A Note to the Reader With the fireside interlude of the “Three Sisters” behind them, the gang’s traveled to Lake George to test the big canoe’s new sail rig. Time is short, and Ed and Brenna are anxious to get started on their Trip of a Lifetime.

 
Our story continues…

 
Chapter Sixteen

 
A brisk southwesterly breeze kicked up two-foot-high waves out in the middle of Lake George. Ed stood at the tip of Marco Point, his feet planted wide and his hands thrust deep into wrinkled chinos. An unusually warm May sun rose over the mountains behind him, while shadows of puffy cumulus clouds chased each other across the flanks of the hills to the west and north. In the pines that dotted the point, chickadees flitted from branch to branch in search of breakfast, their cheerful calls expressing unalloyed joy at having survived another winter.

Ed squinted out across the deep blue, sun-dappled waves to scan hillsides painted every imaginable shade of green. New leaves were just emerging on the maples, he noticed. A huge grin split his bearded face. He breathed deeply. The air smelled faintly of pine sap.

“Yo, dreamer!” Brenna called good-naturedly from the beach, “You gonna laze around all day and let me do all the hard work?” She stood next to their big canoe, hands on hips, her wellies covered with wet sand.

Still grinning, Ed turned toward his wife’s voice. “Sorry,” he said, and jogged toward her on a springy carpet of pine needles. A startled red squirrel shot up one of the pines, stopping at a side branch to scold the heavy-footed intruder. Reaching the beach, Ed wrapped Brenna up in his arms, swung her round, and kissed her.

“Jeeze, Ed!” Brenna stammered, after he released her. “Aren’t we just full of the joys of spring today?” She, too, was grinning.

“Hey, hey…,” a raspy voice growled from the deck of the cottage belonging to Sonny Marco’s parents, a log chalet standing on a slight slope, overlooking the beach. Zoe Hatch Zelinsky Grimes shouted down at the beaming couple below her: “None of that stuff! My little brother might be watching! Don’t want to give the boy any ideas now, do we?” She winked broadly to be sure Ed and Brenna got the joke. Then she turned her attention back to the large mug of coffee in her hand, pausing now and again to take deep drags on her hand-rolled cigarette.

“You want a refill, Max?” she yelled, holding her mug high and pointing to it with her cigarette.

“No thanks!” Max Grainger replied from the dock. He shifted his pipe from one side of his mouth to the other, drew on it, and realized it had gone out. “Damn obstinate thing,” he grumbled, groping for his lighter. A small, open sailboat—a Parrett flatner—bobbed in the water beside him, chafing silently against three rope fenders. The gold-leaf letters on her bow, identifying her as the Lou Grainger, flashed in the morning sun.

Jack Van Dorn hovered anxiously around Ed and Brenna’s beamy Old Town XL Tripper, looking for all the world like a midwife at a difficult birth. He was itching to get started clamping the frame of their new sail rig to the big boat’s gunwales, but he resisted the temptation. “They won’t learn how, ‘less they do it themselves,” he muttered, more for his own sake than anyone else’s.

He couldn’t help dancing with impatience, though. How he wished they’d get a move on! It was an unlikely-looking rig, and he was mighty curious to see how it worked. He’d cut and stitched the sail himself, and he’d helped build the frame and assemble the odd tripod mast, as well. He hadn’t done that kind of work since he’d been a boy on a Labrador schooner, more than half a century ago, and he was overjoyed to see that his old skills hadn’t left him.

Jack looked out over the lake. To the north, a wooded ridge ran right down to the water. Between the ridge and the rocky point to the south, the cottage and its beach were protected from the full force of both northerly and southerly gales. There were no gales blowing today, though. Just a steady, freshening breeze. Perfect weather! And not another boat in sight. This couldn’t last, Jack knew, and his impatience deepened. Read more…

 

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Hooked? A new chapter in our serial adventure novel, Trip of a Lifetime, will appear every Sunday. If you’ve missed a chapter, or if you’re coming aboard for the first time and want to catch up, just use the hot-linked title to go to the archives.

 
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A REMINDER This is a work of fiction. All the characters are figments of the imaginations. It’s NOT a paddling guide. If you’re planning a trip on the Albany River—or any other body of water, come to that—consult the most recent edition of a good guidebook and be sure you’re thoroughly familiar with all applicable regulations. While maps of Ontario show some of the waterways mentioned here, the places depicted in our story exist only in our minds—and in yours.