For the first paddle of the year Lucy and I took out our warrior canoe. It’s an old flight boat from back in the day when they would make Wenonah Champlains without floats and with removable seats, yokes and thwarts so that you could nest a Wenonah Spirit II inside and carry both canoes strapped onto a float plane.
When I got it, it was already a rescue canoe and had many of its ribs broken and several stress holes. It needed a lot of work and was cheap and it gained some weight as a result of the process. Since repairing it years ago, it has survived several storms and big branches falling on it and ripping through the Kevlar.
It has been repaired twice again, at least. Ironically, it survived the tree that nearly destroyed it. That maple was cut down when our street and drainage system was redone last year.
It deserves to go on some more adventures because it has been through a lot. I’m okay with it looking like it has seen better days. It is functional and I don’t worry about it getting scratched.
It is old and I love old things.
By the time the three of us got on the water, the sun was warm on the back of my neck. The water in Miner’s Lake was cold but not as cold as I expected. We took our fishing rods along to try and find rainbows at the end of the rainbow. We didn’t catch dinner. We caught something else.
It was one of those evenings that was in sharp contrast to the wind and waves that were prevalent during the Minnesota walleye fishing opener.
The surface was glass. Drips of cold water ran down off of my paddle.
Looking down under the surface of the lake, I could see the old shadows of the ghost forest underneath.
Algae covered trees that were quiet memories of what this space used to be. Later they would grab at our old canoe like they wanted to hold us there; like they were trying to keep us on the lake.
We weren’t in a hurry. I was fishing for a little bit of early summer.
My favorite part of the paddle was the way the sunlight pushing through the blue skies contrasted against the dried blond grasses and cattails where the noisy red-winged blackbirds were tossing their echoing cries across the lake. The point that they were on had a pine silhouetted against the setting sun. I would have been happy just climbing out of the canoe and lying down in that tall dried grass.
It was after six and we could hear song sparrows; starlings and I even heard my first loon call of the year.
There were fish rising and splashing, striking at the surface. I noticed bobbers floating near the opposite shore belonging to a couple of kids who were throwing laughter out across the water.
As we stopped to wet a line, three huge double-crested cormorants dove down from a tall pine and banked in air in front of our canoe before speeding down the lake like a formation of black jets.
They will often sit and fish from the protruding stumps of broken trees at the eastern end of the lake. Their size, all-black color (besides their beaks), large black feet and snakelike necks distinguish them from everything else.
Under water they dive deep and are sometimes mistaken while swimming for a loon, but they look rather pre-historic above water.
Later they returned to spar over the highest branch in the tallest tree around. A small cloud of blackbirds flew up to harass them. They didn’t seem to notice. They looked as out of place as I suppose that we did sitting on the surface of the lake in our old, patched and yellow faded to brownish tan canoe.
It is weird to float on the water after not being able to all winter long.
It is odd to feel the tug of that first fish and then miss setting the hook or set it on a slimy stick instead. It is strange to have fingers cold again from the water and dirty from the bait and have the fishing line bite into them as you try to release a snag. I feel a bit like a migratory bird, returning to my home, navigating the first sensations of summer to come.
At 7:30 p.m. we paddled for the shore and the very short portage to our Jeep. It was time for dinner and to sit at home at ease with the peace we had discovered. I already missed the sounds and sights of being on the water. We had caught the paddling bug after months of walking on water. Very far from our limit.
