Gone Fishing (Part 1)

The title of this post is not, for once, a clever pun...I really did go fishing.


A few months ago, my father-in-law invited me to with him and a few others to Canada for a weeks worth of fishing, log-cabin-living, beer-swilling, and artery-destroying. Knowing that the trip would be just before our big move, I thought it would be a nice respite from the worries of moving and the anxiety that of everyday life. Instead, it was a wake-up call...A sort of boot camp of country living.

To try to retell the experience word-for-word would require a blog unto itself, so instead I'm going to summarize my experience as a set of lessons...things I have learned in the Canadian Wilderness.
Lesson 1: In a fair fight, mother nature will kick your ass.

When I say I was in the wilderness, I mean I was in the damn wilderness. To be specific, I was about forty miles south of where all the roads in Ontario end...Where bear attacks are a very real possibility, and where going to get groceries is referred to as an "expedition." You know you've gone to the country when the locals speak with wry pride of how ineffective cell phones are in their neck of the woods.

In this place, nature is beautiful but brutal. There is no margin for error; no easy path home, no park rangers...no animal control...no control. Two days of our trip were cold and rainy with high winds, so we actually packed back-up motors for our boats, because if we got stuck...we were really stuck. No one would come to help us.

Lesson 2: A person's worth is measured by what they can carry...or at least mine was.

In the world I inhabit most days, my accomplishments and experiences matter. I'm fairly well-educated and I've had some good work experiences, and that's impressive to most folks I meet in my "normal" life.

It mattered not in Canada. It wasn't important that I could quote Mill or Oscar Wilde or that I knew what a P/E ratio was. It only mattered that, as it happened, I'm a pretty big guy who can carry pretty big things. The moment I arrived, one of our guides called me a "stout fellow" and it subsequently became my job to carry motors, gas tanks, boats, and other heavy shit through mucky pathes and between our tiny two-man fishing boats. I think I got saddled with this because I was not only big, but otherwise useless; which is to say that I had no other skills or abilities that mattered out there. Had I been able to reliably build fires or something, I might have gotten off the hook when it came to becoming a human pack mule.

Lesson 3: I don't know jack about squat.

There are few things as humbling as being completely clueless...especially about something that you feel you should be able to grasp. This sentiment more or less sums up how I felt as I sat in a fishing boat with my father-in-law, holding a fishing pole and realizing how un-country I was. There was also more than a small feeling of inadequacy; as if I could feel my father-in-law wonder what his daughter, my wife, had been thinking marrying some schmuck who didn't know how to cast.
At the same time, I realized that I'd have a lot of moments like these in my future. Surely, casting a fishing rod wouldn't be the last country skill I'd learn. So, I bit my lip, swallowed my pride and let my father-in-law teach me a skill that most boys learn when they're about eleven or so. Then, after listening and learning, I gave it a try.

Just as I'd be shown, I released my reel, drew my arm back and cast...

Straight down into the water in front of me...a whopping four feet from the boat.

Oh, it was going to be a lovely week...