31 yo Churchill,canoing, polar bear, hunting, Jack Hildes, Northern Medical Unit,

Maureen had made a unilateral decision to continue on in Pediatrics. She felt that I’d betrayed her by leaving surgery. She certainly had no plans for country medicine or going to Africa. With my being away so much she’d consolidated her plans to be a pediatrician and have a practice with his twin sister.  This had been there longer standing dream.  She was a feminist. Her family had been communist. She called herself agnostic and wasn’t even sure she wasn’t an aetheist.  She loved nature.

She was going to be a pediatrician and we were going love in the city. I certainly was rethinking my future. Every doctor I knew was having trouble with the administration in the city. No beds, rationing resources. I was headed north and enrolled in a community medicine fellowship.

We lived to canoe and cross country ski back in those days. My fondest memories of Manitoba are canoeing.  Taking others along with us to camp in the northern wilderness was my joy.  I loved tenting. I loved the campfire. I loved barbecuing steaks over an open fire. I loved boiling potatoes and making bacon and eggs on the Coleman camp stove.  I’d done the Winnipeg River white water canoeing with my friend Jon.  

At graduation we’d decided as a group of doctors to go white water canoeing. There were 4 of us, 2 canoes, ice on the water. I’d save the life of one of the guys when their canoe flipped in the rocks and rapids. He popped out at the bottom and we rushed to him. His mate made shore but he was struggling.I caught him and pulled him in. I got a fire going immediately and we had his clothes off and a towel around him.

“I’ll give you anything for a fire,’ he kept saying between chattering teeth.

We’d had our California friends come up for a week of canoeing. My brother had a cabin in lake of the woods, a classic A frame with a lovely wood veranda.  We began and ended our trek there. I liked portaging out of the main lakes where there were power boats into these secluded quiet lakes where only a loon’s call broke the silence.  We saw bear and raccoon and lots of swans and ducks and geese. Otters and beaver along the side of the lakes. I caught pike from the rocks casting. We skinny dipped. The girls were beyond playboy.  Such beautiful young women. We were all so healthy and athletic and vigorous. It was so much frolicking fun. At night we’d make love in the tent night bird and animals sounds coming from the woods to join our sounds.

A young bear poked it’s nose  into the tent in the middle of the night pushing the mosquito netting before him. I woke to the sound, Maureen sleeping beside me. On one elbow I used all my might to punch him right in the nose.  Bear are sensitive there. He backtracked and was gone in a minute. Maureen stirred at the sound. 

“What was that?” 

“Squirrels’.

We’d been woken by squirrels jumping on the tent before.  She went back to sleep.  I never told her about the bear.

Miles was a writer and editor I’d get together with him for one of our writer’s circles. 

Previously I’d met with these two girls and a fellow who’d go on to be on the Canada Council for literature.  We’ meet every few weeks and each read stories and poetry.  The beautiful talented sisters had set that one up.

Later I’d meet with Miles and a couple of others. We’d have beers while Miles did his laundry, the pub stratigically attached to a laundry, favourite place of the young men.  The rule was the person who had the best rejection slips had his beer bought by the group. Miles got his rejection from New Yorker and we were impressed. I was rejected by Playboy and Reader’s Digest.  When ‘feminist’ Margaret Atwood claimed she had nothing to do about her ‘feminist’ writing appearing in Playboy all the writer’s laughed uproariously. Everyone knew that Playboy paid the most in the industry which was why more starving writers tried to get published in Playboy than any other journal.  Margaret Atwood was an artist but Like Suzuki she always had her eye on the money. 

Some artists like money a whole lot. Others’ not so much. Margaret Atwood has always liked money a whole lot.  Nothing wrong with it. But really, “I was a victim of my agent. He made me publish in Playboy.”  Classic feminist. Whining Gloria Steinem shit.My female doctor friend loathed them, “rich privileged white girls who don’t have enough at the top they need to steel the limelight from the bottom claiming they’re victims too. I hate feminists.”

“Margaret Atwood had started out at a great writer.  We all so admired until  she became a propagandist.  A bit like the city Toronto. Once a lovely place, now as corrupt and urban as New York and LA.” One of the guys in our writer’s circle critiqued.  

Meanwhile we were drinking cheap beer in a pub attached to a laundromat. Dissecting writers and writing was a a great time. Miles was  funniest man alive. Droll. .  He was a friend of Franks.  Frank was the doctor who assisted surgery. He’d be one of several people who’d meet at the dinner parties that Maureen and I had at our place.

We had bought the new house. 

“It’s a good house. The roof and wiring are good. The foundation is solid.” Dad had approved. 

It was a bungalow on Oxford in Riverheights.  We’d love it. I had the hard wood floors installed that I love so much.  Several houses later I’ve always had hard wood floors.  We had a friend Gord who did fine wood work. We loved his wood furniture, clean simple lines. I loved wood. Gord was a master. Like my friend today Nick. I often wished I’d stayed a carpenter. I sometimes dream of having a studio and just making furniture. Nothing could be more joyful.. I love the smell of wood. I love the grains.  I love wood. I’ll bet Jesus wished he’d stayed a carpenter. 

So Gords’ cabinets and tables adorned our new house. We’d order a piece and wait patiently.  The table was a masterpiece. Oak and long and sweet.  Maureen ,thanks to our California friends mostly ,developed a sophisticated taste for interior design. It became increasingly a problem because I was excluded from her equations.

“It’s a pink house, Bill. She has you in a pink house. You don’t belong in a pink house. She wants to castrate you and hang you on the basement walls.” My friend told me.

My friends talked to me like that.  I felt bull dozed on lots of decisions about the decor of the house. I loved the foundation and roofing and wiring and all the solid stuff but then there’d be these pink walls.

“They’re peach.” She exclaimed.  

“Can you get rid of those pictures.” She demanded. 

The pictures she referred to were a picture of a polar bear and three cubs eating a seal. I’d walked up to it with a regular camera and taken the picture at 10 feet. It was used by the Manitoba government for a travel brochure. Polar bears rarely have three cubs. The mother earlier in the day had chased me when I was out bird watching looking for the famed Ross Gull. Because a biologist had been studying the polar bear with three cubs he saw the Cub take an interest in me and the mother following as I was backing away certain I was dead. Like Evil Keneeval this guy on his motorcycle had charged down the coast leaping boulders and come along side me.

“Get on!” He screamed. I didn’t need to be asked twice. I literally leaped on as the bear broke from a walk to a charge almost catching us on the sand where traction was not so good. . I swear I felt her hot breath on my neck. Later that day I’d find her and her cubs eating the seal. Trusting she was preoccupied with dinner and the kids I got up close and took the greatest wildlife picture of my life. 

The other was a beluga whale.  I got that up close from a dinghy at high speed in the Arctic Ocean. The other was a bull moose I’d chased through the marsh on our trip to Yellowstone Park.  He’d stood 10 feet from me and I’d got the picture. I’d escaped one charge before to get that picture. 

“They don’t belong in the house. You can put them in the basement. I don’t like all the wildness.”

I remember calling my dad up after that. Her tone of voice, superior, judgemental and dismissive got in my craw. I mostly just did as she told me. Best not to argue with her.  My Dad had invited me hunting with him. 

“Adell doesn’t let Ron come hunting since she had the babies. She’s quite the little mother that one.” He’d say. 

He was still duck hunting and wanted me to come along. Mom was glad I’d finally agreed to go because he’d be safer and we’d really have the time of our lives. I also figured if Maureen was going to object to pictures of wildlife I might as well get back to killing. There was no compromise with her. I decided then to draw a line in the sand. Granddad hunted, Dad hunted. Ron had hunted. We were all birdwatchers and loved wildlife. But if pictures of wildlife offended her suddenly I was not giving any more ground. 

I felt that my wife was becoming impossible. Everything was a matter of ‘give an inch and then she’d take a mile.’ There was no compromise. She was just inexorably moving me to the basement.  I was always wrong. She was always right. She would only know set backs but she never changed her mind. I know today that’s classic alcoholic family business but then it was just royally annoying. Impossible to live with.  

I liked that we’d have dinner parties and people would ask about the pictures and I’d get to share ‘my stories’ about the north.  After we bought the house with the money I made working as a general practitioner and flying each week to the north while she was doing a residency I’d like to talk about those northern trips.  I was writing stories for the Medical Post about being a fly in doctor in Northern Manitoba and Northern Ontario. 

“My mother calls you a throw back.  No one wants to hear about polar bears coming into in hospitals or you going down white water rivers with a bunch of stupid doctors.  Grow up. People want to talk about the theatre.  My friends don’t want to hear about what you’re doing . We like to discuss  food and fashion. You’re a bore.  Everything you do is so juvenile.  I don’t want those wild pictures of bear in my sight. It upsets me and it upsets my friends.”

The only one who was ever upset was her mother. 

Dad and I borrowed my brothers Irish setter Tartan. He’d a couple of rug rats who ‘d grow up to be my great nephews. At the time they were in diapers doing that high speed crab routine across the floor to attack the dogs. Tartan loved being a baby body guard but when Dad and I showed up to take him hunting he was in dog heaven.

So we all drove to the marsh with Dad’s truck. He laughed at me because I shot a mallard and Tartan thought the water too cold. So I undressed to my skivvies and swam out to retreive the duck with Tartan swimming beside me and my Dad laughing on the shore hands on his need hardly able to get a breath.  I swam back and Tartan accompanied me. He thought this was a great sport but when it came to him fetching the birds on his own he would always look to me wanting  ‘us’ to do the fetching together.  I’ve fetched birds a couple of times to get the dog going but it’s not my main duty. Fall marshes and rivers are freezing. 

When we had a half dozen ducks each we came home. Tartan who had endless energy was surprisingly mellow. He’d had the day of his life and would love his future breaks from baby sitting duty. He loved the nephews but days off with Dad and me were the best. Rainy the female setter was just as happy to stay home with her hairless puppies.

I brought the ducks in and deposited them on the table my friend Gord had made and I’d bought.  

“Get them out of the house.” She screamed. It was overly dramatic to deposit them on the dining room table. We’d always pluck them outside before bringing them in. I was making a statement. 

“I shot them.” I said. 

“I don’t care if you shot them. They don’t belong in a civilized home.”

“I’m going to pluck them and eat them.” 

“I’m not.” 

So I plucked them in the back yard. I had my friends over for roast duck and I was the ‘hit’ and she was angry, slow simmering angry.  Meanwhile my friends had never had wild duck and being connoseiurs truly loved the experience.  They laughed too when I told them about Tartan, my father laughing and me swimming with Tartan to fetch the duck.  

I’d love making salads, soups and stews  and anything that required chopping in the day. Gord had made us a great kitchen with opening to the dining room. I loved our cabinets .I loved the counter . I loved cooking.  Maureen liked to make the entre. She loved the praise. The girls competed with their dinners.  She had a French recipe book and we’d have sole in white wine and other dishes . I’d do the turkeys and roasts. The wine cabinet came and went. Dinners were ribald affairs with lots of wine and liqueurs and great story tellers. Paul my ex brother in law was a great artist. I had his photographs on the wall. His black and white of the opening of Rocky Horror Picture show would become iconoclastic.  Frank would tell of the politics of the day. His family had escaped Checkoslovakia and he really knew his politics. Things he said thirty years ago have all told true.

“The communists just want control of the world. They’re into power and dominance. They’re a dictatorship really. A gang mentality. They were so angry when the ‘workers unite’ didn’t work. They actually thought all the workers of the world would rise up and want them to lead.  IT was a major disappointment . So now they’re into saving the planet. They’re trying to re tool to be environmentalists and say ‘planet lovers unite’ so they can get control and have all the power and money and be the dictators.  I don’t think they’re going to get people to buy into their save the spotted owl and the planet’s dying spiel but that’s their plan. They’re do anything for power and greed. The left is all about dictatorship but they never tell you that. You learn when you live under rule.“. 

I remember Frank telling us that back in the early 80’s .  The Latvians and White Russians had told me about the left killing hundreds of millions. It was Frank who told me the communists were retooling as environmentalists promoting fear so people would accept dictatorship. 

We sure laughed a lot though. The girls at those parties were always dressed well as we guys put on sports jackets. Genteel affairs.  Discussions of movies and books. Talk of medicine and rotations. 

I’d begun flying to Churchill.  I’d be up there a week or two at a time. The routine I’d eventually mainly be in was to fly Island Air to Island Lake and then from Island Lake take a bush plane to St. Theresa Point and Wasagamach. The bush planes were my taxi. Mostly I’d fly in the Cezna, single prop and sometimes the lovely Twin Otter. My favourite was the Dehavilland Beaver.   I’d eventually fly to a dozen other reserves and locations in the next couple of years. When I stopped flying north full time after one to two years I’d continue to make week long trips every month or two as a consultant.(  Later as a psychiatrist in BC and the Yukon I’d fly consults to Northern BC and the Indian Reserves upthere. Even later when I worked in the Northern Marianas Islands I’d fly consult trips to the little polynesisan islands.)

I delivered twins in Churchill. It was an Inuit lady. I delivered her 11th and 12th baby. We didn’t know about the 12th.  She was smiling through the delivery mostly.  She’d touch me ‘to reassure me’.  After the first baby was born I was acting like it was over but she smiled and wagged her finger at me and sure enough she delivered a second one. Then she smiled contented ly.  But despite the placenta being full out without any missing bits and the oxytocin going full out she was continuing to hemorrhage. She motioned me to come to her side then she took my hand and pushed it down on her belly motioning me to kneed her uterus in slow circular motions.  I was stimulating the uterus to close by expelling blood clots. She smiled after that and glowed when she had her two new babies on her chest. 

One day I was dog with a bone down his gullet. I was doing the veterinary work in the north suturing dogs after fights with wolves and now this bone.  My colleague , the anesthetist and I , decided the sigmoidoscope was the answer. We sigmoidoscoped the dog under anesthetic.  I operated the scope and my friend passed the gas. I never saw a bone but we must have dislodged it. The dog recovered but the hospital administrator didn’t.

He went  ballistic.

“You can’t used a human sigmoidoscope on a dog.” 

“Do you know what the sigmoidoscope is? “ My anesthetist colleague asked.  “It’s for the asshole. if anyone should complain it’s the dog!”

We d autoclave it so was good as new ffor human asshole.

I was dealing with major medical and surgical issues and administration was always up to it’s old tricks looking for irrelevancies and turning them into major issues. They always wanted to be the Center of attention and wanted to move the patients doctors and nurses right out to make the hospitals a perfect place for the cleaning staff  and themselves. They liked the x ray machine dusted and thought that was more important than the cardio pulmonary resuscitations we were doing a lot of . Diabetes was a big deal in this populations. I was being flown out to little reserves and once over to the Inuit on the islands in the bay of Churchill.

I’d write a lot about this in the Medical Post and other journals. I’d have time free in the evening and enjoy writing about the experiences.  It was a great time.  I’d come back home to Maureen and her mother and all the problems in her family, the older brother’s drunken divorce, the depressed communist intellectual brother in the mother’s basement not getting a job, her concerns about academics.  IT was okay but the north was exciting and home was not so. I had a lot of academic work in the city too formal community medicine courses and lots of reading. Maureen was doing the same. We weren’t going to the library but studying in the homestretch Gord’s table or in the second room we’d made into a library. 

I’d eventually build a small consultation therapy room in the basement and see patients there. Maureen was always worried about money. She didn’t do anything herself but complain and I worked three jobs making us rich by others standards.

I’d be attacked by dock workers in Churchill  and almost be killed .  6 of them. A little East Indian Internist who came up to the waist  of one would try to stop him kicking me.  Because I had martial arts experience and being a gymnast I actually ‘kipped’ to my feet and was upright ready to fight. The drunken thugs attacked the doctors and nurses in the north.They broke up the bars and lounges. But the judge would do nothing. He fined these guys who 6 on one tried to kill me.  

The nurses had taken me for a drink to thank me for all the good medicine I’d been doing, They really appreciated competence and I certainly was getting a reputation for that. The dockworkers told the judge ‘this guy had all these babes to himself and we figured if we got rid of him we’d get all the girls. ‘. The biggest guy  rabbit punched me. He’d sat down at the next table with his mates and were insulting the nurses so we just got up to go. No one had even spoken with them. I was standing to go and his well planned rabbit punch caught me completely unaware, lifting me, flying, like in cowboy movie, over the length of the 6 foot table, land ing on my back on the bar room floor. Then the six cowards swarmed me,  surrounding me, putting the boots to me. That’s when I saw the Lilliputian Indian internist jump on the back of the big guy to be swatted away like a fly. They were trying to kick me in the head but I was swivelling and taking the kicks in the kidneys. Probably the source of my later kidney bleeding episode. I’d protected my head but I was on my feet with a kip that shocked them especially as I came up with my fist dduking it out.  Seeing that little East Indian internist on the shoulders of this big bruiser was worth the flight through air. 

The police were outside and rushed in When I tried to hold one guy the police pulled me off, ‘we’re trying to help. If you touched him he could charge you with assault. Here these guys had tried to kill me or at least leave me a fork with a head injury and my touching one guy could get me charged with assault. Everyone in the town apologised to me but the judge seemed in league with the criminals.

My back sure hurt from kicks but I was glad I’d saved my head.  6 on 1 , these sociopaths had done this before and would do it again.  In another world I’d hoped I’d have hunted them down one one one and beat the shit out of them in the dark alone not letting them know who I was and giving them no warning.  I like karma and have volunteered for service in the great chain of karma in my time. 

This time I left it with the judge who took their excuse that they needed to let off steam saying they went out to ‘fuck or fight’ and only made them pay for my broken glasses., they’d ground under their boots. He also said doctors and nurses shouldn’t leave the hospital . 

 Most of the judges I’d work with would have some smarts but in the north it was evident they themselves were terrified. The RCMP were few and far between and frankly I just figured the judge was a coward who gave into the bullies to protect himself. Also he was jealous of doctors and nurses , the hospital being absolutely necessary while he was a pretty much an  accessory. Churchill was a Wild West town. The law happened then and there .Judges were always talking about distant yesterdays .  The dead piled up regardless of them.  Their presence was only a reminder there was this other world outside the community.  The natives and everyone else would pay back the dock workers.  That’s the way it worked. I knew you didn’t attack doctors 6 on 1 and hit nurses and get away with it. Inuit don’t like that. Cree don’t like that. I’d be surprised if the ring leader lived to finish that year. And maybe the judge knew that too. 

Judges are canny guys so while I was pissed at only having my glasses paid for and getting assaulted with no compensation, Churchill was a pretty great town with lots of great people and it grew so the law was doing a good job or that would n’t be true. The thing about the judges is that they had a more birds eye view of what was happening and generally did a good job with the extra insight. I was really for the RCMP especially in the north where they were the greatest allies. We knew the law was an ass but everyone worked together to maintain civilization in the wilderness.  I’d lived.  Maureen was angry and it would continue to be hard for the Northern Medical Unit to recruit people to the north because doctors and nurses other than me had suffered from the low life. 

It was dangerous back but decades later a young female doctor would go north and write about her experiences, it sure sounded a lot tamer and suburban, She didn’t get the RCMP riding the moose down the street having tried to cut its throat only to have it stand up with him then shooting himself in the thigh itch his revolver before shooting the moose really dead. Civilization just keeps spreading.

Indeed they’d not been able to recruit a Canadian doctor to the north despite 2 years of advertisements and major incentives.  Churchill befcause it was a hospital centre could get locums but not the nursing stations. Finally Jack got an Irish doctor and an English doctor to join me.  

We’d all do northern wilderness training making Igloos and Quincies and being stalked by polar bears. Thanks to my Irish colleague I’d drink a bottle of Bushmills Irish Whisky in an Igloo we’d made ourselves,with him and others singing Irish revolutionary songs in the arctic.  He’d go onto marry a beautiful Native princess.  I smile as I remember this time and those days. We were so young and it was so crazy.

I’d be in a couple of plane crashes too. The DC 3 flipped on its side landing crushing it’s wing.  I’d hang from my seat belt sideways in the plane till the ordeal ended. .

I’d be stalked and chased by polar bear more than once. Our skidoo would go through the ice on a mercy run. I’d write these stories up and see them published time and again. They really helped Jacks recruiting efforts. He asked me to make an album of pictures they’d use for recruitment. I’d do interviews like the television one I did for recruiting doctors to the country for CBC. 

The joke was that me walking along with stethescope and whit lab coat became favoured CBC stock footage so I’d hear from my parents who always watched the news that I’d been shown time and again where the doctor story was positive or negative. The trouble with being photogenic with an acting background. 

I’d have Indians try to kill me several times. “Kill the whitey. Kill the whitey” That’s a cry that sends chills through me especially if they’re shooting guns at me or chasing me with knives.   Running through reserves with drunken mobs chasing the doctor and the sober Indians trying to rescue me.  Drunks love their entertainment. 

Maureen didn’t like any of that.  We were growing more and more apart.

I had also arranged with Dr. Hildes that my years up north would be coupled with a Community Medicine Residency with Dr. French. So I’d be studying and taking classes when I wasn’t flying up north. I’d complete two years of Community Medicine as it was.  Thanks to that I studied all the Canadian health care acts and all the laws and all the statistics and did epidemiology, public health and social policy. Id’ complete a year of anthropology of aboriginal North America too.

 In Churchill I did two clinics and saw a hundred patietns a week. There were three of us doctors there. On the reserves though Jack wanted me to be solely a consultant. He said I must never see a patient without a nurse present because my role was to teach the nurses not do their work. HE was adamant about that because they’d be there alone without me around when I flew back to the city. Some reserves would only have a doctor once a month for a few days leaving the nurses alone the rest of the time . 

Some of the nurses didn’t like that because they wanted us doctors to do the clinics letting them have more holiday time. I showed them I could see fifty people in a morning and when they accompanied me to a remote reserve I’d see a hundred or more in the hours of daylight the planes could fly in but if they didn’t want to use me as a consultant I just sat studying community medicine texts while they did the well baby stuff. Teaching is always harder and slower. I’m a good enough teacher. Not terribly patient. Maureen was a great teacher, one of the best I’d ever know, We’d been blessed to have the best of teachers. But I only really liked to teach the keen. On my own I got things done efficiently and the way I liked them done.

I ‘d be on 24 hour call 7 days a week to radio phone.  I’d get these calls in the middle of the night and advise on emergencies.  It was all very exciting. The medicine and emergency decisions and calls were all very easy by now. I’d just become very experienced in a very short time. We used to say that a year of country medicine was like 5 years of city medicine. None of my urban colleagues had even done a spinal tap. I’d done literally dozens and dozens.  I’d diagnosed TB and syphilis and all manner of rare things plus the garden variety stuff. I was the only doctors thousands of people saw for years.  It was an immense responsibility but an incredible training experience. The best part was that Jack had such a great relationship with the university that everyone I called for advise took it as an honor to be helping the Northern Medical Unit. We were world reknowned. I was personally well known and well liked. I don’t think Maureen liked that. 

Maureen was always competing with me. I found women doing this and I didn’t compete with women.  It was always a no win game for men. But I didn’t compete so much as compete against myself and increasingly clinically just want to get the job done and save a life. I was way out of the academic political scene and she was in it big time, Her family were that way and my family wasn’t. At the university hospital everyone was still comparing and competing. 

I had this high status simply because I was working with Jack HIldes and the Northern Medical Unit. I was publishing my stories across the country and was known. Maureen was being a good pediatrican and academic. I was on tv and in the public eye and she was doing what she said she wanted to do work in the hospital. I was a shining light. She was a star.  I was never ‘jealous’ of her but she would make these weird comparisons. She’d always knock what I was doing. I never put her work down. I always celebrated her achievements but she was always negating anything I did.  Constant back stabbing belittling and comparison. It was painful.  Always low key and always insinuating. 

 She was never interested in sex anymore. Claimed she was always tired. But never too tired for listening to her mothers ad infinity calls. She was always so depressed after that. The woman could have sucked the soul out of Mary. Maureen was depressed a lot with her father drinking heavily and her parents physically fighting and her mother always emotionally extorting Maureen,

I’d be between her legs for years before she’d let me mount and then she’d get upset she was ‘messy’.  Sperm was ‘messy’. And she’d not talk about having children. She even suggested adopting but ‘why adopt’.  “I’d like us to have kids”.  Her sister and her husband were Christians and family was more important. She was into feminism and always angry. Before her mother and Pediatrics she’d been this wonderfully happy wild person who loved sex. Now it was work except when we’d get away from her mother spend some time holidaying together then the marriage would come back, the chronically demanding depressed angry mother wouldn’t be there and we have love and sex and laughter. I so envied her sister and her husband getting away from the drunken angry home with all the drama. 

I loved the north. I loved being ‘necessary’. I loved ‘service’. I loved the adventure.  I’d go through the ice on a ski doo and walked 10 miles wet and frozen with polar bear stalking us and my ski doo driver saying. 

“I don’t like the look of that brute but don’t run or they’ll be on us.” 

“I cant’ run. My clothes are frozen from the water.”  He laughed at that. 

We laughed and sure were glad to get the village when the polar bears veered off and left us. I saved the life of a child there. An old man had had a stroke and I could take care of him too. It was so fulfilling to know that feeling of being ‘necessary’.  In the north it wasn’t about being the very best doctor, I was good, but it was about being there. They just needed people who cared about them. No one did. It was terrifying at time.  The drunken Indian chasing me about the emergency with an axe.  These aren’t the things that make people want to be a northern doctor. But we all cared. There was this amazing young woman doctor  who was brilliant and she just loved the ‘medicine’. “Where else can I see al the stages of tuberculosis.  I can’t work in the south. It’s too boring. Here I’m seeing everything. Here I’m right in the centre of medicine. “ She was the old 19th century doctor who loved to diagnose and treat and she was amazing. I loved working with her. After Churchill she went even further north to work with the Inuit. 

It was great times. I was early days. Lots of people would follow.  Jack Hildes opened the door. Now there’s lots going north but it was 2 years before they could get me and they had to take an Irish and an English doctor before years later they’d get more Canadians willing to go north.  

I loved it. I’d always jump to serve ‘where the greatest need was’. There’s so much fulfillment and the other people working there are there because like you they’re a bit ‘touched’.

16 years old: Dad, Camp Stevens, poetry, guitar. 12 inches

16 years old was a very big year.  The line between 15 and 16 years old blurs because Camp Stevens fell between Gr. 8 and 9 or Gr. 9 and 10.  These times blur.  Somewhere later in storage I might find the reminders that would tighten the date line up.  I kept a journal all these years.  The trouble was that with one of my divorces the ex destroyed years of writing and disrupted my whole organizational system. She was high on spite and cocaine and at the time didn’t consider husbands as higher than slugs. I was escaping with my life from years of chaos, passive aggressiveness, covert aggression, drugs, negligence and arrogance.  I’d met my match and I was lucky to get out alive. My friends believed she really was trying to kill me and more than once had almost killed us and others with her.  Crazy lady.  I married her and I loved her for what it was better or worse. But I wasn’t going to an early death with her and her drugs and lies.  I surrendered. It got too crazy even for me. And I’d been arrogant to think I could help her and that love conquered all. Well it didn’t.    

  I began writing this in part because I’m planning on tackling the storage locker and going through these old journals and some of the files I’ve kept for years.  Starting at 12 I’d produce a couple of binders of hand written journals or poetry and even some scrapbooks.  It’s sad so much was destroyed. Like ISIS wiping out the temples of the Zoroastrian, Christians, and Jews.  My personal shrines destroyed. There will be no other religion but one.  A divorce is like a war. There’s a lot of scorched earth.  Both people come away scarred but little do we remember the wounds we inflicted. But boy or boy do we dwell on the wounds we received.  I’m still working on forgiveness.

My first big work  began with Camp Stevens.  I took a paying job there for 6 weeks or more.  It’s a camp job. For people who have never worked in ‘camps’ in the north they usually don’t have a clue as to what this is.  I’d get my first experience and later admire the men and women who went off to the out of the way places, mostly in the north and work while the sun shined where the work was.

I’d been working for my Dad now for a couple of years. Before that I cut lawns. Tried a paper route one yard. Always worked in addition to school and everything else. Dadhelped me get my millwright helper ticket. I’d begin to work on job sites with him. That’s when I really appreciated how others saw him.  He was really smart and a hard worker and problem solver. My brother was annoyed that he didn’t wear a suit. He always wore work clothes and got his hands dirty.  My brother felt that he didn’t show his status and consequently wasn’t respected as much as he should have been. He was high status but did portray this. He didn’t even have his engineering diploma displayed on the wall.  That was my dad, a humble man. A shirt and tie didn’t make the man for me.  What I saw working with Dad was that all the men followed his direction and sought his advice.  He was given the authority over hundreds of men and managed it. That’s no small feat. Business owners and employees all admired him.  I didn’t know that till I worked on big job sites with him. The men all spoke highly of him too.  Sure took the wind out of this adolescents sails, considering I by contrast was a ‘know it all’ as teens can be. 

I’d only work on weekends or in the summer or evenings like this. Dad would get these industrial painting contracts or roofing contracts and we’d work as a family evenings in the spring summer and fall getting the work done. My brother was a worker too. I was spoiled as a kid working with these great men. It was rare for me the rest of my life to be surrounded by people set on working their best with a view to completing the task its best as quickly as excellence permitted.  Being an owner operator Dad took pride in his work knowing that would bring in contracts word of mouth.  As his sons he’d trained us since childhood to meet challenges and to be conscientious.  We had fun too.  Working as a family doing physical construction type work is rewarding.  Later he’d leave me to do jobs like painting the apartment building. If I needed money he’d find work for me.  I think people and governments that give out money for free are doing a disservice to people and really don’t respect them. I’m personally not as wise or accomplished as my brother or father with money. I give out charity but I think often it’s from a place of fear.  Dad loved me and showed his love by finding me work that paid. My brother carried that on with his children.  

Camp Stevens was my first actual ‘longer term job’.   6 weeks away from home working and living in the camp.  As a “cookie” , the job title for camp kitchen help,we were in a nebulous position in the camp. We bunked with the camp leaders but we were actual employees.  

The camp cook was a crazy lady.  An emotional angry efficient Nazi of a leader. She was loveable too in that blustery middle aged lost way some women are.  She took no ‘guff’.  She was a worker and she got the job done. We were her slaves and we did as we were told. There were three of us ‘cookies’ , an assistant cook and a cook That was the kitchen. We were up at 5. We had to get the breakfast made for 150 kids.  The cook had an elaborate healthy menu with scrambled eggs, pan cakes and hash browns, bacon and toast and jam for breakfast.  Sandwiches and salads or soups for lunch. Then dinners were a variety of roasts and stews and soups.  She really had a good taste sense and made great meals which the kids and staff enjoyed. There were recipes that had developed over the many years of the camp. I thought they were hers but no they were just one thing more the YMCA ensured worked well with excellence.  The YMCA was and is an amazing organization of excellence and yet modest cost. Camp Stevens was and remains one of the great camps for boys.  I don’t know if girls are going there now.  YWCA at the time had another camp on the other side of the same lake.  I found this out because the leaders had a panty raid with a retaliation by the girl leaders stealing the guys underwear another night.

Because we bunked with the leaders who were mostly there for fun and a small honarium we had a lot of the experience of the camp albeit as the ‘hired help’.

The one other woman in the camp was the gorgeous nurse.  I believe that nurse at Camp Stevens caused me forever to love nurses. She was the source of all the erotic fantasies of all the boys of Camp Stevens for years to come.  I was especially traumatized by her godliness because as camp help we got to share her shower on occasion. She had the only hot shower.  “Her’ shower smelt heavenly, lilac and other sweet feminine fragrances.  Each of us talked about being in there after our shower.  Guys masturbated in the bunks trying to be discrete.  Some less so than others.  There wasn’t any porn so memory sufficed. The nurse really was gorgeous. We’d imagine her naked there washing off with any of the vast collection of shampoos and lotions she kept.  She dated a couple of the older leaders that summer. She wore white short shorts and mini skirts. 

Once  we made the breakfast we had to do the clean up. I found out I loved working a dish washing machine. I liked spraying off the left over food stacking and then getting that soul gratification of closing the door locking the mechanism and pushing the button to begin the cycle. Then it was the unstacking and storing. I competed against myself and got incredibly fast. It was a ‘skill’ and I liked acquiring ‘skills’ and having ‘competence’ with them. This was an important part of the ethics of Boy Scouts , the YMCA and frankly ‘manliness’ of the day.   Competence was such an important word.  It was the height of praise to be called ‘competent’.  I would become ‘competent’ in a lot of things over my life arriving at that point where I could accomplish a task well, reliably and on my own.  I really miss ‘competence’ when I see it lacking.  It’s not perfection but a level of ‘good enough’, a kind of B or A standard, not A plus but certainly more than C. It was the basis of professionalism in earlier days.  

The afternoon was peeling potatoes.  We had potatoes for breakfast and evening many days a week so had to peel hundreds of potatoes, hundreds. We’d shuck pees too and peel carrots. Hours of this.  One of the cookies wasn’t  very good. A funny guy. Not fast and not very competent.  Still two hands is better than one.  The other cookie who’d been there the year before was great. We’d become friends too. We all hung out together but this other guy and I had more in common. We both had hunting and fishing back grounds whereas the whining kid was purely city spawn.  He was all tv , hollywood and talk.  Not very competent.

Jon Cowtan was the assistant camp cook. Jon would become my lasting friend and sometime mentor.  He was president of the North American Unitarian Youth Groups at the time.  A year or two later I’d storm out of my parents home and move in with him. He played guitar. We became fast friends at Camp Stevens talking ethics and philosophy and religion.  We both canoed evenings when we had a little free time.  We’d be canoeing on the moon lit lake just enjoying the call the loon or the hoot of the owl. Often I’d paddle at the back and Jon would bring his guitar and play. He was into jazz and fingering styles ahead of his time.  He’d sing too at other times  but playing guitar was his passion.

He taught me my early chords. The first song I learned was “Draft Dodger Rag”We’d talk politics and war. I can’t explain how much we all feared that the Vietnam War would expand into a global conflict. As guys we discussed volunteering to ‘fight commies’.  We worried we’d be conscripted if the Russians got in. We met draft dodgers.  They talked a lot. They were usually stoned.  The soldiers didn’t talk. They often had the thousand mile stare.

It was good to talk with Jon. He was a little older and a whole lot wiser.  He’d traveled more too. Met more people. The unitarians were an intellectual lot and had a breadth of consideration.  We didn’t argue.  I didn’t argue religion.  I was curious and interested and learned a lot in my teens and twenties. The only time I’d argue with someone was when I saw they weren’t sure so were trying to get certainty by selling their idea to me.  I thought the best ideas were free so that complicated things. Freedom was a big word then. 

‘What’s that I hear....that’s the sound of freedom coming’ was another song I learned from Jon.  The best one though was “Elusive Butterfly”. Jon played that song beautifully and I’d spend years trying to play it right.

To put this playing guitar and skill thing in perspective. My friend Kirk who played guitar a bit like me told me in his 30’s, ‘you know that rift Danny used to play.’  I finally figured it out and got it down last weekend. I knew because I’d been practicing that same ‘distinctive Donahue rift’ for a decade or more myself and it had taken me just as long to get it. 

Some guys were really talented, natural and obsessed with an instrument. Jon and Danny were like that. Regular George Harrison and Paul Simon types. 

So that was the summer I was peeling potatoes and learning guitar, making friends.

The cook had a nervous breakdown and maybe alcohol was a contributor. I can’t say. Just one day she was shouting then the next she was packing her bags. Jon became the cook then and I became the asssitant cook until we got a replacement.

The camp ran in two week stretches .150 boys at a time. We’d get a day off between the groups leaving and coming. That was the big day in Kenora. Kenora was one of those big towns for folk out on a camp. When you’re weeks in the woods whatever town that’s nearby takes on aspects of a city. It’s got that ‘feel’. It also takes time eventually to adjust back into the noise and rush of bigger cities.  Working years up north I remember first having this experience in Kenora.  

Camp Stevens was a great summer job even if the money was very poor. The experience and friendship were incredible. Just meeting Jon was worth the trip.  Beginning to play guitars and more poetry writing.  Politics, romance, religion and God.  Lots of Christian men and Christian creations but no one talked of Jesus.  We lived like the disciples in many ways and our discussions were becoming more and more high minded despite the occasional lapse into full blown adolescence.

That came when one of the guys said he had the longest dick and bet everyone he did.  These memories are too bizarre to make up. Everyone has $5 dollars riding on the outcome and we’re sitting around the hall on chairs with our backs to the wall. 20 guys all waiting, money in hand, backs to the wall. One guy has a tape measure. This guy then pulled out his pencil thin boa constrictor.It was long, not huge, but really long. More than 12 inches.  It was measured. Not even hard.  No one wanted that thing hard.  No one brought out a competitor.  He collected the the money. We had a feeling he’d collected winnings with that thing before. We had to share a bunkhouse with him so that was a source of jokes too.  It didn’t win him friends. It was a circus thing. He was a bit of a freak now. Already a peculiar kid so he was more a loner.  In time we all forgot he was different.  Differences lapsed for boys really quick when we’re working and playing sports together.  That week we all lost money we thought about this guy as weird but after that he just became another weird kid. Like the guy who could go cross eyed or rather went cross eyed and had to consciously keep his eyes uncrossed. Nobody was ever as weird as the Cub Scout who put ketchup on his corn flakes years earlier.

Hay Bay Home

My brother, Ron and Sister in Law, Adell have bought a second home near Nappanee on Hay Bay. I confess, I love that family are living on a place called Hay Bay.  Driving through the Ontario country side with fall colours of red and orange and yellow we see a sign Hay Bay Women’s Society.  I don’t think it’s narcissism to appreciate the location by name but a sense of deep belonging. Next year I’m hoping to get back to Scotland to the Aberdeen area from whence grandad came, where a Hay is apparently a dime a dozen.  One of my brother’s realtors was a Hay too.  Makes it feel all sort of right in an odd way.
Last time I was here I was attending my nephew Andrew and his bride Tanya’s wedding at the Canada Club wearing the blue Hay Hunting kilt.
When I flew into Ottawa to attend the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine Conference my brother met me and Gilbert my cockapoo at the Ottawa Airport.  Great to be with family. Nephew Allan , just completed undergrad psychology waiting to begin masters program.  Over delicious Italian at Poccopazzo family owned restaurant I got to catch up on the latest doings of chemical engineer movie making nephew Graeme and geologist nephew Andrew and his beautiful  publisher wife Tanya.  Graeme’s horror movie Ragnarock Cabin has opening to coincide with Halloween this year.  Tanya and Andrew were on a pumpkin hunt in preparation for a Halloween party. It all seems so civilized.  I feel like I’ve descended from alien planet out in the wild west when I come home to this happy normalcy.  My brother and sister in law are both retired so we no longer commiserate over the challenges of work with all it’s attendant frustrations.  My stories only serve to remind them of their past.  Ron continues his investing from home while I’ve never seen my high school principal Adell not bustling about with home making.  Her primary student this visit is Eva, Allan’s little brown Chewy the wooky  looking cockapoo.
Having just bought another house, all the talk is about landscaping and decorating. They’d just moved the weekend before.  When my conference finished Adell and Allan picked me up with Gilbert already on board and we drove the two hours from the city to their new rural retreat.  I loved seeing the quaint hobby farms along the river. The red barns of Ontario are so picturesque with the red leaves of autumn sumac. Cattle and horses were interspersed with hay fields and corn. Graeme and Andrew have seen deer in the forest on the way here.  Adell pointed to the white swans in the marsh nearby.
The house isn’t visible from the road.  Nearly 5 acres of waterfront.  Down a short road between spruce and pine is the garage  at the first level. The roof of the large two level home sits next to the parking at the lower level.  We entered through the great veranda on the second floor. “I hope to screen this all in next year, “ Adell said as she showed me the upper rooms, a regular Marriott guest suite where I’d be staying.  Bamboo hardwood floors throughout the upper guest area.  Down the bamboo stairs is the music room. Adell sings soprano with several choirs still.  When I told her about attending Carmen recently she said, “I love singing opera but don’t much like attending it anymore.”  I’ll always remember her as the beautiful young girl solo in the church whose voice touched the heavens.  Ron’s veritable collection of guitars was in the music room.  The great living room had a heated cement floor and large fireplace. Dining room and kitchen were part of the pattern with the glass panel doorway looking out on the huge expanse of front yard opening onto the lake. From there I saw Gilbert and Eva running wide circles about the property at breakneck cockapoo speed.  Everything is large, large walk in pantry, large cupboards.  “There’s no basement ,” said Adell .  Of course that explains the need for the storage spaces.  Ron has a couple of sheds in addition to his garage.  The master suite is beyond the large two person whirlpool tub. It has lots of walk in cupboards and another elegant bathroom. It opens onto a a patio where no doubt the Lord and Lady of the house can take afternoon tea and contemplate their apple tree orchard.
Allan and I bought day fishing licenses at the Napanee Canadian Tire.  With Ron’s kevlar canoe and fishing gear, fishing rods, an Adell packed picnic and Gilbert in a life jacket in the middle of the boat, Allan and I, like countless coer de bois before us, set out on the great fishing adventure.  Ron had taken a break from driving his tractor pulling his rotor tiller through his planned potato garden to push out his wheeled aluminum Fendock.  We pushed off from shore before he figured how to lay down the wood flooring.
Allan paddled in the bow while I j stroked in the stern.  For a guy who at his age was white water canoeing the Winnipeg River, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d paddled.  The technique is never lost but the muscles sure weren’t happy.  Neighbours further along the shore waved and spoke to us as we passed.  They were all out doing yard work, burning leaves in fires,  chatting on lakeside decks.
“How far are we going, Allen?"
“Getting tired already, Uncle,”
“No just wondering,” I lied.
“There’s a marsh a long the shore up ahead, where mom sees the swans,"
At last we stopped paddling and Allan put a Canadian Wiggler on my line.  I began casting. “This was dad’s favourite lure, “ I told him and then went on to tell about Dad taking Ron and  I fishing in Northern Saskatchewan, catching pickerel and cooking the fillets over a driftwood fire on the shore.  We casted either side only once tangling lines and the wind pushed us along the outside of marsh.  Allan told me about his research interests in early child education.  He’d applied for research grants and was waiting to hear.
When the wind picked up and it looked like we’d be blown too far away we paddled back into the lee of the point coming aground in the weeds.
 “My hands are freezing from the water, “ said Allen.
“I put my gloves on an hour ago,” I said.
Gilbert was sleeping in the middle of the boat. I was enjoying the cup of thermos coffee and sandwich Adell had packed.  A flock of Canada Geese rose up from the marsh and flew back to Vancouver British Columbia.  That’s where all the Canada Geese from all over the world congregate for seminars on how to avoid being shot by hunters in the rest of Canada.
We talked some more. Allan changed my lure from the Canadian wiggler to the Red Devil. "I always catch a jack whenever I fish with a red devil,” i told him then cast.  Immediately a large fish caught the hook and tugged. I watched the disturbance on the surface. “I’ve caught one, “ i shouted.  “It’s just a rock,” Allan said.  Gilbert rose to the excitement.
Sure enough I pulled in a large northern pike alongside the canoe shouting at Allan to get the net.  Untangling the net from Gilbert’s feet doing twisting pretzel contortions behind him Allan had the net and put it under the fish. “It’s too big for the net,” he said.  He couldn’t get it under the body but the head and hook got caught in the top of the net.  Gilbert was looking the fish right in it’s glassy eyes threatening to jump overboard then suddenly the hook was free in the net and the fish was lying across the opening.. “Quck grab the gils, “ I said.
“I’m not putting my fingers near those teeth, “ said Allen as Gilbert whined and the fished impatient took a massive flick of it’s whale sized tail to Jonah into the reaches of Hay Bay.
“I wanted to eat that fish. “ I said to Allen, “I never knew you were a catch and release sort of Eastern guy.”
“You didn’t pull it up beside me where I could get the net under it. I should have just used the camera to show it wasn’t all that big.”
“Admit it, you’re too weak to lift such a mighty fish."
With all that excitement and all following casts catching weeds we paddled back to the dock.  Ron had again left his tractor and rotor tilling to stand on his now decked dock with Eva waiting for the return of the Canadian couer de bois.  Eva and Gilbert were ecstatic with the reunion and yet another excuse to run wild circles all over the property.  Exhausted I collapsed in Ron’s great leather chair and watched pink finch and blue jays avail themselves of the feeder outside the main window.  I love looking out on the lake between the wedge of forest.  Every once in a while Ron came by on his mini  orange Scots by John Deere tractor to deposit wood by the door.  Allan collected it and stacked it by the fireplace. I enjoyed the warmth while Adell made a roast beef dinner which we all enjoyed later at the dining table.
That night we drove to Kingston a half hour or so away to watch Judge the movie my friend Dr. George Chalmers emailed a recommendations for.  We both love Robert Downey Jr and Duvall. Their performances in this incredible drama of family and small town America should get Downey at least an Oscar.  It was incredible acting that had me in tears at one point. My brother took care of my elderly father at times and the compassion the movie showed of son caring for dying father was very much like the sensitivity that had been shown in On Golden Pond.
Back home Adell handed me pumpkin pie for a snack,.  After that I collapsed in bed with Gilbert the cockapoo climbing up to lie on a pillow beside my head.  This morning it’s raining.  Adell made us all bacon and eggs.
Next Ron called out that we’re all going for a drive in the country side. Adell and he were discussing earlier that they’d not explored their neighbour hood and wanted to see what’s on the other side of the lake.  By the time I caught up with the plans Ron was in the Suburu with Allan, Gilbert and Eva.  Adell was waiting to lock the door behind me as I slipped on my shoes.  There was a drizzling Vancouver rain till we got to a ferry which took us across to higher land.  There we drove up to Lake on a Mountain where the dogs had a jolly time on leash exploring this ancient mysterious lake.  What they call here a mountain though wouldn’t cut muster in BC.  There was a great view of the waterways and I saw where Lake Ontario became the Reach.
Picton was the town and harbour we landed in.  A quaint little place with old stone houses here and there with the red brick two stories. Pretty little tourist site. We drove on from there to Desronto in the Mohawk territory then on to Napanee, the little town I really liked. It’s 20 minutes from their home but we’d gone all around the backside of Hay Bay to get there from the other side.  We stopped for burgers and fries at Shoeless Joe’s Napanee.  Great food and great service.  Ron and Allan were happy with the sports scores on the telly at each booth.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had such a fine cheese burger with mushrooms remembering times I’d taken Dad for burgers, something he really enjoyed in his last years.  Of course, Cheeseburger in Paradise by Jimmy Buffet will always be a favourite sailor song of mine. Gilbert and Eva shared a charbroil barbecued burger paddy between them and just wanted more.
After a couple of shopping stops, Cartronicpowersports for Honda 3000eu generator and Marks for socks,  we got back home where the dogs ran the length of the yard and back, glad to be free.  Ron’s been playing Four Strong Winds on the guitar with Adell singing.  I’ve just finished an after burger nap in the guest room.  It’s so relaxing in the country.  I love this house and  family. The dogs are simply the best little characters happy as can be with each other and their surroundings.
  

Lillooet Lake Camping

Camping is a bit of heaven on earth at it's best, mixed with hell on earth at it's worst. British Columbia is God's country. Sometimes God of the old testament. And sometimes God of the new testament.

Laura and I'd planned this camping and canoeing weekend weeks ahead but typically only finalized the trip in the last week due to work concerns.

The preparation is half the fun. At night we poured over backwoods maps I'd obtained on countless other trips into the Pemberton region. There are just so many great camping sites in the area, some by river, others by lakes, others near hot springs, others near towns. We discussed all the ones I knew and looked at the internet reviews of those I didn't. Some of my favorites I'd had to hike into in the past but this time we were taking truck and canoe so that limited the choice. Also we'd be leaving on Friday and in the summer months lots of sites are taken by tourists, those retired or those with a week or two of holidays.

We settled on Lillooet Lake, mostly because we'd probably be arriving at night and I already knew the road in. While I'd been coming up to Pemberton for 25 years, backpacking, mountain hiking, cycling and 4x4 ing with all the types of camping that entailed, Laura and I together had camped Lillooet lake 4x already, once in my new HHR car, another time on the Harley and a couple of times in the Ford Ranger.

"Are you booking a campsite," my assistant asked. "We can't. We'll be staying in back woods sites maintained by the natives there."

That made getting away early Friday essential. Grab the bags from the apartment, don't forget Gilbert's toys and food. Pick up the rifle from the gun locker, then onto the storage locker where the canoe and camping gear reside. I had the Yamaha 4 hp motor there as well. Throw everything into the truck and try to get the Tonneau cover closed down. Meanwhile Gilbert naturally want's to be a part of everything.

Everyone else was on the road to Whistler. Most of Vancouver, some of Seattle and Portland and at least a burb or two from San Francisco and Lost Angeles.
Buses of Chinese, Japanese and Europeans were enroute to the Blackhomb Whistler year round outdoor entertainment centre.

I was glad to get past there. Too many young people and much too civilized. Running water and cable television in Whistler. People wash.

We stopped in Pemberton on the highway where there's usually water at the information center. At night the pump wasn't working and the gas station guy was dour. Fortunately in town at the really hip gas station the kid sold me 5 gallon jug of Canadian Springs water for 7 dollars. I got ice and worms too.

It would have been light when we arrived at the campsite except clouds of mosquitoes altered by Chernobyl blocked the sun. They swarmed us the minute we got out of the truck.

"Quick, look under the behind the seats, I'm sure I've got insect repellant!" I told Laura before bugs filled my mouth and nostrils so I couldn't be heard.

"Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" A great glow surrounded the truck and God spoke to me saying "I love you." At that moment I found the Watkins Insect Repellant Lotion. This is the one and only insect repellant that is made of such industrial strength DEET, 280 proof, that it's likely to take years off the end of your life while immediately protecting you from alien vat grown insects with huge protuberances for sucking blood.

Meanwhile Laura had found the "MOSQUITO COIL". Wikipedia says the Mosquito coil is a mosquito repelling incense 'typically made from pyrethrum powder". Eiichiro Ueyama from Japan developed the mosquito coil around the 1890's. (I hope he got the Nobel Prize). Lotioned up with the Mosquito Coils positioned about the camp we began to have hope. At least these Mosquitos weren't Manitoba Mosquitos or we'd have had to tied Gilbert to a tree to keep the mosquitoes from flying off with him.

I had thoughtfully bought a couple of instant logs when we'd stopped in Squamish to stock up on groceries. I quickly lit this up then put some green branches over top of it to get a smudge happening. The natives are really into smudging and I'd say it's related to mosquitoes. In the days before Watkins Products and Mosquito Coils the natives here about smeared their bodies with mud to keep the bugs off.

Together Laura and I got the canoe off the roof of the truck, setting it down by the lake. Nothing like a canoe to spice up the outdoor decor. When Laura and I had the tent up it completed the whole ambience of the outdoor camping experience. Add to that the canvas director chairs and Coleman Lantern and we were there. We'd arrived. Camp was set up. Gilbert was digging holes everywhere and no one was shouting at him.

I'd found the Mosquito spray hoping any mosquitos working for the Mosquito Secret Service, the sneakiest mosquitoes of all, would be poisoned before they had a chance to attack us unsuspecting in our sleep. I fell asleep immediately upon climbing into my sleeping bag. Gilbert walked over my face a few times then nestled between Laura and I.

It was 6:30 am when the lights came on for me. Gilbert was licking my neck and outside it was incredibly beautiful. I got up and Gilbert and I peed on different trees. The view of Lillooet Lake was incredible. Snow capped mountains in the distance. Beautiful blue water.

"Human, moving near tent, exposed skin on arms and legs, exposed, no, too late, dive dive dive." A dozen squadrons of mosquitoes were falling out of the sky like I was their Personal London. Mosquitoes have swatikas on the sides of their bodies and are in fact reincarnated Luftwaffe pilots who were especially naughty during the war.

Gilbert and I both dove back into the tent. I don't know what he did. I slept for another couple of hours before getting up. The view was even more beautiful. I covered myself in lotion. Got a smudge fire going. Gilbert was digging holes. Come to think of it, maybe he was tunneling to escape the mosquitoes. There were fewer with the sun out and the coils and fire going.

Laura was soon up and made magnificent bacon and eggs. Gilbert loves her cooking as much as I do. He especially loves cleaning pots. After breakfast he was very keen for an expedition into the forest to bring back deadfall for the fire. Alone this would be a routine activity. Gilbert spiced it up with doing high speed circles with the occasional tumble added for spirit.

The green outhouse was near the campsite. There are a dozen or so campsites further along the road. We saw a friendly lone neighbor once and occasionally caught sight of a romantic young couple who had a portable swing of all things. A whole family down the way got onto inflatables and lived out in Lillooet Lake with a black dog that swam amongst them.

I read Evanovitch's "Fingerlickin Fifteen'. She gets funnier every book she writes. What a plum of a summer read!

Eventually I felt guilty about the canoe not being used. I got Gilbert to stop his digging. He'd begun alternating that with throwing pine cones up the air with his nose and then pouncing on them. He just happened to be digging when I decided to take him canoeing. It was hot.

I had the Yamaha 4 hp on the back and just about went in trying to start the thing. Canoe's are tippy. Very tippy. Yarding on the rope of an outboard can be dicey.

I had my 30 30 too. And the digital camera. So I didn't want to go in the water and was glad I didn't.

I'd actually paddled some before getting the outboard going so we could speed across the Lake. I entered a clear spot of land, drift wood surrounds the lake, and found what was probably a native fish camp. It could have been some serial murderers or ex convicts on the lam but that's less likely. I walked with Gilbert past that and set up cans on a hill.

The good people at Reliable Guns had put a Leupold 4 power scope on the Mossberg 30 30 the brothers at Spud Valley Sporting Good Ltd. had sold me. I was delighted when with the first shot I holed the can. Of course I had to shoot the can a few more times just to convince myself that not only was the scope fine but I was actually shooting okay. I love the Mossberg. Gilbert loves hiking about in the woods and doesn't yet know what it is coca cola cans have done to offend me. Gilbert himself is a coke man through and through. Anytime he can steal a coke he will. On this trip he literally drank half a Macdonalds coke before either Laura and I noticed.

Getting into the canoe Gilbert slipped of a log and I had to fish him out by his harness after he'd pulled himself up once only to have the rolling log turn and him go over the other side. I was in the canoe by then and maneuvered so I could lift him in. He showed his gratitude by jumping on my lap and then shaking himself between my legs.

I came across a river rushing into the lake so got out the fishing rod and tried some casting. Nothing came of it. I drifted and paddled and together with Gilbert got pretty bored with the fish. Tourism BC hadn't been out this way giving them lectures on what they were supposed to be doing. Either that or they'd been playing hookey at the Lilooet Lake Fish school.

Laura was glad to see us. She was out in her bathing suit sitting on a float with her legs in the water. Gilbert jumped on the float and sat beside her. I changed into a bathing suit myself and swam out with the canoe a ways where I shampooed my hair and rinsed off. It was so refreshing.

After that all I had to do was get back to Evanovitch and read before the fire. Grilled steak appeared with potatoes and carrots and sour cream. I don't know how they got to the plate. I suspect Laura may have had a lot to do with it. Gilbert was shadowing her and getting bits of steak for obedience to being spoiled.

The night was so perfect that I took the fly off the tent.Lying in our sleeping bags later, we looked up between the spruce at the stars. A light breeze blew through the tent. Listening we could hear the lake lapping the shore. It was pretty idyllic.

Morning came early with Gilbert licking my ear. He walked with me up to the outhouse and then tried to steal any wood I wanted to put in the fire. Stove top coffee takes great outdoors. Everything tastes great outdoors.

Laura and I moseyed through the breaking down of the camp. There's no rush to these things. We weren't needing to be anywhere fast. Clean up is it's own fun. A little reading, a coffee and a little stuffing sleeping bags and rolling up those Mountain Coop special light weight air mattresses. Another coffee and the tent came down. Gilbert dug holes and played in the water. He is one dirty dog.

When the canoe was finally on the boat we were glad to go.

"I was getting really tired of the mosquitoes." she said.

"I'd been trying to ignore them hoping they'd go away."

"It wasn't working."

"I know."

On the way back we stopped at CAnadian Tire and bought a net gazebo. They're on sale starting at $59 That's a deal. Several other people who'd been camping were buying gazebos alongside us. They're sold out all year round in the rest of Canada but here in BC the mosquito situation isn't usually acute. They cycle. That's how they kept fit to bite us. By next weekend the dragonflies and bats will have taken their share. We'll be prepared with a net gazebo, Mosquito coils, Deep Woods Off, and more Watkin's Mosquito Repellant Lotion.

Even with the mosquitoes it was a great weekend.

"It was three years ago when we were here one time before that you said, it couldn't be better except if we had a dog." Laura said.

Gilbert sure made camping a quantum leap better than the already best experience it is. In that first swarm if he hadn't distracted at least half the mosquitoes I'd not have had time to find the Lotion and Laura wouldn't have found the Mosquito Coil. We'd have gone down without a fight but thanks to Gilbert's blood sacrifice we had time to rally. Gilbert saved the weekend. Gilbert earned his smudge!















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