Up Here, Sir!
“There’s none so small but you his aid may need.”
— Jean de La Fontaine
After my first real-life lesson in confronting what Norman Mailer aptly named “those moral wildernesses of civilized life,” I calmed down a bit. But not for long. My teenage buddies became inspiring partners in adventure. Together we participated in ever more eccentric trips. Sometimes we would impatiently wait for the school bell to ring on a Wednesday afternoon so we could hop in the van to go survival camping only to return in time for Thursday’s morning class, dressed in suit and tie and having met the objective of remaining spotlessly clean. Or we would head out weekends to experiment, either by leaving part of our equipment behind, or by inventing scenarios which would simulate accidents, such as flipping over while canoeing and reaching shore soaking wet.
Our outing club was so successful that I convinced the principal and board of directors that Thornlea High School should become the first to develop an outdoor education curriculum. Thusly, for my second year as teacher, I ended up professing mathematics in the morning and conducting outdoor activities every afternoon. Plus survival weekends. On one particular trip that fall, my intention was to test a technique unearthed in one of the ancient woodsmanship books I had just gobbled up.
“Hey gang! This old book mentions that we can make a fire last longer by setting up a system that lets logs roll down an incline into the fire automatically, triggered by the burning of the previous log. That way we can sleep by the fire the whole night without waking up. Want to go try it this weekend?”
Just before lunch Saturday we parked the van at the end of Bear Lake Road as usual, and headed to the shores of Livingstone Lake. It was early November, quite cold, and the wind was shaking the trees like a rag doll in a dog’s jaw. So we portaged some “hypocritical sleeping bags” in a couple of army sacks, just in case. These were sealed with tie wraps. I was so stubborn I wouldn’t have opened them even if I were dying. But these kids have parents.
After cooking up some bannock by carefully wrapping spirals of dough on sticks and stuffing our faces with peanut butter and jam, we tossed the axe sheaths aside and got to work. I wanted to sleep without waking up each hour to toss logs on the fire, and I’d managed to convince my buddies that it was possible. We spent the afternoon chopping huge maple logs in two-metre lengths and lugging them to our chosen spot at the base of a hill, which would serve as incline for the rolling logs. It was backbreaking work, so much so that we were all down to t-shirts and still sweating, despite the frosty air. By suppertime, which at that time of year coincides with darkness, we were all collapsing, testing our thick fir bough beds in front of roaring fires. The wind was howling and screaming like a pack of wild wolves, and the turbulent smoke became their shadowy ghosts, which made our lives miserable.
Finally satisfied with my automatic-log-rolling-into-the-fire-as-the-previous-one-burns setup, albeit with serious doubts as to its intended midnight functionality, I decided to go check the progress of the teams installed nearby. All presented a glow of satisfaction as I scrutinized and approved the results of their hard labour — cords of firewood neatly stacked in preparation for a night without sleeping gear. I also marvelled at their ingenuity in inventing systems to meet my challenge to add logs to the fire with the simple pull of a string while reclined in their beds.
Soon they were busy getting supper ready, levelling the bright ruby coals where they would directly toss their “caveman steaks.” Gourmets, beware. Nothing in the world tastes better than a caveman steak! As the meat hit those coals, it smothered them and prevented scorching, while the smoky heat below imparted an incredible flavour. I couldn’t wait to go cook mine. But just then I realized that I hadn’t seen one of the youngsters in a while.
“Where’s Blake? Anyone seen him?”
“Nope, not me.”
“Me neither.”
“Nor me.”
“Who was he teamed up with?”
“Nobody. He was the odd man out, remember? He must be alone.”
Not proud of myself. Why didn’t I check up on Blake? Blake! Why him? I would never say it out loud, but that pesky kid drove me nuts. He was, well, skinny, nerdy, and lazier than a sleepy sloth. But brilliant, I must admit, always asking me to justify what I uttered. I yelled out his name to no avail. Why couldn’t he just follow directions like the other teens? Where in the world was he?
As not to alarm the group I conducted the primary search myself, probing along the paths of least resistance, calling out Blake’s name. Half an hour was spent looking here and there, getting more worried by the minute. I searched the entire valley; no sign of him. The fierce wind drowning out my voice sure didn’t help.
I climbed halfway up the hill and shouted some more. Why in the world would anyone, even Blake, want to set up camp up where the wind blows fiercer still? But since he wasn’t down in the valley, he must be up here somewhere! I walked along the contour line, trying to avoid hiking up and down to save my energy. I’d come full circle around the valley, almost back to camp. I yelled once more.
“Blake! Blake!”
“Up here, sir!” came a weak voice through the rustling leaves.
Most relieved, as it was now dark, I made my way up toward the youngster, hoping he was okay. On the flat at the top of the hill, the forest changed drastically. I progressed through a stand of small pine trees, obviously a plantation following some logging company’s harvest. Guided by the feeble light from his campfire, I finally caught up to the elusive Blake.
“What the heck are you doing up here? There’s no firewood in this plantation! You’ll freeze to death!”
“Nah, there’s lots of these little dry branches. See, I just snap them off the trees. There are tons of them.”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There sat Blake on a stack of dry branches, back leaning against an arm-sized evergreen, feeding tiny sticks to his tiny fire. On the end of a green sapling, he was calmly roasting a marshmallow-sized piece of steak, shish-kabob style. To tell the truth, he seemed just fine! And to my surprise, there wasn’t the slightest bit of wind in the dense plantation. We chatted for a while, until my steak called out for me.
“You want to come down and share my huge hot fire?”
“Nope, I’ll be fine up here, sir!”
“Suit yourself, if you want to suffer. If you change your mind during the night, you know where to find me.”
“Okay. See you in the morning.”
I scrambled back down to my own camp, no longer worried, since I could pinpoint Blake’s location only a couple of hundred metres uphill. My hunk of beef sure hit the spot, and after another round to visit everyone, I crashed onto my personal pile of boughs by the fire, exhausted. Just as I closed my eyes, I heard a log fall into the fire to replace the one that had just burned through, and a satisfied smile slid across my face.
The pleasure was short-lived. Before midnight, I was up and nosing about, attempting to figure out why the next log wasn’t as cooperative. I tossed the partly burned log leftovers onto the remaining coals, fanning with my felt hat to coax them back into a bright fire. The blustery weather had not let up, and despite the warmth radiating in front of me, the wind continued its chilly attack from behind. I retreated back to my horizontal position, tossing and turning without finding any real comfort.
Half an hour later, shivering slightly, I decided I might as well check up on the four other teams. All of them were suffering the same cruel fate. Incredibly huge piles of wood had already been consumed, and it was obvious they would never have enough to get through the night. I suggested they group around two fires only. The three-quarter moon shined on the proceedings as they transferred firewood and bough beds to the new locations.
I headed up the hill to check up on Blake. Locating his camp was easy, having memorized the prominent marks along the way: past the forked tree, around the huge boulder, between the twin stumps, and then under the arched tree to the pine plantation on the crest. I approached slowly, curious to see what he was up to. He was up to nothing at all. In fact, he was just lying there sleeping! He was wearing that stupid thick jacket of his, fully patched with car racing decals; he wouldn’t listen during the dress-in-onion-layers class. But there he was, mouth agape, sprawled over the thick pine-needle covered ground, his miniature fire dead out. I sat down, flabbergasted, mesmerized by the moon’s eerie shadows, the shrieking of the wind above, and the calmness there in Blake’s protected haven.
Still pensive, I stumbled slowly back to my own huge campfire where the wind was creating havoc. So much work for so little comfort! I sucked it up and endured my fate until first morning light. By then, all eight of my partners were sitting by the same fire, eating toast. The wind had died. Soon, Blake joined us. He told of how he got slightly cold during the night and had to get up to make another fire. No one listened to the odd man out. And I, much too proud to admit the error of my ways, congratulated everyone on their hard work. But deep inside, past my blurry and smoke-sore eyes, I was well aware of having just learned the most important of wilderness secrets — avoid wind at all costs — and dumbfounded that Mother Nature would send a fourteen-year-old messiah named Blake to teach it to me.
It took until lunch to burn all of the remaining wood to ashes, drown them with creek water, and disperse them by shovel over a wide area. Finally, we buried the site with forest litter since I make it a matter of pride to always leave camp so no one knows we were there.
Little wonder, all the youngsters were sound asleep in the back of the van as we drove home. All except pesky Blake who sat in front with me, dressed in his stupid racing coat, bugging me as usual.
My adventures as a high school teacher ended abruptly one day during math class when some kid asked me the use of the sine law I was teaching. I hadn’t a clue! This disturbed me greatly and that night, as I reflected upon my life, I realized that I had spent just about all of it within four blank walls — first as a student, now as a teacher. Just having turned twenty-four, I couldn’t imagine there wasn’t more to life than that. So I planted a “For Sale” sign in front of the country house I had bought and renovated in the village of Whitevale and announced that I would quit my job at the end of the year, to the chagrin of my student friends.
To celebrate my departure, I decided to win the annual teacher tricycle race. The year before I had been beaten by Miss Pickering, the ten year champ. Unbeknownst to me, she had enlisted a pack of football ruffians who held everyone else back. But now I could convince my own team of outdoor tough guys to restrain her too.
I decided to psych her out. I made myself a souped-up tricycle, with extra long handlebars and seat post, all decorated. Then I scrounged up a leather pilot’s helmet, Snoopy style, and a long scarf. Every day for a month before the race, I would screech down the school hallways in my super-trike, making sure to spin the front wheel while passing by her class.
The week before the big event, as I chalked up my daily ride, some student in the crowd blurted out: “There goes Evel André Knievel!” So I replied without thinking: “Yeah and Friday I will jump over forty glasses of water!” What I hadn’t realized was that even with forty small paper cups, the distance to jump was well over two metres. On a tricycle!
Back home that evening I built a plywood ramp, and after a few practice jumps over half that distance I was already most concerned for my family jewels. But by then the students had put signs up all over the school walls and had even invited the media. On Friday the whole school turned up for the anticipated jump, the principal having suspended the last class for the occasion. To make a long story short, I was absolutely petrified. After the oohs and aahs of my last-second swoops to avoid the ramp, I no longer had the choice but to muster up the courage and attempt the jump. I made it — barely. One back wheel hit the edge of the landing ramp and sent me swerving left then right, crashing into the crowd. By a stroke of pure luck, no one was hurt, not even me. The cheers blew me away as I was carried down the hall by the students as if a national hero.
The next day, the newspaper headlines read: “Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it’s a flying teacher!” And yes, I did rob Miss Pickering’s crown the following week, if only by a nose.
Today, as I look with hindsight at young André, I can’t help but smile. Passionate yes, fanatical even, but performance-driven by an ego the size of a Goodyear Blimp. This fat characteristic followed me like a pest into adult life. When my friends tease me about this, I jokingly reply that I cannot be humble, for then I would be perfect!