'THE REAL STORY OF OLD GREEN'

‘Exploration Boom’

Part one

By: Norman Guertin

‘WHY YOU GOTS TWO WASHERS, MÂMÂ; DAT ONE AND DAT ONE?' CAME THE WHISPER IN HER HEAD. THE NEAR DOZEN WORDS OF A CHILD CARRIED THROUGH TIME; A SPLASH OF RECALL WHICH HADN’T ESCAPED THE NEAR SENIOR FROM ONTARIO’S NORTHERN ALGOMA DISTRICT.

Canada’s most central province’s Lochalsh Bay, small community in the upper latitudes. Beautiful spot to be! Great hunting; fabulous fishing—baitfish galore! Wonderful local for the outdoorsman; potentially lucrative for the ambitious—but definitely not a place for the faint and feeble.

This quaint little place—a ghost town today—has history pasted all over it! In fact, its three-syllabled name is likely held together with the sticky stuff—its very beginnings being indigenous-based, after all.

Within Algoma District, indigenous and colonial development stood in the hands of the adventurous; nature-lovers, brave people willing to meet the challenges of rustic life—head on.

Such were the courageous who heedlessly encountered every test nature had to throw at them—particularly that of the aforementioned.

As for Algoma’s colonists, they were like well-aimed arrows; lobbed projectiles travelling in rectilinear fashion—directly to the set bullseye of a given target. Those living beings were nearly unstoppable in their advance.

Obstacles amidst Ontario’s northern woods; here was a great abundance of them: the ruggedness of scraggly bush, rocky hills and valleys, long cold winters—not to mention the north’s insatiable quench for blood.

All of these limitations mixed in the paths of colonialism; deterrents, they were—restraints, grimacing at set goals by daring people out to beat the odds.

Algoma’s icy waters; another concerning hindrance. Odorless fluid; clear—and more often than not, hypothermic in nature. Glacial-like district waterways, able to suck every iota of energy from any warm-blooded living being—notably from those brave humans putting their lives on the line.

Fortune seekers, feisty men and women at the forefront of the above-mentioned challenges; prospectors, they were—the latter, being an understatement!

Every last one of them were very determined members of the human race; go-getters focused on mineral exploration—the whole lot of them, hopefuls in the unearthing of wealth from this northern portion of the planet’s outer crust.

Those were the stimulators of development in Algoma; the north’s seeds of growth—gutsy people in control of modern-time beginnings in mining settlements such as Lochalsh Bay would one day be—so Linda Joanne Nilson claimed..

***

‘ARE YA LISTENING TO WHAT I’M SAYING? MY MOTHER PUSHED. YER EYES SEEM TA BE LOOKIN AT ME SORT ’A BLANKLY, MY GIRL!’ AGAIN, A TINGE OF WHISPY WHISPERING IN THE NEAR-SENIOR'S HEAD; MORE INNER THOUGHT—MEDITATIVE YEARNINGS.

Long before the arrival of European traders and missionaries of the sevventeenth century, the hydrographic region in which the community of Lochalsh Bay would one day be located in, had had loads of human traffic moving across its northern-flowing waterways.

The lion's share of this circulation was of the indigenous kind; a sea of Algonquians was said to live there—Cree and Ojibwe. The Inuit, on the other hand, were found in the more northerly regions.

In Algoma District, land elevations, heights dividing the area into two basins. The orientation of transport routes for the above-mentioned Algonquians was decided purely by the configuration of the land. Drainage boundaries were delimited by a multitude of higher topographical land elevations.

Across the province of Ontario, one such linear height of irregular terrain crossed its northern section; it stretched from one end to the other, in fact—this elongated continental fracture, being more than two thousand kilometres in length!

Geologically-speaking, those higher lands were what determined all directional flow of lakes and rivers—even the tiniest of trickles.

As a result, water movement—for the most part—had but two directional choices; either its runoff ran south, or north—period!

River movements south of the above-mentioned great stretch of height of land, often referred to as continental divide, gravitates toward one very large body of fresh water—the largest on the globe, even! —Lake Superior.

Superior's massive lake waters travel a very long distance through other great lakes. Then, this source water journeys its way across another three thousand kilometres of wilderness, through Samuel de Champlain’s so-labelled ‘Sainct-Laurens River.’

This is the continent’s primary drainage outflow; it is a great waterway which makes its way to that great western ocean known as the Atlantic.

All other Algoma watercourses, that is those found north of the said physical divide running through its district, end up in James Bay—a large body of water found to the far north.

From there, this ever-moving water connects to another ginormous expanse of it—a much larger one. It is a different bay found at yet higher latitudes than that of the former! —Hudson Bay.

Last, but certainly not least, one final mix remains; Hudson Bay’s clear odorless fluid ends its journey beneath the thickest and densest ice on this blue planet we call Earth—the Arctic Ocean.

***

APPARENTLY, MISTER WRITER, BACK THEN, I WAS A CUTE LITTLE RED-HEADED FRECKLED-FACED KID. THIS, I WAS TOLD A NUMBER OF TIMES OVER THE YEARS.’, THE GHOSTLY VOICE REPORT SLITHERS ACROSS HER AGING MIND.

South of Earth’s northern ice-capped region, is found an abundance of extremely rocky geology; it is an exciting rugged stretch of land reaching across the Canada’s province of Ontario’s Algoma District.

Its landscape mimics that of a very weird surface; it resembles that of the chaga mushroom found on yellow and white birch trees.

Chaga, an irregularly-shaped plant, oddly resembles that of burnt charcoal; this living organism is more or less a black fungus protrusion—no more than a geometric chunk of sterile conk none would relish touching.

Imagine a tiny blood-sucking sand-fly at rest on such a dark and ugly-looking plant; visualize, if you will, this little living organism’s hairy-looking V-shaped wings diagonally aiming upwards as it perches there in silence.

The exterior tubercles on an old toad; warty amphibian skin—a disgusting foreign surface. Not only would Algoma’s terrain parallel that of the chaga mushroom or the toad itself, it most certainly compares to that of Algoma District’s geography.

Such ruggedness is not a topography for the fearful; hiking Algoma’s landscape could never be a walk in the park—not by a long shot!

***

During pre-contact, northern Ontario’s settlement of Lochalsh, still yet to be, was one of many locations travelled by Indigenous People. Like the sand fly, they lived off of this craggy countryside; mastered the skills of survival in the midst of those hardships defining Canada’s north.

Nonetheless, those First Peoples did what they had to do as they carved their niches amid the toughness and hardships of this land. Here, they lived; survival, being their main priority.

Newcomers infiltering the region had had to fit into an established mold upon arriving; a way of life had existed there, already—compromise and humility, needed while overcoming all of the hurdles in their paths.

So, gradually, the white man negotiated his way into what had been for eons. Some of these exchanged talks may have been fair; while others, may not have been. Progress, above all, seemed nearly unstoppable.

Over time, blankets, flintlock muskets, copper kettles, iron-trading tomahawks and whatnot got traded with the Ojibway and the Cree for furs. A buzz of commercial activity persisted for decades. The missionaries who had permeated the area, had done so to save souls.

***

‘IN LAKE WABATONGUSHI, FISH WERE SO ABUNDANT, THEY’D INVETIGATE A HUMAN FINGER IF EVER ONE GOT DIPPED BENEATH THE WATER’S SURFACE—AND GOOD GOD, IF I WAS A MALE, I MOST CERTAINLY WOULDN’T GO SKINNY DIPPING THERE!’, AN EASE OF LAUGHTER RELEASES IN MURMURS—HEAD HUMS PROMPTING THE SLIGHT SMILE ON LINDA JOANNE'S FACE.

Colonial development followed; a surge in discoveries on Indiginous land were made in and around where Lochalsh had eventually rooted itself. As early as the1800’s, perhaps even earlier, geologists snooped the territory in search of precious metals—gold being at the top of their list.

Amidst all the usual movement and a non-stop flow of outdoors and canoe enthusiasts coming from afar, the overpowering advance of the 1881 federally incorporated Canadian Pacific Railway permeated the indigenous worlds of an existing population.

Steam-powered locomotives got replaced by the more efficient diesel-engine trains. What a change this and the golden tracks of Algoma District had had on development in the Bay; spin-off effects from the Algoma Central and Hudson Bay Railway were duly felt.

This malleable precious metal called gold had been discovered in the final decades of the nineteenth century; not only in the village of Lochalsh Bay, but elsewhere in the region, as well.

Some romantically laid claim to the dual gold-tracked Canadian Pacific lines paving their way to riches; a gold rush…on—the phenomenon, real. Undeniably!

***

‘YESTERDAY, THE LIDDLE’S BOUGHT A COLORED TELEVISION, PÂPÂ. IT’S REALLY NICE! DO YOU THINK YOU’LL EVER BUY ONE? THE UNDERTONE CAME IN THE FORM OF A QUESTION; THE RECOLLECTION ITSELF, NOSTALGIC. A MENISCUS BREAKS, A TEAR MEANDERS DOWN HER FACE; THE SPEAKER SUCKS IN A DEEP BREATH OF AIR.

Creative juices, ingenuity, problem solving; three necessary ingredients to technological advancement in moving people and goods from one location to another—a very tough challenge in the day.

Two steel lines, laid out parallelly for a great distance northward to Lochalsh; they came all the way from North Bay, Ontario—a beautiful community by the water, eight hundred kilometres to the south-southeast.

Sturdy metal railroad lines impeccably aligned, flawlessly spaced apart from one another—well-grounded to hefty treated timbers sunken below them.

Travelling by rail; definitely the solution when it came to mobilizing people and goods—trails and waterways taking a back seat to this mode of travel.

Build it and they will come, became the new motto for the likes of Lochalsh Bay settlers. Such was the case for Charlie-Herbert Nilson, a Sweed who settled there in the mid-twentieth century, a Canadian Pacific Railway worker who married and helped raise two lovely girls—the second of his daughters, sporting the name Linda Joanne.

Prior to her father’s arrival, crucial gold rush advancements had been the norm in the area; as a result, this northern Ontario community grew in leaps and bounds. However, mining gold slowed down by the time Linda Joanne’s father began his life in Algoma’s Lochalsh Bay.

To alleviate the problems of moving between places with relative ease, nearly two-dozen-kilometers of road were eventually constructed—from the village of Goudreau, all the way to the Bay itself.

In short order, a taxi service of three modified Volkswagen buses able to carry eight passengers each served these two places well; luggage and other paraphernalia got transported by Jeep and wagon—Alma and Girard Lavoie being the prime cogs in the wheels in this development.

Needless to say, this newly-constructed road made a world of difference for the residents of Lochalsh Bay and Goudreau

It hadn’t taken long before Lochalsh Bay boasted a school, a few stores, a couple of hotels and a tenement house for staff—a restaurant for meals and alcoholic beverages, to boot!

A large railway station became a focal point in the village; with time, there were several residential homes in the surrounding area—probably over one hundred and seventy-five of them.

Although the latter exacerbated an already-existing problem with its lack of health amenities, a Canadian Pacific Railway Budd car service soon had many Lochalsh residents seeing doctors in Chapleau.

Within eyeshot of an awe-striking green house just on the outskirts of town, two dental railcars would regularly get left on an offshoot of the railroad tracks leading past Lochalsh Bay.

Completely detached from all others, this two-car train sat on a Canadian Pacific Railway siding, it stayed immobile for an identical number of days. Many of the locals capitalized on services rendered during the said time frame.

‘WOW, MÂMÂ! YOU WERE SO YOUNG WHEN YOU DID THIS. DID YOU FEEL READY; I MEAN, TO GO OUT THERE ON YOUR OWN LIKE THAT?’, HER AGING VOICE RESONATED FROM WITHIN.

Lochalsh Bay, once a thriving little Northern Ontario town, is nearly ghost-like today. Nonetheless, this tiny little town was the precise booming golden community in which little Linda Joanne Nilson once lived her formative and adolescent years.

Much later in life, as she approaches her senior years, this same redheaded individual with scattered freckles amidst facial features, shares her intimate story of early days in this community.

‘GOODNIGHT MÂMÂ!’

‘GOODNIGHT, LINDA; SWEET DREAMS, MY DEAR.’—EYES WIDENING AT THE THOUGHT.

(Non-fiction—see part two)

‘THE REAL STORY OF OLD GREEN’

‘MEMOIRS ON THE CUSP’

Part two

By: Norman Guertin

Linda-Joanne Nilson, a Canadian woman on the cusp of her golden years, recalls her early life in Lochalsh Bay, Ontario; she lived there from the onset of her years—for sixteen, at that!

In the comforts of her very own living room, this sixty-three-year-old shares her story with Norman; an author in his own right—a man Linda-Joanne coins ‘the writer’.

Today, this gentle near-senior of the feminine gender still resides in the very same Canadian province as she had when she was but a child; although she is settled in a more southerly location—Trout Creek being her new and quaint little abode at this point.

Trout Creek geographically sits in between Ontario’s Ottawa River and Georgian Bay; it is located twenty kilometers south of the province’s fourth largest in-land lake—excluding the great lakes, that is.

This body of water, Lake Nipissing, is a shallow expanse of fresh water, a ginormous basin located at the height of the land—flanked by two separate hydrographic regions.

Still to this day, this height of land is in the midst of rebounding from all the ice age pressures put upon it way back when. It is a well-known waterway for its fishery potential—Nipissing, being the lake’s name.

From the very start of Linda Joanne's intimate heart to heart with the author, the near-senior meticulously delves in her earliest days amidst Algoma District’s northerners; during the fall of 2021, she not only touches on her formative years, but her adolescence is brought to light, as well.

Oral information flows from her lips like free-streaming maple syrup at the height of springtime. When speaking about her life amidst her family and the citizens of Lochalsh Bay, Linda-Joanne Nilson had lots to say.

This woman surprisingly recalls a few memories of being a toddler; which didn’t really amount to much—so she claimed. However, her audience of one, disagreed with this last statement once he heard her story in full.

Her toddler recall, so this listener claims, was far better than his own could have ever been—her recollection of those times, being nothing short of impressive.

So, the writer, a senior himself, was all ears when Nilson spoke; he took in even the tiniest of details—thankful, to the umpteenth degree, that she was able to bring alive those early years in the Bay.

This was how the year 2021 ended for Norman.

***

Linda-Joanne Nilson told it just the way it was; like a leaking tap, honesty and forthrightness dribbled from her lipss—right from the heart.

She took her storytelling a step further than the writer expected her to; her mouth mimicked past voices from her memoirs, using accurate tones and dialogues and gestures as she spoke.

To the best of her ability, she impersonated the very people echoing her past. She was expressive—dramatic as well! In fact, Norman was so impressed, he felt she had missed her calling; and beyond her words, the very accuracy of all her simulations made her sharing, believable.

In 1964, the same year The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, Linda-Joanne senior was but a five-year-old child; this little girl witnessed a great blaze in her very own community that year—Lochalsh Bay, just across the road from her lovely green home.

Through her bedroom window, with two big blue eyes looking like ice on fire, Linda-Joanne had seen the inferno over yonder; orange and red and white flames reached far above the two-story store which was alight.

The blaze licked high up into the troposphere; this sixty-three-year-old could still see them in her spry mind—they might have reached sixty feet in height, this aging gal estimated.

Orangish images etched themselves to the blank slate of her noddle; and clearly, they had never exited her—not for the next fifty-eight years.

So, here she was, late in the year 2021, sitting in her home by the writer, successfully retrieving the collection of mental imaging still imprinted upon the slate of her mind.

***

As she sat in the big armed of her Trout Creek living room, Linda-Joanne evoked other toddler memories, as well; fond ones—deep-seated memoirs of her mother. They were meaningful thoughts of Lucienne-Marie Ouellet working hard—very hard!

Her mother was responsible for washing Camp Lochalsh’s bedding back in the day; there was a substantial amount of it—shiploads!

Back then, her mother had had, not one, but two wringer washers—the first, a Viking; the second, a Kenmore. These post-war washing machines came out the factories in the year 1946; only four years later, automatic machines were rolling off the production lines.

Those newer technologies held no consequences whatsoever for Linda’s mother, though; for Camp Lochalsh, wringer washers ruled the day—and that, was that. So, wringer washers, it had to be.

Beyond the washing machines, an abstract of nearly one half-dozen clotheslines crisscrossed Lucienne-Marie’s yard, leading the uninformed to fabricate thoughts of the weird once seeing the scene.

Like a multitude of taught air-filled sails from ships crossing the ocean blue, sheets and sheets and sheets, including pillowcases too, flapped and snapped in heavy breezes whistling from across Lochalsh Bay’s Lake Wabatongushi. This, back then, was her yard, Linda pointed out: a typical Nilson yard.

The fluttering whiteness of hung linen offset the opaque green hue of her parents’ home. Old Green, they called her; that’s it—Old green. The nickname—plugged in by her father—fit like a glove.

The scene, wit all its laundry, was a unique one—eye-catching, to say the least. For the near-senior doing the telling, this whitish memory of hung bedding in the very yard of her early years stood out in her mind like a reoccurring dream; after all, she had seen this laundry flutter, day after day.

Those on the peripheries, such as visitors in the town, might have wondered what size of family lived under this green roof; and why would any one private individual family ever have such a dire need for so many clotheslines—so many sheets and pillow cases, as well?

Lochalsh Bay visitors not figuring out what really went down on Lucienne-Marie Nilson’s property took these clothesline-linen mysteries with them upon leaving the area—tales of filled-to-capacity crisscrossing lines of laundry to be confusingly told amidst audiences afar.

***

In Trout Creek, Ontario, as she told her story, Norman’s range of vision covered the whole of Linda-Joanne’s living room—including her kitchen and dining room. In the fall of ’21, when she shared her story; he listened carefully to her every word.

As she spoke, Norman's eyes travelled the room he was sitting in. Several works of art were exhibited on her walls: owls in trees, bleeding hearts amidst a backdrop of foliage, a half-dilapidated porch with an abstract of cobwebbed furnishings and whatnot.

Nilson’s near-senior voice permeated the room like a megaphone in a baseball field—yet much softer than that. It was the only sound Norman could hear—a pleasant one indeed.

Linda-Joanne was quite dramatic when she mimicked herself as a little girl; for the writer, this meant that staying focused on the speaker, was a non-issue.

‘Why you gots two washers, Mâmâ; dat one and ‘dat one?’ —the near-senior’s aiming index finger poking her own chest.

‘Why, Mâmâ?’, she mimicked what she'd repeated back when she was only five.‘

The writer gawked at the speaker in disbelief of her imitation of the childlike voice; he said nothing at all, however. Why in God’s name would anyone interrupt that? he inwardly questioned.

‘It is very crucial for my employers at Camp Lochalsh to know with certainty that their bedding would be clean—and they mean always!’—Linda’s eyes bulging from their sockets as she feigned her mother’s voice and peered into Norman’s eyes.

'If one washer breaks down, Uncle Leanard picks it up for repairs in his shop; then, once it’s fixed, he brings it back to me. This way, my love, no matter what, I’ll have at least one washing machine in working order.’

‘Why? I questioned a second time.’

‘I just told you why, Linda! Mâmâ sharply barked.’

‘Why you break it? I asked.’

‘I don’t break it, silly; it just breaks on its own! Mâmâ responded.’

‘Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!’

‘Dat’s lots ‘a sheets, Mâmâ!’

‘Yes, it is, honey.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Lochalsh Camp has a lot of beds to keep clean, Linda! You know, dearie, if you had a copper for every question you asked, little girl, you’d be the richest child in Lochalsh! my mother deduced.’

‘Dey smells good, Mâmâ!’

‘That’s a nice thing to say!’

‘Why you wash all time?’

‘We need the money, dear, Mâmâ replied. When I lived in Bolkow, my mother had us wearing plastic bags over our socks because we had no money to buy shoes. I don’t ever want you wearing bags on your feet; got it little girl?’

‘Why, Mâmâ?’

‘…’ —a slight pause.

‘Your father bought this house from the old barber, Mr. Paquette—remember him? Mâmâ evaded the last why question.’

‘Pâpâ paid him $600.00 for the place. Uncle Hilding lent us the money, dear; now, we pay him $30.00 each month until the dept is fully paid for. That’s why I wash bedsheets and pillow cases all the time.’

‘Why, Mâmâ?’

‘Tu es drôle, Linda; you truly are, my mother ended with.’

***

‘All throughout my formative years,’—Linda-Joanne Nilson continuing her string of sentences for Norman— ‘my best friends were my parents. On my twelfth birthday, they gifted me a suspended patio swing chair; my mother and I used it on most evenings.’

‘Nice!’, reacted the writer from the sideline.

‘Together at a slow pace, we balanced forward and back, forward and back; it was as if we were in a gentle perpetual motion of some sort. We chatted as we did this; covered nearly all topics under the sun—preparing meals, being a big one.’

‘I enjoyed cookin ’round the old Malboro cook stove with Mâ; I truly did—particularly on those cold Lochalsh days when the wind chills along the forty-eighth parallel could inflict one’s skin with frostbite in just seconds.’

‘Hmmm.’, hummed again her audience of one. Chills swashed through him like a big wet bowl of crackling Rice Crispies cereal swamped by the whiteness of cold milk.

‘Beyond my immediate family, I’d had one very good friend; his name was Jerry Liddle. We were both the same age—nine.’, stated the wise one unleashing her shipload of personal life-details.

‘I could tell you story after story—some dating far back! I mean, way out there, Norman—even past the days of mineral exploration! Lochalsh Bay’s historic side is no secret, you know!’, Linda-Joanne said to the writer who hung on her every word.

‘The indigenous people of this area, including the old prospectors who worked it, loved telling stories! Us locals were made well-aware of what had gone on in the Bay—in the whole district, as a matter of fact!’

‘Apparently, Mister Writer, I was a cute little red-headed freckled-faced kid. This, I was told a number of times over the years; so, that is that, just so you get the gist of things.’

***

‘Let me tell you something, Norman; my memories of this northern nest are no less than fond. By eight years old, I shot partridge. At some point, I snowmobiled; then, ice fishing came along—and so many more activities conducive to the district.’

‘I loved to watch Uncle Leanard cut those big ice blocks out of the lake, only to then move and store them in a sawdust-filled building so he could sell them in chunks to tourists during the upcoming summer months.’

‘Here in Lochalsh Bay, I helped where I could; but heavy slippery ice was a difficult and dangerous thing to maneuver. Still, I tried hard to be a useful cog in this small town of ours—one of its tiny gears, if you will.’

‘Me and Jerry Liddle, the boy down the road, went to the movies together now and then; the log structure across the road from my old green home had a show hall inside of it. Movie films were projected onto a screen; twenty-five cents got you inside to watch ’em.’

‘Some purchased snacks from the local store; they ate them at the show—but Jerry and I rarely did that! My father covered the entry fees; that’s as far as the money got us.’

***

‘Beyond the above-mentioned, Liddle and I worked Camp Lochalsh’s minnow trapline for Uncle Leonard now and then; we did this often enough.’

‘Still, neither one of us had yet hit double digits in age. We took on the summer chore a number of times over the course of nearly a half-dozen years, although we were reasonable about not doing it too often.’

‘As young as we were, we still managed to supply Uncle Leonard, the camp’s right-hand man, with all the baitfish he could ever hope for—though we both had quite the time carrying out those duties!’

'Like rising hot water in the central tube protruding the filter basket of a coffee percolator, Norman, warm memories of working the trapline continue to infiltrate this noggin of mine.’ Nilson tapped the side of her head as she said this to her listener.

‘I recall the boat rides to-and-fro, the walks down the meandering trails—and all the camaraderie one could ever hope for. These are fond and vivid memories lingering up here.’—a touch of her temple.

‘One day on the trapline, Norman,’, Linda-Joanne blurted out, ‘hunger struck. Jerry and I were short of food. Frying fish on a stick became the order of the day.’

‘Being there was no shortage of baitfish for us, dipping into our take of minnows was a no-brainer. In the lake, I soon tossed a length of rope upon which Jerry had added a macgyvered finely-bent metal prong of some sort. Somehow, he had fashioned the latter into a rudimentary hook for angling.’

‘Let me tell you this, Mister Writer; the following is no word of a lie! In Lake Wabatongushi, fish were so abundant, they’d investigate a human finger if ever one got dipped beneath the water’s surface—and good God, if I was a male, I most certainly wouldn’t go skinny dipping there!’

‘Ha! Good one!’, Linda-Joanne’s spectator belched out in laughter.

‘In the time it took for Jerry Liddle to prepare and load his boat for the next leg of our trek, I was all but done roasting the big pickerel I had handily angled earlier on.’

‘Haw haw!', she belly-laughed as she saw herself hoisting the cooked pickerel from over the orange ambers of my camp fire. ‘Sorry, Norman; I just got a visual of this fish dangling from some swimmer’s noodle—hee hee.’

‘I burst into a half-maniacal laughter; then, I calmed down. I suppose it was more of a cross between a chuckle and a snort. You get the gist of what I’m saying—right?’

‘Anyhow, hee hee; trust me on this one, our meal of fish just couldn’t be fresher than it was. Over the years, this youthful redhead’—index finger aiming at her very own chest—'lived the Lochalsh life. I mean, I really did!’

‘I breathed everything this place had to offer me! I adored it here, Mister Writer—absolutely loved it!’ Like an accordion, the last six syllables rhythmically-chanted from her lips in an outflow.

‘When I think of myself back then, I see my youthful head as one big blank slate; this old noggin of mine was like a thirsty sponge historicizing events amidst all the years I invested into this place.’

‘There!’, she said with finality. ‘That’s all I have to say about that!’

***

‘You know, Mister Writer,’—flipping topics at that point—'what I said to you earlier on about enjoying cooking with my mother? Well, it was no lie; I loved her with all my heart.’

‘Believe me; working along side of this woman in the kitchen was nothing short of special. Now and then, though, she could antagonize me with too many motherly details when it just wasn’t necessary; I suppose such behavior was normal for a mother.’

‘This one time, Lucienne-Marie Ouellet Nilson, my mother, got on my case about schooling. She liked talking about education; she was big on it!’

‘I only finished grade eight, Linda! Mâmâ had told me one fine day. That’s right, honey—my mother thumbing her sternum—-this mother of yours has a very basic education.’

‘Trust me on this, she continued, for you, Linda-Joanne, that just won’t do. So, my dear—hesitation permeating the scene—you gots to do better 'n me! she preached with a scolding tone.’

‘…’

‘I was blindsided by her comments. I’m sure I was staring through my mother at that point. Just like an eye specialist’s laser beam drilling holes into an optic nerve to release pressure, I looked as deeply into those big hazel eyes of hers as I possibly could.’

‘From Mâmâ’s vantage point, she must have thought I was in a trance, or something of the sort; which, I must admit, I think I was.’

‘Are ya listening to what I’m saying? my mother pushed. Yer eyes seem ta be lookin at me sort ’a blankly, my girl!’

As Linda-Joanne Nilson continued mimicking those vocal sounds from her past, Norman was more focused on her than ever. In fact, due to her eloquent delivery of the said voice, he now had her down as an outright entertainer—which, in her own right, she was, indeed!

‘Yes Mâmâ! I’m listening to you; I shot back with the tips of my ten concaving fingers curling back towards my chest in an of-course-I’m-listening-to-you sort of way.’

‘You know something, Norman? It still irks me when I think about how she came across on that day. She went on and on and on. Good God!’, Linda-Joanne rolling her eyes.

'...'

‘Aunt Alma started you off, Linda, Mâmâ had then said. Those were your two first school years in her green house. Then, dear, yer sister did her part in the Sault. Missanabie was another issue; we won’t talk about that, though!’

‘Today daughter, Mâmâ belched out, you’re under my thumbs! —both of her short stubby fingers aiming back towards herself—and her facial features contorted some, too.’

‘Let me tell you this, Mâmâ continued—a new finger aiming at my nose—finish grade eight ’n git yer butt ta high school! Bring a ladder if ya have to—high school! —Understood?

‘Anyway, you are way past those years they call formative, young lady; you’ll be needin the upper grades. It’s a must these days—a must! mother insisted.’

‘…’

‘Well, don’t just stand there like a confused wild turkey, Linda-Joanne; say something—please!’

‘Yes, Mâmâ. I said like an obedient trouper to a superior officer.’

***

‘Between 1969 and 1974, back when Pâpâ had retired from the Canadian Pacific Railway, my parents spent the summers in Lochalsh Bay; otherwise, Wawa was home for us—specifically out of consideration for my high schooling requirements.’

‘Such was the move that afforded me the opportunity to attend a full-fledged high school—a luxury Lochalsh just never had—except for The Education Rail Car, that is.’

‘So, my scholarly friend,’, the aging Linda said to the writer, ‘you can document how my mother was quite right about education; and leaving their home behind to move to Wawa, for me, attests to her staunch belief in the intellectual growth she often referred to.’

‘Of course, you, Mister Writer, are a prime example of that—aren’t you? You were a teacher once upon a time; you didn’t get that job without academic papers to qualify you for the profession—did you?’

‘…’

‘Anyhow, to make a long story shorter, I did exactly what Mâmâ had said to me; I attended Michipicoten High School—studying there for two consecutive years while completing my grades nine and ten.’

***

‘Father Tremblay came to Lochalsh Bay from White River to celebrate mass—his usual weekly visits. At the start of one summer, in crossing my T’s and dotting my I’s, I went to visit him in the confessional box, just to start my stay off on the right foot. I felt the approach would work in my favor.’

‘Once Camp Lochalsh would get wind that I was in town, I’d get pestered for a variety of reasons; and with Tremblay sewing the seeds of knowledge the way he did, word quickly got around this tightly-knit place.’

‘Linda-Joanne Nilson, the adolescent freckle-faced redhead, as Father Tremblay called me, had returned. In no time flat, he’d broadcast it all over town. As a result, I’d get prompted to work at Camp Lochalsh now and then, I didn’t mind any; I enjoyed working their dining room.’

‘Even back when I was about eleven years old, I served tables there, Norman. Ever since that youthful stint, the owners of the camp welcomed me there with open arms.’

‘Still, I never ever forgot where my real priorities were during those summer visits—spending quality time with my parents. For me, this was something very special; far more important than working at the camp.’

‘Filling the basement furnace with wood, for example, was one of my favorite things to do with my father; he did the lion’s share of the work, though. The heat radiated by his home-built furnace capable of receiving four-foot logs, came in abundant waves—through the Selkirk’s chimney, as well!’

‘I liked being near the furnace when its hot metal emitted dry glows of heat amidst all the railroad ties this Canadian Pacific Railway bunkhouse sat upon. It was easy to take, on cold days—particularly when Pâpâ sat and put his big arm around me. Usually, we’d chat about this and that.’

***

‘Yesterday, the Liddle’s bought a colored television, Pâpâ! my mouth once weaseled forward out of the blue. It’s really nice, I continued. Do you think you’ll ever buy one? my squeaky voice conveying his way.’

‘I’d miss the northern lights, if I did, Pâpâ quickly replied.’

‘…’

Just as perplexed as Linda-Joanne was by Charlie-Herbert Nilson’s response, Norman didn’t say a word; her poor imitation of her father’s vocals simply reverberated in his head. It had him speculating; had him wondering where the heck this discussion was headed.

‘Mister Writer,’, I finally said, ‘although this father-daughter chat by the wood furnace had but just begun, an uncomfortable pregnant pause eerily hovered between me and my old man. —isn’t that strange?’

‘…’

‘My father had a knack for saying things like that, you know; I mean missing the northern lights due to a television? I just wasn’t getting it!’

‘The memory stands out in this noggin of mine.' —an index finger gently tapping the one side of Linda-Joanne's red head again. 'This silly recollection just lingers within me; it seems to dawdle in the depths of this near-senior mind of mine—somewhere in oblivion, I suppose.’

‘You’d miss the aurora borealis? I questioned him in a screechy tone. What in God’s name does that mean, Pâpâ? I stabbed with while gently keeping the conversation going.’

‘Well, he responded, it means that I’d be so taken aback by the fancy colors in this television of yours, that I’d forget about watching the aurora borealis’ greens, reds and mauves—his big eyes then veering my way.’

‘You know how I love watching the dancing luminescence streaming upwards of the North Pole, he persisted; and don’t ever forget how your mother put it: spectacular heavenly waves of light coming to us from God Himself, she would say.’

‘I love them too! I responded with the humility I knew Pâpâ would want to hear.’

‘Yip; you’re a sky watcher! he said—just like me! Did you know they’re always there; I mean the northern lights?’

‘…’

‘At the time, I said nothing; but answered no by gesturing my head and shoulders accordingly. My eyes swerved diagonally up at the great big analytical man looking through me—still, not a word came from my lips.’

‘Well, they are, my father said. We just can’t see them all the time; that’s all; but, according to science, they are indeed there!’

***

‘Tickety-tock-tock, tickety-tock-tock, tickety-tock-tock! A very weird intrusive sound permeated the basement air my father and I were in; I had never noticed this noise before, Mister Writer—never!’

Bewildered by Linda-Joanne’s comments on the noisy interjection, the writer tilted his own head in confusion.

‘What’s that bazar noise? I then questioned Pâpâ with.’

‘Oh! That! —Pâpâ’s finger aiming at a spoked cast wheel turning laboriously counter clockwise. It’s a piston pump; the heart of four houses.’

‘Yip, this thing supplies three other families from our dug well outside of Old Green, here. That’s how the Canadian Pacific Railway did things in the day, my dear, my father worded with deflecting pride.’

‘Oh, I get it! I blurted once realizing my father was using the piston pump’s noise as a diversion from the original television topic. So, no colored television for us, eh?’

‘Nope! Pâpâ curtly replied. We’ll stick with the black and white—and the tall antenna above our roof. I thought you loved climbing through your bedroom window to reorient the antenna for better signal reception.’

‘…’

‘Caught off guard by the basement’s piston pump interruption, I said nothing in response to my father’s sarcastic antenna remarks.’

‘Two channels! he then blurted out. Who needs more than that? I’d get a telephone before I ever went to a color television; then, we wouldn’t have to go use Aunt Alma’s every time we needed to contact someone.’

***

‘Mister Writer! Believe me, my father had a mind of his own! I said whilst changing the topic—and to a different tangent altogether, at that.’

‘Are you working at the Prospect tonight, Pâ?’, Linda-Joanne imitating her adolescent voice from back in the nineteen-seventies.

‘Yes, I am; this bouncer even has to stay past closing time. Following that, I’m heading to the Canadian Pacific Railway pump car around five thirty tomorrow morning—even though I’ll be dead tired! They might have a motorized vehicle for me this time; sounds like fun, eh?’

‘Hmm! —hesitation—I might be serving tables in Camp Lochalsh’s dining room; so, I may be working too, Pâ! I said’

‘Oh yes! Mâmâ told me that, already.’

‘Well! We can watch the sky some other time, I caved to with a discouraging tone Pâpâ picked up on.’

‘Oh, I see said the blind man to his deaf and gloomy daughter, Pâpâ Charlie Nilson’s cynicism stabbed forward with.’

‘Funny, Pâ; very funny! my sarcasm projected ahead. Do you like the job at least—I mean your work at the Prospect Hotel? I stayed the course; no need to deviate again, I felt.’

‘An irritant caused Pâpâ’s larynx to hiccup. He cleared his throat of the glitch with a great harrumph before answering my question. A hiccup! —funny, the things one never forgets, eh?’, Linda-Joanne questioned.

‘Not really, my father answered, but it’s easy money. Because of my size, all I have to do is stand tall; everyone just falls in line. —awkward smirk on his face. It pays to be six foot two and weigh over three hundred pounds!’

‘Mister Writer, I added’—a pregnant pause hovering between us—'my father was indeed big; I mean really big! He was like—a giant!’

‘You know what, Norman? —that particular time Pâpâ and I spent with each other at that wood heat in the basement was the precise day I realized just how down-to-earth this giant was; he was the real deal! What one saw, one got—and that, was that!’

‘I love you, Pâpâ, I ended our talk with; even though I meant it more than I ever had before—heart palpitations harmonizing from within.’

‘Somehow, Mister Writer, this sudden realization stands out in my mind; every now and then, it creeps up on me when I think of my father. I’m sure it’ll linger in this noggin of mine for the rest of my earthly days.’

‘It likely will.’, Linda’s focused listener respectfully reacted with.

‘Anyhow—pausing for a heartbeat count of three—this twentieth century father-daughter episode ended with the palmer side of the giant’s big hand patting affection into my drooped shoulders.’

***

‘Out of the blue and from my father’s lips then came an absolutely irrelevant question—typical Charlie-Herbert Nilson behavior, I clearly see in hindsight.’

‘Hey, wanna help me burn garbage behind the house? he asked with a big thumb aiming eastward. I mean the stuff we’ve been throwing in that low-lying area over yonder? —his way of moving on, I assumed.’

‘No thanks. I replied. Both of my eyes squinted hard; two fingers pinched my nostrils. Maybe some other time, my voice squeaked nasally.’

‘Ha-ha! Very funny. Let’s go; it’s getting too hot in this basement. Maybe we can check the rabbit snares, instead; how ‘bout that?’

‘Alright! I gestured in a giggle.’

***

‘As I approached my teen years, growth spurts kicked in—and other developments, too! You know what I’m talking about, right Mister Writer?’

‘...’

‘Teenagerhood brought about lots of changes in me—and in you too, no doubt! We were there once upon a time; agreed? —each and every one of us was. You experienced those changes as much as I did.’

‘Ah-h-h-h; no—not really.’, the senior at the receiving end of Linda-Joanne’s discomforting spiel weighed in with. Norman preferred hearing about her past—not this stuff.

‘Oh, come on now; I know you know what I’m trying to say, Mister Writer. You weren’t born yesterday—and neither was I.’

'Norman, if you don’t mind.’, the writer corrected with his finger darting skyward.

‘No problems, Norman. You know, I do sense an indifference on your part; plus, I’m blabbering way too much here, cornering myself with my own awkward linguistics.’

‘The gist of what I’m saying is that adolescence was becoming more and more evident once I hit the tender age of thirteen. This flower was attracting bees—too early in teenagerhood, at that! Mister Writer.'

'Oops! I mean Norman. Those were confusing times for me.’

‘Thank goodness I had my mother to lean on; she virtually had something constructive to say about everything—usually with helpful words to get me back on tract.’

‘Lucienne-Marie Nilson had her hand in most things; and she had noticed how her cute little button was blooming back in the day. As usual, she’d have her say about this, too—after all, she was my mother.’

***

‘One day while sitting together on our suspended swing, this new adolescent—a sixty-three-year-old finger aiming at my own heart—initiated a conversation. The motion we were in the midst of was gentle; and the sky, glittery—shooting stars exciting this mother-daughter team.’

‘Mâ; you were born in 1920, right? I questioned point-blankly.’

‘That’s right, dear; and five years later, I moved from Rivière-du-Loup in Québec, to Bolkow here in Ontario. I arrived the same year Aunt Alma did. She was twelve years old at the time; I was only five.’

‘How come you stopped going to school in grade eight, Mâmâ?’

‘Long story! The short of it is, my family didn’t have a lot of money; it was time for me to fend for myself. So, I got a job working as a rail gang cook for the Canadian Pacific Railroad; the C. P. R., remember? —this, became my bread and butter.’

‘Wow, Mâmâ! You were so young when you did this. Did you feel ready; I mean, to go out there on your own like that?’

‘Not at all; I was kind of scared, actually! —but that didn’t matter none. It was what you did back then; you got up on the horse, and rode like the dickens—which is precisely what I did, my love.’

‘Ten years later, I met your father. He was a section man operating a hand pump rail car between White River and Chapleau; and a good human being, I must say—mighty handsome too!’

‘At age twenty-six, Lucienne-Marie Ouellet; yes, me silly—I can see the confusion in those eyes of yours; who else could I be referring to?’ —a large grin overwhelming Linda-Joanne's face as she acted out her mother as she spoke.

'Anyhow, when I was that age, Mâmâ said, through holy matrimony, I became Lucienne-Marie Nilson—the name I carry today.’ gh holy matrimony, I became Lucienne-Marie Nilson—the name I carry today.’

‘Years later, Mâmâ continued, you Linda, were the second child to bless my world. Again, dear daughter, you know how I feel about these things, my teary-eyed mother said as she yanked me into her bosom.’

‘Thank you, Mâ! I reacted out of humility.’

***

‘Mâmâ? I veered towards her. Were you really young when you liked boys? I mean, how old were you when you first had the notion?’

‘Oh! Where is this coming from? Boys, you ask. Well, I suppose I should be proud that you’re asking me something like this baby girl. That’s right; you’re my baby girl in this big heart of mine—another yanking hug—and you’ll always be, she ended with.’

‘M-m-m-m!’, the writer murmured as the words permeated his brain.

‘You can like boys too early, you know, my mother explicitly worded; and we needn’t forget they aren’t the ones bearing babies. Nor do they understand anything about this miracle; or want to know more than they already know about it—which usually isn’t very much at all!’

‘Don’t forget what I just said to you, Linda-Joanne. You—Mâmâ’s finger aiming my way—and only you, are in charge of yourself. So, baby girl, make good choices, she told me in no uncertain terms.’

‘Let’s get back on tract here. Yes, I liked boys, but I’ll tell you something else you need to hear; I never felt I could trust ’em any further than I could toss ’em.’

‘Just to be perfectly clear, daughter, I liked boys too early! So, I kept my legs crossed—if you get my drift. No-one was getting the best of me! —do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘I do, I acknowledged in a blush; on that note, I’m going to bed, Mâmâ. It’s getting late. The shooting stars have stopped shooting; that should tell us something.’

‘Goodnight Mâ!’

‘Goodnight, Linda; sweet dreams my dear, I still recall her saying.’

***

‘Half way to the steep stairs leading up to my bedroom, I glanced back at my mother who had slowed the motion of the suspended swing she was flopped upon. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on her face.’

‘Her eyes were as big as saucers; wet rivulets streamed from them and rounded the entire convex shape of her cheeks—linear starlit refraction glistening from the wetness flowing over her skin, to boot. This image has lingered within me for years.’

‘Mother’s next morning’s hug brought on a new tinge of honesty. You know Linda, she said; last night, I finally submitted to the idea that you, my dear sweet daughter, are growing up. Sooner, rather than later, my love, you’ll morph into womanhood.’

‘I kissed the ground my mother walked on—loved her so damned much! Sometimes I called her coach; she was always on tract—willing to share her trainload of constructive guidance whenever the need arose.’

‘For the most part, I took heed to her advice. Still, at the tender age of sixteen, I fell head over heels for a gold miner; nothing to do with the precious metal itself, though! Although for some, this wasn’t exactly the case—hitting the jackpot being a phrase I recall hearing more than once.’

‘In 1974, I was with child; my lover, Roy-Wenndelin Krell and I married that very year—in that order, too!’

‘Michael-Roy was born several months later—and the next year, Kelly-Ann Elizabeth. Both were delights, my pride and joy; and, to this day, nothing has changed—not one iota!’

***

'The year my mother passed away was 1993. My father died a decade previous to that; he had dealt with heart complications. One day, that big muscle in his chest just stopped beating while he was upstairs in the washroom of Old Green.’

‘When Mâmâ left us in ’93, we all felt that she had died happy. She truly loved Old Green—Lochalsh, as well! As for myself, I felt confused with her departure; I remember all so well.’

‘Had I been left here on Earth to fen for myself; to parent without guidance, I wondered? Here I was, I felt, the unique freckle-faced redhead from the Bay; abandoned—left with two near-adults more or less ready to leave the nest.’

‘I closed my eyes—gave my head a good shake. My kids were indeed ready to go out on their own, I inwardly repeated. Then, Norman, my mind helped me reaffirm how my children were still that great source of pleasure I had been savoring since the mid-seventies.’

‘My mind opened for a whole new view; those two had always been that. There were plenty of lucky stars to be counted in my life. I was seeing the real picture; it was as clear as glacial water!’

‘Michael and Kelly were a piece of me; they were a part of their grandparents, as well. Throughout the years, Pâpâ had always alluded to this fact when referring to my older sister and me! Putting all of this together, I tumbled into realization mode.’

‘Nineteen ninety-three, the year it got written in the books; the last of my parents had moved on to a better place. It was the end of an era; like the changing of the guards—a generational flip, so to speak. From that day on, nothing in Old Green got touched—not by any of us, at least.’

‘Every now and then, we’d get the notion to go see the old gal. And when we did, nothing ever seemed changed inside of her; besides the ill-effects from all the elements nature played on her: wind, rain, snow, gravity, mice, snakes, birds, ants, flies—all sorts of things taking their toll on the place.’

***

‘Ghosts! —Inside of Old Green? I alluded to this once before, Norman. Believe me; there were glimmers of them in this house of ours. My parents’ spirits lived there once their souls went to heaven!’

‘In fact, Norman, it was not until this twenty-first century that mom and dad vacated the building. That being said, however, I once saw something quite surreal—two unique-looking cloud formations lofting in the background of a skyward scene above our property.’

‘I purposely focused on those airborne formations of water droplets high up in the troposphere. Surrealistically, these clouds visually appeared to be attached to the very tips of two separate white birch tree branches lazily overhanging in this revelation.’

‘Norman; I was absolutely mesmerized by what I was seeing.' —two of Linda-Joanne's fingers V-shaped fingers touching her eyes.

‘At the time, my husband Gilles, and I, were about to pitch a tent on the property when a neighbor nonchalantly made his way over to where we were; our camping gear was spilled hither and thither on the ground. Amid the small talk being released, the man made a clear point of forewarning us of recent bear sightings in the area.’

‘At first, said I, this freckled-faced redhead didn’t say one word; I was more dumbfounded by the bear comments than I was, anything else. For a heartbeat count of thirty-two, my nervous mind revisited those eerie-looking clouds I had noticed up in the sky only moments ago; my mind mused on their potential significance.’

‘An awareness then swashed itself through my head as if it was an avalanche rushing down a mountain side. A healthy realization then struck home; I turned to face my man.’

‘Gilles! I exclaimed. Those two clouds I pointed out to you a bit earlier! That’s a sign—a tell-tale sign that Mâ and Pâ are still here! Look! That’s them, overseeing this place; they’re watching over their property.’

‘What do you mean, Linda? he asked me.'

‘Tonight, Mâmâ and Pâpâ will be protecting us from any danger—particularly from those dammed bears we were told about. I’m convinced of it!'

'Thanks, Mâ; thanks, Pâ! I then said as I looked skyward, again.’

‘Good! Gilles capped the short talk with; but I’ll still put this bubble gum in the truck before I get in the tent—if ya get my drift, that is. Now, my savvy outdoorsy husband said, give me a hand here, will ya?’

***

‘Old Green, that is to say, Lochalsh Bay’s Canadian Pacific Railway bunkhouse from the olden days; it had certainly had a different life, this place.'

'Once upon a time, it was a barrack-style building erected to house employees; eventually, the structure was transformed to a residential home—ours!’

‘The year following the defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan in 1945, my parents purchased the place. Charlie-Herbert and Lucienne-Marie Nilson later added the green asphalt siding to ’er.’

‘Today, they’re gone; and it’s a whole new era. I’ve moved on—no choice in the matter! It’s nearly 2022—and, I’m getting old. We all are; aren’t we Norman?’, Linda asked her listener.

'Yes.', I caved to.

‘So, Mister Writer—oops, Norman, I should say. Now you know my story in its entirety. So, there you go!’

Momentarily, Linda-Joanne Nilson’s audience of only one looked her straight in the eyes; his long grey eyebrows raised once she readied herself to speak once more. So, there you go!'

Then, he surmised she was about to end this wonderful spiel of hers; sure enough, thirty-eight concluding words ensued—and immediately afterwards, seven more spilled from her lips.

‘At times, our old place was referred to as The Green House of Lochalsh Bay,’ Linda-Joanne Nilson stated, ‘but that was wrong—dead wrong! My father always called our place, Old Green; the very two words depicting Charlie Nilson’s homestead—our home!’

In her head, the aging Linda-Joanne Nilson repeated those last two words that had just jutted from her lips. A healthy pause hovered; Charlie-Herbert’s daughter blurted out her final say in a cool whisper.

'So, there you go, Norman—Old Green.’

(Non-fiction—see part three)

‘THE REAL STORY OF OLD GREEN ’

‘The Past; Paying Attention’

Part three

By: Norman Guertin

Effortlessly, February slipped into the next month; winter held on like an invasive sea lamprey latched onto a lake trout to feed. Still there were signs of a seasonal change—right around the corner, in fact.

For the most part, winter’s white powdery accumulations were pleasing snowmobilers in Canada—particularly northerners. Still, amidst the north-central portions of the continent, elevated heating effects from noonish suns on Ontario’s forty-eighth parallel felt suggestive of springtime.

Rising temperatures were a tell-tale of a seasonal flip; the sense of change permeating the cool Algoma air. At this higher Canadian latitude, the third month of the calendar year was almost skidding into the first week of the following month.

A shipload of white fluffy accruals still persisted, nonetheless; and mixed with them, those apparent first signs of change—more direct solar effect descended onto Earth where riders continued to play.

A mesmerizing glisten of sparkly crystalized flakes fluttering about in the air spun a hypnotic aura over everything. The astonishing and magical ambiance filled this season’s end to the brim with refraction galore; this too, fortified the suggestion of a waning.

Quick seasonal flip-flops were never what snowmobilers hoped to see; we riders knew that still being at it this late in the season was a great big bonus—all by itself.

What snowmobiler would dare complain about something like this; besides, the arrival of new seasons was inevitable—no grumbling going on amidst us.

Contrary to popular belief, each year, deep down inside, with spring springing, we riders did indeed hold an inner appreciation for its arrival—a skewed one, but nonetheless, it was still there.

So, with the onset of March, a happy group of seven outdoors’ enthusiasts set out by sleds on groomed white snow; they headed into Ontario’s northland, the District of Algoma being the specific destination.

Lucky for me, my brother and I were two of these seven buffs. Together, we more or less played the role of explorers; winter tourists discovering a beautiful piece of Canada: Algoma.

The Township of Wawa was home base; from there, we rode to a variety of destinations—a different one each day. Our group of seven would thoroughly enjoy experiencing those northern great out doors.

On the first day, we made our way to a place called Halfway Haven, a business located precisely between our departure point and Northern Ontario’s third largest city; Sault Ste. Marie—the seat of the district.

Sandwiched between nowhere and nowhere, two-stroked riders had no choice but to top up their tanks with much-needed fuel at the exuberant prices of Halfway Haven capitalists.

Four-stroke riders like my brother, Rhéal André, and myself—on the other hand—laughed at all those thirsty two-stoked motors forcing their owners to pay through the nose in order to fuel up. Our engines were far more efficient than that of the latter-mentioned.

***

On one day only, our cluster of riders took a day off from sledding; we fished instead. A good time was had by all; although, we never caught a darned thing all day long—never even got one bite!

However, we had been duly-compensated by a meandering bit of entertainment provided by one spry four-legged thief scheming for easy meals. One after another, we all took turns feeding this beautiful animal; minnows became the order of the day.

Snack after snack, Mister Red Fox kept returning for more. With no one catching fish, why not play with this fellow? we deduced—and so, we did just that.

The pilfered mitt emitted a foul wild fatty smell waffling through the air like skunk spray; that notorious pungent and nauseating odor of rotten eggs—the half-disgusting discharge attracting the fox in the first place.

The big mitten had been made by a First-Nation Cree; the woman who fabricated it, skinned the seal herself. She also tanned its hide. Then, in the end, she fabricated this wonderful product.

The piece of protective clothing was quite precious; something like this was rarely seen in the more southerly regions of the province—and if ever it was, the cost on the price tag would be an exuberant one.

The mitten belonged to Jérémie—one of the boys in our group. His favorite brother—his one and only—had playfully tossed it towards the intrigued, never once thinking this fox would truly be enticed to take it.

Well…it did!

Off the creature went with the seal-skinned mitt between its jaws, the huge furry thing protruding way outwards of its lips, to the left and to the right—with three shocked fishermen in jovial pursuit.

Out of sheer fright, the colorful animal soon released the mitt and veered for a dark bush escape it noticed up ahead. In very little time, Mr. Fox vanished into the black depths of boreal oblivion.

The mitt’s maker had come from afar; way to the northeast of Algoma in the far north—on the east side of Hudson’s Bay’s James Bay, as a matter of fact! —there by the Great Whale River discharge.

The fabricator—a woman—lived amidst two isolated northern communities; twinned villages in the province of Québec’s northland—one of them, Inuit; the other, Cree.

Kuujjuaraapik-Wâpimâkuštui, these places were called; the long dual name comprised of eleven syllables in total—twenty-five letters and a hyphen! Both were located side by side of each other along the sandy banks of the Great Whale River.

The long-hyphenated name of these communities was real mouthful, when it came to syllable enunciation; it took most newcomers some time to say well, these words. With practice, however, it was doable.

***

Beyond the above thieving dog-like mammal, we very privileged riders experienced excellent snowmobiling on a vast complexity of provincial Federation Snowmobile Club trails located in the district.

Amid Lake Huron and the largest of Canada’s Great Lakes, that is, Lake Superior herself, our incredibly white five-day Algoma playground jaunt proved to be one memorable outing.

André-Ernest, the good nephew on this ride, led the way on this snowmobiling excursion. From the get go, he took charge of organizing and guiding. Thanks to him, every single day was invigorating—including the one zero-fish-day we had enjoyed.

The highlight of our outdoorsy experience in Algoma District began when we sledded to a quaint little community—more like a ghost-like town, really. It was called Lochalsh Bay.

Seeing Charlie-Herbert Nilson’s old green homestead was a specific goal we had all had in mind from the get go—and here we were at a standstill, sitting on the leather seats of our snowmobiles, taking her in, lock, stock and barrel.

This was the very home his daughter had not only lived and breathed her formative years in, but much of Linda-Joanne’s adolescence was spent there in the Bay, as well.

Back in 1946, the year her father had purchased the Canadian Pacific Railroad bunkhouse, the Nilsons moved in; a few years later, Charlie-Herbert modified the building’s overall color to a greater hue of green.

By making this stop in the Bay, we snowmobilers got to witness a piece of the nostalgia Linda Joanne Nilson felt for this community—and first-hand, to boot! Seeing Charlie

Hebert’s proudly-coined Old Green, was icing on the cake; and we all were well-aware of it.

As for Linda-Joanne, the present Trout Creek resident who once lived in this northern town, tremendous memories of her days in Old Green remained close to her heart—regardless of the passage of time gone by.

***

Back in the day, that is half way into the first decade of the new millennium, Nilson’s daughter had chatted with me about having lived in Lochalsh Bay during her youthful years.

Sketchily, Linda-Joanne had spoken of her family home; scattered details were sent my may, on this occasion. I was left intrigued by the short chat. It was the first time the homestead had been brought to my attention.

Due to her brief spiel, artsy inspirations would root themselves well in this noggin of mine; down the road, the artist from within would be stimulated by the whole ordeal—all of this, at the right time.

And, little did I know that some of those told intricacies would mutate to art pieces splashed onto white boards—with Linda Joanne’s sixteen-year stay in Lochalsh Bay recorded on paper, to boot!

To actually ink this story, the inevitability of yet another conference with the woman would someday be imperative; I knew it back in 2008, the very year we rode to see Old Green—Linda’s little nest in Northern Ontario.

Oh yes, in ’08, the realization was very clear. Still, meeting with Linda Joanne again would indeed be imperative; only then, would I scoop up every iota of information pertaining to her life in the Bay.

Hopefully, I thought, Linda would be willing to fully share everything with me—although, that particular second meeting would not take place for yet thirteen more years—an incomprehensible little detail that still, to this day, leaves my mind dangling in wonder.

***

The initial chat with Linda Joanne is what prepared me well for the 2008 snowmobile ride to Lochalsh Bay; I was primed for what I was about to see in Old Green once my Yamaha came to a halt on Old Green’s front yard—the others in our group, being mesmerized to an identical degree.

At first, as we were stopped in front of the old gal, I simply sat there gawking at the place—loving the sight of it. Being immobile like any old crocodile could be, afforded me a serene moment in which I appreciated the esthetics rushing into me at warp speed.

She was somewhat tilted to one side; there was no doubt about it—she was! Over the years, Old Green had been worn by a great variety of natural elements Earth’s northern hemisphere tossed at her.

Regardless of its shortcomings, this place had character; a shipload of character! —and personality, to boot! Clearly, Old Green was special in her uniqueness.

My lower jaw made its way to my chest; I was in awe of this beauty. Intense spring-like sunlight enhanced the greens of Linda-Joanne’s precariously-standing homestead. We all studied her together; more than ever, the weathered structure revealed her precarious lean.

Its eerie image slithered its way into me; it slid to those very optical components found deep within this nogging of mine—exciting the artsy side of myself as though I was a child manually catching my very first bullfrog.

Amazing, the artist in me surmised! How invigorating is this? I asked myself. Here, insecurely stood a wobbly old building, beautiful in its creaky stance—a well-aged structure seemingly itching to tell stories.

Gorgeous! She was no less than that!

***

My spry inner eye was dealing with an aw-filled image of history revealed. Brother Rhéal André and I were taken aback by the scene Old Green was dominating.

Directionally, my mind veered to somewhere else; it took off far into exclusivity. This very right-sided brain of mine stirred in artful oblivion, contemplating—contemplating.

I was seeing myself composing, producing little thumbnail sketches, editing them—painting this impressive view I was so focussed upon. With ease, I understood the inner need I had to reach for my art case.

Within this noggin of mine, sharp hits of solvent-dipped oil pastels smashed into action; determined brushstrokes splashed from my Robert Simmons 750 White Sable brush. An elongated series of fine lines would be dealt with somewhere down the road.

The right-brained person I was began to visualize the end result of a work of art I was composing in my head—within it, Old Green stood left, right and centre in this big mental picture.

Art materialized in me as easily as leaves modified their autumn colors; to me, this was more or less second nature. The imaginings felt totally right; believable dreams were to come to fruition, at some point.

From such deep inner thoughts, masterpieces might have a degree of hope of coming alive. Only time would tell the tale; I knew artful ponderings had sure ways of deviating themselves elsewhere, too! —more often than not, they could end up nowhere at all! That too, could be a given.

***

Our more youthful side of the seven-member outdoors’ enthusiasts wasted no time venturing into the annals of Old Green; without delay, they jumped up from their machines and proceeded forward with intent.

Within seconds, a broken porch door to the off-kilter haunt slammed shut once the last of the brats disappeared inside of its rickety porch—floorless, for the most part.

Rhéal and I, accompanied by André-Ernest, our nephew and guide, simply sat on the cozy leather of our machines taking in the character-filled agedness of the structure we were feasting our eyes upon—the three of us, as cool as a trio of cucumbers.

Who knew how the boys would react to seeing the innards of this old place. Nostalgia wasn’t usually something that affected youth the same way it did the older generation—meaning us.

From the comforts of my shiny green 2006 Yamaha Venture GT Cadillac—the term I used when referring to my trusty machine—I appreciated the aesthetics of Old Green’s image through the optic nerve conveying me the picture.

As gently-moving river current might, those pictures flowed to the very depths of this swiveling head of mine—two fingers tapping on the side of my left temple.

For one brief moment, a seemingly power-driven thought wafted through me; electrons traveling through copper wire—the Leaning Tower of Pisa coming to mind.

Then, the building’s dominant hue of secondary color flooded through me like a great sea of hooker’s green; that harmoniously rich subtle color of apple trees—calming, refreshing, tranquil, eye-catching.

***

Ha! It hadn’t taken long! Our young foursome began exiting the building in a roar. We old boys had exercised needed patience as the boys explored on their own accord. Although excited about having our turn to see this gem from the inside, none of us let this deviate us from our patient demeanors.

The boys’ body sizes expanded as they moved towards us from the porch’s doorway; the effects of vanishing points on distant railroad tracks, reversed—depth perspective somewhat revisited.

My brother glanced my way with a crack of a smile; as our sons approached, they were laughing their guts out like a cackling quartet of hyenas celebrating a recent kill. For them, though, such jovial behavior was nothing outside of the ordinary.

All of a sudden, tomfoolery took over; the four cousins, Chad, Jérémie, Éric and Patrick, hit the white stuff at their feet. Airborne powder travelled hither and thither; white dusty squalling ruled the scene. Who knew what that was about—certainly not us!

In the interim, a realization rooted itself within the three of us older ones; it was our turn to enter Old Green’s big belly—ours to slither through her innards like curious snakes maneuvering amidst tall blades of grass.

So, with shiploads of zeal, this excited trio headed for the same half-wrecked porch entrance the boys had just exited from.

Upon negotiating the haunt, a brusque thought of tossed salad liberally struck my very core. I scanned the one room we stood in like a building inspector in the midst of an evaluation; I felt deeply immersed in this so-called mix.

When tossed, mixed greens and their individual fragments—onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, potatoes and kale—never alter from what they originally are. Tomatoes remain tomatoes—just as do other parts of the salad.

Similarly, over the course of Old Green’s numerous years of abandonment, mother nature had performed her own degree of tossing—the parallel being crystal clear.

A myriad of antiques from within the building hadn’t been altered from normalcy at all—just like the individual parts of any well-tossed salad. Shocking, this artsy onlooker felt.

Into the green house’s living space André, Rhéal and I gingerly stood; we were inside the house’s entry porch. This very place was the one room Linda-Joanne had deemed to be her absolute favorite place to be—the sunroom, she had relayed: bright and airy.

‘See that door?’, Linda-Joanne’s wide-eyed stepson asked as I attempted to photograph a few porch images for future artistic endeavors.

‘I kicked it in; and with this boot, too!’—a finger darting downwards at the bulky footwear he was wearing on his feet.

No sooner had André-Ernest released the twelfth word from his mouth, did he laugh out loud in what appeared to be a cocky demeanor. The artist wasn’t laughing, which in turn, silenced nephew, altogether.

The hilarity ended right there; André’s smile had all but vanished from his face. Open-mouthed, he stared straight ahead at the damage he had caused; his eyes, seemingly saucer-like and remorseful. Not once, did his bulging fixated eyeballs deviate from that entranceway.

He just stood there, speechless; avoiding visual contact with his uncle’s eyes—mine! His humble mental state had him in an outright trance—somewhere in la-la land, floating pointlessly to nowhere.

‘Back off a bit!’, these lips of mine stipulated in a clear, concise way. ‘Door kicked in or not, I need a snapshot of the porch’s inside, Mister Wrecking Ball.’ Snap, snap—and snap!

‘Thanks nephew!’—a forced smile as I quickly meandered over to a different doorway altogether.

‘No problems, Uncle Norm.’, André meekly replied as he shadowed me through a connecting door leading us onto Old Green’s main floor.

***

In the kitchen, stoically-stood an old porcelain cookstove; upright, a cold iron sat on it as if waiting to be warmed up by radiating wood heat. At the far end of the cupboards stood the wringer washers Linda-Joanne had once told me about.

As a result of my past talk with her, my mind hadn’t had to probe too hard for any explanations regarding the dual wringer washer story—which, of course, made this little tour of Old Green all the more exciting.

Out of sheer embarrassment over the broken door issue, André inconspicuously split the scene. He was nowhere to be seen; so, even if I wanted to query him about the washers, he was gone!

A mental picture of Amish women swooshing clothes in tubs of boiling hot water swashed through this noddle of mine; it was an earie sign of what still took place in this day and age—although the odd family, just like the Nilson’s, made good use of simple wringer washers.

‘Wow!’, I mused.

This formed image in my head had me deep in thought; wringer washers such as these two oldies certainly had it over the Amish system, I reflected in befuddlement.

For some reason or another, in this deep-thinking mind of mine, the classic movie entitled Old Yeller aligned itself with that of Charlie-Herbert’s old green house; the rickety building we were in, and the shaky old dog from the movie itself—perhaps, a silly parallel.

***

In negotiating a set of precariously steep stairs leading to the house’s second floor, this music lover’s irises widened once I feasted my eyes on an antique record-player-and-forty-fives stand filled to capacity boasting from a corner of Old Green’s upper hall.

On top of the player itself, was a fairly tall lamp disguised as a woman holding a parasol over her head—the sunshade, of course, being quite fitting. Indeed, it was eye-catching.

Squatting down low, I was noticing a jacketed forty-five record; it was the jacket itself, grasping my attention—little else! The illustration on it was unique—colorful!

It read as follows: THE BEATLES’ MOVIE MEDLEY, the letters C-a-p-i-t-o-l rising high above the illuminated billboard of the above-spelt theater.

The advertisement on the billboard appeared to be well lit up; ‘The Beatles’, it bragged— ‘A HARD DAY’S NIGHT AND MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR, LET IT BE, HELP! AND YELLOW SUBMARINE.’

The writing was as clear as day—there, in block letters on the very first dust jacket of several that were aligned against one another in this forty-five’ stand before me.

Right away, my excited mind wanted to hear this record play; which, of course, was nothing but wishful thinking—hydro to the house having been disconnected since who knew when.

A hit of nostalgia took me right down memory lane. Snap, snap—snap, snap. My camera’s aperture did its thing, again. I loved the Beatles in the day—enormously! —John, Paul, Ringo and George; four courageous musicians refusing to be slotted into specific societal molds.

I also admired the Fab Four for the qualities they had as members of the human race—not only because they were famous all over the world. For me, it was more than just the music they produced that was impressive.

Generationally, the Beatles rubbed off on so many of us folks when we were teenagers; they were heroes of ours—and in so many ways, too! Historically, this band had had a great impact on everyone.

For the most part, forty-five jackets such as these had always been my favorites—as opposed to albums, that is. They measured seven-and-a-half by seven-and-a-quarter inches in size; I remember this all too well!

Had I had more wisdom back then; I would have built up a collection of them—no doubt about it! Today, I’d be in seventh heaven, if I had of.

***

My eyes squinted as I further examined this famous Beatles’ dust jacket image. Below the theater advertisements was the cool image of a leather-capped John Lennon diagonally-reaching his arms upwards. Was he welcoming fans to the grand opening of the Magical Mystery Tour?

Beside John Lennon, stood another image of himself, his arms fully crisscrossed, this time; his top hat rose above a thick head of hair. In behind him, the ticket booth appeared to be open for business.

Comically to the right of the top-hatted Lennon, all four members of the group appeared beside one another; in their hands, the foursome held what looked like purchased tickets to their own show—each musician proceeding forward in shiny black pointy Beatle boots.

‘Jésus!’, Rhéal-André exclaimed in his first language as he rounded the turn of the steep staircase. ‘The Beatles! Wow! Does that ever take me back!'

'Look at the animal in the foreground.’—a left index finger touching the artsy illustration on the yellowish dust jacket my eyes were still glued on.

‘It’s the upper body of the dead dog and the walrus from the Beatles’ famous I Am The Walrus tune; the very first song recorded after Brian Samuel Epstein’s death in 1967— Canada's one hundredth birthday.’, Rhéal said with a smirk.

‘Do ya remember this British music entrepreneur?’—no pause for me to answer the question—'He managed the band since ’62? Gilles was the one who enlightened me about the details surrounding the song.

Good thing for big brothers, eh; and—ha-ha-ha! —good too, that he followed the Beatles as much as he had Elvis Presley back in the day!’ Anyway, do you recall the name Epstein, or not?’

‘Of course, I remember; who could forget that!’, I replied in a scoff.

Interiorly, the final syllables in the walrus song echoed inside of this mesmerized noggin of mine—Goo Goo Ga Joob! —the very last vocal sounds belched out from Humpty-Dumpty’s mouth before his great fall.

***

Still in a baseball catcher’s position, I pulled the colorful forty-five and jacket closer to my person; slipping the small record out from its enclosure, more memories flooded through me.

‘Beautiful!’ I secretly celebrated. A smile then stretched across my face once I saw the yellow plastic trademark swirl I so often used when playing these smaller 45 RPM disks on my own record player.

‘Remember this thingamajig?’, I asked my brother.

‘Swirls!’, he said without missing a beat. ‘Oh yeah,’, Rhéal continued, ‘I recall snapping a bunch of ’em into a pile of smaller pieces while watching television, one night—stupid, eh?’

‘…’

Without responding, I swiftly grabbed a few more forty-fives; still intrigued, I read aloud the song titles my vision was connecting with—listing seven beauties in a row.

'‘SOMETHING, COME TOGETHER, BABY YOU’RE A RICH MAN, ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE—KOMM, GIB MIR DEINE HAND (the 1964 March-released German version of I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND), Tina Turner’s WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER HERO (Thunderdome)—and Led Zeppelin’s ROCK AND ROLL.’

‘Great stuff!’, Rhéal barked out as he looked over my right shoulder. ‘All songs I know well. Now, that’s history, eh? This is the sort of thing that pulls ya way back—gotta love it!’

I kept on looking for more, but there were so many, yet not enough time to go through them all. Meticulously, I replaced what I previously disrupted, in their proper locations.

What a trip down memory lane. I thought to myself while entering the bedroom on the right. Rhéal, on the other hand, went left—to a different one, altogether.

***

The first thing capturing my attention in the room I was in was a white wrought-iron bed and a gouged-out mattress; the hole in it matched the size of a beachball. It was one ugly scene!

The disgusting-looking room reminded me of a dungeon. It was nothing but a dark dank cobwebbed mess—certainly no reflection of the previous owners.

Behind me again, my brother walked into the bedroom. Without having to think about what to say, this partner-in-riding of mine blurted out roughly three dozen words—and nearly in run-on sentence format!

‘Water damage; look up there. The old stains revealed by those wet lines are showing where the water flowed in. You need not look any further for a cause; it’s as clear as mud.’, his mouth exhausted in sarcasm.

Everywhere we looked, we saw stuff—all sorts of things! What might seem like junk to some, might be precious to others. Old photographs of Linda-Joanne’s relatives; some matted, some framed—click, and click! There were also two old chests jammed in one of the corners.

A free-standing torchière-type lamp had its glass reflector willing to cast indirect lighting at the partly-caved-in ceiling should electrons ever travel through its old wires again.

Of course, this too, just couldn't happen, I thought to myself —snap, snap! As we exited this mess in reverse, my camera reacted.

‘Hey Rhéal!', I said. 'I just remembered Linda-Joanne had once mentioned how the heavy torchière-type lamp in the bedroom back there had fallen on her; the heavy glass up top struck her on the back portion of her head.’

‘Back then, not much was known about concussions; but in hindsight, she feels that when the lamp’s hefty glass hit, the impact was a firm smack! —hard enough to bring one on.’

‘Yeah! I can see that.’, he cut in with. ‘Those glass reflectors back in the day were rock hard; I’m surprised she never got knocked out by this thing—killed, even!’

‘Well, that didn’t happen; let’s go.’

Backwards down the dangerous string of stairs I then negotiated, just as Linda’s size-large father once had. With difficulty, Rhéal followed my lead; and together, we slowly made our way outside by our snowmobiles again; André-Ernest and our sons, gathered ’round.

***

An easing sun elongated blue tree trunk shadows stretching far over the scene we were a part of, though lots of light still permeated the area. Our group members were contemplating the start of their engines in the next little while; the day, after all, was getting on.

André’s big sigh exhausted into the cooling March air; a few other yawns then mimicked his. We snowmobilers silently looked on; serenity seemed to be the order of the hour—not one of us daring enough to disrupt any of it.

Fourteen wide eyes gawked in awe of the shaky green structure they had seen inside and out; the day’s experience had been both, invigorating and surreal—everyone totally cognisant of this fact, as well.

As for myself, once more, the green image I was feasting my eyes upon was very captivating; for the umpteenth time, I was deep in thought. Profound inner reflections mellowed to a calm pregnant pause as a very comforting tranquility settled deep within this body of mine.

I was satisfied with this day—quite pleased about our Algoma District excursion. And, by the looks of things, everyone felt similarly.

***

In the midst of this wistful state of mind I had tumbled into, a ghost-like image of a youthful freckle-faced girl planed across the front yard of Charlie-Hebert Nilson’s property.

From deep within, my inner eye imagined a luminous translucency of little Linda-Joanne prancing over the snow like a graceful gazelle.

Her flash maneuvered through a symphonically-active field of dancing grass—blades and blades of yellowish elongation swaying to the musical rhythms of air flow coming off of Lake Wabatongushi.

Exceptionally-fine floating lace moved elegantly about her person as if, the little girl herself, was made of pure silk thread.

The ghost of little Linda-Joanne imaged itself there, right before my very eyes; they paled Old Green with what seemed chemiluminescence from a bright glow stick.

Grace loves lace. Linda was excited about her presence; she appeared confident, and comfortable, glowing with passion. Her tiny body frolicked leisurely over a carpet of snow in a dreamlike advance—skipping along as if in the midst of a hopscotch game.

Amidst her ghostly movements, sluggish meandering motions of fine silk hovered beautifully about the translucent tiny dancer. Was she feeling like a Lochalsh Bay Princess amidst the flutter of all this luxurious fabric? After all, it was in the Bay that Linda had lived her formative years?

***

This old building before us was truly something. It had this writer green with envy; its character, alone, had me tumbling head over heels over its shipload of charm—and her historical side loitered left, right and center amidst these feelings of mine.

Unfortunately, erosion and settling had taken their toll on the old gal.Consequently, the tired green house had mournfully developed a critical lean of its own. Its Canadian Pacific Railroad tie foundation upon which the old bunkhouse sat upon, was clearly failing.

Nonetheless, there it stood: Linda-Joanne Nilson’s childhood home—there, right before this rubbernecked snowmobiler's art-filled googly eyes.

To a degree, honestly, I was in disbelief that I was actually standing by the homestead; it was as though I was living a dream—one that would stick with me for quite a while.

‘Old Green!’, I whispered inwardly. —'Old Green.’

The two-worded whisper had me thinking; the building’s undeniable historical aura had truly captured this artist’s attention. For me, the greenness of the scene still blazing into me was its most striking feature. —snap, snap, and snap!

***

Nilson had previously informed me of another green house in Lochalsh Bay—another one featuring similar features. Her Aunt Alma Lavoie lived in it,close by; just up the road in a much larger home—and it too, sported a similar vivid green hue.

Aunt Alma’s home had a mix of brown flecks amidst the greenish stony color; this was the big difference between the two exterior sidings. At the lower portion of both buildings, a number of folds in the rolled-out green asphalt were created from the onset of installation years ago.

The difficulties in keeping the hefty product fully horizontal while maneuvering it across the full length of the building’s exterior during its installation, explains why those folds got created in the first place.

Only two exceptionally green houses existed inside the village of Lochalsh; no more—the Lavoie home and the Nilson home. However, on its outskirts, about a half-kilometre away, once stood a third one.

Which of the above-mentioned two had actually been coined that ever-famous green house of Lochalsh Bay—the Lavoie home, or the Nilson home? Surprisingly, not everyone was on the identical page about this issue—ambiguity lingering over the question.

***

Back at the turn of the millennium on the first day of spring, dark cloudy weather overwhelmed the whole of Algoma District. Amidst all the gloom, one irate elderly had spoken about the confusion surrounding Old Green and its counter part. Crow versus raven.

The old man had gotten wind of all the muddle fluttering about the so-called confusion; he blew his top like a whistling Newfoundland slut filled with boiling water to brew Labrador tea for squid fishermen.

‘Dare’s only one ’owse deemed da green ’owse ’a Lochalsh Bay!’, he barfed forward with. ‘Doane fog up da trute wit a bunch ’a bunch 'a grey—cause dare ain’t none!’

‘Some moy’te consider Charlie Herbert’s green ’owse as such, but dat’s a poyle ’a baloney!’—d’ya ’ear me?’

‘Nilson’s ’ome was fabulously green; oye’ll give it dat!’, the ole man admitted. ‘Lit us not fergit dat Alma Lavoie’s place was as green as ’is; ’n she lived in ’ers fur four decades—maybe even foyve!’

‘Charlie stayed in ’is house—Ole Green ’ee called ’er—till da day ’ee passed durin da summer ’a ’83; but ’is remained vacant fur many ’a doze years—’xcept fur summers cuzz ’is daughter wen ta high school in Wawa.’

‘Oye’m sure Charlie Nilson dint even live in Lochalsh on a permanent basis fur ’alf da toyme Alma did; ’ee moyte ’a been ’ear fur a decade ’n a’ alf—but ’oyme not even sure ’bout dat!’

‘Dat’s a long toyme; oyle say! —but, Alma stayed much longer ’n dat!’

‘So, ya’ll all ’ave ta truss me on dis one; it was common knowledge dat da green ’owse ’a Lochalsh Bay belonged ta Alma! ’N still ta dis day, ’er majestic buildin stans proud; make no mistake about ’er, now!’

‘Win oye tink ’a Charlie-Herbert’s green ’owse, oye do see a ’ome wit integrity ’n charm; but trute be tole, oye tinks ’a sheets ’n pillowcases strung up all over Nilson’s property, too! ’Is wife ’ad da contrack, after all!’

‘Fer some, da debate may be an ambiguous one; but believe me, da bottom loyne is dat Lochalsh’s famous green ’owse is da one up on dat dar ’ill!’—the irked man’s finger aiming where Alma’s house still towered like a perched church high upon a substantial land formation.

‘One udder ting,', the irked man said, 'da true green ’owse ’a Lochalsh Bay once belonged to a ’ole prospector. Dis place ’as ’istory; lit me tell ya!’

‘It was once a post office, a school, a taxi service fer Boudreau ’n Lochalsh, a boarding ’owse fer teachers ’n preachers from two separate denominations, ta boot! —Cat’lic ’n Anglican.’

‘Alma’s place was a going concern—a going concern, lit me tells ya!’

‘It was loyke da epicenter of a eartquake; ’er place was da backbone ’a Lochalsh Bay. Ax iny ’a da local elders still in control ’a der faculties; ya’ll see ’ow royte oye is.’, the irritated elderly ended with.

***

As I sat cross-legged on the seat of my snowmobile, I kept staring at this ancestral home belonging to Linda-Joanne Nilson. My brother, Rhéal, spoke about the lopsidedness; its one-sided dip downwards, appearing as intriguing to him, as it did to me.

Once again, I opened my mind for a whole new view; the artsy side of myself was clearly seeing the building’s lean. What I was actually seeing, nevertheless, was how the crookedness of the place enhanced the sheer character of the scene we were all gawking at.

In fact, the house’s angular slant added enough charm to the picture making its way into me, that the mental image created, was inspiring me to be proactive about all of those artful thoughts.

I slid my arse from the snowmobile seat I was sitting on; then, I stood as erect as a survey pin. As I arched my back concavely to align this spine of mine back to a more palatable degree of normality, my eyes tightly squinted as my imagination overloaded with images giving me ideas.

Looking to the right, I noticed several white trees seemingly calling this artist over to where they were firmly rooted in the ground.

To me, the birches over yonder were intriguing. Curiosity could kill a cat; and I knew that! So, the artist within myself awkwardly made his move; subconsciously, my feet led me in their direction.

The other half-dozen snowmobilers watched as I clumsily-tromped through a bed of crusty spring-like snow in order to achieve the envisioned view I was looking for.

Reaching my destination, I looked back to analyse the newness of the perspective. Six tall birch trees esthetically set Old Green into the background; they were tall—and the whiteness of their bark pleasantly contrasted with everything over yonder.

Beyond all the white, my mind fast-forwarded by two seasons; a fall scene came to mind. Within my head, the possibilities for an autumn art piece had just multiplied fourfold.

I was overly excited; in fact, I was so taken aback, the cheese had fallen off the cracker! Once more, the Leaning Tower of Pisa swashed itself through me. Interiorly, I chuckled. My eyes veered forward again.

In Old Green's yard, a shipload of paraphernalia assaulted my line of vision: a suspended swing, an old barn-boarded shed with several leaning diagonal supports keeping it from toppling to the ground, a still-connected dysfunctional power line overhead, a tall antenna rising perpendicularly by a bedroom window, a communications dish above the porch.

With the birch trees crisscrossing the image in which the old building unsteadily stood way over yonder, the foreground from my new vantage point seemed just as interesting as the background itself.

Big dark shriveled black leaves covered in heavy snow clumps hung from close-by branches below my eye level; relative to the picture I was seeing further back, they seemed ginormous in size.

Numerous blades of grass protruded up from the blanket of white at my feet—snap, snap, snap! ‘There you go!’ I told myself in a whisper.

'Three beauties! Maybe I can work with that!’, I told myself.

Alright, I celebrated inwardly as a mixed media composition began shaping up in this active mind of mine—yellow autumn leaves falling hither and thither, wherever one looked.

The spry inner eye within this artist was envisioning a multitude of those Algoma autumn leaves in the art piece being conjuring up inside of my head; many, airborne, others rustling on branches, hanging on for dear life—most, just blanketing yellow, everything in sight.

Deeper within this noggin of mine, I could see my new composition coming together; and, I loved what was happening! It had me feeling energetic—ecstatic.

I was pumped, itching to get my hands on my pencils; I wanted my Buffalo and Crumbacher Oil pastels—my brushes and solvents, too.

Within me, I made one very solemn promise to myself; I wouldn’t only put Linda-Joanne’s rickety old house on gessoed art board, one day—I’d tell her story, as well.

This being said, I kept in mind the tonnage of existing information already written about Lochalsh Bay; my very own photographs flashed before my eyes, to boot!

Some place out there, was another shipload of stuff; I was convinced of it. I didn’t know where, but surely, there was more lingering about! —perhaps way out there, half-hidden and cob-webbed, as referenced below.

***

My first-hand experiences while exploring Northern Ontario by sled, including the meticulously-noted anecdotes I had jotted down from having dialogued with the present Linda-Joanne Nilson in the fall of 2021 only added to the existing pile of resources I’d mindfully gathered—pertinent material for the writing of this story.

Could this historically-based writ ever be considered the Ann of Green Gables tale of Northern Ontario’s Algoma District? And could Linda-Joanne’s telling be one tenth as romantic as the above-mentioned tale, I mused? It would be one ginormous stretch if so, I admitted to myself.

The story of Linda-Joanne Nilson paralleling that of Ann Shirley at the start of the twentieth century? —that eleven-year-old orphan adopted as a farmhand in the fictional Prince-Edward-Island town of Avonlea? I don’t think so.

Reality struck like a ballpeen hammer bearing upon the hot steel of a blacksmith’s anvil; the impact of my new awareness was like getting egged; smashed in the forehead by a shell-shaped ovoid projectile, I then realized.

A tiny inner voice spoke to me. 'This technicolor dream of yours,', it relayed, 'is so damned farfetched, it should be tossed right in the loony bin where all the other crazies hung out.'

Really! —Ann of Green Gables! I pondered one last time. I gave my head a shake—a good one. Such nonsense!

***

Lochalsh Bay’s Old Green; once the wonderful home of Charlie-Herbert Nilson and his wife, Lucienne-Marie Ouellet—the proud parents of Linda-Joanne, that youthful redhead from Algoma’s hay days.

Old Green had certainly lived through some history. Linda-Joanne Nilson’s son, Michael-Roy Krell was well aware of this fact! For too long, he watched the lean of this structure exacerbate itself to the point of near-peril; the old girl had become a danger for anyone daring to enter her.

Krell had to take matters into his own hands at some point or another; after all, Michael had become the rightful owner once, his mother, Linda-Joanne signed the deed over to him. Liability came into play, at that point.

So, one day, amid a fluff of snowflakes descending upon the said town of Lochalsh, Michael made his move. The scenery, including that of Old Green herself, appeared milky from the precipitating white deposited over the scene; a whitish translucence washed over everything in sight—nature raining in a thick haze.

As the old house’s world seemed to be diluting behind all the airborne fluff fluttering about the sky—Kool-Aid modifying the color of water once stirred—the situation was being addressed, and only five years after our group of seven had snowmobiled there in ’08.

I digested the creamy dilution of translucence I was imaging in this brain of mine. Suddenly, Robert Bateman came to mind; once upon a time, this man had had quite the influence on my painting style.

One fine day, ohe well-known Canadian naturalist and wildlife painter explained to his pupils, one day—me being one of them—how he milked part-finished paintings over with a discharge of soupy paint mixture.

The whitish liquid simply got poured over his art so as to create translucent creamy ambiances depicting snowfalls or exceptionally-misty mornings. It was an impressive technique, to say the least.

I never forgot that; to me, back then, Bateman was no less than a genius, a man with shiploads of exceptional creative ability—one of those rare earthly beings with higher quotient levels of intelligence.

So, with Linda-Joanne’s eldest son taking on the responsibility of demolishing the decrepit homestead on the verge of collapse in the midst of such a heavy snowfall, it was artistically logical that the name Robert Bateman had crossed my mind.

Exponentially, the danger for disaster amidst the rickety standing remains of Old Green had increased to the point of no return; by the time Michael had made up his mind to flatten her to the ground, she was nothing more than an accident waiting to happen, anyhow!

A work crew from the Bay got appointed the task of bulldozing the precarious building down. Michael then torched her; set its shattered pile of remains ablaze—a sight, Linda-Joanne could never have stomached.

It hadn’t taken long for Old Green’s dry brittle scraps of lumber and whatnot to waste away the carbon dioxide and water from the old wood; great plumes of smoke blended with the universe—nearly fifty feet into the atmosphere, as a matter of fact!

Ashes were all that remained, in the end; that is, the mineral content from the wood—the building being reduced to one insignificant pile of this gritty stuff. With time, those ruins mixed with nature—somewhere in the earthly oblivion of Algoma District’s Lochalsh Bay.

***

An amazing generation of memories seemed to have gone up in smoke on the day of Michael’s burn; although for the daughter of Charlie-Herbert and Lucienne-Marie Nilson, entirely forgetting her life in Old Green, would still be a sheer impossibility.

In considering her near-sixteen-year stay in the Bay, it represents a great time period gone by; a huge chunk of her history—her childhood, and so much more.

For each and every one of us, those very years are quite meaningful. After that, we become adults.

Then we break away from home base; spread our wings, and go, so to speak—just like great blocks of ice separating from mother glaciers high up in the northern hemisphere of Earth. That’s us!

Huge newly-birthed berg bits slamming the frigid waters of an ocean; unruly waves disrupting serenity with splashing rolling white water. History, like icebergs and that great pile of burnt ashes from Old Green herself; it all reinvents itself—right down to the last detail.

Things change; they pole-vault onto a brand-new stint. Life as the Nilson’s and the Krells once knew it, would move on, as well—directionally forward, that is.

***

Take heed. Failing unforeseen circumstances, never forget those special early years of life—not ever! Don’t allow yourself to ever be unable to call to mind your very own past; so, do not ever leave those very early memories of yours in disregard.

Human beings are the guardians of their own history, that is, those recollections that remind us of exactly where we came from—as well as who we are. We have guardianship over our past—nobody else but us.

Change is a fact of life; and it just keeps going on. It is, what it is. Forward is continually the direction; just like motion is being lotion that lubes and heals—the ever-perpetual motion of life, persists and persists. Pay attention to life’s directionality; try hard to get it right.

Stay in touch with what once was. Keep your eyes on the carrot as you meander forward in your short life’s story.

(Non-fiction—the end)

References

Personal accounts of Linda-Joanne Nilson Guertin of Trout Creek, Ontario during the fall months of 2021.

Personal experiences of the author during a snowmobile excursion to Linda-Joanne Nilson Guertin’s old house in Lochals during the winter of 2008—also a series of photographs I’d taken inside and outside of the above-mentioned home.

Heather, K. B. and Aris, Z., 1992, Geological and Structural Setting of Gold Mineralization in the Goudreau-Lochalsh area, Wawa Gold Camp; Ontario, Geological Survey, Open File Report 5832, 159p. Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 1992.

Moore, E. S. (1932). Goudreau and Michipicoten Gold Areas, District of Algoma. In Province of Ontario Department of Mines, Fortieth annual report of the Ontario Department of Mines, Part IV, (pp. 1-54).

Burrows, A. G. (1922). Notes on the Goudreau Gold Area. In Province of Ontario Department of Mines, Thirtieth annual report of the Department of Mines, Part IV, (pp. 39-44). Clarkson W. James.

Douglas, Dan, 1995, ‘Northern Algoma: A People’s History’ Toronto, Oxford, Dundurn Press.

Googleplex; The Corporate Headquarters Complex of Google and its Parent Company, Alphabet Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, California

Steer, Bill, July 8, 2020 3:01 PM July 8, 2020 4:21 PM, Back Roads Bill: What’s up with all those ‘height of land’ signs in the North’, Village Ontario Sites