Afternoon, Louisa Lake, Day 4
We landed on the shore of Lake Louisa around 12:30 or so, having left pretty little Pardee Lake at 9 this morning. The trails were short today – 450m and 500m respectively- but the first one, colloquially known as ‘The Stairway to Heaven, had a significant climb, including switchbacks, over the first third of its length. Even at 10am, when we set off up the trail on our first run, it was quite warm already (70-75 degrees and sunny- still no leaves overhead to offer shelter and shade), so we set our pace at slow (let’s be honest here, our pace is always slow!), resting to catch our breath at the turns in the switchback (me moreso than Don on this) then sitting for a bit at the trail’s ends to rehydrate before setting back across for another load. The trail itself was lovely, paralleling for a time a babbling brook– no poetic license here, she was literally babbling, we heard her music beneath the boulders that lined the trail long before she surfaced to be seen.
It is the elevation (which we climbed up and over) of course which lends to Lake Louisa some of her charm. Those rolling hills which envelope her, along with the many rocky islands that she contains, create a soothing and evocative panoramic vista. We have landed upon one such island, where this late afternoon the winds are crashing waves onto the rocks at my feet. It is quite musical in its thrumming, and we are quite content to be here listening to it rather than out there paddling through the whitecaps. We are also grateful for these winds to chase off the blackflies, which have begun to hatch. Exposure to the wind was one of the things we looked for when we set off from shore after lunch in search of a campsite here. Though we don’t typically go for an island site (I’d rather gaze upon an island studded lake than her shoreline and often Island sites are a bit overused), the site on the point south of us, which also would’ve caught these westerly winds, was taken.
We’ve seen no one else on the Lake this afternoon.
The Island is a beautiful place, quite large, with a lot of terrain to explore behind camp, a fire circle out here on the beach close to the water, and a larger more sheltered area beneath the trees farther back in camp. The island itself is studded with large pines– red and white– along with some cedar and spruce, and even a few hemlocks. Our view from this rocky perch is splendid, with smaller islands dotting the surface of the water surrounding us. Low-growing laurel is rooted in the duff atop the granite here. The flora on this exposed point of granite is well acclimated to the more typical crunchy, sandy soil, but with all of this spring rain, its buds are prolific, seemingly ready to burst into bloom.
I must get up now to move into the sun. The winds is quite chilly here in the shade that has suddenly befallen me.
Day 5, 3:00pm, Lake Louisa
Breeze feels like a caress on my skin here on the grassy knob under the shade of White Pine.
Last evening, a sudden shower, short lived but enough to chase us into the tent, had us falling to sleep by 9:30 to the patter of raindrops on the tent roof. I woke this morning at 5:30, but though the hint of color brimming on the east horizon invited me to rise with the sun, I rolled over and fell back to sleep until 7! The sleep was much needed, I expect. (The new sleeping mat is quite comfortable)
Wind rushes through the pines now, adding its voice to the music of the water galunking as it laps against the rocks. Bullfrog, in the tiny entrapped pool, on the side of the island where we land the canoe, bellows. This morning, the geese, nesting on the rocks offshore honked a morning wakeup call.
We paddled this morning to the far east end of the lake and back, after a lingering and leisurely breakfast of pancakes and bacon, cooked over the fire at the water’s edge. We tried our hand at trolling for lake trout for a bit, to no avail except for our mutual frustration with tangled lines and getting pushed around by the windswept lake. (I must admit here that my heart sunk a bit when Don mentioned taking the fishing gear along for our morning paddle. I do not like paddling solo from the bow of the boat when Don is fishing from the stern, and he won’t take the bow seat because it is not comfortable for him. It just makes the entire experience of being in the canoe on the water a labor (of love) for me) Finally, we both relented and reeled in our lines, after freeing our lures from the rocks one last time, and just paddled together through the remainder of the morning, which relaxed us both.
Turning back toward home, we stopped at a small, rather simple campsite, on an exposed point along the south shore, which would’ve made a fine camp for the 2 of us, though it didn’t seem to be a preferred stop for many. We enjoyed a lunch of rehydrated chicken salad and crackers on the rocks there before heading back.
Now we are seated shoulder to shoulder, each of us sighing from time to time at the leisure of it and our ease with one another.
I wonder at times what it is that my soul is learning or yearning for in these returns to a life more connected to the natural world, to the earth and her gifts, her beauties, her wisdom. Something More, I suppose— more meaningful, more connected. more whole, yes— but mostly just More. Not for me some egoic checklist of lakes paddled, wildlife observed, or flora identified, but a deeper awareness of my relationship with, humble dependency upon, respect and honor of the One who is expressed within all of this.
May I also glean something of the Wisdom nature so willingly extends— something of patience, of stillness, of enduring grace, of tolerance, of letting go…. I don’t know how many more years we will be able to come out here like this, and there is a sense in me of soaking it all in. And I wonder, if I lived in another time and place, would I have to make such a choice at all– this one of potentially ending my days ‘visiting’ this beautiful earth, surrounded by the natural world which is my home? Might I once have just crawled out of my longhouse, or teepee, or hogan, or cave to feast in the surrounding beauty of my homeland….
I long for that kind of intimacy with her, a daily sort of immersion and oneness, to the very end of my days in this precious life. However, I recognize that I may need to fall in love with the earth closer to home, see her beauty, her grace, her tolerance, her forgiveness, her wisdom and great patience in the land of human-made cities and towns, in the cracks in the pavement and the gifts of greenery between billboards and shopping malls, amidst machinery and smokestacks, highways and warehouses, and suburban controlled landscapes.
I feel the grief in that now. Where is such a place for me, to sit next to lapping waters, feel the wind rushing through the trees, witness the mergansers and loons paddling, preening and diving, the beaver’s and otter’s slick bodies diving, to rest in the companionship of the wild, as I age.
Day 6. Lousisa Lake, 7:00 am
Morning wren insisted that I rise with her at 6:15, in the orange glow of sunrise.
Goose flies low over the water, honking, the walls of the lakeshore responding with resonant echoes, which in turn alerted some loons down the lake, to the east… The surface of the still sleepy lake has picked up a slight hint of a ripple, stirred to rise from her quiet rest by the sun— as was the wren, as was I. One’s daily rhythm with nature– with one’s own nature– come, well, naturally here.
Somewhere to the west of me, I hear what sounds like rushing water, as over a falls, though I see no indication of one on the map. Perhaps we shall follow that sound today, see what we find. Is this also the way of life, then? The maps we are given for living can only provide a skeleton for finding our way. At some point, we are called to follow that which we hear calling…
What an experience my soul has been having here in this body, here in this life, on this beautiful earth, following what map, I wonder? And what learnings (not memories, perse) might I be gathering to bring back, or to grow, to return to or contribute to whatever is Becoming through me, through the earth, through life itself.
Homecoming feels like a potent word for me right now. This return to Algonquin, this return to the earth and to my true place within it, feels like homecoming to me, feels like belonging. Is this feeling a reminder, then, this feeling of oneness with the earth, of my Oneness with the One. To carry back with me. This fullness of belonging. this integral Wisdom, this wholeness — we are all aspects of the One, held within, expressive of, receiving from and giving to.
And what experiences are yet to come for this human body of mine, as I enter these final stages of this blessed life? Will I experience an entirely different way of being, with whatever inherent gifts and learnings come along with it? Will I experience deeper humility and grace, being cared for and tended, allowing myself to simply receive what I can no longer give, what I cannot ‘earn’? Will I experience lonliness and neglect? Or will I experience some entirely new consciousness in a ‘different’ mind, one affected by dementia or decline? No matter, all will be gift. Gift in decline, gift in diminishment, gift in loss, in helplessness, in this, being human.
The geese are now engaging in some sort of territorial pecking order on and around the small rocky islands that surround ours. One, in particular, has been humming, almost growling, a low repetitive assertion of his place in the family of things, for sure.
Grouse thrums in the forest behind me.
My belly groans…
an algonquin affair 