To me he is the king of the animal kingdom. Without equal or better, he reigns supreme. The most sought after of all game animals. More pursued than the overrated Lion or the vaunted Grizzly Bear. Who is he you ask? Where are my manners? Reader meet Salvelinus fontenalis, Salvelinus fontenalis meet the reader. Now old Sal here is a shifty sort. Well, perhaps I am being a bit uncharitable. Let’s call him elusive. Words can be so pejorative can’t they? He has a number of aliases. He is alternately known as; Old square tail, coaster, speckled trout, brook trout and eastern brook trout. Very slippery fellow this. In fact he is not a trout at all. He is actually a member of the Char family most closely related to the arctic char. Now were he easy to peg, easy to catch, slow of mind or slow of body he would not have a following. He would not have reached royal status. The grouse has his followers, those who crave his flesh enough to brave the bracing breezes of autumn to pursue him. But I don’t expect to see a lot of ink spilt about the pursuit of the “fool hen” as my father called the grouse. Even the much touted Salmo Salar or Atlantic salmon must be fished for only with flies, because he would be so easily taken on a metal lure that fishing him wouldn’t even be sporting. But the Brook trout, he is so elusive, so hard to fool you can fish for him with just about everything short of dynamite. But he is not just hard to get on the end of your line. He is hard to keep there. Once he has taken the lure, after no doubt hours of effort, he rails against it. He lunges obliquely, diving, thrashing, he rushes to create slack so he can spit the hook. He jumps thrashing the water with his square tail in a mad attempt to throw the hook. You know his bite it surges down the line like an electric shock. There was no mistaking it. There is nothing else like it in the sporting world. Ounce for ounce and pound for pound there is no creature like him. He is the King of freshwater sport fish.
The pursuit of the brook trout is not an activity for the timid. I emphasize the word pursuit. For there are no guarantees in the fishing world and we as do it are a superstitious sort prone to avoid tempting the fates. We would never be so presumptuous as to start a fishing trip by planning what to do with our catch. So valiant and noble is our opponent that we would never assume, never insult him by presuming that we would be successful. The pursuit is the thing. It is the chase that brings us. Us, the initiated. Us who have bonded, been united by tempting the fates by pursuing the Brook Trout. Like friendships forged in any great trial; war, fire fighting or some enormous physical effort, these make for the deepest ties. Friendships that have formed and thrived under these trials run the deepest. My Dad fished with the same guy for more than fifty years. They were so close they barely spoke. There existed between them a Zen like state which was wholly beyond such feeble things as words. I would watch them with awe. I knew they enjoyed each other but they usually fished in silence.
My greatest fishing friend is John. Fitting really, it was my Father’s name and his best friend’s too. John and I have fished together since we were in our teens. John is from Ontario, but his Father was born in Malta. He never really fished with his Dad. He and I started fishing together and I showed him some of the things my Dad showed me. We talk more than Dad and his friend John did. But we haven’t been fishing for fifty years, not yet. We have had many adventures, though. We have sweated and froze. We caught beauties and we have been skunked. We have, as Winnie the Pooh would say, “Done nothing together, for there is nothing better than doing nothing together.”
Now old Sal being a cousin of the Arctic Char is rather wont to take a hiatus in the summer. Like s snowbird in reverse he heads for deeper, colder climes when the dog days of summer are around. So too do his pursuers take a hiatus, from fishing brook trout anyways. We may pursue other species, like smallmouth bass or rainbow trout, which have no arctic blood in their veins. But old Sal is never far from our thoughts. Our fingers itch to play with a fly line. We false cast in our heads, picturing a swirling stretch of water on our favorite stream. Or we dream of the slurp of oars the rhythmic chunk of oars in locks. The lines trailing behind the boat as we rowed a favorite lake shrouded in mist with the promise of a sun written in a yellow spot in the haze. We dreamt of cooler days ahead.
“What about the labor day weekend?” I asked one evening in the staff room when John and I were working night shift. “Sure!” Said John, my boss. “It should be cooler by then. Where should we go?” There was no need to question what I meant. Fishing. Pure and simple. Fishing for brook trout. “Granite Lake. I’ll get permission to use the boat.” Dad and Johnny had a ten foot rowboat on a lake that was as close to heaven as there is on this earth. “Great, we’ll leave right after work Friday and spend the whole long weekend “Now next to fishing there is the planning of the trip. It is as good as or even better than the fishing itself. There would be a trip to the store for grub. A trip down the shore for bait. A trip to the NSLC (Nova Scotia Liquor Commission) for some beer. We packed our gear and put it in the car. We worked like dogs all day and changed into our bush clothes for the drive.
Unfortunately things were already not going as planned. “It’s a bit warm.” John said in an uncertain tone. “Warm? It’s hotter than the surface of the sun!” I said wiping my brow. “It’s over 100!” John said rolling down the window of my 1978 Honda civic, which had no air conditioning. He stuck his head out the window as I drove, like some sort of pathetic Airedale. Even in the approaching dusk it was sticky, sweaty, and hot. We reached Mount Uniacke and I went to Johnny’s house and he handed me the keys to the boat and camp. “It’s too hot boys.” He said as he passed me the key ring, “I know, but we’ve been planning for two months.” “Your Dad and I always went back on the long weekend, but it was never this hot.” I thanked Johnny and he wished us luck.
We drove to the spot on the highway where we would leave the car. We piled the gear on the side of the highway. “There sure is a lot of it.” John said morosely. “Yeah, a lot.” I echoed bleakly, wiping my brow. There was the tent, sleeping bags, pots and pans. Food, beer boots, and of course rods reels and tackle. We loaded up for the more than two mile hike to the lake and the boat. We struggled into our packs and handed one another the gear we were carrying in our hands. We started up the hill that leads to the cut line where the power grid ran. I had climbed his hill a hundred times but it had never noticed just how high and long it was. We were both bathed in sweat by the time we started down the other side. Now the break stops on this hike were well defined. Defined by Dad and Johnny and the literally thousands of trips back to the lake. I knew the rest break spot, with its cool shade and sweet, fresh spring water was still a half mile away and I groaned under my breath. I stumbled on, my feet barely coming unstuck from the ground, they seemed so heavy. Each lump of stone seemed like a stair on an endless staircase. Each step forward seemed like a step up. I knew too well that the trail was a connected series of hills of which this was only the first. I plodded on. Eventually we did reach the rest stop. Fully ten minutes later than normal. This could not be. This trail was like a tram line. Not only were the stops fixed, so was the length of time to reach them. You could set your watch by them. Man it was hot.
We flopped to the mossy ground. The shade was a blessed relief. Normally I don’t take my pack off. There was nothing normal about this trip. I slid the heavy pack from my back which was drenched. John had already done the same. Normally we stayed there only long enough for a quick drink of water and for my Dad to have a smoke. We slid to the ground and slurped heavily the cool clear water. Thank God for the water, it was as cold and clear as ever. Pure and perfect. I took off my bandana that I wore around my neck to keep the bugs off. I dunked it in the stream and tied it around my neck the cool thing was like a breath of fresh air. We donned the packs and started off again. There was only one more stopping pointy and it was a dry one. When we reached it we were nearly done. “The only good thing is that the rest of the trail is down hill.” I said sardonically. John already knew he had been here many times. He said nothing. He was fanning himself with his hat. The sun had nearly set.
We soldiered on. We reached the shore of the lake, I took the oars from there usual spot and headed for the huge maple tree where the boat was chained up. There was the tree alright, but where was the boat? I picked up the rusty old chain and stared at the broken lock. It was gone, stolen. “Great!” I said “Now what?” John said looking over my shoulder. I sat on a stump, too tired to take off my heavy pack. I looked John straight in the eyes. “Now we have to make a decision and make it quick. It’ll be pitch black in twenty minutes. We can leave now and be safely on the wide part of the trail or we can camp right here and spend the night.” “In a swamp?” John said incredulously. “I know, I know. But this lake is hell to fish from shore and we’ll never make dry ground by dark. “Well what else then?” John asked. “Well, we head back to Mount Uniacke and stay at my Aunts place and find another place to fish.” John stared at the broken lock. He felt the trip was slipping away. The beautiful trip we had waited for all summer. All through the long hot summer we had waited and dreamed, now, it seemed the dream was slipping away. He turned and started up the hill. I threw the lock as far as I could and put the oars back where I got them. It was well past dark when we reached the car.
I returned to Johnny’s place. He wasn’t surprised when I told him the bad news. It wasn’t the first time someone had stolen the boat. But it was the last. This time it never showed up. Whoever stole it probably sunk it. It wouldn’t have been worth dragging it out. Dad and Johnny had drug it back in the winter like a big toboggan. For them it was an ending of sorts. They had fished the lake for over forty years. In the old days it was a seven mile hike, involving two boats. They had built two cabins over the years but lately, since the new highway had gone through people had been coming back to the lake. Unsavory people, who stole boats, burnt the firewood and didn’t replace it from the piles outside. Eventually someone took the prop that held the roof up against the winter snow load. The cabin collapsed. Johnny and Dad only made day trips after that, they were too old to sleep in a tent. An era was gone.
“In the old days people had respect!” Dad said later when he heard of the theft. “I remember a time in the fifties when a rabbit hunter came across the camp when he was lost in a blizzard. He ate some food and used some fire wood. He left a twenty dollar billon the table under a rock.” I guess he was right. These were different times.
I headed to my Aunts house; she was delighted and surprised to see us. “Sure, come on in,” She said. “No, Aunt Violet, we’ll just camp out in the yard.” “You have to be kidding” she said. My Aunt Violet was as nice a human being as ever walked the earth. We insisted so she relented and told us to join her for breakfast. We spent a fitful night sleeping on the ground, in the heat. By morning we were sweaty, tired, unshaven and unkempt. We cleaned up before a delicious breakfast. Aunt Violets jam and a fresh cup of tea did wonders for our mood. The day had dawned bright and it was already getting hot. “Well,” said John after breakfast. “Where to?” “You’ve never been back to the mines right?” “Mines, what mines?” John said puzzled. “Gold mines!” I said. “They mined gold in Mt. Uniacke for nearly one hundred years. Just a couple of miles in that direction." I pointed. “Any fish?” he asked. “Well there are a couple small lakes. Must be fish.” I said ever the optimist.
“At least we can drive.” I said enthusiastically. It was already climbing to one hundred degrees. John was doing his impression of an Airedale again. The road to the mines was old and unmaintained. There was a ridge or crown to the center of the road. A crown of solid granite. I tried to straddle it as best as my little Honda could. We drove along then there was a crunch. “I didn’t like the sound of that.” John said. We slid under the car. The corner of my gas tank had a fresh scrape and a dent. A steady drip, drip, drip of gas was coming out. We exchanged glances. John was chewing gum. He took the wad from his mouth and stuffed it in the dent. He pressed it flat and the leak stopped. I looked at him and shrugged. We got back in the car. We made it to the first lake with no further problems. The patch was holding. I took the meat from the car and placed it in a cool stream. We pitched the tent in a small clearing at the lake shore. “This used to be a saloon right here in the old days. My Dad told me.” I said handing John a cool beer. “Cheers!” he said clinking my bottle. We sat down and cast our lines into the idyllic little lake. It was hot but we had no place to go right now so we had a good afternoon. No fish, not even a bight but a good afternoon. I told John some of the history of the mines. How there were two saloons, churches, a school and a telegraph office. Stages came in from the Mount twice a day, carrying passengers and mail.
Toward night fall we built a fire, not that we needed it for heat. We turned in early and spent a quiet if hot night. I awoke early and unzipped the tent. I stuck my head out the door and found myself staring directly into the eyes of what is possibly the biggest raccoon I have ever seen. He was twirling his whiskers in his hands, or paws. He cocked his head and looked at me like I was crazy. He ambled off and I stood up and took a step. “Whooooooooo!” I shouted as I slipped and fell and rolled down a small hill. John stepped out of the tent. “Crap!” I yelled. “You hurt?” he said hearing my cry. Then he too slid in exactly the same spot and fell and rolled down the hill. “No.” I replied. “I meant I stepped in crap! Raccoon pooh! Big bugger too!” “Well thanks for the warning!” John said standing up and hopping to the waters edge to join me washing the raccoon pooh from his foot. “Hey. I tried.” John was looking at me and laughing. It was contagious. IO started laughing too. The cool water felt good and I dried my feet and went to the stream to get our bacon for breakfast. “Crap!” I said when I saw the bacon. “What now?” John said. “You didn’t step in something else did you?” “No, but we aren’t having bacon for breakfast. I guess that raccoon beat us to it.” The bacon had been opened and what was left of it was writhing with leeches. “Yum!” said John as I held up the bacon. He started to laugh again and I did too. I sat down my side were still sore from the last laugh. We ended up slicing up wieners and frying them crisp and they weren’t half bad. The eggs were good and the toast made over an open fire was great especially with some of Aunt Violet’s jam.
After breakfast I turned to John. “Wanna explore?” I said. “Yeah, I think we fished this place out. I looked at the car and then at the road. “Maybe on foot, eh?” John laughed, “O.K., O.K.” he said as we started down the narrow road. Alders had filled in the edges of the clearings that once held houses and fields. Amid the alders and wild flowers Lilacs and Roses bloomed. Not wild roses but actual rose bushes. Apple trees were in fruit. Old basements and foundations showed where people had once lived, loved and toiled. Ghost town is a good name for them. It feels as if there are eyes following you everywhere. Grouse and deer graze among the apple trees, though there were none this day. “Kinda spooky.” John said, breaking the deafening silence. “Yeah. “ I said turning over a bit of broken porcelain with my foot. Across the road stood one of only a few houses still standing in the mines. Tattered white curtains fluttered in the broken window. There was a well in the front yard, a bucket still sitting beside it. “When did they quit mining here?” John asked. “In the early war years, but it took some time for the last families to leave. My Aunt Violet was among the last to leave. Her house once stood over there.” I pointed to a small hill on the opposite side of the road. Lilac bushes still grew in the yard. The lilacs in my Mothers yard were cut from them. Well cut from ones in Violet’s yard which were cut from them. Generations, I thought. Generations of lilacs like generations of people still connected genetically to this place. This place that I am connected to, too. Just as surely as these lilacs, like them my roots were in a different soil but my genes were here too. “Come with me.” I said “I’ll show you something.” We walked the road to a place where it forked and curved. When we walked around the curve there was a faint trail leading to the left up a small hill. There in the ground was a suitcase sized hole. It was full of water. “That” I said “Is want is left of the Hogan mine where my Father worked as a boy. In this blacksmith shop.” I said stepping into a square of stones on the ground. “You have to use your imagination.” I said. John smiled. “It has seen better days.” He said “Once a week they sent the gold to town.”
We sat down and took it all in. Right here I thought. Right here my Dad, a little younger tan I am now worked for his Dad and dreamed as did my Granddad about the seam “Of quartzite in a serpentine vein that marks the greatest yield.” As Stan Rogers had said in his song “The Rawdon hills once were touched by gold”. It was like I could still here the ring of the hammers and the sound of the steam whistle that marked time in the mines. Now the wind was silent save the hum of bees and the smell of lilacs. The alders were slowly eating the fields and clearings. The scars of man’s folly, the shafts and pits were still there and you had to be careful, for they were partly hidden.
Far from hidden was the open pit. It was full of water to within twenty feet of the top. It was almost half the size of a football field we walked to the edge and started in. A fish jumped. I looked at John and he looked at me. Then it jumped again, with a splash. We hadn’t brought the rods. We were half way back to camp so we dashed off and grabbed the rods and gear. We baited up and tossed bobbers in to the pit. “How are we going to land them?” I asked. John Shrugged. “Look we haven’t caught a thing yet so we’ll burn the bridge when we get to it!” He was right. But soon he had a fish one. John is a good fisherman. That is to say he is lucky. He reeled in a small silver fish with a lateral line down its’ side. It weighed less than half a pound. “What is it?” he asked. I stared at him blankly. “I don’t know. Maybe its’ just a big shiner, you know, a big minnow?” I said. “How’d it get here?” he asked. Good question, I thought. I had read about herons and shore birds carrying fish eggs from pond to pond on the mud on their legs. Or maybe somebody let them go. We discussed it over lunch, the rest of the wieners.
We caught a few more but let them all go. They were too small. At one point a fish took John’s bobber under for a good thirty seconds but when he got to it the fish had spit the hook. “That was no little one!” John said his voice shaking. I heartily agreed. I still wonder about that fish. We stayed for a few hours then headed back to camp. “I hereby declare the saloon open!” John said handing me a cool beer from the stream. It was still a scorcher. I slid to the ground and took off my heavy hiking boots and put on my camp shoes. I felt like I was floating on air. That’s why I carry them. John looked at the dried Raccoon pooh and started to laugh. We were both in hysterics. “What’s for supper?” John asked. Supper had been two New York strip loins that were now in the raccoon’s belly. I dug in my pack. I took out a can of corned beef. “I’ll cut it into steaks!” I said with gusto. John howled even louder. Just feed it to me without reading the label and I’ll pretend.” He said. It went into the pan and it tasted surprisingly good. We did dishes and watched the sun set over the lake. “Tomorrow’s Monday want to fish the lakes around the Mount?” I asked from under my hat, tilted low across my eyes to keep out the setting sun. “Sure.” Said John “How about a real meal at that little take out?” “What do you mean real meal?” I said feigning offense. But John was already asleep.
We awoke early and skipped breakfast. We packed the car and carefully threaded our way out the mines road. Aunt Violet was hanging clothes. We told her of our adventures and that we were sorry there was no fresh fish. “It’s too hot.” She said. We stopped at the gas station and replaced the gum with some body putty the guy had. We grabbed some snacks and headed for the railway tracks. The old D.A.R. (Dominion Atlantic Railway) had once been the lifeline of the community. The station had still been there when I was a kid but it was gone now. I parked not far from where it had stood and we walked the tracks. We walked the tracks towards the Uniacke estate. Built in 1813 by Richard Uniacke as a summer home, the estate sprawls on the dappled shores of Martha Lake. It is as beautiful as any English country estate. The estate fronts onto Martha Lake. Named after Richard John Uniacke’s beloved wife. When you are rich you can do that, name a lake after your wife. Well I guess you don’t have to be rich to do it, I mean I could name a lake after my wife but nobody would pay any attention, though she deserves it. We stopped on the shore opposite the estate and fished in the beautiful lake. In spite of the view the fishing sucked. The sun beat down like a blacksmith’s hammer. When Richard Uniacke was Attorney General he could jump on a train in Halifax and get off right where we parked the car. Servants would be there with a carriage to pick him up. Him and no doubt a pantry full of fresh foods from the city, those that didn’t come from the local farms. The Attorney General could take high tea on the veranda under the portico while looking out over the perfect lake. “I bet it teamed with trout back then.” I said wistfully. “I’d have servants swimming the lake herding the trout into my end!” said John with a smile. “Let’s move.” I said and we picked up our gear. We took a break for lunch and I had fried clams and chips at the little take-out on the old highway. They were delicious. John had fish and chips. “I am eating fish this weekend if it kills me.”
After lunch we made our way back down the tracks. Further down this time and the opposite side of the tracks. We found a small lake whose bottom was strewn with sunken logs. A beaver’s paradise. I baited up and cast. John put on a float and reached back to start his forward cast. There was a click of plastic on plastic then John started the forward cast it was smooth as usual and just as sudden. But there was a weird sound like an open window in a car at highway speed. And by my head, in my peripheral vision flew the dull orange plastic tackle box that John was using. It sailed high into the air and halfway across the small lake. In an arc not unlike a rainbow went the contents. Lures, flies, hooks, floats, spools of line, leaders, spinners and all the paraphernalia that fishermen collect and covet and garner over years of cruising tackle shops and department stores. In an instant years of cruising discount bins. Numerous yard sales and flea markets dozens of lucky finds along the banks of lakes and streams. All this came to an end as every single piece of tackle that John owned headed for the convoluted bottom of a lake strewn with logs. No hope of even pursuing it. The tackle box hit the water upside down. As the trays filled with water it righted itself briefly and like a submerging submarine it headed for the bottom. Its brown plastic handle the last thing visible as it sank like some sad conning tower. John looked at me with eyes wide and wild. “Wait!" I shouted and pointed. A flat package was drifting to earth. The only piece of tackle except the hook on the end of his line that John now owned. It landed on the gravel at the side of the railway tracks. John picked it up and turned over. It was a package of snelled hooks with a yellow clearance sticker on it marked 25 cents. “Great! Of all the things to be saved it would have to be the cheapest thing in the box.” His eyes were looking at the ground. I half expected him to be crying when he raised his head. Instead he wore a smile; from ear to ear he had the look of a man too stunned to cry. We both started to laugh. We laughed and laughed. We continued to fish, John using my tackle when he wanted to try something else. At dusk we headed back to the tracks. We put the gear in the Honda’s tiny trunk. I closed it firmly there was a crunch. I quickly reopened the trunk and took out my two piece fly rod. “I guess it’s a three piece fly rod now!” I said holding the wreckage up for John to see. He was in the passenger seat. We laughed all the way home. “That was the most disastrous trip ever. I punctured my tank.” “A raccoon ate our food.” John added. “We both slipped in that same raccoons pooh.” “I lost all my tackle.” “I broke my rod!” “Where do you want to go next weekend?” John asked. “I hope it cools off before the season ends!” I added.
Now here is proof that the Speckled Trout is the king of fish. We never once in that weekend disaster considered turning tail and going home. Nor did we stop fishing. Through it all we kept casting, kept hoping.
