everything comes back in one way or another.’
‘Is Edgar a Christian?' Grace asked as she continued rowing.
‘You know, I don’t exactly know what his religion is,’ Uncle replied. ‘Edgar is a Lakota Sioux medicine man but he’s a modern thinker. He goes to church but he also believes in his people’s ancient customs.’
‘I’m going to frog bog,’ Grace said and we returned to silence.
The lake was perfectly still as we glided past Grace’s, Dr Sweeting’s and all the other cottages, each nestled amongst the cedars that lined the shore. Some women had returned to their front lawns and were quietly getting on with their chores. Their motorboats remained silent in their boathouses, their rowboats, sailboats and canoes tied to their glistening, wet docks.
Grace and I had rowed to frog bog before but could never get into its still ponds. A canoe would be able to get through the pickerel weed and bulrushes and fallen trees but our rowboat with its fixed oars was too wide. Grace let the bow of the rowboat nestle into the bulrushes. ‘The canoe will look good here,’ she said. Uncle leaned over the side of the boat and gently placed the birch bark canoe on the water where it immediately rolled over and floated on its side.
‘The bark is heavier on that side,’ Uncle Reub explained. ‘I can shave it down with my knife but ballast is best.’
‘What’s ballast?’ I asked.
‘Ballast is anything heavy. The grain or lumber or iron ore that Great Lake ships carry acts like ballast and keep those ships stable. If a laker doesn’t have a good load on it, even it can tip over in a strong wind.’
Uncle Reub reached into his trousers pocket where he had put some gravel. He put five pieces in the canoe, lowered it over the side of the rowboat then, with the model floating on the surface of the lake, moved the gravel around until the canoe was sitting absolutely straight in the water.
‘There now. Perfect. Should we leave it here, to embark on its own voyage, or take it back to the cottage?’
‘Leave it here,’ we said in unison. Without speaking to each other we both knew we wanted to return the next day to see where the canoe had gone.
‘Let’s leave it over there,’ I said, pointing to a narrow channel through the bulrushes, so Grace rowed over and Uncle Reub placed the canoe where it would be washed by the wind into one of the quiet pools in the lagoon.
‘It’s best to get back now,’ Uncle said. ‘It’s almost lunchtime.’ And Grace turned the boat and rowed back towards the cottages.
‘My friend Edgar, who says that flowers come back as rainbows, he says that those pebbles in the canoe will protect it from harm.’
‘Why do you listen so much to Edgar?’ Grace asked.
‘That’s a profound question, Grace,’ my uncle replied. ‘I can only answer by telling you that I had forgotten what a wise man Edgar was, until this spring when he came all the way from North Dakota to see me. It was Edgar’s wise words that encouraged me to come and stay with Bruce’s mother.’
‘How can pebbles protect a canoe from harm? They’re just pebbles,’ I asked and my uncle’s thoughts returned to the canoe.
‘Our religion teaches us that only people have souls and it’s our souls that go to heaven, but Edgar says everything has a soul, even a pebble. He says that’s what will protect the canoe, the souls in those pebbles.’
‘My father says that type of talk is nonsense,’ Grace said, as she pulled on the oars.
‘He might be right but, Grace, no one yet knows,’ Uncle replied.
He paused for a while, looking at the cottages we slowly rowed past then he spoke once more.
‘Edgar calls his god the Mighty Spirit. Doesn’t that sound wonderful, the Mighty Spirit? He says the Mighty Spirit ensures that everything has a soul but to my mind it’s those pebbles acting as ballast that protects the boat.’
Uncle Reub paused once more, then looking beyond Grace to me in the front of the boat he continued, ‘Bruce, you’re ballast for your mother.’
My mother was always telling me how she felt, especially about other people. I knew what Uncle Reub meant.
When we arrived at the dock and after we tied the rowboat to it and got out, Grace turned to my uncle and said, ‘Can we go back tomorrow?’
SHOPPING IN BRIDGENORTH
There was a rhythm to summer life. Patterns. The Silverwood’s Dairy truck delivered milk to the cottages on Long Point early each weekday morning. The milkman wore white pants, a white shirt and a white peaked cap. The Browns’ Bread deliveryman arrived an hour later, the driver in a muddy brown uniform the colour of a chocolate bar wearing a peaked cap the colour of a muskrat’s head. Angus would announce their arrival. Dr Sweeting’s son, James, delivered the Peterborough Examiner just before supper. James was old enough to drive, but late each afternoon he bicycled the two miles into Bridgenorth to pick up the newspapers then bicycled back to deliver one to each of the cottages on Long Point. When it rained hard, Mrs Sweeting collected the papers for him. Sometimes she drove James down the point on his delivery round. Mrs Nichols brought us fresh eggs each Monday. We had swimming lessons from Mrs Blewett at her family’s lumber mill in Bridgenorth every Tuesday afternoon. Mr Everett, the grumpy farmer who owned all the land around the Nichols’ farm, collected garbage from the cottagers every other Thursday. He didn’t like children. Best of all, the fathers arrived Friday night while children slept. Fathers meant more cars and cars meant we went places we didn’t go during the week. That’s what fathers were for. Mothers were for everything else.
My dad had brought fresh meat from the butchers in Toronto until Mum discovered how tasty meat was from the General Store in Bridgenorth. ‘Imagine. This chicken lived within squawking distance of Bridgenorth,’ she’d say as she prepared it for the oven. ‘My mother killed her own chickens. Isn’t that dreadful? We had chicken each Friday. She went to the market and chose the chicken she wanted, took it home and wrung its neck. I had to watch. Then she cut its head off and held it upside down. Imagine. Then she said a prayer and swung it around in the air. There was blood and feathers everywhere. It was terrible. Such superstitions.’
‘Why did she say a prayer?’ I once asked.
‘It certainly wasn’t for the poor chicken,’ my mother replied.
‘She was thanking God that we had food on our table for the Sabbath.’
‘Do you thank God for food?’ I asked and my mother smiled at me, came over and pressed me hard to her chest.
‘I thank God for you,’ she answered.
On Saturdays Dad sometimes drove us to Peterborough, for supper at Fosters Restaurant on George Street. Some of our Peterborough neighbours on the lake had stores on George Street. Mr Silver had a shoe store, Mr Collis a men’s clothing store, Mr Cherney a furniture store, Mr Yudin the theatre. Their children were either a few years younger or older than I was. I saw them when we went swimming out to our raft and at swimming lessons each week but we didn’t search each other out to play with. Not
