by Pat Ardley
I made a pot of coffee, poured it into a thermos and carried it on a tray with three cups to sit undercover and out of the rain in front of the lodge. Shortly, Casey arrived. Then Jessy arrived, and we sat drinking our steaming coffee and quietly watched the mesmerizing feeding frenzy. I felt our hearts beat as one and knew that we would win our Casey back into the family.
The next morning the caretakers arrived, Casey left for Vancouver in Sportspage, and a few hours later, Jessy and I flew to town.
I have made a decision, but I still love you,
Pat
Living Every Man’s Dream
Dear George:
Jess and I pulled together through another winter and both worked toward organizing the lodge for another fishing season. The paperwork is pretty well sorted out finally, and I have interviewed quite a few potential chefs but have not found one that I believe will be a good fit. I finally decided that I would do the cooking this summer, which seemed easier to me than finding the appropriate chef with the appropriate attitude. I re-hired a breakfast cook/baker who had worked for us for five years, thirty years ago. She was a wonderful girl, and even though I hadn’t seen her in the past twenty-five years, I was looking forward to working with her again.
Here I am, continuing to live “every man’s dream.” The funny part about that is that it had never really been my dream. I was enjoying the country, the adventures and the perks of the lodge, but as the man said to you one day, “you are living every man’s dream,” he was really only talking to you. And this summer was more about living through my nightmares than living my dreams.
I told Casey that I will not hire his girlfriend again. I said that she could come for a visit, but I would not hire her. No, never hire her again. A few people advised me to cast Casey out of our family. This I would never do. No matter what happened, I would deal with it and welcome him home with all my heart.
Jess and I flew into the lodge around the end of June. Normally you, or in the past many years, Casey, would fly into the lodge first. You would open up our house and un-winterize it by getting the freshwater pipes connected, the saltwater pump going for the flush toilet and propane connected for hot water and the little two-burner stove. The caretakers were still here, ready to leave for their summer adventures, and our long-time friend Dave Stafford had arrived a few days ahead of us and had started the water lines and propane. He still loves being at the lodge and helping out at the beginning of each summer. Casey is conspicuous by his absence. He only shows up sporadically.
It’s so peaceful at the lodge when we first arrive. The first cup of coffee is always a pleasant surprise. With the water coming off the hill, filtering through cedar peat, it makes such delicious coffee, tea, rice and porridge. It’s the same thing that colours a good glass of scotch. So many people have asked for my recipe for my plain old oatmeal porridge, but there’s no trick to it, it’s just the extra flavour in the water that makes it taste so good.
Jess, Dave, the caretakers and I all sat and drank coffee for most of the afternoon, comparing stories about the winter at the lodge and winter in town. Then I did a walkabout and checked how everything had managed to make it through a rather cold and snowy winter. Just like in town, a lot of my plants suffered from the extreme cold and heavy snow load. The bay leaf trees and a few other herbs were severely frostbitten. Some of the herbs were only just starting to poke fresh green leaves out of the soil in the wooden plant boxes. I’ll send for more herb plants.
I had the grocery orders and liquor orders organized. I had the staff hired and airplanes lined up and had shipped the office boxes and plants to the lodge. Jess and I had timed our arrival to be there shortly after the freight boat had arrived so we could handle the supplies. After our coffee party, we got to work. The new walk-in freezer that I had built behind the kitchen is a godsend. The fishing has been so good in the past few years that there was barely enough room left for my freezer goods in our other big freezer. Now it’s so much easier to organize the kitchen food and any baking that can be done ahead of time.
It’s a good thing too, because the baker didn’t show up on the flight today. I finally tracked down her sister and hear that my breakfast cook is now a drug addict and won’t be making it up to work any time soon. Now I am baking bread as well as making breakfast, lunch and dinner and morning snacks and afternoon snacks for the guests in the boats. I know I have said this before, but it is a little overwhelming! I have very little time to breathe between baking, cooking, wrapping, chopping, sautéing, ordering, paying, billing, checking and putting away. It’s pretty hard to find another breakfast cook from here. How can I trust a letter or even a telephone interview? But I do. The new breakfast cook I hire is related to someone in the inlet and has apparently even been to the inlet, so I think this person will be all right with the wilderness. Not so much. She worked here for less than two weeks and decided to leave, so I’m back on my head. My saving grace has been my ability, learned through necessity, to sleep for ten minutes sitting up in the blue chair in the living room. I wake refreshed and ready to go again.
Jessy and Casey in the lodge kitchen having fun with guests, who dressed them up for the picture.
I had a visit from a little man who arrived in a Fishery boat. He said he was an inspector for Environment Canada. He threatened me with a $200,000-per-day fine if I didn’t put in a septic system. I’m sure the gun on his hip made him feel very important. I’m also sure he wanted to make a name for himself, because I understand he threatened all the small lodges in Rivers Inlet without so much as testing the water. While cities like Victoria were dumping between 82 million and 129 million litres of sewage a day, this little man came after me for several hundred pounds per year—which is less than the amount that the sea lions poop in a twenty-four-hour period on Stevens Rocks just outside of our bay. Our winter caretakers have video of eighty to ninety, even a hundred sea lions on Stevens Rocks.
Researching and letter writing consumes a lot of my energy these days. Okay, I’ll give you the end result here and now. I eventually found a fantastic, not-too-expensive composting toilet that flushes into a holding container at the back of each building that could be retrofit into our lodge and guestrooms. Afterward, the little man was moved away from his post and away from dealing with the public, which was not his strong suit. But by now, some of the lodges had spent between $250,000 and $500,000 trying to comply with equipment that would never work in the long run because of the short fishing season. The septic systems that were available rely on continuity for the bacteria to work their magic but by the time the bacteria could start to work, the lodges would be closed for the season leaving a tank full of effluent. Ours, meanwhile, turns out a nice little package of compost material.
Casey was here some of the time and helped with the heavy equipment, machinery, plumbing and boats. There was no girlfriend to cause problems “at the lodge,” but I still felt her heavy presence. He did arrive later than usual and left during the busiest time, but he was here for the rest of the summer. Just as it was for you, Rivers Inlet is in his blood, something that I am banking on to bring him back into the fold.
One night while our guests were enjoying dessert, I walked around the tables chatting with our satiated and now sleepy diners. There was a gentle, salty sweet breeze wafting in the open front doors when suddenly a bat flew in, followed by the cat hot on its trail. The bat was frantically zipping this way and that, just barely missing the heads of people who were shocked into stillness while the cat dove across tables and flipped through the air in a heroic effort to catch its favourite snack. I ran and grabbed a tea towel, darted up the stairs to the mezzanine and opened all the windows there, then stood ready to flap the towel to help send the traumatized bat back out into the night sky. Jessy saw the commotion and quickly grabbed a little herring net and ran into the lodge. Alexander, one of our Chilean guests, who happened to be a world-class lacrosse player, s
houted to Jess to throw the net to him. He stood up at the table and, on the bat’s second pass over his head, scooped the frantic creature into the net, gave a professional twist of his wrist to close the top and elegantly handed it over to Jessy who then let the poor wee thing go outside. Our guests, now very much wide awake, stayed up a little longer to laugh about the incident over a nightcap.
We had a man book into the lodge to stay and fish on his own. He went out fishing by himself in the mornings and again in the afternoons and evenings. One afternoon, there was a cryptic call on the radio from the fellow. He said, “I’ve had a bit of an accident.”
Bit of an accident? My ass! He had driven full speed onto the shore, wedging the front of the boat fifteen feet up on the rocks, completely destroying the boat in the process. The heavy fibreglass hull was smashed and mangled from the impact, with the rocky shore breaking through and shoving the passenger seat into the air. He was lucky he wasn’t dead. There was a long sweeper that had smashed through the windshield and jammed itself into the driver’s seat. When questioned about what on earth he was doing to ram into the shore so dramatically, he said, “I was doing some little task.” Some little task that we never did figure out. He certainly wasn’t in the driver’s seat. It was some little task to completely rebuild the boat in town that winter. Months of repair, rebuilding the whole hull, fibreglassing the entire shell, replacing the hardware, the windshield and the smashed seats as well as the engine leg and smashed housing. Still not worth the cost of insurance for our boats all these years.
One of the engines wasn’t working right, and I heard that there was a mechanic living temporarily in the inlet. I was finally able to track him down and he agreed to come to the lodge to work on the boat. He was a very old but sprightly little fellow with a long craggy face and wild untamed masses of yellow hair that stuck out as if he’d been electrified! His clothes were ragged and threadbare, and his shoes were grimy and worn with a hole for his big toe to poke out of. He had a grubby unkempt beard that hung down to his chest and was stained from a century of smoking. All in all, he had the appearance of a savage Icelandic troll, but he was a kind man and a very good mechanic. Unfortunately for Jess, he was also the embodiment of her recurring nightmare about “wild and terrifying people who come sneaking down from the back hills in the dark.” She nearly fainted when she saw him on the back walkway and had nightmares again for a week after he left. Her wild imagination often got the better of her too.
Mornings for me were the worst. After four hours of sleep I would head into the kitchen to start filling coffee thermoses. One morning I heard the freight boat calling us to say that they would be at the lodge in thirty minutes with freight and propane. Propane! We needed lots of propane and the thousand-pound tank was tied to the end guest cabin in the corner of the bay. I got the generator going so I had some light to see by outside, then woke one of the dock crew and told him to turn the valve on the big tank so he could switch to the three-hundred-pound tank while the big one was out being filled. I rushed back and jumped into the work skiff. Oh, did I mention that Casey had gone to town?
I got the engine going, and headed into the back of the bay to start working the propane float out from between logs and floats. By now, Jessy and a member of the dock crew had arrived and were helping push on the floats with pike poles. It was pouring rain and pitch black, and it was an emergency to get the tank out. And of course the float was caught underwater on a log. It took my years of boating expertise to manoeuvre in and out and in and out inch by inch. When I finally had it disentangled from everything, I hooked the line on the towing post and pulled it out to the front of the lodge, stepped off the work skiff onto the dock, and left it for one of the crew to easily tow the rest of the way out to the barge.
Quite a few guests were up and about by now, so I quickly headed into the kitchen to continue breakfast prep, but all the pilot lights were out on the propane stove, including both ovens. I muttered, “He didn’t switch the valve,” as I ran back to turn on the three-hundred-pound tank, and raced back to light the pilots. So there I was, lying on the kitchen floor and reaching in at a ridiculously awkward angle before I could push the red button down and hold it for several seconds while I got a propane torch going and lit the flame. I know, you have been there many times, but I haven’t. Burners going, ovens going, I grabbed a serving thermos of coffee and went out to greet the guests. I was dripping with great droplets of rain as I went. Meanwhile, Jessy walked around the guest cabins and re-lit the pilot lights in the hot-water tanks that had also gone out.
I was working so fast and furiously that one night I made five courses for dinner instead of four. I saw the waitress read the menu just before dinner was to be served. The tables were already set, but she ran into the kitchen, saw what I had bubbling away on the stove and started to collect soup spoons. I also had the menu in front of where I work and wondered what the fuss was about. “I didn’t know there was going to be soup too!” she said. I started to laugh so hard that I had to rush to the hall away from where the guests could see me. The waitress joined me and we had five hysterical minutes of uncontrollable, almost-silent snickering. Tears were pouring down my cheeks. Jessy walked in the back door and stared quizzically at me, but I could not form words to explain what was going on while I leaned on the wall for support, soup dripping from the ladle still clutched in my hand.
Shortly after that, I made one too many trays of boat-snack treats. As you know, George, when I’m cooking, I spend a lot of time counting. Counting people, counting eggs, counting cookies, counting slices, counting steaks. I miscounted again and made a huge batch of chocolate-crisp bars—two massively gigantic trays that had no real purpose. I still can’t think about those bars without laughter gurgling up my throat. We wouldn’t need them, but there they were cooling on the baker’s rack. I lost it every time I walked past the rack.
Love you,
Pat
First Annual Art Workshop Retreat
Dear George:
It’s now the fall of 2009. Jessy has not only been working hard for the lodge this summer, she’s also been studying to finish a couple of courses for her art history degree from uBC in the midst of all the fishing. She wrote her last two exams at Dawsons Landing with the postmaster as invigilator in the middle of August. And now she is in her last few weeks of studying for her prerequisite math courses for going to the uBC nursing program.
Casey left for town after winterizing motors, equipment, fridges, freezers and plumbing, and Jessy and I stayed on our own for our First Annual Art Workshop Retreat. Aside from studying, Jessy has painted and rowed while I’ve read and written. Just to have the time and the space to spread out and paint to her heart’s content has been very special. This extra time at the lodge has provided very real “stolen moments” for us both. We’ve also sat in the sun, watched movies at night, eaten whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted and then blissfully started it all over again the next day. It had been such a crazy busy summer that we’ve really needed this time to unwind.
Jessy, me and Casey.
It has been one week since Casey left us on our own. We had such a stormy day yesterday, with the wind blowing the rain sideways and pounding at the windows, and there were waves rushing across the normally flat calm bay. The floats shifted and bumped as the wind swirled around. We both stayed inside most of the day, only going out when it was necessary to start the generator or collect firewood. We are running the generator about eight hours a day for the fridges and freezers and cozy movies at night. What oil does the generator take? Why didn’t you write it on the generator? Can I add oil? Is there anything I should be careful about, like what happens if I add too much oil? Does the small generator use different oil than the big generator? What’s in the oil can outside of the generator shed and why is it sitting there? Luckily, I find out that Jessy knows how to change the oil. It would be so easy to run the generator all day but we b
oth love the quiet with no engine thumping away in the background. The winter caretakers will be here in about ten days.
We haven’t had groceries delivered since the charter came to pick up our last guests twenty days ago, but I’ve had a lot of experience after all these years of managing produce over a long period of time. We even have lettuce that is still quite fresh. Iceberg lettuce lasts the longest. We’ve had a few people drop by for a visit, and have handed out containers of yogurt and cartons of eggs, as well as a dozen or so of the fern plants that grace the high shelf in the lodge living room all summer.
Jessy went to fill the kettle for tea and there was no water coming out of the tap. I checked the valves everywhere and found that the one at the front of the finger float, coming from the big white tank up the hill, had been knocked open. It drained the tank when the floats were bumping into each other. Now the pipe would have an airlock in it, and it would be tough to get the water moving through it again. I managed to figure out which valves to turn to get the water over to the house from the lower green tank instead. While I was wrangling hoses and valves to hook on to the lower green tank, Jessy walked around the floats to check on the stiff legs. She found that the one that connected one end of the buildings to shore had broken free. The stiff leg and the perpendicular connector log had swung wildly in the night and had left our floats to fend for themselves. No wonder there was so much bumping in the night and this would be why the freshwater valve had been nudged open.