The Forever Canadian Vacation

Dave's red and white spoon arced across the still water of Birch Lake and landed with a "sploop" sound. He'd taken only three cranks on his reel when the big northern slammed the spoon. Dave heaved the rod up and back to set the hook, and then just hung on as the fish made its first run. After fifteen minutes of give and take, he was able to pull the long, slender fish alongside the boat. Donny, the Oji-Cree guide, carefully slid the landing net under the fish's tail, and then lifted it into the boat.

"Looks like about fourteen, fifteen pounds to me. You want another picture?"

"No. I'll remember this one without a picture. This one's going to be the last one, for this trip anyway."

Donny used pliers to remove the hook from the toothy mouth and then eased the big fish back over the side. With a flick of the tail, the green and yellow spots disappeared as the fish dove deep. Dave hooked the spoon in the lure keeper of his rod and laid it across the seats as Donny started the outboard. In an hour, the small floatplane would wing its way back to Red Lake, and Dave would be sitting in one of the seats and on his way back home.

The Cessna could seat five passengers plus the pilot, and had already made one trip that morning to take three of the guides and the cook back to Red Lake. Donny had stayed behind to close up the camp for the winter. He'd suggested one more time on the lake for all the men while they waited for the plane's return. The other three said they had had enough fishing for a while, and stayed in the lodge to play cards. Dave had welcomed the chance for one or two more fish before leaving.

The Cessna hadn't yet arrived when Donny expertly eased the boat in and shut off the outboard. Dave tied the stern line while Donny did the bow, and then stepped out onto the rough dock.

He turned back to face the lake. It was going to be hard to leave this pristine wilderness, this place of peace, this place Julie had wanted so much to see. Dave had felt coming here was a little wrong. They'd been married only six years when Julie had been taken from him. It was unusual for a woman of twenty-six to suffer a brain aneurysm but not unheard of, the doctor said. He also put his hand on Dave's shoulder and assured him it had been almost instantaneous and she hadn't suffered.

He wished somehow he hadn't suffered too, but all they'd had was each other and now Dave had nobody. Children hadn't been possible. Julie had some sort of female problem he never did fully understand, and she didn't want to adopt. Instead of contentedly raising babies into adults, she contentedly lavished all her love and attention on him.

Her sister was responsible for this fishing trip, and Dave was going to thank her when he got back. Julie had loved fishing, and they'd often talked about a fly-in trip someday. Margie finally got tired of his moping around and sat him down for a talk.

"Dave, Julie wouldn't want you to be this way. She loved you more than anything, and it would make her feel awful to see you like this. Go do something to get your life back on track."

"Like what? Without Julie, it wouldn't be much fun."

"Take that fishing trip you two were planning. I know she'd want you to go. Maybe once you get up there, away from the house and all her things, you'll be able to think things out and let her go."

"I don't think I'll ever be able to let her go."

"Now Dave, I'm Julie's sister, remember? She and I weren't all that different and I know how she thought. She wouldn't want you to forget her, but she would want you to go on living. You can keep her in your heart, but you need to think about you, too."

So, he'd made the reservation and arranged for a two-week vacation from work.

The week had been enjoyable, but lonely in spite of the other three men sharing the one cabin on the lake. He'd joked with them over a beer or two after dinner, and enjoyed Donny's company on the lake, but at night, sitting outside by himself and listening to the loons, there was still a feeling of being without a part of himself.

It would be good to get back home, he thought, back to their home and all the things he and Julie had enjoyed together. In the months she'd been gone, Margie had tried to get him to clean the house of those things, but he couldn't bring himself to do that, not yet. Yes, she had been right that the constant reminders were eating away at him, but he didn't care.

The plane appeared over the horizon of dark green pines and eased down onto the water. As Dave waited with Donnie and the other three men for the plane to reach the dock, there was a cry from behind the cabin. They all rushed toward the sound.

Samuel, the caretaker who lived at the cabin during the fishing season sat on the ground clutching his leg. An axe lay on the ground beside him, and blood oozed from between his fingers. One of the group, a doctor from Minneapolis named George, ran up and carefully pulled Samuel's hand away. A small geyser of bright red erupted from Samuel's pant leg.

"Somebody get me some towels. He's cut an artery. Go tell the pilot we have to get him to a hospital fast."

In a matter of minutes, George had wrapped Samuel's leg with the towels. Two of the group carried the man to the plane and sat him in one of the rear seats. George climbed in beside him with an armload of clean towels.

"We have to take off now. If I can keep him from bleeding too much, he'll make it, but we have to hurry."

The tall, slender pilot pulled off his ballcap and shook his head.

"Somebody's gonna have to stay behind then. I'll never make it off the lake with another man on board."

Dave watched the plane taxi out to the center of the lake, turn into the wind and slowly pull itself into the air. The pilot had brought the news that Donny's mother was ill, so Dave had stayed behind so Donnie could go. Three hours, the pilot had promised. Dave uncased his light casting rod and spent the time catching small northerns from the end of the dock.

Five hours later, just as the waning sun began to stretch the shadows of the tall pines on the ground, he heard the plane returning. He quickly packed up everything. In fifteen minutes the plane was back in the air.

Twenty minutes from the camp, the pilot swore.

"Dammit, I fixed that last week."

"What?"

"Oh, I got no oil pressure on the gauge. Engine seems fine, so it's probably just the wire came off the sending unit again, but I better go down and check it."

"You mean land?"

The pilot laughed.

"Unless you wanna fly this thing while I hang off the wing and have a look. Don't worry. I'll set her down on that long lake off to the left there, check it out, and then we'll be on our way."

He spoke into the microphone on his headset.

"Red Lake, this is Chuck."

The radio hissed for a second and then Dave heard, "Red Lake, whatcha got Chuck?

"I gotta set this thing down and check that gauge again. Gonna be on Trout Lake, but not for very long. If everything's OK, we'll be there in another hour or so."

He turned to Dave.

"Shouldn't take me long. There's a little beach on Trout where I can pull 'er up and take off the cowling. It's an easy fix, and -- what the hell...

The engine had sputtered.

Dave hadn't really been worried up until that point. A chill ran down his back when Chuck said, "we're losing airspeed. We'll never make Trout. I'll have to use Shabumeni instead. Hold on to your ass, man, cause this is probably not gonna be pretty."

Chuck banked slowly to the right and then keyed his headset again.

"Red Lake, this is Chuck."

After listening to the hiss for a few seconds, Chuck tried again.

"Red Lake, this is Chuck. Answer, dammit."

He turned to Dave.

"Bobby's probably taking a leak. I'll call him after we land and tell him where we are. That's Shabumeni right up there. I'm headed for that big bay on the left.'

The massive pine, older than Chuck and Dave put together had pulled at the rock with its clawing roots for longer than the rock could stand and the roots had finally been ripped from their grip by the weight of the snow load five years before. The trunk had rotted away from the stump, and when the ice went out that spring, it carried the waterlogged trunk with it.

Had it been an hour earlier, had the shadows of the pines not made the water almost black, Chuck would have seen the tree floating just below the surface. Dave didn't see it at all. He only heard Chuck yell, "Holy shit", as he pulled back on the yoke trying to get the Cessna into the air again. The seat belt held Dave upright when the float caught the tree trunk and spun the plane sideways. It didn't do anything to keep his head in position. It hit the side of the plane and everything went black.

Dave woke up when he breathed in cold water. He coughed it out of his lungs and then looked to see what had happened. To his left, Chuck was already underwater. Dave released his seat belt and then managed to release Chuck's. He pulled the man above the surface and felt for a pulse. There was none. Still holding Chuck's shirt to keep him above the surface, Dave opened the cabin door and pushed until it banged against the side of the plane. By climbing up on the side of his seat he was able move high enough to sit on the side of the plane.

He knew it took too long to bring Chuck out of the plane and onto the wing. Though he tried the artificial respiration and heart massage he'd learned in a first aid class years ago, by the time he was exhausted there was still no response from Chuck. It was only then he looked to see where they were.

The plane was only about twenty feet from the shoreline, and had evidently sunk as far as it would. One of the pontoons had sheared off when it hit the submerged tree and was floating nearby along with the wing that had been sheared off by the impact with the water. Dave swam out to pull the pontoon alongside the plane. Now he needed to keep it there.

He remembered that on the flight to the lake, one of the men had asked Chuck what would happen if the plane crashed. Chuck had just laughed and said he'd never crashed yet, but there was some survival gear in the tail compartment. Dave cautiously made his way down the side of the plane, and when it began to teeter, slipped into the water again.

The compartment didn't hold much, but then, he supposed Chuck wouldn't have needed more than the hatchet, coil of rope and tarpaulin he found there. After sticking the hatchet through his belt, Dave swam back to the pontoon and tied it to the side of the plane with one end of the rope. With the other end, he tied Chuck's body to the pontoon.

He was half way to the shore when his feet touched bottom, and Dave made quick work of getting the pontoon and Chuck beached. After laying the body on the ground, Dave went back to the pontoon. He was wet and cold, but he knew he'd never survive the night without shelter and warmth. On his second trip to the plane, he retrieved his clothes, rod and reel, and tackle box, piled it all on top of the pontoon, and pulled it to shore.

Another swim brought the wing to shore too. After that, he searched through Chuck's pockets for anything that might be of use. The small pocket knife would be a backup to his own, and the cigarette lighter would let him start a fire. He found Chuck's wallet, but stuffed it back into the man's breast pocket so he could be positively identified once Dave was rescued.

Though he was shuddering from the cold water and the chill of the dusk breeze, Dave managed to cut some dead pine branches with the hatchet, and after several tries had a fire going. He warmed himself up as much as he could, changed his wet clothes for dry ones, and then cut more branches. In half an hour, he had a framework over which he draped the tarpaulin.

Dave didn't manage to sleep much that night. He kept wondering why he hadn't died along with Chuck. The next morning he rigged his rod and reel, and in a few minutes had a smallmouth bass and a northern ready to clean. He reflected it was a good thing he liked fish, because it looked like that was all he'd have to eat until they found him.

That morning, he laid Chuck beside a large pine, and using a birch sapling he chopped flat on one side, dug until he hit rock. It wasn't very deep, but it was deep enough to cover the body. A rocky outcrop near the shore had been broken by the winter ice and yielded enough large rocks to weight the wing down over the shallow grave. After he finished, there was nothing to do but wait for the searching aircraft he was certain would come. Dave kept his fire burning so the smoke would lead them to him.

He waited two more days before the first doubt of rescue crept into his mind. On the third day he began to worry. By the time a week had gone by, Dave was certain help would never come, and started to think about the future.

He knew winter came to Canada early and stayed late. It was only mid-September, and already the nights were chilly. The light jacket that had been part of the outfitter's list of required items kept him warm, but Dave knew in another month or so he'd have to have heavier clothing and better shelter or he'd freeze to death. Food would be a problem too, because the lake would freeze over. For a few weeks, he could chop a hole through the ice and fish that way, but the lodge owner had said most years the ice on the lakes was three feet thick by Christmas.

As the weather continued to cool, Dave began adding clothing from his bag in an attempt to stay warm. Soon he was wearing all three sets of pants he'd brought and all four shirts.

By what Dave calculated to be the first of October, his day activities were becoming limited by the increasingly cold temperatures. It was freezing cold at night, and fishing was becoming harder. The colder water temperature had caused the northerns and bass that normally hit his spoon quickly to become sluggish. Where two weeks before, Dave had only to make a few casts before reeling in a fish for breakfast and another for lunch and dinner, he had to spend almost half an hour to get even one.

That half-hour chilled him to the bone, and he'd spend the next half-hour warming up by his fire. He'd clean the fish by the fire, cook his breakfast, and then take the hatchet and go gather more firewood. That task took longer as well. The colder the temperature was, the more wood Dave had to burn and that meant he had to chop and carry more. He'd burned all the dead wood close to the shore, so now, he had to walk into the forest to find more.

The exertion of chopping and then carrying wood back to camp kept him warm in his light jacket, but Dave knew that was a dangerous warmth. His body was burning calories to generate that heat, calories he should be replacing by eating more, except he was eating less because the fish were harder to catch. To compensate, Dave took down his tarpaulin shelter and used it to wrap himself up at night as he slept beside his fire. The stiff material wasn't a very good insulator, so he was still cold, but between the tarpaulin and the fire, he didn't freeze to death.

A week later, it was too cold at night to sleep wrapped up in the tarpaulin, so Dave again used it to make a small tent only a foot away from his fire. The heat from the fire was reflected a little by the tarp and it did seem warmer inside his little tent. Sitting inside, Dave could stay reasonably warm during the day. The nights were becoming unbearable though. When Dave laid down to sleep, the frigid ground seemed to suck the heat from his body and he'd wake up with his teeth chattering. He'd add more wood to his fire and warm up, then try to sleep again.

It was two weeks later the lake froze over. The ice on the lake covered the water so he couldn't cast but wasn't thick enough to hold his weight. For the next three days, Dave went hungry. On the fourth, because he was so hungry he didn't care, Dave ventured out on the frozen surface with his hatchet. He could feel the ice moving under his feet, but it didn't break. A few feet from the shore, he began gently chipping away at the ice, and after a few minutes, broke through to the water beneath.

The ice was only about three inches thick, but it seemed solid enough, so Dave enlarged the hole until it was about a foot in diameter. Once that was done, he cautiously walked back to his camp and retrieved his fishing rod.

It felt odd to be sitting there jigging his spoon up and down through the hole in the ice, but half an hour later, he hauled a northern of about five pounds up through the hole. Dave didn't take the time to unhook the fish. He just lifted it by sticking one hand through the gills and walked back to his fire. After warming up his hands, Dave dressed the fish and hung it over the fire on a stiff branch. He waited until the meat turned white, and then ate the whole fish.

He went back to his hole in the ice that afternoon, and had to chop out the ice again. This time, he caught two smaller northerns. Every day for the next week was the same. Dave would chop open his hole, jig a spoon or jig in the water until he caught something, and then go back to his fire to warm up while the fish cooked. By the end of the week, he wasn't waiting until the fish cooked all the way through. He just let it warm up and then eat it as fast as he could manage.

Each day, the ice got a little thicker, and each day, it took longer to chop through to the water. In another week, the ice was a foot thick, and Dave couldn't get through it without making several trips back to his fire to warm up again. Two days later, the hole froze over during the time he was getting warm again, so Dave stopped trying.

The first few days, Dave's stomach felt empty, but it wasn't like he was hungry. It was just an empty feeling. He sucked on ice from the lake and the water helped relive that feeling but made him colder on the inside. After a week, the empty feeling was gone too.

When the weather had been warmer, Dave had collected as much wood as he could, but his supply would last only a few days, so he had to keep trying. He'd already cut all the dead trees near his camp, and it was too cold to walk very far from his fire. Dave began cutting the live trees. He could only manage one small tree a day and that required several trips back to his fire to warm up. After two weeks though, he couldn't manage even one small tree a day. The cold and not eating were taking their toll on his body and it was difficult for him to even crawl out of his little tent. It was the day he didn't feel strong enough to get out he realized his ultimate fate was only a matter of time.

It was calming, in a way, to know he was going to die. Right after the crash, he'd been confident someone would search until they found him. Surely after they'd checked Trout Lake and didn't find the plane they'd expand the search to other lakes on their probable flight path. About two days, a week at the most, he figured, and they'd find him. He'd be back in Red Lake and heading home with a great story to tell everyone at work.

After that week, Dave had begun to worry. He remembered Chuck had turned off their flight path to get to Shabumeni, so any search probably wouldn't look there. They'd be looking at the lakes and forest from Trout Lake back to Red Lake. It didn't look as if he was going to be rescued and that meant he'd die there.

He couldn't die, not now. He had a lot of things he wanted to do before that happened. Dave had never been a religious man, but that night in his camp on the shore he promised to himself and any higher power that might exist that if he was rescued, he'd try to put Julie into his past and get on with his life.

Now, death seemed inevitable, and Dave didn't have to worry about being rescued or getting on with life or anything else. In the delirium induced by hunger and the cold, he reasoned if he had to die now, this was a good place to do so. It was a place Julie would have liked. As he lay there inside his small tent and fed his fire, he wondered if Julie was there like she'd said she'd be.