For Love of Lakes

Darkhouse

· · 239 · · Darkhouse Ourperceptionsofnatureandhowitworksoftentelluslessabout whatisactuallyoutthereinthelandscapeandmoreaboutthe typesofmentaltopography,biasesandprojectionsthatwecarry aboutwithusinourheads. DUNCAN TAYLOR Cold snow crunches beneath our boots as Geri and I make our way across the frozen surface of Rainy Lake toward a small dark shack, one of several fish houses scattered across the glistening white surface. Unlike fish houses of anglers, this one has no windows. This is a darkhouse where fish are taken by spear. Darkhouse spearing of northern pike has been a long tradition in my family. Uncle Harold introduced my dad and me to spearing when I was nine. From grade school days through college winter breaks to my first years of married life, Dad and I spent hours in the darkhouse together. I open the door and step in. It feels like home. A hole in the ice, three feet long and three feet wide, dominates the closetlike space. An inch-thick layer of ice has formed over the hole since the house was last used. I break the ice skim with a hatchet, strain the floating ice chips from the water and fling them out the door. The kerosene stove lit, we take our seats on a narrow bench along a wall, the toes of our boots at the edge of the hole. I pull the door shut, and we are bathed in darkness. Eyes soon accommodate to light from the hole, and I unwind the fish line from my decoy, tie one end to futurescapes· · 240 · · a tiny screw-eye on its back and the other to a nail in the wall across from the hole, and lower into the lake the gray-and-white wooden fish with tin fins, thumbtack eyes, and a small slug of lead in its belly. A bend in the tail fin causes the fish to descend into the darkened water in a lazy spiral until it reaches the end of its tether in the center of the hole, maybe six feet down. Black paint covers the ceiling and walls to ensure that no light or reflections pass from the house into the hole, alerting fish to our presence. Its rope attached to the shack’s wall, I lower the head of the spear into the water,hookingatineintotheice.Ajerkonthedecoy’slineandtheimposter fish glides through a circle and a half before it returns to rest. We stare into amorphous green-tinted nothingness and wait. I cannot see bottom. The mind cannot abide bottomlessness. We need reassurance. I remove a fresh potato from my pocket, cut it into thin slices and drop them into the water. The discs descend in a back and forth rocking motion and settle scattered across the bottom. Sunlight penetrating the snow and ice reflects off the white patches. Bottom. Perspective established. • • • I do not understand myself. I am an impatient fisherman with hook and line. If no fish bite within half an hour, I’m anxious to stash the rod and move on to other things. Not so in a darkhouse. I can peer into a spearing hole all day. Inside the shack the world is simple and dark, warm and quiet. Ostensibly , a darkhouse is about taking fish. For Dad and me it became something more. Except for the gray and white of the decoy, the occasional twang of the plucked tether putting the fake fish in motion, and the faint odor of kerosene, the eyes and ears and nostrils have little to report. No longer burdened by the cacophony of sensory messages that usually beset the mind, it opens itself to thought. Minds engage in low, near-whispered conversation separatedbylongintervalsofsilence.Conversationsaboutfeelings,aspirations , life decisions, and world affairs punctuate the silence. More than the taking of fish, I grew to deeply value those quiet contemplations with Dad. • • • · · 241 · · My formal exploration of the love-lakes-but-degrade-them paradox ends here, on Rainy Lake, where it began. Understanding the paradox that sparked this journey turned out to be far more complex than I had expected. Geri and I have come to this darkened womb to reflect, to distill the insights from the journey, to give birth to understanding. The stove has finally overcome the cold, and we remove bulky coats, hang them on nails, then peer back into our window on the lake. “When I was a kid,” I tell Geri in a hushed voice, “Dad was scared stiff I’d fall into the hole. He finally rid himself of anxiety by attaching me by a rope to the wall.” “I’ll pull you...