Day one it poured. After paddling three miles from the drop-off point up Lac Rouge and Petit Lac Rouge, everyone was drenched right through his rain suit. The canoes were carrying two inches of water. Two short portages and five more miles paddling and we’d all had enough for the day. Instead of pitching camp, Frank and Geoff decided to force the rusted lock on a weatherworn fishing cabin and spend the night under a roof that wasn’t made of canvas . . .
Ralph remembers the heat of the fire they were able to get going in the cast-iron stove, so hot they couldn’t stand anywhere near it and had to open the door to the cabin to let cooler air in. It was a fire started from and kept alive with the wood that he and Steve had cut, mostly him because Steve managed to let his ax glance off the slippery bark of the maple he was chopping down and plant itself in his leg.
Frank cleaned and disinfected the deep cut and fashioned butterfly stitches from several strips of tape. He considered using a sterilized fishhook to sew the cut closed properly, but backed off when Steve refused to go along. Maarten, still chilled from the day, piled logs on the fire in the stove. “Easy,” said Frank. “It has to last all night— Hey guys, we have a problem. Steve’s going to need real stitches soon and the nearest village is L’Ascension. That’s at least thirty-five miles by dirt road. In his condition he can’t make that hike. None of us want to carry packs or canoes that far.” He unfolded the 1:50,000-scale government-issued topographical map and placed it on the cabin’s table. He ran his finger along the meandering curve of the Rouge River, muttering his thoughts as he traced the route to L’Ascension. With the elevation difference between the river’s source and the village, there were bound to be several series of rapids around which they’d have to portage. No cleared trails. “I think it’s too dangerous to take the river,” he said . . .
Pity Frank hadn’t gone with that thought. Pity he’d let Geoff sound a countervailing note, encourage Maarten’s bravado, build a group consensus. Pity he’d finally caved. Long-forgotten images turn out not to have been forgotten, merely tucked away beneath layers of intervening life. Imagine thinking that a night’s sleep would somehow change the factors affecting the critical decision. True, by next morning the sky had cleared and the fog was lifting from the lake. As if the improved weather superseded the sum of everything else, Frank turned optimistic and changed his mind. Maarten let out a whoop. “Piece of cake.” Ralph felt like asking whether it had chocolate frosting.
And that was that. That’s what counselors are for. They lead. They didn’t change the lineup in the canoes. Steve continued to ride in Frank’s, only three of them. With no one between Jack in the bow and Steve sitting on a pack in front of the stern thwart ahead of Frank, Steve could extend his injured leg over the portage thwart and keep it slightly elevated. “Best if you don’t try to paddle,” said Frank. “The current will carry us along fast enough.”
Geoff’s canoe, with four paddlers to only two in Frank’s, took the lead. After an initial meandering stretch, the river straightened out and began to run faster. We negotiated a short section of light chop easily. The river leveled out again. “This isn’t bad,” said Geoff. “At this rate we’ll be there by late afternoon. Or earlier— ” he shouted as our canoe rounded a bend and he spotted churning water ahead. “Take the channel on the right.” We entered the surge. In the bow, Bill paddled hard to avoid rocks and keep the canoe tracking the route Geoff had chosen. We handled the first set of rapids without getting wet. Then around a mild curve in the river, our canoe plunged into a three-foot drop between a pair of boulders. The bow broke the surface and the canoe took on water. Geoff looked for a place to draw to shore, but the canoe’s momentum drove it forward. We hit a barely submerged, jagged rock head on. It ripped through the canvas ahead of the stern thwart and the canoe turned sideways . . .
Only one other time has Ralph found himself lying on his stomach belching water. Coincidentally, that was also on the Rouge River, the Lower Rouge many years later on a rafting trip during his twentieth high school reunion. It was his onetime rival, Dieter, who hauled Ralph from the river and kept reminding him all day long how he’d saved his life. Still, it was good fortune. Then, and years before on the Upper Rouge. On that canoe trip, fate simply would not allow an innocent fifteen-year-old to pay the price for the counselors’ atrocious decisions. A beaten-up, rusted-out truck driven by a local who spoke a wholly unintelligible French-Canadian patois was heading along the road toward L’Ascension and stopped to help. Ralph would have liked to think that his French, limited as it was, was adequate to describe their predicament. More likely, it took one look at Steve’s wound for the man to understand.
Ralph re-clips the sheaf of papers, sets the essay on the floor, and boots up his laptop. He is back amidst elegant white birches at Kiamika, standing outside the Nature Cabin, waiting to catch a glimpse of Jack’s sister, Joan, on her way to pick up her family’s lunch at the Dining Hall. He’s chopping down small maples for tent poles; he’s building a lean-to, making a mattress from boughs of balsam. He’s baking a blueberry pie in a reflector oven by a hardwood fire . . .
He is writing a letter.
October 25, 2012
Dear Jack, Steve, Bill, and Maarten:
It’s been nearly fifty years since we took our last canoe trip together, the one on which Steve tried to cut down his leg instead of a tree. I’m writing to entice all of you into a repeat performance. Well, not exactly—this time, there will be no axes in legs, no Rouge River debacle. I’m willing to let that river’s victory stand, but I don’t want to say goodbye to this life without completing the originally intended trip. I need all of you to help me to accomplish that.
I’m about to contact Camp Kiamika’s director to ask if they’ll sponsor our expedition. Do you remember the camp’s founder? He was still taking canoe trips late into his seventies. So I don’t expect any excuses from any of you regarding your age.
Please mark your calendars from late June into early July next year. I’m thinking that we’ll assemble at Kiamika on Sunday, June 23rd and return to camp on Wednesday, July 3rd. If you’re not like Jack, who’s probably already in shape for this, you have almost eight months to prepare. This is a “save the dates” notice and a call for RSVP, no regrets accepted. I’ll write you again in the new year after I’ve had a chance to speak with the camp director and make arrangements. Meanwhile, an early Christmas greeting to you and your families.
Best wishes,Ralph Mackenzie
CHAPTER 2
As her headlights unfurl the highway in front of her car on the way back from Toronto, Lynn continues replaying parts of the evening’s conversation with Ralph at Café Boulud. She congratulates herself for managing to avoid admitting that she took their college breakup hard. Didn’t want to let him know that she’d often played the “what if” game. But it always came down to Jules—if she’d married Ralph, there wouldn’t be Jules. Not that Jules has been easy. It was hard to adapt to the new reality that he imposed on her and Jean-Pierre. Their Jules started life as Juliette, and now, like their daughter Suzanne, Juliette is gone. Juliette started leaving at a young age, insisting on joining boys’ teams, challenging boys on their turf, proving to be every bit as competent—she’d especially loved trampling them in soccer. At age seven, she refused to wear dresses to school, church, anywhere at all. Well before the court approved her name change, she demanded to be called Jules. As he tells it now, it was only ever the illusion of Juliette; Jules was there from the beginning.
The most difficult times with Jules are behind Lynn, but the crisis created a rift with Jean-Pierre. For both Jules and Lynn. Jean-Pierre couldn’t adapt. It was hard for her, too, her brain initially unable to reprogram itself to