by Chris Cowland –
Those avid readers who read last month’s Chronicle might be wondering how we escaped from the thunderstorm that left us in our small boat, tied to a tree on a remote island overnight through a huge thunderstorm in Lake of the Woods.
With a newborn and a two year old, my wife was already habituated to sleepless nights, so I’m sure it was no problem for her. However, I was devastated at the lack of a hot cup of tea in the morning. We managed to flag down a passing boat at around 10 a.m., and were towed ignominiously to our new cottage soon after.
I soon learned the acronym for boat: “bring out another thousand,” as the motor repair came to over $900. Those early two-stroke Johnson motors had a black box that could fail with no warning, and our time had come.
Looking back on life, that fatalistic philosophy is not a bad one to adopt. Yes, I probably should have had the boat checked out before setting off on a perilous first time journey, but if you can blame fate and black magic then you might retain some credibility.
The cottage, built in 1925, lacked a few luxuries. Running water was not a great problem, as you could scoop up pristine lake water in a five-gallon container right at the doorstep. Electricity was not an issue in an era 20 years before the Internet. We burned candles and lamps at night, most evenings were spent at card and board games, and we actually communicated with each other directly with words and expressions. LOL was a sound, not an emoticon.
There were a few challenges, notwithstanding. The backhouse was falling apart, and one of my first carpentry projects was to build a new one. You have to remember that with my British background, stuff was built with bricks rather than 2 x 4s, so I was at a disadvantage. I got a great deal on some railway ties, and I thought they would be a great starting point for my project. I dug a three-foot hole in the ground, and managed to erect three walls around it. I never figured out how to join them, and as a result the contraption bowed outwards into a mushroom shape. I never actually put a roof on it. Or a door. The location was magnificent, with a fantastic view across the lake, but just a little embarrassing when passing fishermen dropped anchor 50 feet away and began casting until they looked upward and spotted a family member in flagrante defecato.
But the real challenge was the mice. The cottage was built on old tree stumps as foundations, and as they rotted, gaps would open up and let the vermin inside. We would be happily playing Rummoli, and 10 of the critters would scurry across the rafters. I quickly learned the meaning of ricochet after I let loose with my BB gun one evening and put a crack in the window I had carefully installed the weekend before. That reminder stayed with me for the next 30 years. So did the unfinished outhouse, though I think the word had spread around town and most of the fishing was conducted at least 100 feet offshore over the ensuing years.
