Canada XLI - Night II

     Emil said he'd never fished a lake like this one.  Nearly all we caught were in the walleye family.  The few pike were so tiny they didn't count.
     "Not that I'm complaining about walleyes.  They're much easier on the fingers, simpler to grab and a pleasure in the frying pan.  But geez eh, where are the pike?  I just don't get it.  I mean pike up here are like the bullheads down south.  They're supposed to be everywhere.  I think I read that in the Bible.  Could be in Luke.  I believe the long-hairs gave the pike its Latin name of esox lucious in honor of the good doctor and his voracious appetite.  It was Luke who made all those loaves and fishes necessary.  You see when Christ and his buddies had come ashore they thought they had enough food with them to feed the crowd who'd gathered about.  Wrong.  While all the other apostles had been rowin' and workin' the sails Luke'd been in the back quietly having himself a snack.
     On the other hand we might've stumbled into some kind of pikeless vortex.  Like we're in one of those low budget science fiction movies."
     Uncle Emil's plan for our remaining time on the water was simple.  However long it took, we were to see and I was to fish every foot of shoreline.  He called it suckin' the marrow.
     "We worked for it so we'll not miss a thing.  Paddle every foot including the islands.  There'll be no regrets when we leave.  There are few things worse than saying 'I shoulda…' when completion is right at your doorstep."
     As our days passed whenever we were in good looking water I'd fish, Emil would fire up his pipe and we'd talk.  First subject was naming the lake.  We batted it back and forth before during and after our time on the water,  Long Way In, Pelican, Perch, Brown Walleye (in honor of the saugers), Emil's Folly, Me Lad, Lost and Found and one we almost decided on, Lena.  Yeah, we both agreed Lena would have been a good one.  For the moment we left it up in the air.
     "You know, it doesn't really matter what we call it.  The name'll never show up on the map.  And odds are we'll be the only ones who'll ever paddle this water.  As far as I'm concerned the best name would be leaving it unnamed, our secret.  Whenever you and me get together we won't have to say a word but will know what the other's thinking.  This stretch of water's as good a place as there is anywhere north of the south pole.  No place I'd rather be.  Tonight we'll start on yon island out there in front of us."
     So that's what we did.  Never once were we in a hurry.  Never paddled out in the morning.  Nor the afternoon.  Our time on the water always began after supper around five thirty.  We didn't come off 'til the sun was below the spruces and twilight was melting into night.
     Uncle Emil was drawn to the sun when it rode low in the sky.  Reveled in the light ricocheting from lake into the shoreline forest.  For minutes at a time he'd sit in the stern of the canoe, spawning clouds with his pipe, contemplating the scene.
     "I guess it's the shadows thrown upward by the needles.  During the day I see the green in the trees.  Pretty enough in its own right.  But come sunset it's those upshot shadows that're drawing my eye.  Like little bits of night getting ready for the big show when the stars come out.  Bet if you could see deep enough into those shadows you'd see stars there also.  Itty-bitty ones but just like the real deal in their own way."
     Yeah I found what he had to say interesting.  Kind of.  But I was into trying to hook something big.  Long as my leg.  And wasn't having much luck.  You could say I'd been spoiled.  By the second evening I'd caught more fish than a person has a right to in an entire lifetime.  Some of them good sized.  Four or five pound walleyes.  Foot long perch.  But I wanted a pickerel I'd remember 'til the day I died.  While I pitched spinners, my uncle rambled.  About as a good a life as a kid could want.
     "Ever tell you how I actually lost my eye?"
     Now he had me.  There'd have to be something wrong with me to not want to hear that story.  Uncle Emil's glass eye was a family legend.  And there were more conflicting and confounding stories about the eye than I had first cousins.  Forty-six at the last count.  We were a fertile family.
     One rumor had him losing it in a fertilizer factory explosion.  Another to a chunk of shrapnel when a kamikaze pilot hit the troop ship he was on.  A third had him get carried away when he had the lead in his high school's play, Oedipus.  Yup, I was all ears.
     "First off, all those stories you've no doubt heard are pure bull.  I should know because I made most of them up myself.  What's the fun in having a glass eye if you can't swashbuckle a bit?  So, you ready?"
     Ready?  I even stopped fishing.
     "Was back in 1925.  I was a kid, just finished school, done with bootlegging and out to see the world.  At least the flat part of it over in North Dakota.  Good thing I did or I'd have never met your Aunt Lena.  She was a farmer's daughter alright but not like in all the jokes.  I was working the harvests to put some spending money in my dungarees.  Even had the thought I might give college a try and any money I could save would be a step in that direction.
     "What happened to my eye was simple enough.  A storm blew through while we were out in the field.  Big storm with winds like a hurricane.  Was a simple but strong gust that did me in.  Picked up a piece of wheat chaff and ran it through my eye.  Sure didn't see that coming.  Archie me lad, that's a joke.  Throw in a long trip to town, an infection and the next thing I knew I was being fitted for a shooter marble."
     "Not all that glamorous a story is it?  Well, I didn't think so.  Over the years I began to make up something new every time I was asked about it.  Got to be a challenge between me and myself.  Made losing the eye almost worthwhile."
     "Tell you what, let's re-rig your setup.  Truth is you need a new game plan.  Archie me lad, you ever use a slip bobber before?"
     "Of course I have.  Do you take me for some kind of know nothing kid?  By the way, what's a slip bobber?"
     Turned out it was a simple rig, Emil tied a knot onto my line with a short length of string, strung a long bobber with a hole through the length of it up to the knot, and finished it off with a jig at the end of my line tipped with a white piece of Uncle Josh's genuine, trout length pork rind.
     The bobber gave us something to watch and talk about.  Uncle Emil called it a bob-air like he was a French Canadian.  So long as I worked the bobber, gave it movement, I caught fish.  Many, many fish.  As many jumbo perch as walleyes.  Like they were fighting over it.  The bobber would jiggle a couple of times on the surface then slowly sink.  Once below the surface I'd wait a two count before hammering home the hook set.  It was so easy Emil said we should try the rig without a hook.  Then without line, or rod and reel.  Maybe think 'em into the canoe.
     "Not many Minnesotans know how tasty perch can be.  Good thing I've fished with a coupla cheese-eaters from Wisconsin or I'd have been in the same boat.  Almost a shame we're turning these beauties loose."  Uncle Emil wiped a pretend tear from his good eye.
     I saw my first not-in-a-zoo bear that evening.  Just moseying along 'til it caught wind of us.  Gave a snort like a pig then skedaddled into the brush of a lakeshore swamp.  Didn't look at all like the beasts I'd seen in outdoors magazines.  Black and almost cuddly.
     " About the only thing we'd have to fear from that guy would be if one of us had a Hershey bar in the pocket of his jeans.  Bears are bigger than they look from a distance.  Black is a slimming color after all.  I'd call that one fair-sized, maybe three hundred pounds.  And they don't cuddle.  On the upside, they're as scared of us as we are of them.  Keep your distance and make some noise when you see one.  You'll be okay.  Usually.  Like all wild things, show 'em some respect.  Should ever the need arise and you have to kill a living thing do it the favor of serving it for dinner.  That doesn't include mosquitoes and horse flies of course."
     I'd been sleeping for what seemed like ten minutes that night when Emil shook me awake.  Answered my question by saying the time was around two in the morning.  Lord almighty, I sure didn't want to wake up but he was insistent.  Said I had to come outside and see the show.
     "Just slide on your pants and boots. The skeeters have all gone to bed.  Yeah, even skeeters would have to be crazy to get out of the sack at this time of night."  Finished that with a chuckle.
     Call it a couple of stumbles and a near fall but I didn't knock the tent down on the way out.
     "So what's the big deal?"
     Didn't need to go any farther than those few words.  Clouds of starlit mist floating on the lake drew my eye first, then led me to the black of the far tree-lined shore.  There I caught sight of the Milky Way rising like a pathway to the top of the sky where soft green wisps of the northern lights fluttered like curtains in a gentle breeze.  I'd seen them once before on a snow crisp winter night in the city.   But considering where we were, this was some show alright.  I joined Uncle Emil and comfied down on the slab.  Best seat in the house.  Still held the heat of the sun.
     "Archie me lad, you know what I think?  Remember those white pelicans from this afternoon?  Well, just maybe they kept right on rising 'til they turned into those clouds of northern lights up there.  True or not, it's a good thought ain't it?"
     "Yes sir, it is.  Mind if we lay here a while to see what they do?"
     There was no need for Uncle Emil to answer.  We had no place to be any better than where we were.  Don't know how long I laid there staring at those shifting green lights.  But I do know that I woke up in the morning sunlight out on the slab, covered by my sleeping bag, my head on a life jacket.