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USA Edition | Today Is Sunday, March 21, 2010 |
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USA Edition | Today Is Sunday, March 21, 2010 |
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Manitoulin Island - The North Channel
If I managed to find yesterday, which I believe I did, its reality was far less than what I had hoped.
This true story is the seventh of eight installments about experiences outdoorsman Keith Bemis and I shared with Colin Montgomery, one of the most engaging characters many of us will ever meet. Although the events portrayed in this series of stories are true, they transpired over several years.
Not too many years ago, while visiting and fishing in the north woods at Keith Bemis’ cabin high above Sixth Crow Wing Lake, my past caught up with me. For several days Keith and I spoke of our experiences with and affection for Colin Montgomery — someone we had neither seen or spoken with for thirty years. Our adventures had been many — but time and life took us in very different directions. What brought him to mind were reminiscences of summers of my youth — and my first meeting Colin many years before when Jess Howard invited me along as part of his annual visits to Manitoulin.
Solitude, quiet spend time to reflect with old friends had caught up with me. So had Keith and my increasingly frequent remembrances of Manitoulin, Kagawong and Colin Montgomery reminded me that our lives are about the journey. My life’s journey, I came to understand, would never be complete without renewing a relationship long dormant and revisiting a place forever part of me — as well as Jess Howard, Keith and others who spent idyllic or adventuresome days at Dawson’s. No wonder, when it was time for me to return to my own world, I felt a familiar tinge — one I had known all my life. I needed more adventure and I needed to close a chapter too long left incomplete.
And so I once again decided, for more times than I can count in my lifetime, to take the road less traveled.
Adventure always finds me. It always has, but this adventure had twists and turns beyond anything I could imagine. At its heart was a desire to return to those marvelous summers with my old friend Colin Montgomery — clearly one of the most interesting men I had come to know on my life’s journey.
It was early morning when I left Crow Wing country, turning north along U.S. 71 — toward Bemidji. It was an exhilarating morning. The first leg of this odyssey began with 175 miles through the far northern reaches of Minnesotan woodlands between Camp Bemis and the Canadian border crossing point to Fort Frances, Ontario from International Falls.
Shortly after passing through Bemidji, I was deep in the great Koochiching forest almost directly below that bump in the U.S. – Canadian border where Lake of The Woods county juts into Canada.In less than three hours I arrived at International Falls where US 71 abruptly ends in what seems to be the Boise Cascade’s giant paper plant. The Church Street Bridge to Fort Francis, cost only $6 after which I was off to points east.
Minnesota’s Bump
Known as the Northwest Angle, the bump in the border between Minnesota and Ontario, establishes a small United States peninsula on the western side of Lake Of The Woods. The Treaty of Paris officially established U.S. sovereignty on land north of the 49th parallel that is reachable over land only by way of Canadian roadways, although it is accessible by boat without leaving the U.S.
This rather strange exception to the 49th parallel border that defines the separation line between western states and provinces was agreed to by King George, III, in 1783 to officially end the Revolutionary war.
Just outside Fort Francis, Ontario, begins a gorgeous causeway across Rainy Lake — one of two very large lakes astride Minnesota’s US and Canadian border. Not far beyond Fort Francis, near Seine River Village, I noticed some of the cattle in a large grazing area had Antlers. I did a double take. As I slowed, I saw that there was an Elk just ahead on the right — grazing quietly along the roadway.
Although there were frequent warnings about Elk and Deer along the Trans Canada Highway, the Elk were the first, and last, I saw as I sped eastward. About a hundred kilometers, east just outside Atikokan, I came across a rather startled Moose standing in the roadway. As I pulled to a stop, he meandered off the pavement and munched nonchalantly as I pulled way.
By late afternoon I was in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on my journey eastward to Nipigon, which, at 49 degrees North latitude, is where the northern and southern legs of the Trans Canada Highway join to traverse the highlands that rise out of Lake Superior. It was on this leg that I first saw evidence of the approaching winter, for the Aspen were already turning yellow and brown in the bright afternoon sun.
About dark I arrived together at the small village of Schreiber, Ontario. I spent the night in a $15 room at a trucker’s motel and slept soundly even as an endless parade of trucks pulled into the refueling pumps just outside my room. The Motel was also the local Kentucky Fried Chicken stand and Pizza Hut all rolled into one — something I saw nowhere else along my route. A cold Molson’s beer revived my electrolytes and a tasty hot pizza ended my day long fast. In the coolness of evening I drifted off, not to be heard from again until the first rays of morning sun pierced the darkness of the dingy room. By then, there was a heavy dew on my car.
The size of Lake Superior makes it more of an ocean than a lake — for unlike its glaciated southern shoreline, the north shore consists of igneous bedrock that rises majestically from the depths of the lake until it matures into mighty rolling hills taller than big city office buildings. What one experiences along this magnificent stretch of roadway is a succession of small mountains that rise a thousand feet or so above water level — then, at a crest often chiseled from bedrock, the roadway daringly dives back to lake level. Even from the highest of these hills, Lake Superior seems an enormous and formidable body of water.
After passing through the towns of Pic Mobert South and White River, the Trans Canada Highway turns southeastward toward Wawa — where it begins its sharp dive southward to Sault Sainte Marie. It was traffic time when I passed the Soo — where the Trans Canada turns eastward toward Sudbury. Evan as I headed toward Sudbury, I yearned to once again hear Colin’s throaty brogue, to taste once more of Mrs. Dawson’s Cherry Pie, to lie and laugh about the fish we caught, the camaraderie of drinking beer with real men and cheating at poker knowing I’d be caught. But memory betrays us. For what I didn’t know was that the end of this journey would bring pain, delight, renewal and introspection about the events and the people of my own life.
Little Current -- The Swinging Bridge
After an overnight stay at a Super 8 motel in Sudbury, morning again came to the eastern sky. Soon I set about finding my way to Manitoulin’s fabled Lake Kagawong and reliving dreams of warm days, cold nights, good friends and Colin’s endless stories of fish and the frailties of the human experience.
It took well over an hour before I arrived at the rustic rotating bridge across the north channel opposite Little Current. Every hour, on the hour, every day of the year, the swinging bridge at Little Current is repositioned to allow passage of watercraft and sailing vessels to and from Manitoulin’s north channel. I found myself second car in line waiting for the rotating bridge to reopen to roadway traffic. It was, in many ways, one of the longest fifteen minutes in my life. When the bridge was once again open to road traffic, I crossed into Little Current where I stopped at the Manitoulin Information Centre.
It was there that I inquired about Dawson Resort — “Was it still open?”, I asked the pert young woman with the big wide smile. Reaching behind the counter, she produced a gigantic book and began the search — moistening her index finger from time to time as she eagerly thumbed through the pages. After a while she looked up from the book. “Yes,” she said with a friendly smile, “Dawson Resort is still open for business. Shall I ring them up?”
“Yes, please do,” I assured her.
Enroute To Perivale Road, Manitoulin Island
It took less than an hour to wend my way along roads no longer familiar, toward a place indelibly etched into the receding reaches of my memory. When I passed the tiny village of Spring Bay, on Ontario road 542, I turned north on Perivale Road toward Lake Kagawong. Much had changed on Manitoulin since my last visit in the 1970’s — when roads were rough and dusty, but now relatively smooth and paved. At the end of the Perivale road I turned right. The way was becoming familiar as I raced along lake Kagawong’s southern shoreline.
At the last bend, exactly where it had always been, I found yesterday
There is was before me, largely unchanged. But, looks can be deceiving, for time had not stood still for over a quarter of a century. I was home again, if only for a fleeting moment.
Mrs. Dawson was shocked when I suddenly appeared on her front porch. Neither her smiling face nor my name were forgotten for we instantly called one another by name. She knew I was the man who had always come to the island by plane — and for the most part did so in August, or early September. I was exactly on schedule, she noted, for it was August 23rd. I reminded her that I was also the man who most fancied her tart Cherry pie — with its richly larded crust and sweet filling. She remembered that as well, and smiled broadly as we shared moments from another lifetime. Many years had passed since we had last spoken, but memory easily yields up the good times so our conversation was sparkled with smiles and shared, from time to time, through moist eyes.
Places remain stationary, while people change and time moves on. The passing years are fleeting for we mortals, whether we seek to relive the past or forget it. But time does not forgive. The bell cannot be un-rung, or unlived moments made to happen. Eventually, when I inquired about Colin Montgomery, the look on her face foretold the bad news. News I dreaded hearing. Colin Montgomery, the big talking, smiling, story telling man fishermen and hunters at Dawson’s Resort had come to know so well in my youth, had died in 1982.
Myrtle Dawson related his passing calmly, her own sorrow at his passing showing surely upon her face. Colin had passed away, she told me, after a series of heart attacks. Mrs. Dawson, and her husband Jack, had visited Colin and his wife at the hospital several times after the first attack, but shortly after returning home from the hospital one afternoon, he suffered another. Then it was over. Although Colin had only moments before been telling one of his stories, no doubt laughing out loud at the punch line, time ran out. His voice stilled forever. His laugh silenced. Gone too was his Canuck brogue, ruddy face and dangling Players cigarette. I was stunned, for until that moment I had dreamed of shaking his powerful hand, seeing the glint of mischief in his eyes, and lying to him about all the fish Keith and I had been landing at Camp Bemis. None of that was to be, not that day, not ever. I was devestated.
Manitoulin Autumn
After losing their guide so many years before, Myrtle Dawson and her husband have been running their rustic fishing camp as a family vacation destination. Dawson Resort continued all those years without the man of many stories, ruddy face and manly laugh. She understood that Dawson resort had never been the same after Colin’s passing — but we said nothing of it. Besides, the people visiting her Manitoulin hide-away today didn’t know Colin, had never heard his raspy voice, tried to decipher his speech, or endured one too many of his bawdy stories.
Today’s visitors to camp are richer for experiencing Manitoulin in summer, enjoying the waters of Kagawong, Mindamoya and Manitou — yet somehow poorer for having missed the Colin Montgomery era. Life’s journey is defined by calendar as much as place, for whatever our time and place, each of us must make our own memories.
For me, Dawson’s may not have changed physically, but it will never be the same. Maybe Perivale road is now paved, and Mrs. Dawson a few years older, but little else changed at the rustic camp just round the bend at the end of the road. Alas the cottages at Dawson’s are now housekeeping units. There are no more fisherman’s lunches to take onto a foggy lake at the edge of dawn. No more heavy dinners cooked on a wood stove. No more cherry pie, either. Except for the passing of Colin — who had become a friend to Keith and me, and so many others all those years gone before.
My visit with Myrtle Dawson wasn’t that long. When she asked where I had gone — why I hadn’t returned — I mumbled something about being busy, going to California — all the easy excuses — but she needed no explanation. She had already moved on, and, now so must I.
As I prepared to leave, Myrtle gave me a copy of Dawson’s 2001 resort brochure — and enthusiastically pointed out where she had handwritten her new email address. I understood. Email is for people who get busy, move away and return too late for the party. It was all too soon time for me to leave again. I shot video of camp so Keith and I might relive good days and revisit old friends.
I returned to Dawson’s Kagawong Resort — to search for yesterday, but it was not completely to be found. Kansas, as we learned in The Wizard Of Oz, is in our hearts and minds — temporal and temporary. As we age we become rich in memories, for our lives are filled with moments and people who matter — and we are all the richer for having known and shared life’s joys and sorrows with each of them.
Later that afternoon, I arrived at South Baymouth on the southeastern shore of Manitoulin — perhaps 25 miles away from Dawson’s. There I would board the 5:50 Ferry to Tobermory — to revisit the realities of the 21st century.
I’ll miss never having renewed memories of Colin Montgomery. But this journey turned adventure reminded me how much I love Canada — and how much I enjoy Canadians. Even now, somewhere deep in distant reaches of my mind I hear Regina calling me. As does Calgary beckon for my return for one more Stampede on a warm June afternoon when all of Alberta seems a rodeo. So too do I miss the friendly folks in Edmonton and the exciting glaciers in the northern reaches of the Rockies. I will always enjoy memories of Banff and the invigorating chill and serenity of sunrise at Lake Louise. But so too, do I think of Vancouver — both city and island — for they too call to my need for adventure.
None of us will ever be able to revisit the Kagawong of Colin Montgomery, but next time you hear Canada calling — you too can take the route least traveled and discover the inland oceans we call the great lakes. Come traverse the splendid mountains and engage the wonderful people who make Canada a great country and good neighbor. Thereupon to build your own adventure to remember.
Maybe, if you’re lucky you’ll meet someone like Colin Montgomery. Now that would be a lucky day indeed.
Oh, Canada!
Manitoulin's North Channel -- Kagawong Light House
