Mayflies, Part II: Asking Too Much

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(July 2012)

After our night in camp we wake to calm conditions. For several years I have been telling Joyce about a particular bay on Bull Island owned by the University of Montana. I have been told that my faculty status gives me permission to land there. Though she has never done an open-water crossing and prefers to stay close to shore, Joyce seems willing to give this paddle a try. We launch from the beach. I help her get settled in her boat and set a very slow pace that seems manageable to her. We do not have to contend with waves or wind, so the crossing goes easily, even if slowly. We pull into the bay where a sailboat has anchored. A woman on deck moves through a series of yoga poses while a man dives overboard with mask and snorkel. Joyce and I swim from shore. Conditions are utterly calm, the water like mercury. Better able to float than I, Joyce lies back, face to the sky, and lets herself be supported by, “this all-surrounding grace,” as Denise Levertov called it in her poem “Avowal.” We feel thoroughly refreshed.

Joyce seems so comfortable in these conditions that I suggest we paddle up along the west shore of the island. She agrees after securing from me that this will not be a long paddle. We paddle northward through countless shades of blue and green, colors made even deeper by morning’s shadows cast by the island. At the tip of the island I see Bird Island in the distance. I say to Joyce, “We’ll never be closer to Bird Island. I’ve always wanted you to see the bay on its north shore. What do you say? Do you think you can paddle that far?” She asks me to estimate the distance. I tell her, “About three miles.” Wanting to please, and setting aside her own concerns, she agrees. To make life easier for her we trade paddles. My Werner graphite is the better paddle. We leave Bull Island behind and strike off for the little blue shape to the northeast. After about a half hour Joyce has the sense that we are not making any progress: “The island seems not to be getting any closer. How long do you think this will take? Are you sure we are making progress?” I make all the assurances I can, but realize that I have made a mistake in inviting her to make this crossing after having already crossed to Bull Island. I now take it for granted that when paddling far from shore it is harder to have a sense of one’s progress. Because this is Joyce’s first time to have this experience, she grows somewhat anxious, needs all the encouragement I can give her. We have committed ourselves to something that is hard to undo. When I am in this situation by myself, I remind myself to ignore the destination when progress seems so incremental, or I pick up the pace, consuming the distance like yesterday’s sandwich. Today, this technique will not work. I slow the pace, point out clumps of pollen, bumblebees, flying ants, a white feather that passes by our boats, dozens of intermediate signs that prove we are making progress. I try to explain that looking at the goal could discourage her. This crossing is all about one stroke and then the next. We have to contain the desire to arrive.

Even if Joyce is not an athlete she has considerable upper body strength and more than enough stamina. I stay beside her, talk more than normal, think up other topics. Eventually the island comes into sharper focus. I can identify the big blocks of stone that armor the west-facing shore and mark the entrance to the bay. When we round the corner we discover that the bay already contains two powerboats and a tour’s pontoon boat. I decide to enter first and pick a spot to land that is on the far right, close to the rocks. We slip into this narrow spot without disturbing all the other people who have come to the shelter of the cove. I assist Joyce with her landing. She is very glad to stop. I can tell that she is tired. As I scan the crowd, I feel disappointed that so many other people are here. Today this is not “my” bay. On a day as beautiful as this I should have known other people would be here.

We secure our boats and retreat to the black blocks of rock on the point. I know not to rush Joyce who is now concerned about the paddle from Bird Island back to Finley Point. We take time to eat our simple lunches, drink water, split a big cookie and an apple. I strip down to my bathing suit and dive from the rocks, swimming back around into the bay where it is easier to climb out. Joyce wades in the shallows near our boats.

We take a few minutes on the beach and visit with some of the people gathered there. Nine or ten belong to the pontoon boat. They are on a tour of some sort and have never been to a place like this. A handful of boys throw stones, something they seem born to do. We try to be polite but do not linger. We slip out of the bay and head south. I keep up a distracting story as we move from the island to the tip of Finley Point and then down the peninsula back to camp. Joyce has had enough. While I am quick to acknowledge my mistake in asking her to go this far, about nine miles, she generously tells me, “It’s partly my fault. After all, I said ‘Yes’ to your invitation. We should have come back to camp after our swim on Bull Island.”

After we return to camp we give each other a little distance. We need some time and space to allow the tension to settle and have everything come to rest. As the dinner hour approaches I sense that this is not the evening to fix another camp dinner. We leave everything in place and drive north to a restaurant. As the heat of the day begins to dissipate we sit in the shade at an outdoor table, drink a beer, eat a meal that someone else fixed. Satisfied and at peace, we head back to camp, spend a little time looking at the quiet lake, then head for bed. Trying to do too much I almost ruined the day.

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Camping requires us to load and unload a lot of gear. Nevertheless, it gives us an opportunity to spend more time on and beside the lake. We can linger as the light changes, experience the range of the day’s temperatures, sleep to the sound of lapping water. It is worth the effort. I have one regret: I asked too much of Joyce and almost ruined her pleasure in shorter paddles. I should have known from my own experience that a long paddle across open water is like looking at a line that presents itself only as a point. Sometimes there is more pleasure in simply moving slowly along the line, noticing shoreline trees and stones, the ever-changing prospect of weaving in and out of contiguous bays. Long, open-water crossings are not for everyone.

Mayflies, Part I

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(July, 2012)

Soon after her birthday, Joyce and I decide to camp at Finley Point. Joyce uses the new reservation system with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to secure a walk-in site for a Monday and Tuesday night. Without advance planning I doubt we would be able to secure this site for a weekend in July. Montana FWP has plans to expand the campground but this project will have to wait for a time when more money becomes available.

On the way out of town we pick up sandwiches from our favorite shop. We spread out the white wrapper in our laps and make a delicious mess as we drive north. We stop, as we must, at the inspection station. I have been through here so many times that I am well known by the staff. We combine the serious business of making sure that my boat will not be importing dangerous plants and mollusks with some gentle teasing (They would like me to remove the road-killed skunk on the highway across from the station, and offer this job twice). It is essential that Montana succeed in stopping the importation of non-native aquatic mollusks like zebra and quagga mussels. I strongly support these efforts, answer all the questions, give the team a clean boat to inspect, and skip through in a few minutes.

The day is hot by 2 p.m. when we pull into the campground. We set up our Hobitat on the gravel pad, pump up air mattresses, and stow food in the bear-proof boxes. By the time the chores are done, we are both ready for a swim. I can barely contain my desire to put my boat in the water; so while Joyce lets a light breeze cool off her wet bathing suit on shore, I slide Bluebird into the water using the new gravel ramp that Fish Wildlife and Parks created near the south boundary of the campground. This is a much friendlier area for paddlers who don’t want to negotiate summer congestion and the noise of engines and jet skis at the other end of the campground.

Thrilled by the freedom of a summer evening, I make a quick circuit around the islands in the Narrows. I scout for places Joyce and I might explore together, revel in the warm air and water temperatures that feel much safer than they are in early June, not to mention April and May. I circle Bull Island clockwise, take the north end of Bull Island on my right and speed back to camp ahead of thunderclouds forming along the western horizon. I roll the boat upside down on the new beach in case it rains and walk toward camp as Joyce begins to cook pork chops from a local farm and onions on her old three-burner Coleman, a gift to her from her parents when she graduated from TCU forty-five years ago. The smell whets our appetites.

During the evening the once-distant storms pass to the north and west; nevertheless, the lake becomes riled and wild. All the color washes out of the ridges of the Salish Mountains beyond the opposite shore. Everything becomes a variation on the theme of gray. As the sun goes down, the wind drops, quieting the lake. The ragged remnants of graphite cumulonimbus suddenly become a full palette of pinks, blues, and oranges. Then the surface of the lake picks up the sky’s colorful stain. Even the stones on the beach reflect the colors that shift from one shade to another over the course of an hour. Eventually the islands and west shore turn into black silhouettes. During this display, Joyce reads in her not-so-comfortable aluminum and canvas chair perched on the edge of a steep drop above the water.

Meanwhile, I watch the largest mayfly spinner fall I have ever seen. Something about the photo period and the temperature of air and water cues the insects. Though not an entomologist I think these mayflies are Gray Drakes (Siphlonurus occidentalis). Millions of them climb into the sunset and then fall toward the water to drop their eggs.  They fill the sky in every direction and clog the spider webs that have been suspended like aerial drift nets between branches of fir trees. The mayflies also call out common nighthawks that swoop through the air and pick them off with their fine beaks. One second the birds cut through the air like flung blades; the next they make sharp cuts and turns to fly into a concentrated cloud of insects, their movements as erratic as jacks bounced across summer concrete. The climax of this hatch becomes a banquet for birds and spiders. Every photograph I take of the sunset catches a blur of insects in the immediate foreground.

If I had focused only on a day paddle, if we had not chosen to camp, we never would have seen these things. Sometimes the best I can do is drive up and back in a day; but spending a night or two we get to enjoy the changes, something as ephemeral as a hatch of insects or a shifting color in the sky. This evening I am conscious of all that we would miss by hurrying home in the squint of headlights. We crawl into our sleeping bags with a sense of anticipation about tomorrow. Let’s see what a new day brings.

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Through New Eyes

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Image(June 2013)

People occasionally ask me to introduce them to paddling on Flathead Lake. They want the benefit of my experience before they venture out on their own. At a chili feed for a local nonprofit my friend C.W. bid several times during the silent auction on a guided paddle on Flathead Lake. When the opportunity went to someone else, I turned to him and said, “Would you like to go with me some time for free?” His eyes brightened. He said, “Sure.” Two years later, after his retirement and several other major events in our lives, we finally found an opportunity to make good on our plan.

Before C.W. arrives I check the graphical forecast and a satellite image (http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mso/flatheadlake/. A big yellow comma full of rain hangs over the lake but will pass to the east later in the day. After C.W. pulls into the driveway we load his extra clothes, lunch, and camera gear into my truck and take off. On the way up the valley we see clouds clinging to The Missions. Elsewhere, the ceiling is flat and gray. When we crest the Polson moraine we see a calm lake, sections of black water that are perfectly breathless. It has stopped raining. When we pull into the Walstad access, with the thought of crossing to Wildhorse, I say, “I have never seen it so calm here in mid-June. We’ll have a great day.”

As we pull away from the dock we stay close together until I can see that C.W. is comfortable in the boat. When I see him pull the skirt while we are in mid-channel and reach into his lap where he stowed his camera, I know he will be fine. He takes photographs throughout the day, evidence perhaps of his habits as a journalist. He had been a reporter for Rocky Mountain News before coming to the University of Montana where he had a distinguished career as a professor in the School of Journalism. As I keep watching, I realize that he is as much an artist as a reporter recording a story.

When we reach the island C.W. feels drawn to the margins where trees have fallen into the lake and left long ghostly bodies angling down toward darkness. Later, when I see his photographs, I discover that he was also drawn to the abstract forms on shore, tree branches sticking out of the trunk of a tree in parallel curves that reminded him of ribs, gnarled root balls that revealed a tree’s contortions around impermeable stone. As a photographer he recognizes the moment when an angle of sunlight allows him to see objects underwater but near shore, blocks of stone dusted with spring sediment or gravels scrubbed by shore waves. He keeps seeing and recording the interface between things: the line between shadow and light, the comparatively hard or sharp forms of things on shore—dead tree branch, or leaf edge, and the soft forms of pebbles beneath the surface. Using his telephoto, he finds a trio of adult geese introducing eighteen goslings to what must have been their first open-water paddle. We pass them going opposite directions far from shore. When we slip beneath an eagle on its overhanging perch he frames it from below. When we are on the island and find a band of rams, he selects a trio of particularly big boys out of the whole group, their massively thick horns protruding above the island’s long and, for now, still-green grass.

Later in the day, after we climb to a rocky promontory with a ledge full of bitterroots, the blooms tightly folded under gray skies, we search for the island’s horses. By not hurrying, and consulting my memories of where I had seen them in the past, we spot the foal, now a full-grown horse, startling red and white among black mares. Again, with an artist’s eye, C.W. looks for the patterns in their arrangement with each other. When we find the skeleton of the horse that died this past winter he asks me to hold a femur that I extracted from the grasses beginning to conceal it. He takes a photo of me holding the massive bone. Afterwards I think of Georgia O’Keefe painting found objects in New Mexico. Keeping an eye on the muted sun I suggest that we head back down to the bay. Because the water is still calm I suggest that we put a bend in the route of our return and circle Melita Island before heading back to the dock.

Kayaking on Flathead Lake is about crossing from mainland to island, the beautiful rhythm of strokes, countless adjustments to wind and waves–all the things that bring me a sense of exhilaration. But on this paddle I learned that paddling the lake is also about seeing in new ways, taking time to see patterns I usually ignore or fail to recognize, seeing the interaction between water and shore, object and reflection, even the beauty in death. This morning I pulled out of the driveway hoping to introduce a friend to a new subject. I returned as a student learning to see in a new way. By trying to view the world through my friend’s eyes every time he raised his camera, I learned that I had been passing by some of the marvels of form, color, and relationship as I sped from point to point. On this day the teacher became a student. I learned another reason to paddle with other people. As I helped my friend load gear back into his car he said, “Thanks, this opens up a whole new world.” I felt the same way.

Blue Silk

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In spring the day may begin clear as a button-down pinpoint fresh off the iron. In the morning geese call to one another overhead as first light ignites their wingtips. But as the day warms the engine of the sun seems to lift moisture out of the lake and into the air. It reaches for little wisps, gathers them, kneads this moisture into clouds, packs them tighter until they begin to have weight, until they begin to tumble and rumble. Then the wind blows or it rains, and the waves on the water begin to build. And after all this energy is spent and night comes on, the heaviness in the sky breaks up and blows away. Pearly clouds pick up sunset’s fire like opals as the sun touches the horizon. If the last of the gray clouds in the foreground move off and dissipate in a lighter atmosphere, we see a light blue line at the horizon, a line sometimes tinged with green. In springtime a paddler needs to look for intervals, the openings between storms and windy conditions. This interval might come soon after sunrise or in the space between sunset and starlight. We especially need these openings when far from shore.

In mid-May we experience record-breaking heat for this date, the kind of heat that already makes us think about fire season. I head for the lake. Trying to get the maximum number of paddles per drive, I set up camp around 4 p.m. The weather seems dependable so I don’t bother with the rain fly. Around 5 p.m. I begin to paddle toward Matterhorn Point. The whole surface of the lake is like my blue silk shirt—smooth with a few soft wrinkles. I experience none of the noise and chafe of rough conditions, nor the anxiety that goes with having to respond to the odd, large wave.

When I get to the point I see Wild Horse Island about three miles away. Even though it is dinnertime and I had planned to turn back, the water is completely calm and irresistible. Many times I have looked from this point to the island and felt that the intervening space seems almost impassable, but not this evening. As I ponder the decision to turn back or go on, it feels as though the lake is offering me a series of open gates. Almost any paddle feels possible. I am amazed that no one else is on the lake experiencing these conditions. Seizing the opportunity, and knowing it is rare, I enter the opening. Dinner can wait. I leave the point behind and cover the intervening distance quickly, the sun still high in the sky. I feel almost no resistance to anything I might like to try.

I find a place to land between cabin sites, no one in sight, and lift my boat above the water line. I slip my water bottle out of its special spot next to the right side of my seat, rummage through emergency gear for an energy bar and dried apricots. I hike up a steep slope and find a downed tree where I can sit and marvel at calm water in May. The island is lush, the Palouse prairie grasses long and drooping. Everything smells of balsamroot and warm sap. Like the plants at my feet I soak up water and light, look south to the mountains still mantled in snow. The lake registers no more than a whisper.

Having paddled farther than I planned, I finish up my snack, drink all but a sip of my water that I will save for later, descend the slope and slip Bluebird back in the water. I am alone on the lake in the most perfect conditions I have ever seen. If I had the strength, this would be an ideal evening to add a circumnavigation of the island to this long crossing. Though nearly intoxicated by the conditions, I have enough experience to resist the temptation. I know how fatigue can fall on a paddler like a sudden weight. So, in a state of joy I paddle the 8 miles back to camp and arrive just after sunset. I carry Bluebird up to my campsite and think now I can eat. I get the cooler out of the truck. Simple but rich fair again— leftover Columbia River steelhead on multi-grain bread, fresh fruit, more water, and two big cookies. It is all I can do not to eat the cookies first. In light that seems reluctant to leave the sky I sit for a while on the concrete breakwater and savor both my food and this paddle, valuing the memories as much as the food. I have seen geese on all the islands, a mated pair of eagles in a snag on the south shore of the island due east of Bull Island. They sat on a huge nest made of driftwood from the beach. I wonder when the downy nestlings will begin to peer over the lip of the tangle that protects them.

After almost all the light has been swallowed by darkness I settle into my sleeping bag. A final image appears in my imagination. As if from the vantage point of a small airplane, I see a lone paddler on a still lake. A long faint trail dissipates behind his boat. The lake is a sea of blue, purple, and pink. Venus blazes away just above the horizon to the west. The evening ends with gratitude for this image. I drop myself into it and fall sleep.Image