Spring retreat -- day one.

On the last Sunday of April, I packed a car with camping equipment, strapped the canoe to the roof, and drove to Green Lake in the Madawaska Highlands for five days of quiet and rest.  Green Lake sits just off the road to Joe's Lake, Clyde Forks and Flower Station, surrounded by a small enclave of crown land.  Every other year, the Ministry of Natural Resources stocks it with small brook trout.  During the summer months, it provides a pretty spot for weekend camping or bush parties.  Consequently, a depressing amount of litter lies scattered around the acre or so adjacent to the parking area.  In the spring, however, the lake seldom receives visitors, especially between Monday and Friday.  I went to the lake to fish, to listen to the wind in the pines, to hike in the surrounding hills, and to quiet the tumult of my mind -- the voices of family, friends, work, radio....

I arrived in mid-afternoon, with the sun shining, and immediately made camp.  The convenience of the car allowed me to pack heavy, and I gave extra room to ensuring dry, warm nights.  I set up the tent inside a bug shelter, under a wide tarp.  Inside the tent, I laid out a thick air mattress and a double-layered sleeping bag.  The surrounding grove of young white pine, hemlock and red oak provided shelter from the wind.  As I finished laying out my site, a middle-aged couple drove their matching ATVs up the track from the main road.  We chatted for a few minutes, and they went on their way.

After setting up camp, I took the canoe out and made a slow circuit of the lake while trolling a streamer.  At a dead slow troll, it takes about 40 minutes to complete a circuit, stopping now and then for a few speculative casts toward the shoreline.  A middle-aged forest of pine, oak, cedar and hemlock covers the rocky shores around most of the lake, except at the northwest end, where a hydro corridor cuts wide, open swath between the lake and a rocky hillside.  Where the weathered, rounded Canadian Shield doesn't drop sharply to the green waters, fallen trees jut from shoreline, lurking below the surface to bump against a canoe or snag a fishing line.  In one small bay, stumps and a few remnant snags attest to a time when the water was not so high -- probably before the three beaver lodges sprung up around the edge of the lake.

I returned to camp for supper, which I ate perched on a stool down by the shoreline.  After washing up, I then took the canoe out again, just 30 feet from shore where I could see minnows rising to a hatch of small mayflies.  In the dusk, I cast a small nymph, hoping for some larger fish below the surface.  Solitary spring peepers called along the shoreline.  A beaver creased the surface of the lake from one shore to the other.  A heron lifted from the shore, circling and climbing heavily and then disappearing low over the dark trees.  A pair of kingfishers chattered, as they flew from one perch to another.

Back on shore, I lit a fire and warmed myself in the cooling night air.  Well after dark, I crawled into my tent and snuggled down into my sleeping bags.  I could feel a foreshadowing dampness in the air.  In the quiet, the peepers kept up their calls, forming a small chorus.  Along the road, far below, I could hear an occasional car pass.  Although the wind had mostly died with the daylight, enough breeze remained to stir the pines with a sound like small waves on a beach.  I felt a bit lonely, not yet reaccustomed to my own company.