Open Writing

You will not find Cameron Lake on the map. It lies 6000 feet high in the sunlit Rock Mountains and is full of suspicious trout. Shaped like a bath, it is three miles long and one wide; the southern end is in America, the western side lies in British Columbia, while the remainder belongs to Alberta. Like a bath after the children have used it, there is a dark ring round the sides where fir trees thrive from water level to timber line, above which spreads the everlasting snow. On still days, the calm water mirrors a perfect image of the blue sky and snow-topped mountains. Skiing enthusiasts appear in early autumn, defying the hot sun in order to take part in an unseasonal contest.

You can sit in your car or under the trees on the little beach at the 'tap end' of the bath, as it were, and watch through binoculars, as minute figures slide down the 'smooth end' from America to Canada. Shortly after the event the holidaymakers, tourists and fishing enthusiasts pack up and leave for home before the snows obliterate the road. Ice then appears on the water and Cameron Lake becomes a frozen isolated wilderness inhabited by bears and moose until the thaw next May.

Only by the badge and his ancient 'ten gallon Stetson' could you distinguish the Forest Ranger from the fishermen: decrepit olive-drab shirt and trousers clothed the rest of him. He was short and wiry, with skin browned and wrinkled like an old boot. Just behind where I was sitting on the beach, a woman in a blue Cadillac, with Californian number plates, called to him. I placed the 'Wiltshire Herald and Advertiser' newspaper over my head as a sunshade to protect the binoculars from the glare across the lake. After a few minutes I became aware that the Ranger was standing beside me.

'The snow looks pretty thin up there,' I ventured.

He grinned. 'Not so thin. A lot of what looks like brown rock is dust-covered snow.' His voice carried a trace of a Welsh accent.

In answer to my question he said he had come to Canada as a miner in 1910. He had never been back to the 'old country'.

'What do you do in the winter?' I asked.

'A little bit o' trappin. I've a shack over the hill.' He pointed to the timbered crest above.

'How do you get on for food, then?'

'I stocks up before the freeze up and shoots a bit.'

'Then you can't go anywhere 'till the spring?'

'That's right; just along the trap lines.'

I was imagining the 20-mile snow-covered desolation between him and the nearest habitation, when he said unexpectedly, 'I've a sister in Wiltshire, lives in Malmesbury.'

He was looking at my Wiltshire newspaper, lying creased and ruffled in the sand after its 5,000 mile journey to this obscure lake.

'Take it,' I said. 'My folks send it regularly. I'll send it on to you'. Then I remembered there is no post delivered to the shack over the hill. He took the newspaper, folded it carefully and, with a farewell, walked away.

How many times would he read it, I wondered, during the long cold winter while the Northern Lights flickered in the sky and the sad howl of the timber wolf echoed across the frozen lake? I watched him go and the lady in the blue Cadillac smiled at him as he passed her. When he was out of earshot I heard her remark to her companion,

'I wonder what that little guy does in winter.'

Her eyes were masked by sunglasses, but her mouth showed her surprise as I walked by and answered,

'A little bit o' trappin'.'

© Tom Powell

This article first appeared in Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au