Athapapuskow: “Rocks all around.” As big as Big Athapap is, it does not have the intimacy and easy access of Little Athapap with its many inlets, channels, bays and interesting islands.
I’ve explored almost all of these features over the times of my visits to the once-family cabin at Blondie’s Beach.
For some, being “on the lake” is just another ordinary thing to do. I think those folks are missing the magic of being suspended – of being off the confidence of terra firma underfoot.
To me, being on the water is akin to floating in outer space. Removed from solidity and in a place of ever-changing fluidity.
Sounds a bit philosophical, I suppose, but that’s what I feel when I get out and on the water.
There are two significant factors in my Athapap boating experience, the first being a gentleman named Cuthbert.
Cuthbert McNeil and his wife Minnie were long-time Flin Flonners who had a lake-front cottage just down the road a bit.
Cuthbert was one of those men who came north, worked the mines, built a cabin and did what he could to make his life interesting and rewarding.
Cuthbert built his own boat - a cabin cruiser with an inboard motor. Born in 1901, he was around 65 years of age when he ordered the plans from a magazine and undertook the task with his usual Scots-Irish determination.
Cuthbert told me that on one occasion when he was about half-way through construction, a man said to him, “Why are you building that thing at your age. You’ll never live long enough to enjoy it!” He built it.
He placed stick-on letters on the boat cabin that spelled out “And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.”*
He loved Athapap and he loved his boat. The Mini-Mac.
Cuthbert enjoyed giving tours or fishing expeditions either around Little Athapap or over to Big Athapap.
Our young family enjoyed several such trips on the Mini-Mac and it was always a wonderful combination of enjoying Cuthbert’s hospitality, humour, storytelling, and doing a bit of fishing.
My second boat experience is, well, you know, somewhat on the other side of the scale.
My dad bought a well-used boat in the early ’70s. It had a 20-horse motor that came with a high-pitched whine.
People would either run to the shore in wonder or run into the bush in terror when I pushed my way along the west channel. Moose would crash through the bush in fearful flight.
The boat was a homemade fibreglass creation designed and built with no appreciation of the dynamics of water resistance. Thus the boat was more of a water plow than a cutting edge, as it were.
The motor had a personality. It alone decided whether or not it wanted to start. In a bay some great distance from Blondie’s Beach I would haul away on the starting cord. No dice.
Stranded. I tried every trick. I exercised my wealth of both complimentary and not-so vocabulary. Good fortune finally arrived when a passing boater came to the rescue.
“Sit down,Vince. Put the motor in gear then pull the starter cord. I had a motor like that…” It worked. (Be sure to be seated when doing this!).
As if the motor whine and anchor-dragging speed weren’t enough of an embarrassment, my nephew Tom applied his creative skills with brush and paint to create then popular personification of terror – JAWS. And so it was.
Wearing sunglasses and pulling my hat down almost over my eyes to avoid recognition, I would take JAWS to the water, hopelessly hoping that no one would recognize me.
Then, what the heck. I began to laugh and wave my hat at those gape-mouthed observers.
Good ol’ JAWS. It provided loads of laughs all ‘round plus many hours of ‘jigging away the day’ in Sourdough Bay, Pickerel Bay, Barrel Narrows, the West Channel, and over into Schist Lake.
In time, JAWS met its end of water plowing in a flaming fiberglass finale at the Flin Flon refuse dump – with the honours of a navy-style salute from those assembled, no less.
Oh yes! That business of Cuthbert McNeil not living long enough to enjoy his boat. In time, Cuthbert did have to take the Mini-Mac out of service. Twenty-five joy-filled years later!
Carry on Cuthbert! You and the Mini-Mac live on in the hearts of many.
*From “Sea Fever” by John Masefield
Vincent Murphy-Dodds is a former Flin Flon resident now living in Regina. His column appears the first Wednesday of the month. Comments on his column are welcome. Contact vincent. [email protected].
