The Guide - Part II

A sunny warm day comes again. David meets me at the house and we portage down through the forested Interlaken Park to Portage Bay. We paddle over to take a closer look at the second beaver lodge, and then return to the put in to look for David's missing sunglasses. An immature eagle sits in a tree overhead and we notice a large dead beaver that had been just feet away from our launch point. No sunglasses found, and we head off through the "Crossing Under Place" and up the west islands, across the north shore and marsh and into the NE lagoon. Lot's of turtles out sunning today on drift logs and we see bald eagles a few times. There are also quite a few new ducklings about.

Then we paddle down the E shore, talking about what fine studios the boat houses would make, and what eyesores they must be for the neighbors... the ongoing pissing match for views and the disregard for anyone else's view. As usual, lots of gardeners enjoying the lakeside properties.

We paddle a beaver canal into the core of a section of the E marsh, a spot I like to sit where the cattails continuous yearly build up of fallen leaves have built enough soil for sedges to grow. It is the beginning of a meadow, the next step from the bog and cattails. Almost no one knows that it is here because they only see the tall outer rampart of cattails. We back out through a brief odor of death, the source of which I have not found on the last few trips, but its there and whatever it is doesn't drift.
The trees are dropping fuzz on the water and it looks like a dusting of snow on clear ice.We startle a man sitting near the shore... he reminds me of something that I wrote about finding wilderness. The man is in the wilderness, he is not a traveler knowing where he is going, but lost, at least for the moment, as he fumbles trying to find a vein in his arm for his needle. Such is urban wilderness. At least I did not smell death.

When we take out, I find David's sunglasses precariously perched behind me on the end of the canoe.