Went Fishin’

Alright, so I took a few days’ vacation; first, a trip up north to the French River area of Northern Ontario (for some fishing) and second, after returning from my time away, I’ve been having some difficulties diving back into the old routine. The first casualty of this latter internal war was not truth, but rather whatever concept is represented by HiR:tb. Too many nights this past week, I’ve come home from work, had a little sump’n sump’n to eat, and promptly passed out on the couch in front of what Spouse refers to (I believe somewhat disparagingly, if you can believe it) as “my cartoons” – Simpsons, King of the Hill, Family Guy. Is it wrong to be a full-grown adult who needs to be entertained by brightly coloured images and sleeping peacefully by 9:30 to have any chance of surviving the following day without some sort of screaming tantrum?

Let me tell you a little bit about my fishing trip. I had hoped to blog about the trip while I was on it, but this proved to be impossible as the wireless access point I was hoping to use (at the fishing lodge) got smoked by approximately one kajillion volts of electricity when lightning struck the lodge several days before I arrived. I will tell you that when I learned that I could not access teh Intarwebs while at the lodge, I internally resolved to write a little entry each day nonetheless, and simply post these entries sequentially upon my return to the land of the wired. I thought that I was going to have all kinds of time, inspiration and motivation to be writing these entries because I was in a cabin in the middle of the woods all by myself and – quite frankly – I assumed I would need to fill the time somehow.

Wrongo.

I had forgotten, apparently, how tiring a day in the boat fishing can be, and Newton’s Third Law of Fishing, which clearly states that when a body that’s been fishing is at rest, it ain’t freakin’ likely that it’s moving anywhere to do any damn thing, it’ll just stay crashed out on the couch watching TV or reading its book, thank you very much, prior to the sweet relief of the deepest sleep known to mankind without the use of ether.

So, I need to back up to the beginning.

Last October, Spouse and I had booked a cabin at Memquisit Lodge for the week of June 28th to July 5th. It was supposed to be a week away together, during which I could do some fishing. Memquisit is a fantastic place; the Lodge owns a massive piece of land on the North shore of the West Arm of Lake Nipissing. On this giant piece of property, they have placed only slightly more than a dozen cabins. The surrounding area is typically rugged Northern Ontario wilderness, with a modest number of cottages in the general area. The end result is that – at least for now – it is an area where it is possible to get in the boat, head off to a secluded bay and spend the day floating around in the middle of a stunningly beautiful landscape, and on many such days you may not see (or hear) another soul for many hours. A problem arose for Spouse – by forces beyond her control, her schedule at work got set arranged in such a way that she could not take the entire week of vacation. With the cabin booked and the fish waiting, I felt I had no choice but to make my way up Highway 69 and start fishing, hopeful that Spouse’s work commitments would resolve themselves early enough to permit her to join me at the cabin for the end of the week.

It didn’t happen that way; by the time Spouse was able to get away from the office, she was not excited about the prospect of packing the car, shipping Henry off to my parents’ place, loading Popeye into the car and driving for six hours to spend a few days at the cabin, then turn around and drive home again. We decided that it would be better if she were to simply remain home and spend some time with her horse Ralph.

That is how I came to spend an entire week in Cabin 12 (pictured below) by myself. Right now, we’re off to the Ticats/Roughriders game (oskie wee wee!). I’ll write more about the trip when I get home.