In September 1969, Dick and I began our year on Tucker Lake. Our cabin had neither road access nor amenities. This reprint is one of many stories about our lives during that special year.
I looked up at the cloudless blue summer sky. A light breeze filled the air with pine resin scent. Lake waters lapped gently at shore. Lounging in my beach chair, I lifted my face to the hot sun. This was great, a perfect summer day. And I was getting a great tan.
I had another hour of leisure before starting dinner. Tonight, I would prepare the two walleye I had caught this morning, rolling them in potato flour, then frying the fillets in hot oil until crispy brown. I’d serve them with homemade sourdough bread baked this morning and we’d have apple pie for dessert. Apple pie was yesterday’s baking project.
I was discovering that summertime in the woods was a little more relaxing than wintertime. Although the long days when Dick was at his drilling rig job on the Gunflint Trail were filled with chores, I still had time for sunbathing. And I never got bored.
Today had been a good day. I started baking early in the morning, around 6:00, not long after Dick began his canoe commute. Money was in short supply and the grocery store far away, so I baked almost everything from scratch. Cakes, pies, bread and cookies rolled in production line fashion from my Coleman oven. Early morning, before the day’s heat hammered on the cabin roof, was the best time for a hot oven.
After finishing several loaves of bread and a batch of ginger cookies for Dick’s lunches, I had flipped a few casts into the lake and caught a walleye. Keeping the rod and reel close, I sporadically cast out a Rapala throughout the day. Happy that I had snagged a keeper, I put it in a wire cage. If I caught another one, it would be enough for a meal. If I didn’t, one fish would not be adequate, so I would set it free.
Nooky was my faithful malamute companion during my long days alone. She participated in her own projects, chasing red squirrels, watching me cast rod and reel with an avid eye (she loved fish), and burrowing in her hollow under the cabin where she napped in the cool darkness.
Eventually, I had trotted out to my small garden that lay north of the cabin. This was my first garden, cleared from a 6’x10’ plot. I scrutinized the lettuce, noticing that something was eating it. Between woodchucks and insects, very little reached my table.
The green beans were coming along nicely, and I thrilled to the sight of sweet corn stalks springing up. Unfortunately, the carrot seeds had failed to germinate. Today, I replanted the carrot row, then spaded a small hole, and buried last night’s potato peels and coffee grounds. It was my method of speed composting.
Satisfied with today’s gardening, I had ambled back down to the lake, thrown out a few casts and viola! Caught another walleye. That made two fish for tonight’s dinner.
Now, as I lay in the chaise lounge and enjoyed the warm sun, I realized how lucky I was. I was busy, happy and healthy and would probably never again in my life have so relaxed a summer. In a few hours, I would hear the boat motor down the lakeshore. The dog would run to greet Dick and I would slowly saunter inside and heap our plates with fresh food.
Dick and I would eat dinner at the little table that overlooked the clear waters of Tucker Lake and if we were lucky, we’d see a moose or maybe a beaver swim across the lake right before our eyes.
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