Going Too Fast

I rented a car today in order to see farther than a day’s walk. I had to walk forty-five minutes in morning cold of minus fifteen to get the car, and I did it in my “big ugly bear-scaring coat.” But once in the heated car I was traveling west at an inhuman rate of some forty miles an hour. It felt strange going so fast—unnatural. I could not go that fast all the time; there was snowpack and hills, and sights to see out the window. It all happened so fast.




I drove seventy miles along Rainy River, just south of the border, without a single service, just the forest, the river, the occasional log truck and me. There are no towns near International Falls that are larger, nothing bigger within two hundred miles. I stopped at Baudette, where she said, “The pancakes are huge. Are you sure?” I said, “No problem,” seeing that eggs, pancakes and coffee total $4.99. They were a foot in diameter and half an inch thick.





I turned south on 72 into even more loneliness. Forests which are thick and tall at I-Falls, thin and shorten as I travel south, apparently in poor soil, and barely a cultivated field in the next sixty miles. Sometimes an open acreage looks like an ocean with white waves.







At Upper Red Lake, I see tire tracks leading out of a cove, and way out on the lake, in the far distance, little houses where ice fishermen wait. I remember Jerry saying that he’s improved his ice house and is anxious to tow it onto Rainy Lake for Northern Pike. He will cut a three-foot-square hole in the ice. Then he puts a minnow in a little harness—no hook. He lowers it on a string. Pretty soon a Northern comes along, bites the minnow, and won’t let go. He pulls the fish in without even using a hook. Sometimes the Northerns are not hungry, just curious. He can see them swimming around just below the ice, so he takes a spear and gets them that way. I say how interesting that would be to watch, but I would not buy a fishing license. Of course the answer I want is, “Why don’t you come with us, just as an observer. That’s legal?” I still have to work on getting that answer.




I head northwest on 71 back toward home—more sparse forests, the occasional farm, and on occasion, a healthy-looking stand of trees that seem like conquers on a battlefield where little else can survive.