It's a good thing it wasn't warm out. Sleeping in the Nomad with the windows down would have been a killer. As it was we worked up a sweat just moving the gear but cleared the whole back end. What didn't fit in the front was put in the boat.
It was outside, in the open air where I got my first taste of the Canadian wilderness. I think they call places wildernesses when there's a good chance you could be dragged off and eaten by something. In my innocent, pea brain that meant bears or wolves. Taking a leak on the edge of the clearing I learned it wasn't the big animals I had to worry about. It was the little ones. The flies and the skeeters. Especially when you had your barn door down and your willie out. When the stream's flowing there's no running away from the little critters if you want to stay dry. And remaining still 'til you're done letting go isn't easy when you're a bald chinned kid whose grown a beard of the tiny suckers doing their best to drain me white. Keep calm boy, time to learn some meditation and self control.
Back in the car, the two of us went on what I came to know in later years as a search and destroy mission. While we swatted away I could see this wasn't the first time Emil had slept in the Nomad while on a fishing trip. Not that he said it aloud but here and there I noticed tiny blood stains browning away on the walls and ceiling fabric. Tiny grave markers of days gone by. Rest in peace little villains.
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