The dead loon

The dead loon

It was the summer of 1967, the summer I turned 16, the first summer of four that I would spend as a fishing guide in Northwestern Ontario.  I had two guests in my boat, and we were heading back to the lodge after a great evening of smallmouth bass fishing.  Floating in the water ahead I spotted a loon, and I watched him, fully expecting he would dive as we approached.  Loons never let us get any closer than twenty or thirty yards before they’d slip under the surface and I was still so fascinated by these birds that at their disappearance I would begin to count and often counted out a minute before the bird resurfaced.

This one  didn’t move as we got closer and closer. I veered away and we passed within five yards of the bird.  The brilliant black head was iridescent, his eyes were bright red, his black and white plumage and snow white belly were beautiful.  We roared past, the bird bobbed in our wake, but he never dove.

The next morning I wasn’t guiding but was helping the other guides get their boats ready for the day when I noticed the loon washed up on shore, dead.  I wrote about it in my next letter home and when I returned home at the end of the summer my father showed me he had saved that letter, And he saved the others I wrote as well, about visiting an Ojibway cemetery, about chasing black bears away from the garbage dump, about the camp owner’s daughter giving me a kiss, My father told me I ought to think about being a writer.

Thanks Dad