The Mansion on the Hill...

As a writer and most especially a storyteller you must first and foremost be a good listener and a lover of the story. While all writers are in fact story tellers, there is a category of writers who are branded as story tellers. Often it has been regarded as a derogatory term. Implying that the story is in itself trivial and of little enduring value. I beg to differ. I have been called a story teller and I wear the mantle proudly. Many of our greatest writers have been story tellers. Writers like Leacock, Greg Clarck, Farley Mowat, and even Pierre Berton were story tellers. Great Canadians and great writers all. I do not purport to include myself in their company by way of the quality of my work. I merely accept the mantle of story teller and do so proudly as there is a role, even in this fast moving, technological world, for fireside sitters who spin tales and try to inspire in a younger generation a love of the story. A thirst for the legend, for the larger than life, even for the supernatural. For a story that transcends this world and opens the mind to the possibility of something other.

So take a seat beside me on a smooth log, not too close to the fire, although you may want to slide closer as the events I relate may chill you more than your skeptical soul would like to admit. I come by this story by way of osmosis. It seeped into my skin, rather the way that a summer tan does, quite unnoticed as I toiled in the good soil of Yarmouth County, in the Nova Scotia of my youth. It was perhaps an odd place to have so chilling a past. How often great beauty hides great scars. How a polished skin hides the apples rotten core. You can understand the reason that Nova Scotians have fostered so many tales of the macabre, so many stories of the unquiet dead. She is a peninsula, thrust into an angry North Atlantic so tied to that unforgiving mistress for it's loaves and fishes. So capricious is she of the frail humans who have plied her bountiful waters to seek their fortune. Few families have not suffered at her hands. You need only to have asked my Grandmother Lillian what it felt like to have her love, a massive man over six foot four, stolen from her at the age of 32. Her life changed forever when the man, so strong she could scarcely imagine it possible, slipped beneath the frigid March waters. Newfoundland's Ron Hynes answered his own question when he said in his song "Atlantic Blue" "What color is a heartache, from a love lost at sea? What shade of memory never fades, but lingers to eternity? How dark is the light of day, these sleepless eyes of mine survey? Is that you, Atlantic blue? My heart is as cold as you."

With a name like Darling Lake you can probably imagine what kind of town this is. Especially in the 1970's before the new highway, before the process of progress sucked the life out of the town. Where once it had three thriving gas stations now it has none. The town is still beautiful, the lake seems unchanged. It appears small from the old highway, the lake is larger than it seems. It is nestled in rolling farmland. In the 70's beef and dairy cattle dotted it's pastured shores, cattle used to cross a rock causeway to a small island in the center of the lake as faces the old highway. The meadow at the center of the island is long overgrown by trees. The lake is deep in parts, very shallow in others where farmers have deposited the field stone that they have taken from their fields for centuries. Clarence Rose who I used to work for claimed they were his biggest crop. Every time you broke ground they were there, rocks. We built stone walls, graded driveways, leveled roads and filled in the lake. We filled trailers with them until the tires bulged. It was my job to follow the plow and take the stones from the furrow and pile them in cairns. We would return days later, after the rain had washed them clean to collect them and disperse them elsewhere. Go there now and the fields around the lake are lined with rock walls. We built about anything possible out of stone.

As a boy I would tie a rope around my waist and tow a red plastic canoe around as I swam the lake. I knew every point and every rock I had swum and dived in every deep hole in the lake with fins and mask. I had fished it too, avoiding the lily pads that grew up in the height of summer. The lake brimmed with perch, silver and yellow. There were eels as big around as my arm and even longer. The lake would begrudgingly give up a few brook trout. Some of decent size. My cousin Jim had caught a two pounder. As night would fall on the lake the fishing would change, like someone had flipped a switch. The perch stopped biting and slipped into deeper water. The catfish, called Horned Pout by the locals moved in and sucked up your bait off bottom. They made strange noises when you brought them up out of deep water. They had spines, too. You had to grab them just so, in order not to puncture yourself. The rumor was that they were poisonous, those spines. I think this was due to the fact that they punctured deeply and they were covered in bottom slime that must have contained millions of bacteria. Still it was another thing of beauty that hid a nasty secret. Truth was I hated catching them although I am told they are delicious.

All the time, from almost any corner of the beautiful, pastoral lake, you could see it. The brooding, weathered clapboard mansion that dominated the terrain on the highest hill around the lake. Made even more imposing by its' fall from grace. In her day she must have been the belle of the ball. Clad in white, with lace curtained windows she is dressed for a Victorian ball.Built in 1890 by Aaron Flint Churchill a shipping magnate who had emigrated to the states from his native Yarmouth. He had it built as a summer home and had originally called it "The Anchorage" a fitting name for someone who was taking time off from a sea based life. Built in the late Victorian style the house is evocative of the era, stiff and formal, cold and austere It features a grand formal staircase and a most Maritime of features, a Widows Walk. What is a Widow's Walk you may ask (if you are from some inland location). A Widow's Walk is a place at the highest point of a house, usually the third story where a window or series of windows, or a fenced patio allows you, or more properly the wife of some sailor, to pace back and forth and scan the horizon for ships masts.Too many times they do not return, hence the name. Many stories exist in the Maritimes of a ghostly apparition waiting for the return of he who will not return, he who will never sleep as his body is never recovered. She who is left behind is doomed to pace this somber walkway forever.

When I knew her in the early 1970's she had faded from her past glory. Her dress was tattered and she had been too long at the ball. Her windows broken, her lace curtains tattered billowing in the breeze like a skirt, or petticoat. Her shutters sagged on a single hinge. Her lightening rods had braided copper wires snaking to the ground, tarnished with verdigris like varicose veins staining her faded white paint with their green blight. Her clapboard showed grey through the peeling paint, lichen crept up her stone based pillars as if the earth were slowly reclaiming her. She lay like the bones of a decaying body, waiting for the earth to swallow her. She dominated the local area, perched as she was on the hill, shrouded in trees. You could scarcely miss her. In a way that mimicked those portraits whose eyes seem to follow you around the room the house was always there.

I think that if the house wasn't haunted that ghosts would have found it . Like in the "Field of Dreams" build it and they will come. In this case it was more of neglect it and they will come. This house, once so treasured now so forlorn would have propagated tales of the supernatural. For where else would the unquiet dead want to live? One of the spookiest things about the place are the trees that surround it. Huge spruce and fir trees, over a hundred years old and forty feet high surround the property. The thing about these trees is the shape of them, they are grotesquely distorted, twisted and gnarled into unreal and other worldly shapes. They suit the old house especially as she stood in the 70's when she lay decrepit and dying. These were the features that were in my mind when I first came to know the house. The size and former splendor of the house that must have once dominated the local rural area. The dominance of the house physically as she was perched on the highest hill around. The eerie state of neglect of a house once so splendid. The spooky trees so bizarre and unexplained. This is what was in my mind when I first saw the house, close up. This and the rumors, the stories from other kids. The overheard snippets of adult conversation. Stories of a face seen in a window in a lightening flash. Stories of someone seen looking out the windows of the widow's walk when the house was supposed to be empty. There were rumors of a suicide in a barn on the property. My relative newness to the area spared me the more lurid stories. Which is probably best. Sometimes the best results come from a tiny seed. Too much information might have made me skeptical. As it was this prologue served to make me fertile ground for that seed. That and of course, what else, a stormy night!

My first real contact with the house came on such a night. The day had been dour, overcast a mackerel colored sky with clouds hugging the ground and the nearby shore, which would have been visible from the widow's walk shrouded in fog. Fog that crept and rolled across the fields closing in the house narrowing your view. Shrinking your world to just what you can see, the rest of the world obscured by a white curtain. Your world is reduced to only the things immediately before you. The rest of the world and any greater reality, my parents, other adults, logic and reason, all these things were abstract concepts as remote and distant as heaven or hell.

What took me out of the barn, where we had worked all day, out into the mists and wet of Yarmouth county, was the cattle we had down the road at a local field belonging to Clarence's friend and his Daughter-in-law's Father. We had worked all day indoors, cleaning the barn, sharpening tools, re stacking the hay mow. After supper chores were done and we were just getting ready to head in, for the night, to warm up and watch the news. A fire was on in the furnace which was odd for the time of year but the dampness needed to be burned off. The Roses' house was itself over one hundred years old and was a huge rambling farm house. The fire would take the edge off. The phone was ringing when we came through the door. It was cold and damp but not yet raining. Gertrude, Clarence's wife came toward us with a disappointed look.. "I'm sorry, honey." She said with a voice that mirrored her expression. "But the cattle at Bob Porter's have gotten out of the field, someone left a gate up or something." Clarence looked pained. He had a bad back and was always in pain, never more than at the end of a hard, damp day. This is what I was here for, this and the hope that a summer of work would make me a better son and give my beleaguered parents a break. "I'll go!" I said enthusiastically. Clarence looked at me his jaw clenched as he did when thinking. "Sure." he replied, "See what's happening, if a fence needs mending let us know." I hadn't taken my shoes off yet, so I stepped out into the night. There wasn't much for street lights in those days, a couple in front of Clarence's farm and his son Jim's next door. Beyond that there were our fields. I walked the edge of the road, along the rock walls. After the fields ended there were the trees that surrounded the Churchill estate. Here the road forked. The main highway went along the shore of the lake and the road that lead to the mansion, and to Bob Porter's field, went up the hill.

The rain that had held off all day began to fall, slowly but steadily. I was dressed, as usual, in jean jacket and jeans, my prized Caterpillar trucks hat on my head. Soon I was soaked. I could see little except the trees and the road. The outside world was only a concept. What was real was the crunch of gravel under my feet as i left the highway and stepped back into time. No street lights here to pierce the gloom. Only the crunch of the gravel and the beat of the rain on the leaves. I kept my gaze on the road at my feet. It was impossible, though not to glance at the mansion as I passed. The ghoulish form of the trees loomed out of the fog. Her lichen covered walls gave a further look of decay. Still I had a goal, to find the cattle and get them safely penned for the night.

I could hear the cattle before I could see them, happily munching the long grass along the road, very much in danger of getting hit by a car in the gloom and the fog. They were a collection of heifers (young females being raised to replace the existing milk hefrd) and some steers being raised for beef. There were seven of them and they were all in one group. I drove them in front of me, down the road toward the field. The gate post was broken off, I drove the cattle in and propped the post up with some heavy rocks. We would need to replace the post as it was rotten. I inspected my work and was pleased with it. I was now thoroughly soaked and quite cold.

As I started for home, I pulled my hat brim down and put the collar of my jean jacket up. The night seemed even colder when I saw it. Looming in the mist was the house. There were no other homes opposite it. she was alone in the night, in the rain, in the fog. It seemed to radiate cold. I shivered as I looked at it. The gnarled trees seemed to be reaching out for the house, reaching out for me. My world had closed in, the only landmarks were the trees, the road and the house. Whereas on the way in, my mind focused on the task at hand, there was only the sound of my footfalls on the gravel, and the rain on the leaves. They were like white noise. But now I could hear her, I mean it. The house. Though empty and forgotten she was not silent. The wind swung a shutter its' hinges moaning like a wounded soul. Her power lines whistled flatly in the easterly wind that blew from the sea. Somewhere in the night a door slammed intermittently, randomly punctuating the sounds of a dying home, a dying era. Her last founding member having just passed away. Aaron Churchill had built the place for himself and his wife Lois and his niece Lotta May (Lottie). Aaron and his wife died in the Twenties and ownership went to Lottie who died in 1971.

A flash of lightning lit the side of the house in blinding clarity. Like a flashbulb it temporarily blinded me, stopping my progress. The rumble of the thunder echoed off the not too distant lake. I crossed to the far side of the road, giving the old place as wide a berth as the narrow lane allowed. Water came in sheets off the old roof cascading to the stone patio below. The slamming door was not on this side of the house. I had always waned to look in the windows, but not tonight, not in this. I found myself walking backward staring back at it. I couldn't take my eyes off her. In the weird way that an accident scene attracts our attention, I was transfixed. For a few minutes I did nothing, just staring. Finally another blinding flash brought me back, back to reality, back to the rain, back to the cold. By now my shirt was soaked and I was getting more uncomfortable. I was drawn to the house, drawn to those windows. I wanted to look in to see if there was anything there. Who was the apparition that people had seen? Was it Aaron, was it Lottie? I could imagine a man like Aaron Flint Churchill staying on in this world after his time. I could imagine so forceful a man in life dominating the small town even in death. I could also imaging Lottie staying on in this place she loved so much. She had been raised by her Aunt and Uncle and they had thought so much of her that they had left her "The Anchorage" was she simply looking after it even in death?

The thunder was almost immediate, meaning the lightening was right on top of me. It was the thunder that started my feet moving again. But just before I turned my head one of the lace curtains billowed and moved behind a closed window. Was there a draft from an open window somewhere else? I wasn't waiting to find out. Somewhere in the night there was a house with lights, with family and with dry clothes and a warn fire. I wanted it more now than I could ever remember. My hands were wet and red. I had no dry pockets to put them in. my runners squished as I walked. I turned my back on the house. Turned my back on the trees, their outstretched limbs beckoning me, come take a look, satisfy your curiosity. It's a long walk home, just come under my eaves to get out of the rain. Take a lo0k in that window that fascinates you so much... I wheeled. tucking my cold hands under my arms I put my head down and stared a hole in the road. I didn't look back not even when the door slammed just as another flash of lightening lit the sky. The water was bouncing off the highway as I hit the fork in the road. Ahead was the street light, the house and warmth. I crossed the distance in near record time. Clarence was putting on his coat as I came in dripping, to the porch off the garage. "I was just coming to look for you." he said, obviously concerned. I glanced at the clock, I had been gone almost 45 minutes, much longer than I had thought. I told him about the rotten post and that the cattle were safe for the night. He put a hand on my shoulder and told me to change "There's hot chocolate and ginger snaps in the kitchen." I said nothing about the house, about the weird pull it had exerted on me. Soon I was enjoying the sweet cocoa and the dry clothes. I cradled the mug in my hands which were returning to their normal color. "You must be frozen!" Gert said as she watched me, I must have seemed unusually quiet. My mind was elsewhere. I was still wondering whether I should have gone, should have looked in that window. Was someone in there beckoning me?

I spent three summers on the farm. Three summers to watch the house decay. Three winters to wonder about that night. Some years later I spent a week in Darling Lake on my vacation. I drove past the old place. It was the early eighties. A gentleman by the name of Robert Bensonhad bought the place .He had restores the place to its' former glory. It no longer looked decaying. It had a new lease on life. It is now an Inn where guests can stay and also enjoy a meal. I think old "Rudder " Churchill would be pleased.I talked to Clarence about the place one time. He seemed to dismiss the stories, though he did admit some strange things were said about the place. "The trees?" He said when I asked about the strange shapes of these weird sentinels. "They used to be a hedge. In its' hey day they paid local people to keep the hedges trimmed. But when the place went downhill the trees grew up. They were deformed from years of being kept trimmed." That explains that, I guess. I have been back a number of times since. I have never looked in a window, though I would love to. I want to stay there sometime, to wander the fields of my youth. To wet a line in the lake. To answerthe call of whatever was beckonning that night...

ATLANTIC BLUE by Ron Hynes

What color is a heartache froma love losr at sea

What shade of memory never fades

But lingers to eternity

How dark is the light of day that sleepless eyes of mine surve

Is that you Atlantic Blue

My heart is as cold as you

How is one heart chosen to never lie at peace

How many moments remain is there not one of sweet release

And who's that stranger at my door to haunt my dreams forever more

Is that you Atlantic Blue

My heart is as cold as you

I lie awake in the morning

as the waves wash on the sand

I hold my hurt at bay I hold the lives of his children in my hands

And who's plea wil receive no answer

Who's cry is lost upon the wind

Who's the voice so familiar whispers my name as the night comes in

And who's wish never fails to find

My vacant heart at Valentines

Is that you Atlantic Blue

My heart is as cold

Mr heart is as cold

My heart is as cold as you

Withered Roots

The thing about this job is that you can't really throw down roots. Every Five years or so you move, more often at first. I have lived in at least seven different communities in 24 years, in Alberta, the Yukon and the NWT. Sometimes it was time for a move but it is always hard leaving. The worst part is leaving the Elders and the children. They always make the deepest impression on you. You can only look forward to the new community, a new set of Elders a new flock of children. There were a few moments that stand out over the years, a few nuggets in the gravel road of working life.

I remember when I first joined the company. My first posting was in Wabasca, a Cree community in north central Alberta. It was my first time living in another culture, the first time I experienced life as a minority. I was nervous at first, but I found the Cree to be very understanding and very accepting of the mistahi moniyaw, or "Big white man" as they called me. Things were different in those days, we didn't have a computer in the building. Everything we did was done by hand. The customer accounts were on paper and were stored in a special cabinet called a "Sort-O-Graph" you looked up the account and made up a paper slip which the customer would give to the cashier to allow them to charge on their MCA (Monthly Charge Account). Some of the Elders, those who lived close, would come shopping two or three times a day, you soon learned their names as you manually looked up their accounts each time. "Bear with me." I would plead, "I have a thousand new names to learn, you only have to learn one!" I needn't have bothered they loved the extra attention my naivete brought and they teased me and we both would laugh. The Elders dressed very traditionally, then. The ladies in kerchiefs and home made dresses. Often brightly colored. I would show them bolts of cloth and they explained to me that it was better to make a small cut and rip the cloth as it tore straighter than you could ever cut it. They were training me as they must have done to dozens of other "Bay Clerks" before me. They were patient and their quick laughter always made it easier. I struggled to communicate in my pidgin Cree often their English was not that good. Often they would bring along a Grandchild to translate for Mosom and Kokom (Grandma & Grandpa) the problem was that the Grandchildren often spoke less Cree than I did.

I remember one time when I was working the office and an elderly couple approached and wanted to cash their Old Age Pension checks. I called to Alex who worked for us as I knew these were his Grandparents. "Ask them how much they want to pay on their account." I instructed Alex. He turned to them and bellowed "GRANDMA HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT TO PUT ON YOUR BILL?". I shooed him away as Mosom and Kokom slapped their knees and howled with laughter. I determined to at least learn enough Cree to run the office. I struggled, I made a fool of myself. I mispronounced words and I did a lot of blushing. But through it all there was a sense that I had broken down a wall. I was trying and that was worth something even if I did once ask an eighty year old man if he wanted to pay for his red dress. He was probably telling that story for years. He laughed long and hard but he paid his bill and he thanked me, when it was done, I did understand that much. I think it is about respect and they knew even if I did it badly that I did it for them.

I had some favorites of course. One was an elderly couple both of whom suffered from osteoporosis then known commonly as dowager's stoop. They were both bent like question marks. They each walked with two willow root canes. I loved to watch them when they shopped on pension day. They proceeded through the store like a gaggle of geese the old couple in the lead with a flock of three or four, what I suspect were Great-Grandchildren. They had the same problem as most elders, with the children speaking mostly English. It didn't slow these two down, though. They merely walked the aisles and raised their canes and tapped the shelf in front of the items they wanted. One tap for each can of beans or pound of butter. It worked well and the children were well rewarded with chocolate or a Popsicle after the shopping was done. Hugs and kisses too. The old man winked at me as I packed his bags to his son's truck.

After my annual holidays I noticed he was alone on pension day. I went over to ask him what was wrong. He turned, looking smaller, older and more fragile tan I had ever seen him. The sparkle was gone from his eyes as our eyes met. I stopped in mid stride. I didn't need to ask. I got a huge lump in my throat and turned away. He had some children with him but they too were subdued. I looked at my boss and he said "She passed away while you were gone, it was peaceful." Not for him I'll bet. He looked like an empty vessel. I was not surprised when he joined her shortly after.

Another couple that touched me were well into their nineties. He was a raconteur and loved to tell stories. I was cashing his Old Age Pension check one day when he tugged my sleeve. "I get the single rate you know!" I looked at the cheque. As most of you would know you get more money if you are single than you do if you are married. "Me and her we never married!" He said with unbridled glee. "We moved in together ten years ago. We're living in sin!" He was doing a jig and laughing uncontrollably. She waved her hand and walked away. I couldn't help but laugh.When they had left I turned to Nigel, my boss and said, "They're both in the their nineties, I can only imagine how much sin is going on!"

I came home one day in my first autumn with the company to find an elderly gentleman sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and eating a cookie. He was alone, my roommates were nowhere to be seen. He seemed completely at home. I sat down across from him and introduced myself. He was tall and thin, so thin his clothes hung from him. He was dressed simply, he wore wool work pants and a check work shirt both of which were several sizes too large. He wore heavy shoes ties up with string. He was, he informed me a pensioner. I knew that this meant a company pensioner not an old age pensioner. I asked if he had been a store manager. He laughed. "No, I was an outside man." He said it matter-of-factly like I should know what that was. I didn't. My Dad told me once "You don't have to apologize for being ignorant, only apologize if you are stupid." So I asked him "What is an outside man?" He smiled. Partly, I suspect at my ignorance and partly at the opportunity to tell his story. What a story it was. He had hopped a west bound freight train during the depression and made his way to the prairies. He found work with the HBC cutting firewood, cutting ice for the ice cellars, hauling drinking water, feeding horses, laying in feed and many other jobs. It was full time work. Then the horses were replaced. The stoves were replaced by furnaces and he found himself "pensioned off". He was retired but he still mowed the lawns and shoveled snow for extra cash. He smoked rollies, his fingers were orange from the nicotine. Sometime during that winter he caught his last train, I missed him walking in to our house whenever he was ready to mow or shovel. He would always start with a pot of coffee, we never locked the house in those days. I missed the stories more. He knew virtually all the company big wigs when they were "Snot nosed trainees" which I was then.

One of the perks of being the grocery manager is that you get to order things that you like. I pride myself in ordering new things, exotic things and trying to offer a wide variety of good foods. I enjoy parsnips. Having spent several summers on a farm I came to love them. I guess no other grocery managers before me had ordered them in that town. One day a sweet little old lady approached me with a package of parsnips in her hand. I thought she was going to thank me for ordering them. Instead she held it out with some disdain. I took the package from her. She leaned in close so as to be heard without being overheard. She said ever so kindly "Your carrots have withered dear, they have turned white!" Withered roots, just like me. I have changed communities many times. I have learned something everywhere I went. It is tough when I meet my peers who are still working where I have been, inevitably they have tales of some favorite elder who has left us. On the other hand I occasionally run into some young adult, like the six foot two firefighter who was at a course I attended recently. When I saw his last he was eight and was sitting on my knee when I played Santa. Roots are good but they may be overrated.

The Critical Factor

In the fall of 1985 I joined the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson's Bay. AKA the Hudson's Bay Co. I knew some of its' history, some of the role that it had played in building this great and wonderful country. MacKenzie King once said that the problem with Canada was that it had "Too much geography and too little history." At least I think he said it, he could have been channelling his dead dog or something. He was a bit weird, but he did not hold a monopoly on that as Prime Ministers go. I guess you could forgive him, that was a long time ago and a lot of water has passed under the bridge. I chided one of my nieces for doing poorly in history once. "I always did well in history." I informed her. "Yeah, well there was a lot less of it back then!" came the reply. Nowadays we would say, don't go there!


But in 1985 I was green as grass and anxious to learn about the traditions and history of the HBC. Before I had left Nova Scotia, I stopped and talked to our neighbor, Mr. Calvin Ruck. He was a social worker and had gone back to school as an adult to get his degree. He was going to Dalhousie University the same time as his son. We would see him in the halls and he would hail us. I think his son was embarrassed but he needn't have been Calvin was an amazing man and had a thirst for knowledge. He won the Order of Canada and was appointed to the Senate. "So you're joining the HBC?" he said enthusiastically when I told him the news. "You are going to be a Factor." "Excuse me?" I said with ignorance plastered all over my face. "A factor! A fur buyer!" he said with a smile. "Oh, I guess so, you think they still do that?" I asked. "I think so, you'll have to tell me about it!"

I arrived in Winnipeg and was given the cooks tour of Gibraltar House, the company's headquarters still located at the confluence of the Red and the Assinaboine. I was then whisked away to get a plane to Edmonton and then an eight hour bus ride to the town of Lesser Slave Lake. My boss picked me up there and took me to Wabasca, my first posting. My boss was From England and had come to Canada to run another small store then had been recruited by the HBC. He was born to work with numbers and was an excellent accountant. He wasn't interested in buying fur a whole lot, so he asked if I wanted to learn how. "The head fur buyer from Edmonton is coming." He informed me. "You can learn a lot from him, he's the best." Duly impressed, I returned to the house I shared with two other "Trainees" as we were known in Company parlance. "I am going to learn Fur buying!" I announced proudly. Darren, who was sitting across from me and patting his belly after dinner, was not impressed. "Yeah, I got roped into that too." he said unenthusiastically. "Look when this guy shakes your hand he'll crush it so be ready." "Big guy, eh?" I answered. "Yeah and he's a tough old Alberta redneck so be careful." This coming from a farm boy from south of Calgary. I was impressed I wanted to meet this legendary man.

He arrived by car, or rather boat as it was one of those late seventies monsters. He was tall and lean and definitely a tough guy. Square jawed and steely of gaze. I was ready when he shook my hand. I have big mitts and our eyes met as he gripped my hand with incredible force. He seemed to smile at my return grip. Darren who had warned me about Joe's prodigious grip was totally unprepared for the handshake and turned away waving his wounded hand in the air. I shook my head. Joe wasted little time and got to work, spreading a makeshift table in the back of the store with a hockey bag full of skins. He tossed a pelt in front of Darren. It was about three feet long and was shaped like an ironing board, long and tapered. "Isn't that the biggest mink you ever seen?" He asked. Darren was in awe. He had already been buying fur for some time. "Wow, that must be a MacKenzie river mink I hear they grow them big up there!" Joe smiled and tossed the pelt to me. I picked it up the leather side was facing out. I flipped it and ran my thumb over the fur. I am a fly tyer and had used many different kinds of fur. While I had never seen one in its' complete form before I knew what otter felt like. "What do you think?" growled Joe. "I think it's a medium sized otter." I said tossing it back. Joe pointed at my chest. "That's right! Not bad for a green horn!"



I felt a little more comfortable. Darren was shifting his weight from foot to foot which he did when nervous. Joe proceeded to go through other species, Lynx, fox , coyote, wolf. We learned how to grade and size the species. We learned of the life cycle of the animals and what made the fur better or worse. " People used to think it was the cold that made the fur good. They used to raise ranch mink in freezers but to no avail, the fur was worse. Then they realized that it was the hours of daylight that determines the quality of the fur. They adjusted the lighting and bingo, the fur was prime." Prime, that was what the fur business was all about. Pelts trapped when they were at their best. Best color, best quality, no damages. There was a market for the less than perfect pelts too, but at much lower prices. The poor quality pelts would become patching material, and fly tying material among other things. Then Joe turned his attention to the animal that built this company and this country. This little rascal isn't on the nickel for nothing. The Beaver. Castor Canadensis The lowly beaver, a member of the rodent family. Trapped almost to extinction. These hearty little guys do one thing well, and that is breed. Soon they were everywhere. Joe spread several beaver pelts on the sheet of plywood that served as our table. He explained how to measure them and how to grade them. "This is important!" He said testily as he noticed Darren nodding off. "I've seen guys lose so much money the blew their brains out!" He had my attention.

Next Joe took another Beaver out of his bag. It was big one. A blanket beaver we call them, an XXL. The fur side looked good. Joe threw it onto the plywood. "Grade it!" He said looking at me sternly. I took the tape measure from him and measured the pelt. "Sizing, Sizing, Sizing!" Joe had said when he had showed us how to grade each species. I measured it. I ran my fingers through the fur as he had showed me. Nice depth of underfur. Good coloring, a prime pelt, I expected to see the same story written in the leather when I turned it over. "You can tell more from the leather than the fur!" Joe had told us. As I saw the leather I winced. I looked at Darren, he had his hand over his face. There were two snaking scars across the center of the pelt or the "Square" as Joe had called it. I looked up an XXL beaver in the tariff, the price book put out by the company. I followed the row across where it said bad damage "N/V" "No Value!" I said as I handed in my tape. "Good call!" Joe said emphatically. "What do you think?" Joe was looking at Darren. Looking in an odd accusatory way. Darren lowered the hand from his face. "I would still give him something for it." He said meekly. "What?!!!" Joe thundered. This seemed to hurt Darren worse than the handshake. "I still think he deserves at least twenty bucks." Darren said, barely audible and very unsure of himself. "You know hat happened don't you?" Darren clearly did not, and neither did I. "He snared him! He set the snares badly and this poor beaver thrashed around till he drowned, slowly, cruelly! We don't encourage poor trapping with money. We encourage humane trapping. I tell you what! If this guy brought a bucket of Spit in here would you give him twenty dollars for it?!!" (he didn't actually use the word spit) Darren meekly replied "No." Staring holes in the floor. "Good!" replied Joe. "Next time he brings a beaver like this in give him twenty of your dollars, not twenty of mine!" There was more going on here than met the eye.



We went on with the lesson and the mood lightened. I learned tons. I grew with confidence as the lesson went on. I thought I was ready to buy fur. When all was over Joe packed up his "Travelling Road Show" as he called it and packed it in the huge trunk of his car. Darren stood kicking gravel in the driveway. Joe gave him a punch in the shoulder and said "Tight Lines! and straight shooting!" Darren faded away. I hing back. "Long drive?" I asked. "Nah, only six or seven hours!" I stuck out my hand and again I met his gaze as he wrung it good. I held my own. "You I like!" he said as he got in the car. I knew he meant it.


I walked into the house. Darren was in his usual chair, the TV wasn't even on. "What's the deal on that beaver?" I asked. "It looked like you'd seen a ghost when he pulled it out." "Aw, I shipped it to him in a parcel last week. He knew I'd bought It and I think he knew how much I paid for it." Ahhhh... things were starting to make sense. " I don't think he likes me." Darren said morosely. "Naw!" I replied. " I don't agree with that." "Really?" Darren replied hopefully. "Did he say something to you?" "Yeah, he said he hates you!" I said laughing. Darren too realized I was making it up and he laughed too. He rubbed his shoulder. "Quite a guy though, eh?" "Yes!" I replied," quite a guy!"


I bought a lot of fur over the years and I made Joe happy with the way I did it. He would call me and ask me what the fur was like before I shipped it. I became a good factor and the next time I talked to Mr. Ruck I could proudly say "Yes we still buy fur and yes, I am a factor!"

Spring, sprang, sprung

Spring arrived today, late as usual. I knew I should have clicked on express shipment, to heck with the extra $14.95 charge. The snow vanished and was replaced with a layer of water. I finally found my lawn, just where I left it last fall, it's always the last place you look! I also found a layer of doggie do that makes me wonder if the little guy is part pachyderm, not part terrier. The snow is gone, except on the river which is still frozen. There are huge pools of water on the river. Passing geese take a breather on these puddles, filling the air with their honking. A gaggle of 15 geese flew overhead, I watched them with my goggles, I giggled. They were flying in formation, but rather a half formation not a V but more of a backslash. I am sure that some Dot Com will figure a way to get them to spell out their web address. In any case they were welcome. I was barbecuing at the time. You might take this as a sign of spring but I barbecue all winter long. The only difference is that sane people next door can be seen barbecuing in the spring.

Flocks of snowbuntings have been appearing and already their feathers are mottled as they change from their winter white back into their dowdy summer brown. Too bad, they are so pretty and so invisible in the snow. Now they will be invisible in the mud. Still I guess that is better than being invisible in some predator's belly were the color change reversed. They filled the power lines beside my house bringing to mind the lyric "Like a bird on a wire." by Leonard Cohen. I could hear his fog horn voice in my head.

Spring comes suddenly in the north. Explosively really. Winter is so long here that you think it is never going to end. Then one day, as you stand in a window looking out over the snowy winter world, you feel it. It dawns on you subtlety, "what is that sensation?" you ask yourself. All winter long the sun has only appeared briefly, tentatively, like a younger brother sneaking down to get a snack from the kitchen hours after being sent to bed. It serves merely to draw attention to the snow and the cold. But now it is having an effect on you, your skin feels funny, tingly, warm, WARM, WARM, WARM! It hits you slowly but surely, THE SUN IS WARM! Spring is here your brain says to your body. It lowers its' defenses and prepares to drink in the phenomenon. You step out on your deck, in slippers and PJs. Prepared to be enveloped in a blanket of warmth from that distant yellow orb which had until today been so lazy, so asleep on the job. As soon as your bare, slippered foot, hits the deck with its generous topping of frozen snow, you realize that you have made a horrible mistake. The icy wind hits you like a corn dog in a blast freezer. You feel like you have been dipped in liquid nitrogen and you fear that your fingers will break off when you grab the door handle like the banana your chemistry teacher shattered in high school. You turn sharply, resolutely and walk back into the house, embarrassed that you have been fooled. Like a kid ordering the x-ray glasses from the back of a Beetle Bailey comic. I stand in my living room shaking. My wife walks in, she looks at me and says, in her matter of fact, sensible voice "What are you doing going out in your pajamas when it is twenty below?" I try to offer a defense. I try to voice my rapture in the first heat of the spring Sun. I try to explain the primal effect of the warm sun on the hippocampus, how it triggers some innate urges that are lost in the mists of evolution. Instead my thoughts are lost in a chattering of teeth and a staccato babble of unintelligible syllables that escapes my mouth. She leaves the room, further convinced, as if she needed it, that I am mental. I feel like a hippo on campus.

Anyways, that was then this is now. The sun is shining and the nasty old winter has gone away, retreated to its' snowy lair not to return for weeks. Believe it or not I have lived a year where it snowed every month of the year. Even in JULY! It was while I lived in Old Crow north of the arctic circle. But today such things are banished from my mind, today I am enjoying, nay, savoring the spring. Like a gourmand at an all you van eat buffet, I am loading my plate. I am stacking scoops of sunshine on a lettuce bed of the smell of thawing earth and dust, yes even dust smells good to me today. Today I will walk the banks of the MacKenzie, I will gaze at the distant mountains their heads still capped by toques of snow and I shall enjoy the fleeting feel spring, all too brief here in the land of the soon to be twenty four hour day. Where summer will bloom in but a couple of weeks and where too, sadly, autumn will fall like the final curtain in the not too distant September morn. Now I hear the dulcet tones of Neil Diamond singing "September Morn". I shake my head, I want to be like the Buddhists and stay in the moment. I love spring, spreading out before me like an empty page, an unwritten story of summer. I want to linger over every line and pay no heed to its' ending, not now when spring is still a promise that lies unbroken...