The new mother would not acknowledge the calf she had minutes ago given birth to. There was nothing we could do but get them both back to the barn, and hope that in a while she would accept him.