Dry Dock
The sturdy Norwest 24-foot cedar-and-canvas canoe reached the crest of a 15-foot wave. We bobbed over the top only to see a mass of swells. The 40-horse outboard quickly revved up and we flew across the swells for some time before falling back in the rolling and dangerous waters. The pilot kept an eye out for rocks while we plodded along to the nearby Loon Islands. The salty water sprayed about us while we bailed out with the pail, which doubled as a cistern.
On our usual hunting trips, we wouldn’t touch shore for most of the day, except for tea and a chance to stretch and dry out, if it wasn’t raining. Come to think of it, we never caught the sniffles like the freshwater guys – makes me wonder. The waves reach a crescendo and peak on top of the slippery green slimy rocks of the Loon Islands and our canoe is deftly hoisted ashore using our wooden rollers we keep in our canoe for ballast.
Our hunting bags – which had all the necessary tools and grub to survive a longer stay out on the islands of the bay if necessary – are piled up onshore. The driver would mix his concoction of oil and gasoline, and then pour it into a tank for the trip home. The trusty two-stroke engine wasn’t as reliable as today’s models, however. We checked our bags for sparkplugs and figured out a way to get the water out of the gas tank.
Meanwhile, the fire is going and the tea is made. We watch seals swim by on the leeward side and conjure up a path through the rocky shallows. Bannock and Klik and some Googum-made doughnuts provide a good meal. Beans were often a side dish and a lot of goofy jokes about flatulence made choking on your stale bannock a real danger. Having your tea handy for such occasions is a must.
We decide to do our hunting around the tips of the many reefs that pop out during low tide. This is serious stuff. You have to be completely still and well hidden for the many ducks and loons to fly by close enough to shoot and bring down on land. Geese were a bonus. The guns blasting from our many spots on this skimpy outcrop in the huge waves made this a wet, yet prosperous, day.
Still, our guns resounded quietly, muffled in the strong winds and sounds of raging surf on foamed-up rocks made the retrieval of our kill a little tricky. Some ducks fell out of range on the quiet calm of the leeward side and we kept track of them to remember where to pick them up. Most of our kill lands back on shore, or if in the water, washed up and easy to recover.
Thinking of those islands, Loon and Seal, makes me wonder why they were called that in the first place. The Seal Islands is where we shot the red-throated loons and common loons and at the Loon Islands is where we found the seals. Go figure, but the islands off the mouth of the Chisasibi are far from unique as these small islands dot the coast of the eastern James Bay from Moosonee up.
The teapot boils again for the second time on this duck-hunting trip and we head home with the setting sun at our backs. Brilliant oranges and purples fed by the strong winds helps time pass quickly as we watch the clouds, this time with the wind and waves at our backs. The tobacco comes out and cigarettes are rolled in the rough-hewn hands of an Elder who has lived like this since childbirth, some seven decades. The salt of the bays has crusted this old man’s face and runs in our blood.