When Luc took the job as caretaker on the island, Marie his wife was three months pregnant. They had met in high school four years prior, in the mine town of Cobolt, one hour north of North Bay, Ontario. Luc had done a stint in the Canadian Army right after graduating and Marie received an Associates degree in restaurant management at a community college while Luc was enlisted. Both of their families were Quebecois and spoke French even though they lived in an English speaking community. Luc was raised by his grandfather who had been a miner and logger of the old stock. Luc’s physique resembled his grandfather’s, a tight assembly of compact torso, outsized arms and powerful hands. He had kind face with a shock of black hair. Marie herself was short, but very pretty with green eyes and a Gallic nose.
Although Marie’s family worked in a store in town, she took readily to Luc’s desire to live on the island on the north part of the lake, away from the community. They could live as they chose for the most part, and the summer camp that leased the island and was Luc’s employer would provide their housing and most of their supplies. It was a half hour by boat to the marina in the summer and one hour drive when the winter road was cleared after the lake froze. This remoteness was initially a bit of concern to Marie’s family but Marie had become more stubborn since she married Luc and she insisted that they would be fine, even if the hospital was a four hour trip away. Behind what had seemed like stubbornness, it was trust in Luc that sealed her decision. Luc had promised Marie that moving up to the island would be good for them and the baby. She knew he loved her, and that was enough.
The century old summer camp lay quiet on the other side of the island from Luc’s and Marie’s cabin. On sunny mornings, the main lodge and camper log cabins filled with a sharp bracing light. Luc would walk among these structures every morning. The previous caretaker had informed Luc what to look out for as winter approached. The biggest issues at this time of year were ice-covered branches breaking onto some of the buildings. It had been dry for the first few weeks of freezing temperatures, so this did not alarm him. He had done well to drain the plumbing in all the buildings, so the frozen pipes were also not an issue. Still every morning he walked around, checking the creaky wooden cabins, peaceful now after a summer of noise and movement.
Luc was also working on an ongoing carpentry project, tasked to him by the camp director before he left the island for the winter. Many of the cabin porches had decayed over the years and were in need of repair. Luc had offered his milling and carpentry skills as part of his qualifications for the position, and he was now fully using them as he cut the long planks needed for this large project. His grandfather had taught him how to use both manual and mechanized table saws. The camp owned a mechanized saw that was powered by a generator. The shop also possessed an ancient hand powered mill, one that Luc had not seen outside of his grandfather’s garage. Because the project entailed removing all planks from the cabin porches and then custom cutting the replacements to fit the idiosyncratic footprints, Luc took his time.
At sunset before heading back to the cabin, Luc often found himself standing on the lodge porch. He would walk to the southern corner, close his eyes and inhale the wind air across his face. It was sweet with the scent of the pine rot and fresh water. He felt protected here with the white noise of waves crashing around the point. As it all closed in on him he knew that this was his dominion.
For her part, Marie kept busy as well. After remodeling the modest wooden beam cabin, she took advantage of her time to experiment with recipes she had been working on at the restaurant back in town. Despite Luc insistence that she keep her movement to a minimum because of the pregnancy, Marie hauled in split billets from the cord of dry birch beside the cabin, in order to heat their wood stove. When Luc was doing his rounds in the morning she would look out the window above the sink in the kitchen and see their dock and the inky expanse of the lake.
One day in November, when looking out the window Marie saw ice collected on edge of the dock. Every morning since then, she would watch the progress of the ice as it gradually grew out from the shallows. She would stare for moments or maybe even several minutes out onto the water. The scene was now familiar and comfortable. On the morning of the first snow, Marie was standing at her post by the window and a light south wind rocked their metal workboat gently against the white dock. The bright rays of the early sun warmed the snow on the cedars and flashes of light gleamed off the melting water. It was clear but was not too cold. A few wrens dashed among the birches that stood by the steps that led to the water. She held on to a cup of warm tea in her left and hand with her right she caressed her protruded belly. Marie took in this view and then she began to cry. The tears crept on her suddenly, and before she realized it she had lost her breath and began to cough over the sink as mucus and snot rushed from her nose and mouth. She dropped the mug in the sink and ran into their bedroom and curled up into a ball, sobbing into a pillow. When Luc returned to the cabin, Marie was preparing lunch. She was wearing a new shirt and had washed her face.
She said not a word to Luc about what had happened that morning. Maybe because he seemed so happy or maybe because winter had set in, but Marie never mentioned the crying, even when it continued almost every morning for the next two weeks when he was working.
It was late- December and the lake was frozen enough for Luc to set up his ice fishing shed. One hundred yards or so off the point, he had dragged the outhouse shaped structure to an opening he had cut in the ice. Stored in the shed was a gas powered Coleman lamp, a stool and a small radio. Every day after supper he would venture to the shed for an hour to trick pickerel. Since the sun was going down at 3pm and because the cabin felt smaller and smaller, Luc enjoyed this time alone and he knew that Marie did as well.
Luc knew about Marie. He knew that she had been crying when he was gone. How quickly she removed his plate of breakfast when he was barely finished with it.
One morning during his rounds, Luc heard scratching in one of the camper cabins. Luc had been thinking when he was going to have to deal with rodents, and until this day he had been lucky. He went back up to the shop to fetch the keys to the door as well as the metal trap. The trap was a simple steel device of unknown origin. It hung from an old nail in the back of the shop and was the size of a large shoebox with a one-way door and a screw off top.
The cabin was dark when Luc entered. He hit the wood floor a few times to hear if the animal was still lurking about. The cabin was silent. Luc then baited the trap with two pieces of stale white bread and left it in the center off the room. He exited the cabin and locked the door.
After supper that evening Luc stood outside the porch of the cabin again. It was still silent inside. Luc unlocked the door and directed the beam of his flashlight into the dark room. The beam illuminated the gray box and inside Luc saw the yellow beads of little eyes. He walked up to the trap and placed the flashlight on the floor and lay along side of it peering into the cage. Spotlighted and trembling in the corner was a tiny red squirrel. It was as Luc had expected.
“Poor thing”, he thought.
Just as Luc was about to lift himself up he saw a reflection under a bunk across the room. He went over to the bed and pulled a small book from under the box spring. It was a black and white marbled covered journal similar to those he was given in primary school. “Jude” was handwritten on the cover. When Luc put the book in the pocket of his Carharts he felt something was wrong about what he was doing. He pointed his flashlight back over to the center of the room. No one would know he thought and he was alone in the ice shed. Luc grabbed the handle of the cage and the squirrel began to scratch at the cover. He put the flashlight back in his pocket, locked the door and went out into the night.
Sam Phillip's Sun Studio, currently a museum and a studio for rent
"Why wait? Open Your Account Today", encourages the card.
