by Anna Maxymiw
* * *
The early-evening departure from the lodge means we take off as the sun is just starting to sink—as Emma, Pea, Kev, and I fling our tired and stinking bodies into the sticky seats of Billy’s plane, the sunset traces its fingers around the edges of the windshield; as we lace through the water and taxi and rip up, up, into the thin northern air, the light slants once more onto the muskeg and back up into our waiting faces, and we all become very quiet. The cabin of the plane glows; our bodies glow. Everything around me is bright and the air bracketing us slows my movements and makes my arms and legs tired, heavy like paw prints sunk into wet sand, heavy like Jack on my back, like the memory of last night and the argument that keeps replaying in all of our heads and has been for the past day.
Behind me, the other three have fallen asleep, and they’re lying on one another’s sweaty shoulders, faces seraphic. They loll with every movement of the plane, their arms crossed over one another’s laps and chests, and I marvel at how far we have all come, that the borders between bodies are so blurred that the three of them have woven themselves comfortably into an exquisite knot of sleep. While I stare at them, Billy nudges me and tries to hand me a pen, snickering. He wants me to draw moustaches on their sleeping faces, and normally I would, but I can’t bring myself to do it this time; I can’t disturb their perfect peace or the sweet, cushioning silence that has filled this space. The three of them are too perfect, too beautiful, too still. No frowns, no swearing mouths. No lingering upset.
In the light of this unfiltered sun, it’s easy to forget the harsh words said last night. I can forget the yelling and the way our ranks shattered. I can forget the way my co-workers’ bodies looked when held tight and full of rage. I can forget that the summer didn’t end the way it should have. I can forget that the future is terrifically uncertain, that I don’t think Gus and Jack will ever be friends again, that deep in my bones, I know I won’t come back here to work next year. Is this the last time I’ll see this sun, this lush fabric of trees, this huge water, these footsteps of giants?
I struggle for a moment, overcome with a rush of fear—the fear I thought I had conquered, that softness that I tried so hard to leave on the rocks. I want to sleep like my co-workers behind me, but at the same time, I know I have to force myself to keep my eyes open, keep awake, keep absorbing so I can remember this place forever, leave no precious memory behind.
As I start to panic, frightened that I’m abandoning a non-negotiable piece of myself—a core of mettle, sun-dark forearms and chapped palms from boat ropes and wheelbarrow handles, strength drawn from the lake and the trees and my co-workers, pieces I never knew I had within me and am now loath to lose—I think about the bears, trodding their paths for millenniums before me and millenniums to come. Of the bugs, with our blood in their bodies. Of cake left in the forest, of my name written in permanent marker on the ceiling of the back girls cabin, of the books and tampons and pieces of clothing we’ve left for future staff members. And I think of the people who have deposited dreams here: years of sighs and murmurs that will linger high in the corners of the ceilings of the staff cabins, the many feverish nights spent with hands between legs or fingers in hair, the hours of bodies wearing down mattresses from tossing and turning and no sleep coming because the day was so good or so bad or so much of both things at once, the months of laughter so fierce and so fast that it has to be clapped back with a hand over the mouth just to be able to breathe. I think of the people I have learned to love and could never forget, not ever.
And I think about the northern pike, those brindled, beautiful beasts prowling beneath the water’s surface. These fish have seen people come and go; they’ve seen campfires burned out, settlements and villages and towns created and abandoned. They’ve spent brutal winters under ice, biding their time; they’ve spent summers listening to the human squeals that reverberate through the lake’s surface. They’ve been caught, thrown back, caught, thrown back; maybe they’ve learned from their time on the hook, maybe they haven’t. But every year, as the seasons change from too-hot northern summer to too-cold northern winter, and then back again, the fish remain—patient, persistent, surviving no matter what is thrown at them.
And somehow, as our tiny plane flies into the sun and back to what I used to think was civilization, that makes all the difference.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you:
To my agent, Stephanie Sinclair, who is a buttress and also a force to be reckoned with, who gave me hope and purpose when I was lost, and who made this wild dream a reality.
To my editors, Jenny Bradshaw and Kelly Joseph, for blessing me with nuanced, insightful edits, for always being at the ready when I had frantic questions, and for making me laugh even in the thick of rewrites.
To Jared Bland, for believing me, and being a light in a dark time. And also for cat pictures.
To Carly Watters, Emily Davidson, Devon Murphy, and andrea bennett, talented and patient friends who read early drafts and provided key comments; to my brilliant cabal of MFA writers, many of whom saw bits of this book before it was a book; and to Shannon Busta and Kim Magi, two irreplaceable women who keep me going no matter what.
To the Moose Cree, for hosting us on your land and allowing us to experience the summer that we did.
To the housekeepers, dockhands, and fishing guides: without you, I would have never learned how to use chewing gum as a lure, how to make buoys out of bleach jugs, how to clean shit off of a wall, how to love so ferociously, how to laugh so hard.
And most of all, to my family and especially my parents, Walter and Janet. Everything I’ve accomplished is because of you and your fierce, sweeping love and support. There are no words to properly appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I love you.
Essays from this collection have appeared in Maisonneuve, The Malahat Review, Hazlitt, Prairie Fire, and LOST magazine. The Ontario Arts Council provided a grant, without which this book would not have come into being.
Permissions Acknowledgements
Grateful acknowledgement is made to reprint the following previously published material:
Excerpt from “The Runners” by Al Purdy, Beyond Remembering: The Collected Poems of Al Purdy, edited by Sam Solecki, 2000, Harbour Publishing, www.harbourpublishing.com. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Excerpt from “The Pike,” by Theodore Roethke copyright © 1963 by Beatrice Roethke, Administratrix of the Estate of Theodore Roethke, copyright © 1966 and renewed 1994 by Beatrice Lushington; from Collected Poems by Theodore Roethke. Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from “The Blackfly Song” [sound recording] by Wade Hemsworth. Recorded 1955. On Folk Songs of the Canadian North Woods, Folkways Records and Service Corp, FW068, 1955, vinyl record. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Excerpt from “Tiny Dancer” Words and Music by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Copyright © 1971 UNIVERSAL/DICK JAMES MUSIC LTD. Copyright Renewed. All Rights in the United States and Canada Controlled and Administered by UNIVERSAL—SONGS OF POLYGRAM INTERNATIONAL, INC. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
Excerpt from The Sacred Paw: The Bear in Nature, Myth, and Literature by Paul Shepard and Barry Sanders (New York, NY: Viking Books, 1985). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Excerpt from The Manitous: The Supernatural World of the Ojibway by Basil Johnston (New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1996). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
ANNA MAXYMIW’s writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, Hazlitt, and Maisonneuve, and has won a National Magazine Award. She lives in Toronto.
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