Just Drifting

I am in an open boat in the middle of Lake Laberge. There is a slight southerly breeze that periodically sends a pattern of wind riffles skimming the three-mile wide expanse of the lake. The outboard motor is turned off and both dogs are sprawled about in the bottom of the boat lulled to the point of total inertness by the hot sunshine beating down on them. There is no noise but the gentle gurgling of water all about us and it’s a wonderful day.

I am tying a new lure on the end of my fishing line. I am an impatient fisherman and if a particular spoon, plug or lure does not entice a fish within fifteen minutes or so; I haul it in and change to one of a different color or one that has a different wriggle. This time I’m changing from the familiar yellow five-of-diamonds to a deep-diving fluorescent plug with a silvery tail that looks like an escapee from some exotic tropical aquarium. There’s enough hooks hanging off it to make me very cautious in the process of hooking it into the steel leader at the end of my line.

After completing the hookup I am reluctant to restart the outboard, as the noise will disturb the peaceful tranquility of the afternoon. Like the dogs, I relax and lean back and can’t help but recall another involuntary drifting incident that happened some years ago.

In that case I had contracted to haul some construction equipment into the river at the north end of the lake. To make room for as much gear as possible, I removed everything but the bare essentials from the boat. The trip into the river was slow because of the heavy load and I did not land at the construction site until the early evening. When I revved up to land against the fast river current, I could feel something in the lower gearbox give way but the motor kept running albeit in forward gear only.

I kept the motor idling against the while the crew unloaded the boat and despite the mechanical problem I started on the return trip reasoning that I would only need forward gear to get back. That reasoning held until I was about half way into the return trip when the drive shaft snapped and all I could get out of the motor was a neutral idle.

The bare essentials that I had kept on board were all contained in my small backpack and such heavy things as oars, spare kicker and the emergency kit had been jettisoned before I left the campground with the heavy load.

I wasn’t worried about eventually making it home. The job foreman back at the river camp was coming in the following morning and we had agreed between us that he would be on the lookout for my drifting boat.

I resigned myself to a night of drifting about at the whim of the elements. The contents of my backpack were few but they included my raingear, one chocolate bar, a harmonica, a jackknife and a silver hipflask of rye whiskey.

Sometime during the night, black clouds, thunder and lightning erupted around me but I felt fairly snug under the small foredeck and the boat was large enough to handle the waves that flowed around me. During the night the boat drifted ten miles south in the direction of home only to have the wind change and reverse the course of my drift back to the north again. I awoke just before sunup when the boat grounded on a gravelly shelf on the east of the lake. During the course of the adventurous night I had eaten the chocolate bar, drank the whiskey and exhausted my repertoire of musical selections.

Near dawn an amphibious aircraft flew by but the only thing I had with me that might attract the pilot’s attention was my bright yellow raingear. I did not get the jacket off in time to do so and the aircraft disappeared.

About nine-o’clock I saw the foreman’s boat crossing the lake and by waving the bright yellow raingear back and forth I was able to draw his attention to my location.

All is well that ends well but you can imagine that forever more there has been an emergency kit in the boat with me. This includes a number of flares and signaling devices.

At that point of my reveries I sat up, started the outboard, threw the exotic plug overboard and resumed trolling for our dinner.