Attribution: See page for author, OGL-ON, via Wikimedia Commons
.jpg){kind=link}
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes with the keeper that it is that time of year when hordes of fishermen hook up their boats and head for Canada in ritualistic quests for walleye and northern pike, undaunted by the possibility of misfortune or even disaster.
A recent family member’s encounter with an underwater Canadian rock reminds the keeper of the long-ago Canada fishing trip with his father and three young sons when he caught a bug that had him hallucinating and unable to stand while fog-stranded on a small fly-in lake.
As lead-up to this there had been an overnight stop in Thunder Bay to consult with a doc, at which time one of the sons—it was Mike, innocently toyed with a railroad switch lever in back of the hospital, resulting in the derailment of two monster Canadian National locomotives and incurring the rath of the RR workers who had to bring in a huge crane and repair crews to set things straight.
The keeper lost 18 pounds during that miserable week, and to this day does not know what devastating bug he had suffered from.
There are much sadder Canada fishing stories—stranded with the body of a heart-attack victim friend, five friends from the Cross Plains area killed years ago in a fly-in plane crash, and more.
As a former Canadian, Phyllis encourages all kinds of visits to her birth country but joins the keeper in advising fishermen to be extra careful. She is also of the opinion that the Canadian National RR is probably no longer interested in talking to Mike, the incident being so long ago.
Photo by Bill Stokes