Saturday, August 27, 2016

If you must...

If you must get up before dawn, on the second last summer saturday, to deliver your boy and his buddies to the Camp boat...And say good bye to him AGAIN...



And you need to pick up the last furniture from the Cabin (just beyond Hope)


Then you may as well agree with your beloved fisher-husband to hit the fishing river for a spot of fishing on the way (seeing as you have only watched him fish 4 of the last 6 days)



And you may as well walk the river with him remembering to be quiet and not scare the fish lest you be blamed for their shyness and forever remembered as #noluckNicky



So you don your hastily purchased $15 sandals (as your beloved Teva's just broke after 25,000km or so ) and you head off up a crazy road and down a path with your honey.


But you should know that while the path looks beautiful it is a mosquito infested hell.  They will swarm you and bite you through anything - they will even try to bite your eye but your contact lens will save you - although your eye will feel itchy for the rest of your life.

You feel superior that you - not accomplished in all things wilderness -  will have thought to wear long sleeves in this mozzie gauntlet - until you realise that the millions you can see and slap are nothing compared to the one or two that get inside your long sleeves and wreak havoc. 

The slapping never ends...

You arrive at the river and immediately recall that you asked insufficient questions when the words "cross the river a few times" were uttered.  And you will find your feet in your new sandals will actually be hypothermic after just 10 steps in the river.  Also you may have forgotten that rivers flow and the current can be strong - most especially where it is deep..  You will be thankful your yoga pants convert to hot pants and even more grateful the mosquitos obviously ate everyone else as you and fisher-hubs are alone on the river to witness this fashion nightmare.


You will not drown.




You may as well collect rocks as you go - you may even have a brilliant idea of a little project to do with them.  But you should have thought about collecting on the way back not the way down - also a bigger backpack would have been helpful.  But hey - 10 pounds of stones = extra weight = extra calories burned!


You wonder at your Fisherman whipping that line about and setting it down in the fast moving water.  You concede maybe the mortgage you took on the gear was a good investment.  Especially the waders as his feet do not appear to be hypothermic.



And you see why this is his go to spot.  You get it in a new way.

Although you still don't really understand the appeal of searching for capricious fish in a freezing river in a bug infested forest (and let's not forget Yogi and his friends) So you take to looking for a heart shape rock among the bajillions of rocks - because it won't do to look bored (and really you aren't) or scared (which maybe you are a tiny bit). 



You do marvel at how beautiful the place is - the mountains soaring, the clear water.  All those trees.



You constantly scan the banks for bears who must surely enjoy the views too.

You see a plant growing, blooming, in among the rocks and you imagine there must be a lesson in that somewhere.



As the last crossing appears you draw the line and wave the Fisherman on while you lie on a sand bar - which you actually call a beach - which just goes to show how Canadian you really have become.


You almost have Nap 2016 on the beach except the sun is burning holes in you and there is something grunting and breaking branches in the trees and you realise you're a tad edgy here, alone, in the wilderness.  You nearly pee your pants when a duck plops into the water in front of you and you realise you nature deficit is maybe bigger than you thought.




You desperately try to remember what one is supposed to do if confronted with large wild animals and concede that no matter what you should do, you will likely run and scream.  And possibly die. Alone.  On a Canadian excuse for a beach.



But before your paranoia completely consumes you, you will feel mighty relieved when Fisher guy reappears and you start the long, rocky walk back up the river and then run the mozzie tunnel in a haze of Deep Woods Off  - to no avail.  

When you make it to the truck and dive in, you spend 15 minutes killing the 30,000 mosquitoes that got in with you and it looks like a CSI crime scene in the truck.  But it's your blood and you realise you are still alive so all is well.

And so your last fishing adventure of Summer 2016 will be over.  You have endured, you have explored, you have understood .... and you are grateful for the opportunity and time spent with your fisherman.

So to the cabin you will go to get the queen size bed - and a few other things - .  You will realise that wrapping a giant mattress in plastic to keep it dry was a good idea but one that makes carrying it and loading it a curse-inducing exercise.  And you will have a less fun adventure getting it all home as the mattress decided it wanted to be a kite all the way home.



And so if you must have done all these amazing and crazy things in just one day - then you will collapse on the couch with a beer and know it was an awesome day.

The end.

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