A son of the northland

I will, forever, no matter where I should find myself living, be a son of the northland.

I wake to an inch of snow, a cold day with the sun leaving not long after it climbs over the horizon. The day becomes gray, but snow has a way of making the gray better.

I meet a couple of people as I make the 2 mile portage to the dead lake. They are nice meetings, as they almost always are. Snow flurries come as I begin the 400 foot descent, down steep hills and over the freeway bridge towards the shipyards. The flurries raise my emotions and the portage is effortless as skating on a frozen lake.

male common merganser

On the dead lake, I pass my wayward friend, the Speedwell, a flat black fishing vessel of indeterminable age. Then, I have a headwind to work against all of the way up the lake. Rounding the point, I can pause for a cup of coffee before heading through to Union Bay.

There, I run up the west islands. Birds are nearby everywhere, the cold weather and chance of storm bringing them out to feed longer, bringing them to the shore. Eight great blue herons are at the gap between #1 island and the main shore. Sandpipers are running along the north shore. I find a beaver in a live trap. It escapes while I watch. It is scared and I don't know if beaver can exhibit anger, but it looks damn angry. I shoot video of it as it enters the water and dives with a big slap of the tail. The only sound recorded being the splash followed by my whispered voice, "thank you". I watch it's wake, a vee spreading out behind it, as it hightails it to the west lodge.

castor canadensis houdini

There has been meaning and purpose to the trip, and everything else is unimportant.

the wind up

the wind up

slap!