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    Portage from the Past
    Portage from the Past
    Portage from the Past
    Ebook122 pages1 hour

    Portage from the Past

    By John P. Endres

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Take a journey back in time with a camping industry legend. Portage from the Past is part adventure story, part exploration of the importance of nature in our lives, and part reflection on helping young people grow into adults.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateJun 16, 2016
    ISBN9781483572925
    Portage from the Past

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      Book preview

      Portage from the Past - John P. Endres

      Past.

      HERITAGE

      Wilderness can be appreciated only by contrast, and solitude understood only when we have been without it. We cannot separate ourselves from society, comradeship, sharing and love. Unless we can contribute something from wilderness experience, derive some solace of peace to share with others, then the real purpose is defeated.

      —Sigurd F. Olson

      THE FARMER

      There is a rugged beauty in the northern arm of Ontario’s Rainy Lake. As a young man, I had paddled those waters, and as the director of a camp in northern Minnesota, I wanted to find a place, possibly a small island, somewhere in that wilderness expanse. I would build a simple outpost where younger boys could enjoy the delights of Canada without having to endure the toils on the canoe trails of the voyageurs. When I learned one spring that our camp could buy the southern end of Hook Island, located in the western arm of Rainy Lake, I bought the place almost sight unseen. I assured my father that the fishing was excellent and that the island would be a boon to the camp program, especially for the younger boys. It was the discovery of blueberries growing along a ridge of Canadian Shield that clinched the deal.

      My father, Cap, was a farmer at heart. He was a gifted educator and coach, teaching in Tulsa’s high schools for more than forty years. Somehow, I had the feeling that he would have much preferred working the land. The things that grew were a special gift to him. If it wasn’t pecans, then it was black walnuts, and if not walnuts, then the tart persimmons that grew wild around Tulsa. Dad knew where each tree was, and he knew when each would bear its fruit. On Rainy Lake, he knew where to find the lush blueberry patches.

      When Cap was ninety, my wife and I took him back up to Hook Island. It was blueberry season, and as we arrived at the island that morning, Cap’s eye caught sight of blue in the expansive front yard, an area known affectionately as Cap’s Patch. By noon, working alone, Cap had the area picked, an old man joyfully working the land again with his hands.

      Picking berries is a solitary event. Others may be around you, but the focus is on the blue scattered nearby. If you find an especially rich mother lode, other pickers silently respect your discovery and your picking rights. You move through the rocks, over fallen, rotten pines and wintergreen, seeking your own patch.

      Just past noon, we motored across our small bay and began a search for new patches. On landing, Dad soon spied ground cover dotted with blue and was off, berry bucket in hand.

      The morning breeze that is so common on Canadian lakes had left us. The heat of the day bore down, and I looked longingly at the cool lake. I glanced over to where my ninety-year-old berry picker was concentrating on coaxing the ripe berries into his pail. Cocked to one side was his faded Dress Gordon Voyageur’s Tam, a symbol of a canoe expedition he had taken some ten years earlier up the Little Canoe Creek to Strong Lake. He was proud of that tam. It showed that he too had once been a voyageur.

      I called out, Dad, let’s head back to the boat and swing around the point. I think there’s some good pickin’. And, I said to myself, just maybe we’ll find a breeze off the lake on the other side.

      In a minute, he answered. I’ve found a good patch.

      I had found a patch of my own while meandering my way slowly back toward the boat that we had tied loosely to a few alders. It was hot, and the sun’s heat bouncing off the bare Canadian Shield guided me to the shade of some overhanging branches. The boat lay calm on the flat water, and after carefully stowing my bucket in the bow, I called back to Dad, Let’s go!

      There was no answer. I waited, I listened. I heard a faint sound but, after a moment, saw only a small fishing boat rounding a distant point. I sat quietly with only the slight rustle of a nearby quaking aspen disturbing the silence. Motionless, waiting, I could feel a rising sense of fear. I was worried.

      I called again, this time louder. Again, no answering voice.

      Dad’s hearing had been slipping in recent years, but after a third call, this time with basso fortissimo, and still no answer, I was truly concerned.

      I backtracked to where he was last picking and followed his trail, calling as I went. The sweat on my brow was not now entirely from the heat. Somewhere on this Canadian island was my ninety-year-old father with a ninety-year-old heart. My concerns grew.

      My fears increased when I spied a bit of color under a low-hanging branch. Lying among the blueberry bushes and wintergreen, folded awkwardly against the fallen branches of a spruce tree, was the blue, green, and gold of his woolen tam o’ shanter that he wore whenever he went north. I looked up, and I called again. The heavy calm and heat of the day were all that was in the air.

      I picked up the tam and continued in the direction I had been heading. My imagination had already conjured images of the Canadian Mounties searching the island and what they might find. My pace quickened. I moved up a small ridge, across a point of the island and toward the far shore. He had to be up there somewhere. He had to be. There was no other place to go.

      I saw him then. Just as I had begun to imagine my life without him, I saw him sitting in the shade of a stunted white pine that grew miraculously out of a small crack in the Canadian Shield. His shoes and socks were off, and he was dangling his feet in the cool water. Both the tree and he were old, gnarled, worn, but there was a twinkle in his blue eyes.

      I got turned around a bit, he said, but, ah, my bucket is full!

      I was quiet. I asked no questions. He offered no explanations.

      We sat in silence for a while. A Canadian jay lit nearby, eyed us, flew away. Dad said, Let’s take a dip. We stripped and entered the cool water. It was refreshing. I watched him scull on his back, and I saw the years wash away.

      Cap’s life, like his bucket of blueberries, had been filled to overflowing: a world class pole vaulter, a captain in the infantry, a husband for seventy years, father of five, founder of a wilderness camp for young boys, logger of big trees, planter of small trees, teacher, and hall-of-fame coach. It was a life dedicated to passing onto many that which had been given to

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