July 28, 2007
"We're neighbors, ay?" Marg had said as we waved good-bye last year. We'd met Marg and Cindy and Patti on Little Caribou Lake three hours north of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, up near Armstrong. The women had been on the lake for their annual "Women's Weekend" of fishing on Little Caribou. Mary and her brother and his wife and I were on our annual canoe trip in Canada's wild waters.
This year, as we made plans for the trip, Marg said Yes, we could leave our vehicles at her cabin at the south end of Little Caribou, the only cabin on the lake. "Glad to oblige" is how she put it when we thanked her. Additionally, she invited us to spend our first night with her and her companions at the cabin, rather than laying over in motel rooms in Thunder Bay on our way north.
We arrived at the cabin about 10:30 p.m. local time last night to a terrific warm welcome. Patti was absent. She has been battling health problems since February, we were told, and hadn't quite recovered enough strength to make the trip to Little Caribou for the weekend of fishing. Marg's daughter, Alanna, was along, however, and was of an age, having just completed her freshman year of high school, that Marg thought she ought to start coming on this "What Happens on Women's Weekend Stays at Women's Weekend" weekend.
Little Caribou Lake, 2007: wind and water, light and rock. Photo by Ted Abel
So we met our Canadian friends, these neighbors, and had cold drinks and warm talk with them on the screen porch of the cabin. We talked. We got pointed in the direction of sauna and shower and outhouse, and we talked. We got shown the sleeping accommodations – bunk beds for Ted and Matt, the young men traveling with us, a fold-out bed for Philip and Susan, and another fold-out bed for Mary and myself. The cabin was actually one very large room with curtains dividing one end into three small bedrooms and affording privacy to Marg in the left cubicle, Ted and Matt in the center, and Cindy and Alanna in bunk beds to the right. Mary and I in our bed, and Philip and Susan in theirs, would sleep in the middle of the living room. Some of us trundled off to our beds and some sleep after the thirteen and a half hour drive. Some of us stayed on the porch and talked in the light of the white gas lantern, for by then Marg had shut off the generator she allows only during the hours between sunset and a sane person's bedtime.
Eventually all of us slept, and eventually all of us rose in the morning to Marg's coffee and a breakfast of toast and bacon and gently-fried eggs. A lovely breakfast and a fine start to our first day at Little Caribou.
We loaded our canoes and set off for our intended camping site part-way up the lake. Fine sky and fine water and fine paddling.
To be continued....
Familiar looking country! And a sauna? Must be some Finns there!
Glad to have you back with your present-day stories!
Posted by: marja-leena | August 10, 2007 at 11:57 AM
I don't know if know if Marg is Finnish, but she's a Northerner, ay? The sauna seemed pretty important to her....
Posted by: Tom Montag | August 10, 2007 at 01:03 PM
Hey, Tom--great story. Now we have to wait a whole year to do it again. As for my sauna, it is important to me as I was never one to bathe in the lake. I am a northerner but I don't like blood suckers - "yuk." And I have don't have Finnish blood in me, I just like to go to bed clean and when you have a sauna it not only cleans, it relaxes and restores. Thanks, Margaret
Posted by: Margaret | August 11, 2007 at 07:49 AM
Hi, Margaret--yup, we have to wait a whole year to do it again. Looking forward to it! I know what you mean about the bloodsuckers - I saw the size of them. It's not just the sauna that relaxes and restores; the whole triangle of wind-water-rock at Little Caribou contributes to that. See you next year.
Posted by: Tom Montag | August 13, 2007 at 07:08 AM