Everything Today

On my portage to the dead lake, I stop to talk with the woman that sells newspapers in front of the drug store. She always has a few minutes for me and her smile and laugh is as good a guide as the best of compasses. I cannot resist stopping to talk with her, ever. She tells me that the weather is about to change because the birds are nowhere to be seen. She might be right. I just wish that more people took the time to notice such things. The unimportant is so important.

The dead lake is calm. There is only enough wind to shake the surface of the water without making waves.

A rain shower passes as I work north paddling past Palazzo del Dorko, the most ridiculous of house boats, and the armada of parked toy ships.

A single pair of running shoes, arranged carefully on the low dock of a rowing club signals that there is a single rower in a shell somewhere out there.

I get to Portage Bay and I have forgotten what I intended to do today.


A rain shower returns while I am in the crossing-under-place. The common mergansers that always congregate at the east end move away from me while the Or Noir, some 75 feet of smoking plastic yacht passes to my right (I always paddle the wrong side of the canal so that I can look the toy ship drivers eye to eye). I steer well clear of the cormorant tree because their exhaust is much worse than the worst of diesel fumes. And a splot-splatter to my left shows that my course was well chosen.

I remember that I planned on retrieving another car tire from the marsh.

An eagle is perched on the birch island, one of the north nesters, maybe the large female. I beach in the mud on the edge of broken island, a good place to watch from. An otter appears on a log under the eagle. After a few minutes it begins swimming my way, but what seemed to be one otter turns out to be two. No, three. A whistling peep starts and I find a fourth back on the log. It continues to peep until the other three return.

I decide to follow the otters, knowing that I will also disturb the eagle. As often happens, the eagle takes wing and uses the forced movement to hunt coots. I surprise the otters at the north end of #2 island.

I dig an old tire from the shallows and drop it at the usual spot.

I meet a teacher from a local school as I take out. He's seen me portage past his classroom a few times. We talk a few moments, he continues his run, I start my portage.

Life

I start in a place that the city hasn't improved, a shoreline with a steep bank and a greasy mud surface. There is a little thin layer of ice in parts of the south lagoon and I paddle along the south facing shore up next to the bare birch trees, stunted by the beaver and the less than ideal soil. The winter sun warms anything that lies up against winter birches. Not just here, but anywhere.


There are several new beaver scent mounds in the east channel. They are still just muddy smears on rocks or high spots, but the smear trailing from the water shows that it is the beaver. One of the mounds is topped with a golf ball, and it is not the first time that I have seen this. By chance, pure chance, I spot a small woodpecker overhead, the wood that it is working on so rotten that the pecking makes no sound. Only the rapid movement caught by the side of my eye catches my attention.

The east marsh is a winter marsh today, the cattails browned, the trees bare, a smear of ice on the easternmost third, and a north wind icing the visitors ears. There are no ducks, which is strange. From the far side I look back to the east channel and spot an eagle in a tree. I wonder if I passed directly under it without noticing. I no longer wonder why there are no ducks here.

I cut straight across the bay, directly into the wind, with the bow pointed at the railroad islands. Birdwatchers are on the north point, so I steer quite wide of any ducks and head into the NE lagoon, grabbing a car tire from the mud as I go. Again, the NE lagoon is empty of ducks, possibly the eagles were here earlier. There is, however, one great blue heron busy with successful hunting on the north shore. I stay long enough to see that this heron is eating well,
and I let the wind blow me out towards the bay.

There is a new dirtberg arisen from the lake and it has been commandeered by cormorants, as usual. They take off when I am way to far off and I spot an eagle. There might be two because it seems that every duck in mid bay is in the air and coot flocks are skittering over the surface in silver splashes in all directions.

Hugging the north shore, I surprise a snipe. A large bird flies directly at me, seems to be a seagull as no other bird is so bold with people, but it is a red tailed hawk passing by ten feet from me. I get the clearest look that I have ever got of its namesake.

I edge the cattail islands south, hoping to see more snipe. And, I do....two from number 2 island and one from the birch island. Their camouflage means that they are near impossible to spot until they take wing.

I head west, through the crossing under place, and down the dead lake with the wind behind me.

Demons

I start farther south on the big lake, not new to me, but a beaching spot I haven't used. I'll paddle south, most of which is not new to me either, but waters that I don't visit too often. I set out and cross the bay to the Bailey Peninsula and its tall tree shoreline.


I dreamed a spirit dream yesterday. A dream with two men in the bow of my canoe, real people at one time, but now dissolved to manevolent spirits, demons that were harmful once because of self assured ignorance or disappearing acts at times of need...tricksters with no humor in their actions. It was a strong dream. Today, my canoe cuts through the calmest of waters, the smooth surface of the water a mirror that continually flexes and distorts the image, a waving, dancing light that will mesmerize the careless paddler, drawing them over the edge. But, there are no demons in the canoe and there never will be. This is my place and demons only come in memories, spirits only enter by permission.

I approach a small cove, which has another cove not far on the opposite side. It is a park that I've not been to by land or water, but it looked like it might have a small patch of nature. As I near, ducks dispatch as they normally do, then, as I get closer, the coots move away from me...as an eagle comes over my left shoulder. Here, I am part of the hunt through no choice of my own. This time, crows fly out of the trees and chase the eagle off. As I round the point to the next cove, I flush the coots from under shoreline docks and sometimes, the eagles, watching from tall evergreens, drop down to try and catch one. This goes on a few times until I reach my destination. It is a small cove that is natural by neglect more than by stewardship. There are many old tires in the water and someday I will return and remove them, but there is also a fine and good sized beaver lodge.

I return the way I came, but with the sun and the lightest of breeze at my back. And all along the way, I find buffleheads, goldeneyes and common mergansers keeping watch on me.

Waking in the Canoe

Revision - I've made some additions to this post. These are details that I glossed over when I hastily wrote down the dream - details that seem important in retrospect. I have added an analysis in the blog comments.

Today I share a dream that was with me when I woke up. It was in color. Enjoy.

We set out to canoe, descending a long, steep and muddy slope, so much so that the earth moved (as if it was a thick cake batter) as we dropped down toward the water through the forest. At the bottom, at the edge of the water, we could see that it was very windy out farther. A tugboat was seen to fly off of the top of a large wave. But, we were protected, sheltered by a wooded island. There was a fast river entering from the right.

My bowman (as in bow of the canoe), a real person, was an unreliable man, just as in real life. As we prepared to head off, or, more accurately, as I prepared for us to head off, he would disappear, show up, and wander off, over and over again. A second man was there also. He was nicely dressed and had a physical stature about him. When the bowman was absent, this second man would tell me what the bowman was doing. I do not know how he knew what the absent man was up to.

The bowman never seemed to know what he was doing and once, as I kneeled in the stern of the canoe waiting for him to get in, I looked up only to find him sitting backwards facing me. I had to tell him that he was facing backwards. In fact, I know that he does know what he is doing...he is playing the fool.

Finally, we pushed out, me in the stern, with the second man up front looking over the bowman's shoulder, even though we only had room for two in my canoe. We paddled in the sheltered waters behind the island, watching big boats bounce off of huge waves farther out.

I look up to find the bowman gone again. I return to shore and pick him up again, but soon, he disappears again. The second man, the one with stature and nice clothes, takes the paddle. He holds it well and with confidence and then takes two very powerful back strokes that I find impressive. However, it propels us backwards and drives us very hard onto shore. We hit the bank so hard that it hurts. I strike him sharply on the shoulder with the edge of my paddle, right where the long edge curves to become the tip ...hard enough so that it will leave a mark that will stay with him for some time (I can see through his clothes and see the mark) and I tell him, "do that again and the next hit will be on your head." This man, for all of his stature and fine clothes, knows absolutely nothing about the canoe, which is where he happens to be. He is of no value here.

The second man wanders off and returns telling me that the bowman has left without telling me so and he will not return. I tell the second man to tell the bowman to stay away from me, and he leaves.

A woman, in the form of a squirrel, appears in the center section of the canoe. She darts around, constantly moving and searching and watching. The center of the canoe glows lightly while she is there. Because of her constant motion, she is no good for paddling. Instead, she talks about the public art projects that she is in charge of, which I find entertaining. In fact, she chatters constantly, but listening carefully I find that what she says is quite interesting. We paddle out (although while she is there, the canoe seems to move with no effort on my part) into where the swift water from the river comes into the lake and the eddy spins us around. We return to shore and she is gone and I feel the loss.

Now, I am alone in a shed with the canoe. I take my kneeling mat, which is a finely woven rug, and exit, locking the door behind me. I toss the mat down and kneel on it and paddle off, thinking about how light and responsive the canoe is. Then I realize that I am not in the canoe, but just paddling on the surface of the water on the rug. This feels like I am kneeling on a water bed, buoyant and springy. While I return to shore, I take time to spin and turn the rug a few times on the tops of small waves. It is fun, but not what I intended to do.

Back in the shed, this time I take the canoe. Exiting through the door, I turn and lock it, and this time, I push the key very deeply into my pants pocket.

All is Well

It is a calm day, winter, a winter sky with the sun low yet bright when the clouds clear the path. In fact, the sun is low enough in the sky to light the undersides of the heavy distant clouds, adding gold to the gray.


The paddle up the urban wilderness of the big lake is almost dreamy. It is Sunday and the leaf blowers are put away. Just a dip-splash of the paddle and an occasional airplane. Even the waves, when there are waves, are just deceased wakes from distant boats that are far out of earshot.

I don't turn the point, but continue across the channel and up the east side of the bay where I find an eagle in a frequently used evergreen perch. The ducks are spread in numerous flocks from SW to NE across the bay, and it is a mix of buffleheads, canvas backs, widgeons, coots and gadwalls with pied billed grebes thrown in for good measure.

Bufflehead takeoff

Only once does an eagle disturb the peace. It comes straight out of the sun, invisible to me for some time, but I know it is there by the sequential scattering of ducks, which comes in my direction. It passes by and joins its mate, the one I spotted earlier. I can hear their whistling greeting behind me.

All is well.

Another winter day

Today's early morning snowfall will turn to rain and I race through my breakfast and race through my portage to the big lake. It is calm and especially so in the cove where I start, but as I move north the wind builds. It comes to me that it takes so little wind during a winter canoe trip to make the lake somewhat threatening.


I turn the point and head to the big beaver lodge, my favorite of the lodges and a favorite place for me to sit. Its backdrop is the tangled beaver forest of the east marsh and whether any animals are visible, the signs of life are as vivid as that of a cemetery...markers, so many of them. An eagle sits above the lodge when I get there and a flock of buffleheads, which always seem to be where they are, have to move as I paddle in.
When I get into the open water of the bay, east of the burial island, I spot four eagles. The two north nesters are hunting a flock of coots in unison while the south nesters split, one going to the east shore and the other landing in a tree on the burial island not far from where I sit.

After the Storm

A cold day, the night windy and snowy although most of the snow in the air was just that being blown about. The south lagoon is frozen enough to stop the canoe but there is still plenty of open water for the ducks that prefer to stay here. Some of them are sitting on the south facing banks, on the earth warmed by the bright sun of this cloudless day.

The American Coot - Column A on the winter eagle menu

I cut NW across the bay to the birch island, scaring up a snipe as I near. There, I ease up against the cattails noticing but not recognizing fresh mammal tracks coming out to the water. I pause here, the warmth and protection that I find from the wind being what I imagine the snipe seek out as well. I often find them here, but seldom anywhere else. With the cold, the ducks and coots are in a dense flock out in mid bay. I find a crow eating a coot wing, no doubt leftovers from the eagles.

Working along the edge of the north marsh, I spot the head of an otter, and then a second otter pops up.

Lontra canadensis - so cool an animal that they named a country after it.

They are hiding next to a large hollow drift log. I watch, seeing them a few times, but only briefly, until they finally move back into the brush. The log they were near shows their tracks and belly slides. In fact, I notice that all of the open areas on the north marsh are as heavily tracked as a dog run...and there are no dogs out here.

Note the otter tracks and belly slides on the top of the log.