speak
UPNORTH
By Stephanie Schneider sschneider@kansan.com
Learning to enjoy the simple pleasures of the outdoors
Roughin' it: During Stephanie's time spent with her family in Canada, isolated from a world of reality TV, ringtones and car horns, she discovered a love for the outdoors that made for a great escape from her everyday world.
Seagulls wait for the boat to come, right before sunset, on the clearest of Canadian nights. The sound of the old boat engine immediately awakes the flock sitting on a lonely rock in the middle of Lawrence Lake, and sounds of calling and their wings flapping welcome my boat. My dad's leftover bread crumbles in my fingers as I stand up to toss a moldy piece to the waiting flock of birds. In the distance, flying Vs race toward the eating frenzy. The sun is setting. I am alone in an aluminum boat and I sit until the sun has gone behind miles of pine-covered shorelines. The sun disappears, the flock gives up, and I head back toward my family, who is sitting around a flickering fire on shore. My dad has already fallen asleep in his green fold-up chair.
My family owns two fishing resorts in Canada. By "resort," I really mean a bunch of old cabins that are only big enough to sleep in, a fish-cleaning shack I can't even walk into because the blood on the wall scares me, and a room where food is kept. Bears have broken into all these rooms through the roof multiple times, and it shows. Although this is not my ideal vacation spot, I have learned to love the bugs, bears, my own unwashed stench and the peacefulness of the outdoors. My favorite of the two "resorts" is our fly-in resort on Lawrence Lake. My life flashes in front of me every time we fly in on the floatplane. The engine is so loud I can't hear anything, and all I see are the tops of trees inches away from our plane. I crawl my way out of the plane through the pilot's door. It's the only door. I hop onto the floating dock to help unload the plane that is sitting on water. Half of the plane is saved for luggage, and the other half for beer. We stay for about a week each trip.
I wake up with a poisonous spider crawling on top of the old ratty plaid blanket covering me. Showering is out of the question because there is no shower; so the morning routine is quite easy. I hear sizzling grease outside. My dad is making fried eggs, potatoes and bacon over the fire. The smell makes my stomach growl. Back home I'd be eating Special K cereal with a big cup of coffee for breakfast; here I eat what is made for me: a heart attack on a plate. But I have to deal with it.
Breakfast is quick, and cleaning up is easy thanks to the lake. I put on some old shorts splattered with mud stains, and a cross country running t-shirt that I would be too embarrassed to wear any other place; "The fast girls your mom warned you about" doesn't seem quite appropriate anymore. Shoes are unnecessary. Old aluminum boat that smells like rotting guts will be my tanning bed for the rest day. Fishing gear, snacks, portable chairs, and pans fill the miniature boat; yet it is still just enough room for my mom, brother and me to cram in. The 1990 sportable motor never starts on the first. Hitting it and pumping gas into it is routine. wait for my dad to start swearing at it.
Today is the day we are all going to catch the "big one," my dad reminds us as we get farther and farther away from shore. Two hours later, I've caught a crawfish. Crawfish smell like dirty feet and move around too fast to even try to cook. No one has caught any fish, which means we don't have lunch yet. My brother starts to get pissed. He eats his ranch-flavored Pringles and glares at his bobber in the water. My mom is too into her book to care. In the meantime, I think of what my friends would be doing, and what their plans are for that night. The Hawk or The Wheel? There are so many options. I have no phone, I can't Facebook, and I have nowhere to go but to shore or into the lake. But this doesn't phase me.
The water is so cold it shocks my body when I dive in. The boat rocks back and forth for a minute, swishing the three inches of water in the boat around. The lake water is crystal clear. I can see my brother's fishing line and hook 15 feet down. No fish on that line; I can verify. I become numb so I get pulled back into the boat. It hurts worse when your body starts to thaw.
Four hours later, my dad has finally caught the "big one." The fish is so heavy he swears "it is a rock." He says this every time we fish, and every time I give him the same astonished look. We head to shore so the fish can be sliced open and cleaned. I feel bad for the fish. Often I try to let it go when my brother and dad aren't looking, but today I'm too hungry. Frying the fish and potatoes in a bunch of
grease till crispy is satisfying at the time, but the two always end up tasting like each other. It's kind of like a two for one deal.
After lunch, we go back out, but the fishing just gets worse. We start imagining fish are on the line. Quick yanks of the fishing pole signal another big one, but there is never anything there. By 4 in the afternoon, I am so sunburned, I feel as if I, too, have been fried.The snacks are gone, and my brother has had too many beers. Heading back to shore feels like heading home from a hard day of work, except the stress and arguing was because of a fish. I wish I had more of that kind of stress.
Pink sky at night, sailors delight. Pink sky at morning, sailors take warning. The sky is every shade of pink tonight. I head back out to the
flock of seagulls waiting for me at the same rock. It's covered in so much seagull poop it has now turned white.The sound of my brother and dad laughing breaks the silence. The seagulls are finished, and I navigate back by looking for the flickering light of the campfire.
There is no trashy reality TV playing in the background, no annoying ringtone going off, and no sound of cars honking. The simplistic scene of where my family spends a few summer nights is calming. There is a fire pit, a cabin, a dock and miles of forest, but it's all we seem to need. JP
April 2,2009
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