Three Long Stories

So we've been telling stories non-stop since we got back from Algonquin, it seems, and so I've decided to post a few of the stories here, so that people who aren't around to hear them can read them here instead. And so that instead of telling the stories again, I can just hand out my blog address to everyone that I will see this weekend.

First story: The flock of loons.

We canoed to our first campsite on Monday and were just setting up for supper when this pack of baby loons comes around the corner of the island we were on. Initial reactions from the two of us include things like "Oh how cute" and "What a big pack of loons" and "What a funny noise they're making."The pack of loons. I count 27 at least.

And while we're contemplating that funny noise, one of the loons notices us and decides that we are enough of a threat that it's going to dive. So under it goes. Of course one of it's buddies sees it go under, and in surprise, it realizes the danger that must be present, and follows. One by one, in succession, all 25 baby loons dive under the water like nothing I have seen before. Soon the water is calm again, and Rose and I hold our breath in anticipation of what comes next. Surely enough, one lonely little loon pops its buoyant body to the surface. A split second later, up comes another, right next to it. Then another. Soon there is a sound of rushing water as little baby loons are popping up faster than you could count. It's like popcorn popping. We watched this proceed several more times in front of our astounded eyes, as the loons made their way around our island, their ever-watchful parents in the distance.

Second story: The Moose

So, early on our second morning I awake to the sound of Rose whispering: "Nath, do you hear that noise?" I half sit up, shake the cobwebs out of my brain, and listen to what is unmistakably the sound of loud stamping feet, heavy breathing, and loud ripping. "It's a bear," I breathe. I thought it was a bear, because the noise seemed to be coming from where we hung our food pack in a tree. (At this point I'm picturing the bear trying to climb the tree and rip the pack down.) I hear it moving soon, and I'm relieved to notice that it's moving away from the pack, only to have my heart jump into my throat as I realize it's moving towards our tent. Too scared to think, I freeze. All our windows are closed, and neither of us are brave enough to dare open any of them to look. I can hear it chewing now, it's so close to the tent. I turn to look at Rose, but she has buried her face in her sleeping bag in fear. In my frozen state, logic breaks through: "The food pack is in the tree. There isn't any food in the tent. It won't find anything on our site, so it will just go away." This logic is beneficial for me at this point, since it allows me to stay frozen. Fortunately for us, it decides that we don't smell very good and starts trudging off into the dense underbrush on the other side of our tent. I can still hear it thrashing around in the forest, so I decide to try opening the window on that side of the tent. Instead of bravely doing this, I look over to Rose and tell her to look through the "pet" door of our tent, which was open, and happened to face the right direction. She somehow gains the courage to slide her face over to the opening, and being encouraged by this, I slowly unzip the window.

My first impression of the animal is its enormous size. "It's huge..." is all I can get out. It thrashes about some more, and turns its head towards us. My brain does a flip. Rose's apparently flips at the same time, for when she says, "It's not a bear..." I finish her sentence with: "... it's a moose." We both gain about 1000 levels of courage at this point, but then I exclaim, "There are two of them." We remain wary, since if the second is a calf, we could easily put ourselves in some danger. The second moose comes into view, and is smaller than the first, but is no calf by any standard. We watch for a while, and soon they thrash off into the forest, foraging in new domains.

While we can't see them anymore, we can still hear them a long way off. We lie there for a while, listening, and after a bit I get up to go pee. I see one of the moose standing in 2 feet of water, drinking and eating seaweed... he's about 20 yards from where I'm standing. I beckon for Rose and the camera, and we marvel for a bit, and I take a few shots... none of them good. I try to get closer, but the beast notices me and (reluctantly it seems) trudges off into the woods again, calling for it's friend as it goes. Another weird noise.

My terrible shot of the moose. Reminds me of some Bigfoot shots I've seen.

Story number three:

We were standing on the edge of a long sloping rock that went into the water at our campsite, eating granola bars and taking in the scenery. One of us noticed a school of about 50 trout minnow swimming back and forth at the water's edge. I threw in a piece of granola, just to see if they would eat it. To both our surprise, the fish went into a mad frenzy the instant the food hit the water. They were practically climbing over eachother to try and reach the spot where the food hit.

As the curiousness of this whole event was sinking in, new ideas were forming. "I wonder if they'll like my finger," I said to Rose, and promptly found out. Boy did they ever like it. It was like a bunch of sucking carp at the Mandarin, only smaller. Vicious, though. They sucked and sucked and came back for more sucking.

Later we found out the benefit of the sucking fish, when I went down to clean dishes in the water. The school was still there, and when I put a bowl with caked-on remains of oatmeal into the water, they instantly swarmed, and the bowl was clean within a minute. The fish stayed at our site as for the two days that we were there, and each time we went down to clean dishes, there were the fish, ready to help. We took to calling it the Fish Washing Machine.


Fish Washing Machine, sucking on my hand.
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