Annette crossed her arms as soon as he started talking. The man had manic eyes, and his body was as tense as a drawn hunting bow.
“I want to make you rich,” he said. He smiled wide, lips thin and tight. There was no sincerity in his words and something more like menace in his body language. This was a canned sales pitch that worked with people who could be overpowered by his dominance. Like a television preacher who could convert the weak into paying parishioners, and who ignored everyone else because the converts were all that mattered.
Annette crossed her legs and raised her eyebrows skeptically.
“I’m going to make you a great offer for your cabins. More than you ever dreamed you’d get.”
“They’re not for sale,” said Annette. “I would have saved us both some time if I’d known that’s what you wanted.”
“Hear me out, Ms. Blain,” he said. Smooth, unruffled, like he knew she was going to say that. “This is perfect for both of us. I need an office for my fly-in cabin business, and I need a place to put up clients before and after their trips. This is the perfect place.” He said it like she was supposed to clap and be glad. She didn’t and she wasn’t.
The man got more intense, leaning across the table a little. “You don’t need the cabins anymore. You run the biggest outfitting business in northwest Ontario. You’ve arrived! Sell the cabins to me, and you can live in town and concentrate on the canoe business. And you’ll have hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank just waiting for when you want to head for Florida.”
“Florida is my idea of hell,” said Annette. “The cabins aren’t for sale.”
“You don’t want to be rich?” The man tried to grin, but his face formed something more like a leering grimace.
“How rich were you going to make me, Mr. . . .” Annette’s question tapered off as she tried to remember his name.
“Williams. Dwight Williams.” He wasn’t perturbed at all and didn’t pause even to take a breath. “I have a cashier’s check right here for three hundred thousand Canadian dollars.”
“I’m supposed to jump up and down at that price?” Annette was deliberately incredulous.
“That’s a fair offer!” Williams insisted.
“I could get that just by making a phone call, probably a lot more.”
“Not with the recession in the U.S.,” said Williams. “I did my research. Three hundred thousand is what the place is worth. It’s ten times what you paid for it.”
Annette stood. “When I choose to sell, it will be for more than three hundred thousand. If I get rich from selling, it won’t be because of the buyer; it will be because of what I’ve created. The cabins aren’t for sale.”
Williams leaned across the table, his face inches from hers, flushed with anger. “Name your price,” he hissed. It was a challenge.
Annette stood her ground and locked eyes with him. “The cabins aren’t for sale. Our business is done.”
“You’re selling to the Gilberts, aren’t you?” He said it like an accusation, like a man who found out his wife was cheating on him.
“My cabins are my business. Please leave.”
“You don’t understand. I need this property.” His voice was loud now, his face red. “I’m trying to be nice about it.”
“You have failed, Mr. Williams. Leave. Leave now.”
As Annette spoke, her daughter stepped into the kitchen, a shotgun in hand.
“What are you going to do with that, Missy?” Williams laughed. “You gonna shoot me?”
“She won’t have to,” said Annette. “You’re leaving right now.” Her voice was calm.
Williams looked from one woman to the other and shrugged. “Didn’t mean to ruffle feathers, ladies. Just trying to make a deal.”
Annette gestured to the door and followed him out.
“There are three hotels in town that would be glad to have your clients’ business,” said Annette. “And there are several storefronts available for your office. But I’d advise you to sell your cabins and do something else, somewhere else. Your act won’t play here.”
“Oh really?” Sarcasm dripped from Williams’s voice.
Annette nodded. “Don’t be fooled by how friendly everyone is. You get in their faces and you’ll have real trouble. I’m the only person in Atikokan who’d let you walk out of here with your balls still attached to your body.”
Williams smiled, like he wasn’t impressed, and got in his car. “I’ll keep it in mind,” he said, and then drove off, his tires spitting gravel and dirt in his wake.
Christy was just getting off the phone when Annette walked back to the door.
“Sorry about the noise, Christy. Were you going to shoot him?”
“I could shoot a bear, but I’m not sure I could have shot that man.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. Next time just call a neighbor.”
“I called the Gilberts. I just called back and told them the crisis had passed. They want to hear about it tonight. You guys have a meeting?”
Annette nodded. The Gilberts were going to offer to buy her out. What was it about the financial crisis that made her modest enterprise so interesting all of a sudden?
Annette and Dan Gilbert sipped cold beers at one of the tables in the trip planning room at Canadian Shield Outfitters.
It had been a long day for both of them, the midsummer rush—everyone trying to get in their canoe trips or fishing excursions before school started. The building was her favorite indoor place in Atikokan, with rough-hewn pine walls studded with a taxidermist’s zoo of Canadian Shield fish and mammals. The lower reaches of one wall displayed topographical maps for the 1,837 square miles of Quetico Provincial Park, while topo maps for the even vaster White Otter Wilderness Area lined another. The building had the feel of a trapper’s cabin, dim, cozy, lightly scented with the lingering aroma of the morning’s coffee. In winter, the potbelly stove added a hint of wood smoke and heat that drew people together to tell stories.
Dan’s father and a partner built the place in 1970, the same year Annette and her husband moved to Atikokan. They were draft resisters, ready to start a new life in a wilderness still unsullied by ruthless capitalists and in a country that lived peacefully in the shadow of the U.S. As successful and busy as they were, the Gilberts always had time to answer questions for the young American expats trying to make a go of it on the Shield.
They talked about families first, especially Annette’s younger daughter, who had endured a sudden divorce and moved back to Atikokan in the dead of winter with a three-year-old daughter in tow.
“She’s getting her feet back under herself,” said Annette. “But she didn’t see it coming.”
They let the conversation lapse into silence. It was one of the things she loved about Atikokan. People didn’t feel like they had to fill every minute with talk.
“How does she like our little arrangement?” Dan was starting to get to the point of the meeting. Annette had been managing CSO’s canoe business since May. It was an intricate arrangement: she also managed her own canoe outfitting business, keeping the brands separate, but running all the customers out of the CSO facility. And her daughter took over the management of Annette’s cabins.
“She loves it. She can take care of the cabins and see to her daughter at the same time. And Christy likes having her own show to run.”
“Think she’ll stay?” Dan asked.
Annette sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what to hope for. I love having her here. Our arrangement with you has been good for both of us. But she’s still young and she’s always been a romantic and there are so few eligible men here . . .”
Dan nodded in understanding. Atikokan was a hardscrabble town in the middle of the vast Canadian Shield, a wilderness of ancient rocks, bottomless lakes, and sprawling forests interrupted only by bogs and the remnants of surface mines and a few narrow ribbons of roadway. Its population was barely three thousand and falling, and it was the largest community for a hundred miles.
“I guess you know why I’m asking . . .”
Annette sighed again. “Yes. And, yes, I like our arrangement. I have more income than I ever had before and Christy has a great situation, but I don’t see this as a long-term arrangement. It’s hard to explain to my clients why they’re getting outfitted at Canadian Shield. I tell them that I’m running both canoe businesses and they accept it. But over time I’ll lose my business identity, and it’ll be hard when we separate the businesses again. So I’m hoping you’re going to tell me you’ve found someone to run the canoe business. I promise I won’t cry my eyes out.”
Dan rubbed his chin and offered a wry smile. “Well, we hope we have someone.”
He sat forward, elbows on the table. “Here’s the thing. Dad wants to ease off and have me run the business. I can’t do the cabins and the airplanes and the canoe outfitting myself, and the people we’ve interviewed . . . well, the ones who had the qualifications all had baggage. One is a drunk, one I’m pretty sure is a thief, and the others are people who change jobs every couple years for whatever reason. And none of them want to manage the canoe business—they want the cabins, because that’s where the money is.
“Our canoe business isn’t growing but turns a nice profit. We want to keep it going and we think it can grow a little if the person running it is passionate about the business.”
Dan Gilbert locked eyes with Annette.
“So, we’d really like to work out a long-term arrangement with you to run it. You’re smart, you’re honest, customers like you. You love the business. You’ve guided. You know Quetico and White Otter like your backyard. That’s what it takes to make the business go, that and promoting it in the winter. There’s enough money to keep us both happy, especially when we combine your outfitting business with ours. Can we talk about it?”
Dan had his father’s charm, and his engaging directness. Annette had known him all his life. He and Christy even dated at times during high school, though the school was so small, that was almost inevitable. Annette couldn’t help but smile.
“I owe you and your family a lot,” she said to him. “And you know I love you guys. But if I go to work for you, I lose my independence. And I’ve had some bad experiences with that.”
“You mean Rob?” Dan asked, referencing Annette’s ex-husband.
“It’s Robert now,” she corrected. “He’s a tenured professor. And he’s an American. You can’t call him a three-letter word.”
“Does he still think we have snakes here?” Dan chuckled.
Annette smiled. Her ex-husband had found life on the Canadian Shield far more challenging than the Shangri-la they had anticipated in 1970 when they sought shelter from the Vietnam War.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It was the mosquitoes that drove him away, though. Poor guy. That first winter almost killed him. Twenty hours of darkness, minus thirty for a week, frozen pipes. Using the outhouse when ‘freezing your ass off’ wasn’t just an expression. Spring was better until the first big bug hatch. He looked like a teenager with acne he had so many red welts on his skin.
“That’s what sent him off to grad school,” Annette recalled. “I don’t know what I would have done if we didn’t have the cabins then.”
“You did a great job with them,” said Dan.
Annette smiled. She had turned the rickety cabins into a profitable enterprise with guile and grit—helped by a steady influx of customers sent her way by Dan’s father, who recommended Annette’s cabins to clients needing a place to stay the night before they launched into the wilderness.
“About our arrangement,” Dan said, changing the subject.
“Yes. That.” Annette smiled.
“We could buy you out, the outfitting business and the cabins. There’d be enough money to give you some financial security, and we’d pay you a good salary to stay on. Christy too.”
“Thanks, Dan. But I can’t give up my independence.”
“You’re not lumping us in with that Williams fellow, are you?”
Annette laughed. “Never! Where did that, that man come from, anyway?”
“He used to manage fly-in cabins for a business out of Fort Frances,” said Dan. “Did Christy really haul out a shotgun?”
“He’s a very unpleasant man.”
“He left a trail of people saying that. Glad you’re not doing business with him. I don’t think he’d be a good addition to the community.”
Dan shifted in his chair. “What if we did it as an acquisition and you got shares in Canadian Shield Ventures? You’d be a minority shareholder, but you’d have a vote. We’d merge the canoe businesses, have Christy manage the drive-in cabins as long as she wanted to, and you could sell her your shares when you retire. It could work out for everyone.”
Annette sat back in her chair, silent for a moment. She hadn’t anticipated that offer. “You know what? I’ll think about it . . . but only because it’s you asking. If it was anyone else, this would’ve ended a while ago.” She smiled a little, deep in thought. “It scarred me, you know. Being alone in the wilderness with two babies. I had to borrow money from my parents. I didn’t really think I’d make it, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I don’t ever want to be dependent on anyone again.”
“I understand,” said Dan, “Think about the merger idea. You wouldn’t be completely independent anymore, but you’d own a piece of the whole thing—canoes, cabins, planes, the lodge . . .”
Annette nodded yes. “By the way,” she said. “Don’t forget I’m taking next week for my Quetico holiday.”
“Got you covered. Where are you going?”
“My secret island.”
Dan smiled. Everyone in the outfitting business had their favorite Quetico hideaways, and they often compared notes. But Annette had one favorite place that she kept a secret.
“Believe it or not, I have a date.” She smiled and blushed lightly. “Not bad for a grandma, eh?”
“Not bad for anyone,” said Dan. “Are we going to meet this guy?”
“Probably not. He’s starting in the Boundary Waters on the Minnesota side. In fact, he’s launching this week sometime. He thinks he’s going to spend a month in the Boundary Waters and Quetico. I just hope he lasts long enough to meet me.”
“Solo trips sound good ’til you do them,” said Dan. “A lot of people give it up after a few days.”
“Pender says he’s soloed up here for twenty years or so. In fact, he knows you and your dad. He’s used Canadian Shield Outfitters for some of his trips.”
“Pender? I remember him. Gabe Pender, right?”
Annette nodded yes.
“Quiet guy, always in good shape,” Dan recalled. “Good paddler. He did long trips. He had us fly him to the far corners of the park, and he’d paddle out.” Canadian Shield Ventures, the parent company of CSO, included an air service with three floatplanes to get clients to their wilderness cabins and, on occasion, to drop canoeists at designated areas on the fringes of Quetico.
“When you could get him to talk, he told good stories,” Dan said. “One I remember, he had a young bear that kept coming into his camp. He’d chase it away, but it kept coming back. Finally, he hid in the bushes and ambushed the poor thing when it came back. Jumped out of the scrub screaming and banging a couple of pans together. Scared the pee out of it, I guess. I don’t know many people who’d bully a bear. I guess I’d bet he shows up.”
“That sounds like something the young Gabe Pender might have tried,” said Annette.
“I got the sense he was well off. Never worried about what things cost. Once he told me he came up here when his wife and daughter did vacations in Paris, Rio, Rome, places like that. I asked him why he didn’t join them, and he said those were business destinations for him. Quetico was where he found peace.”
Dan looked at Annette and got that twinkle in his eye again. “How do you know him?”
“We dated in college.”
“No kidding! I keep forgetting you started out in life as a Yank.”
“My misspent youth.”
“So, you were dating people, including Pender, then Rob came along and swept you off your feet . . .?”
“No. Pender and I were pretty serious, but the war got in the way.”
“He was for it, you were against?”
“I was against it. He wasn’t for or against it. He said war wasn’t a moral decision for him, it was a practical one. Your country calls, you go. Drove me crazy.”
“Doesn’t sound like you were oil and water.”
“It got personal. It shouldn’t have, but we were young and strong-willed. Do you ever know more about the world than when you’re a twenty-one-year-old college senior? So here we are. I’m the queen of the Quetico wilderness, and he’s a rich American who’s going to spend a month in my backyard.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” Dan asked.
“Forty years ago,” said Annette. “We’ve been e-mailing back and forth for a few months. Meeting seemed like it might be fun.”
They made small talk for a few more minutes, and then Annette stood to leave.
“Think about our offer,” said Dan. “We can work on the numbers, but you’d end up with a nest egg for your retirement.”
Annette smiled and made her goodbye, but Dan’s thought echoed in her mind the rest of the night. Retirement. She was getting up in years, a woman alone in a hard world. What would she do when she couldn’t carry a canoe and a pack on the long, rugged portage trails that connected the lakes and rivers of the Canadian Shield, when she couldn’t paddle a ten-hour day, couldn’t guide? How would she live? Where?