The Tent in the Woods
by Gaylord Sedgwick Reimer-Penner
love is just a game
and lovers all have names
that's the part that leaves us feeling free
A young man who felt alien at home snuck out finally into wilderness territory to find a place for himself where society would not negate him. Here, nature provided him with a solid sense of self. Named plants and trees impacted his stay but little. The rivulet beside his tent contributed fresh water. Food came to him via his fish line. Traps and snares set out in fall and winter netted him enough animal for meat and clothing. A town some distance away served as a suitable destination on those awkward occasions when urgency drove him out from his serenity. A hive above a group of poplars in a granite cliff he accessed for honey now and then, smoking the bees into submission first, as he had learned from readings on the subject. Winter proved trying, but the other seasons promised and provided an abundance of delight and solace.
Wesley Ryan Whitaker had taken to carrying a switchblade to school each day in response to the taunting of fellow students. His mother and father as well as his sisters and brother gave him no end of further grief mixed with no small measure of insult. Friends he had none, acquaintances few. Fed up with this cocktail of bitter medicines, he resolved one day to concoct his own future, put the knife aside, exchange humans for animals and generally reclaim that which had turned against him.
He studied a map of northern Ontario for some days, imaging the particularities of this or that lake. Some suited his sense of a good name but lay too close to a road or town. Others offered a suitable bay and forest but stood isolate from any such larger bodies of water that might entertain the fancies of an adventurous spirit. Wesley settle on a large body of water accessible by marine craft only, remote, but not to the exclusion of the possibility of exit with a day's effort.
He left in the Whitaker suburban on a Sunday when all the family slept, traveling in the dark along the Trans Canada highway past Richer, Hadashville, Spruce Siding, East Braintree, Birch River, Falcon Lake, and Kenora, and then turned south onto the #71 where he passed Rushing River, Adam Lake, Granite Lake, Luther Camp, Black River, Musky Lake and White Moose Lake. When he came to Old Woman Lake he parked the truck, launched his canoe and crossed the mile of weedy water to a portage. He did all this in the dark with the aid of a powerful flashlight. He carried his canoe and then his packs, three times altogether, a dark quarter mile into Highwind Lake.
The night was quiet and fine with a light mist descending, but warm as toast. He arrived at the far end of Highwind and camped, again organizing his activities with the aid of a torch, on a sweeping granite shelf he had known he would find there. Next day, in the dawning light he moved his camp further back from shore so that it would not be visible to any passing stranger on snowmobile, boat or plane. And there he made his home for the next ten years.
Seven times in that decade he left his home on a trip into Sioux Narrows, paddling over Highwind's six miles of open water, portaging, crossing Old Woman Lake, and then walking the ten miles into town. Here in the bank he exchanged his gold dust for money and then spent a week cavorting in the local pubs as well as taking in the fine dining and entertainment at Sioux Narrows' Pilot's Point. One morning on each of these seven trips would find him once more gratefully returning to his canoe carrying additional groceries and hardware, recrossing Old Woman Lake, rewalking his gear back over the quarter-mile portage, recrossing Highwind's miles of open water, and resettling gratefully into his routines at his tent in the woods.
by Gaylord Sedgwick Reimer-Penner
love is just a game
and lovers all have names
that's the part that leaves us feeling free
A young man who felt alien at home snuck out finally into wilderness territory to find a place for himself where society would not negate him. Here, nature provided him with a solid sense of self. Named plants and trees impacted his stay but little. The rivulet beside his tent contributed fresh water. Food came to him via his fish line. Traps and snares set out in fall and winter netted him enough animal for meat and clothing. A town some distance away served as a suitable destination on those awkward occasions when urgency drove him out from his serenity. A hive above a group of poplars in a granite cliff he accessed for honey now and then, smoking the bees into submission first, as he had learned from readings on the subject. Winter proved trying, but the other seasons promised and provided an abundance of delight and solace.
Wesley Ryan Whitaker had taken to carrying a switchblade to school each day in response to the taunting of fellow students. His mother and father as well as his sisters and brother gave him no end of further grief mixed with no small measure of insult. Friends he had none, acquaintances few. Fed up with this cocktail of bitter medicines, he resolved one day to concoct his own future, put the knife aside, exchange humans for animals and generally reclaim that which had turned against him.
He studied a map of northern Ontario for some days, imaging the particularities of this or that lake. Some suited his sense of a good name but lay too close to a road or town. Others offered a suitable bay and forest but stood isolate from any such larger bodies of water that might entertain the fancies of an adventurous spirit. Wesley settle on a large body of water accessible by marine craft only, remote, but not to the exclusion of the possibility of exit with a day's effort.
He left in the Whitaker suburban on a Sunday when all the family slept, traveling in the dark along the Trans Canada highway past Richer, Hadashville, Spruce Siding, East Braintree, Birch River, Falcon Lake, and Kenora, and then turned south onto the #71 where he passed Rushing River, Adam Lake, Granite Lake, Luther Camp, Black River, Musky Lake and White Moose Lake. When he came to Old Woman Lake he parked the truck, launched his canoe and crossed the mile of weedy water to a portage. He did all this in the dark with the aid of a powerful flashlight. He carried his canoe and then his packs, three times altogether, a dark quarter mile into Highwind Lake.
The night was quiet and fine with a light mist descending, but warm as toast. He arrived at the far end of Highwind and camped, again organizing his activities with the aid of a torch, on a sweeping granite shelf he had known he would find there. Next day, in the dawning light he moved his camp further back from shore so that it would not be visible to any passing stranger on snowmobile, boat or plane. And there he made his home for the next ten years.
Seven times in that decade he left his home on a trip into Sioux Narrows, paddling over Highwind's six miles of open water, portaging, crossing Old Woman Lake, and then walking the ten miles into town. Here in the bank he exchanged his gold dust for money and then spent a week cavorting in the local pubs as well as taking in the fine dining and entertainment at Sioux Narrows' Pilot's Point. One morning on each of these seven trips would find him once more gratefully returning to his canoe carrying additional groceries and hardware, recrossing Old Woman Lake, rewalking his gear back over the quarter-mile portage, recrossing Highwind's miles of open water, and resettling gratefully into his routines at his tent in the woods.
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