CHAPTER 12 Touching Home Plate Winter

… I heard a soft crack, to my horror the earth opened up! It wasn’t just an insignificant hole but a deep hungry abyss, black as night and with no hint of depth or bottom. Terrified I scrambled to slow the descent. My arms stretched almost beyond endurance, clambering for purchase on the rim. My feet dangled in the air seeking a bottom that wasn’t there. As I clawed to the surface, using muscles I didn’t know existed, my mind went into overdrive.  Thoughts of headlines from the local paper passed through my mind, “A skeleton found in the spring, suspected to be that of the ole widow woman, was stripped clean by carnivorous animals and vermin.”

 

CHAPTER 11 House Work & the Hummingbird

              Excerpt from my new manuscript, Wakes &Trails into the Wilderness

In the quiet, a hummingbird appeared, it hovered at my eye level and hung there, suspended, thrumming its tiny wings. The iridescent feathers on this creature were dazzling in the late afternoon sunshine. He was there so long; I started to think he was going to poke me in the eye. Then, the tiny bird buzzed down to my feet. It seemed captivated by my old purple socks. Spellbound, I stared at him. This wonderful little bird slowly inserted his tiny long beak into the weave of my sock and with his minuet tongue, licked my ankle.

CHAPTER 10 Logging the forest

My deeply rooted desire to share Canada’s wonders with my family and future generations of nature lovers, who would want to experience an untouched wilderness was worth a fight. Taking on the biggest forestry company in the world and the Government of British Columbia seemed insurmountable. So I began the battle one step at a time.

CHAPTER 9 Angling Guide

I leaped from my rig, yelling and scared the grizzly into a gallop. The bear turned and dashed straight towards the fishermen who were portaging a red canoe over their heads and didn’t have a clue of the situation. Running and leaping over bushes, I screamed at the top of my lungs.
“Bear, bear! Get out your bear spray!”

CHAPTER 8 Ookpik Wilderness Lodge

I’d procrastinate with a decadent second cup, and number the list in red, its order dictated by daylight, work area, difficulty and desire to execute. Little did I know, in the next several years, I would make hundreds of such lists and consume hundreds of cups of coffee. After checking each chore off with red ink, I would use those pieces of paper, those lists of blood, sweat and tears, for fire-starter. Nothing in the north goes to waste.

CHAPTER 7 The Canadian Consulate General

No words would come. Dropping to my knees on the grey warn carpet I rummaged through briefcase number one. I scrambled to find ‘The Grey Envelope made with recycled paper’. Without a word I handed the envelope to her. Business-like she pulled out the document I had never looked at, David’s death certificate.

CHAPTER 6 The Duck

Through the falling snow I could see the female Kingfisher standing on this same platform, now covered with three inches of snow. Motionless, she looked north. The last of the migratory birds to leave the area, this Kingfisher stood with her feathers fluffed against the cold as she waited for her partner, the one who had died in David’s arms weeks earlier. She and I waited in vain.