Open Water Ahead

The morning mist lies lightly on the open water ahead, cloaking the small islands and the far bank in dusky purple. Mysterious. Inviting.

A Loon’s call echoes hauntingly across the water. Beautiful. 

Behind the trees and the grey clouds the sun rises. 

The mist dissipates.

The tree outlines become more substantial, take on depth and solidity.

A pair of Loons swim in the distance, bodies low in the water, heads dark shapes against the glistening silver ripples. Then they’re gone, diving for breakfast, only to surface surprisingly far off.

The dip of paddles and the ripple of water past our canoes accent the distant call of chickadees, the cry of seagulls, the occasional croak of a frog. 

It’s beautiful here.

The grey skies only make the reflections in the still lake more beautiful. 

A light breeze ruffles the surface and tiny waves slap our hull as if urging us to move on. 

So we do, paddling up an inlet toward a marshy wetland in hopes of spotting moose. 

Lilies grow here. Their wide leaves float atop the surface. Small white blooms here and there break up the green. As we push forward over the top of them, the brush of them against our canoes is incredibly loud, like scraping on corrugated iron, rough and unexpected. Yet they emerge unscathed behind us, floating dry and unaffected in our wake. 

We stick near the shore to avoid paddling against the wind, hoping to see deer, snapping turtles, or other wildlife. We gaze at tangled roots through the clear reddish water, drowned trees are submerged here, perhaps toppled by beavers, unexpected branches reaching up to snag our paddles.

After a break ashore and a swim in the cold, cold waters, refreshed, we continue on, heading toward another wetland area.

But the lilies and cattails and fallen trees and branches block our way.

“There’s open water ahead,” our companion says. “Just before those trees.”

“But I don’t think we can get through the trees,” I respond.

“No. Before the trees it’s open. No problem.” 

She is looking farther ahead. Seeing the goal. I, too, see that open water. 

But I also see obstacles between here and the open water ahead. 

“Not those trees,” I say. “These ones, right here.” I point right in front of her canoe.

She looks down. “Oh.” 

We laugh.

“We can find a way,” she says. “Let’s try.”

So we do. We weave our way between floating logs, jutting branches, shallowly submerged rocks, over lilies, weeds, sludge… We make it three-quarters of the way, until a long log just below the surface bars our way. Others block us from going around it. The open water is so close. But our canoes have too deep a draft, our bodies weight them down just that bit too much. No solid ground offers purchase to lift them over the obstacle. 

Finally we admit we must go back and fine another way around.

But the attempt was fun. 

We grew in our ability to manoeuvre our canoes … backwards as well as forwards. 

We saw a different part of the lake, the wetlands, bog-like – full of obstacles – with its own beauty.

We reached the open water – by another route. 

We enjoyed the mirror-like reflections of ourselves and the nature we paddled among, the stillness of the water, the beauty of the landscape.

And the challenges. 

And we saw the open water ahead. 

I want to see life like that – and not be deterred by the intervening obstacles, able to find another way around or through.