On the Edge of a Feather

I rented a canoe on Rainy Lake and began to paddle out and back into time; a time when few white people came to the region. The sound of the paddle and the bow parting the water left no trace of the life I left behind. Only the reflection of trees along the shoreline broke my meditation.

About an hour out I was turning to head back when I noticed a plume of smoke. My curiosity drew me around a rocky point, where I saw an elderly woman chopping wood outside of an old cabin.

Smoke was rising from the stack of a wood-burning stove.

It was dusk when I pulled the canoe up on her shore. She paid me no mind as she swung an ax and split logs. Her feather-like, snow-white hair tied back under a red-and-black, checkered lumberjack hat.

"Good afternoon, Ma'am," I interrupted.

She set the ax down, "If you're looking for money, young man, I ain't got none and never will. That was the Lord's plan. I ain't gonna argue with the Lord. So, you best be moving on." She lowered her head and growled. Spreading her arms and swayed side to side.

I looked around and saw a fishing pole and tackle propped against the cabin. Snare traps hung by hides drying in the sun. Further out back stood an outhouse and fish-cleaning hut.

She was a woman of pioneer spirit.

The years of swinging that ax could be in her hunched back. Her gnarled, muscular limbs, like those of an ancient oak bent by the endless winter wind. The skin on her face resembled the cracks of early spring lake ice. She sniffed the air with a short barn owl-like nose. Her sharp, marble-black eyes could spot even the smallest insect hovering above her latest catch.

Stories of dog mushing. Snowshoeing, and wilderness survival. Emanated from a proud carriage shown in her sharp jawline. She had all the signs of a person who had embraced solitude and found solace as a lone hunter.

I stood there mute, not sure of what rebuttal might work on her.

"Well don't stand there with a heavy lip, or a crow's gonna do its morning chore on your head," she sputtered.

"How long have you lived here?" I asked.

"As long as I can remember," she answered. Paused to hiss. Then offered, "all right, young man, it seems you have a hankering for words so let's go inside and I'll pour you some coffee."

She opened her heavy, pine door, as she limped on her left knee. Inside her one-room cabin sat a wood-burning stove. Along with rustic furnishings: Cot. Old black-and-white photos. Deer antlers, night bucket, table with two chairs, dishes, clothes hung on a wire in one corner. On every shelf amazing little hand-carved wooden animals.

She served me coffee in a rabbit-shaped mug.

"What are you doing on the lake?" she quizzed me.

"I sell insurance and wanted to take a break, ma'am," I answered, "My name is Arlo… what is your name?"

"My name is Marie Oberholtzer. Where you from, young man?" she asked.

"From the cities," I replied. The coffee was lumberjack-boot strong- so strong. I'd figured I could cut her winter firewood in one hour.

"How about your kin?" She picked up a knife and a block of wood and began to carve the beginnings of a rabbit. Her fingers were long and curved at the knuckles like a spider crab.

"Abandoned when I was 15 years old," I told her.

"Why was that, pray to tell?" her eyes fixed hard on me.

"My parents and I didn't see eye to eye on things, I guess," I replied, shrugging my shoulders.

"Your mother was a farmer?" she delved.

"Yes, and my dad was a salesman," I added.

"Yep, you're stubborn like your mother. Stubborn as all get out, you crazy farmers," she proclaimed while shaking her head. "So your daddy was a traveling salesman like you, eh?"

I nodded my caffeine-buzzed head. She knew I was telling a bit of a lie.

"You go back and apologize to them. I don't give a coon's ass who's right or wrong. No matter. There are enough orphans in the world without wanting to be one. You're old enough now to know better. Someday, your parents will be gone, and then what?" she scolded.

"What about you, Marie? Where did your kin come from?" I asked.

"I was born on a ship crossing the Great Lakes in the late 1800s. My parents settled these parts for timber and hide. Then in the winter of 1890, the pox killed my parents, sister, and brother. Only my father's uncle's son survived. And so it is with the Lord's plan. No sense in questioning it… gonna do no good."

"How do you survive up here?" I said.

"I knew Ojibwe trappers and learned their medicine. I would have died without their help. The Ojibwe says that this is the lake that speaks. When I was young the Indians called me zazegaa-ikwe agamiing. It translates roughly to mean owl of the lake. Like, I was born from the lake. Billy Maggie and his tribe, and my cousin, they're gone.

Amen, mercy on their souls.

Once the lake has frozen a neighbor stops by and brings me supplies on a snowmobile. If it's not too cold, I'll snowshoe over to Mallard Island. Have you been to my cousin's island? He built quite the museum there. From here, it's about 15 minutes by canoe."

I had to do something serious with my coffee buzz. "Can I lend a hand with your firewood?" I offered.

"I would appreciate that young man," The old woman answered.

I split wood for an hour and stacked it beneath a tarp. Filled a tank with fresh spring water, drove a couple of nails into a loose board, and swept out her cabin. "Things are looking ship-shape," I wiped a bead of sweat off my brow.

She offered a drink of the cool spring water and I sat down to admire her creations. "You're a great woodcarver. Do you make anything else besides mice and rabbits?" I asked.

"Nope, I only do those. They're my specialty," she replied.

"Do you sell them?" I asked.

"I give them away," she told me.

It was getting late and I had an hour canoe ride back to the resort, and what else I could do for her? "Do you have any insurance?"

"Never been to a doctor and never will, it's the Lord's plan," she said, as she sanded the head of her carved mouse.

"I'd like to give you a life insurance policy. Consider it a gift. The policy will pay out $3,000 to your choice of beneficiary. All I need is your birth date."

"Oh, you mean when I die someone's gonna get $3,000?" she acted surprised.

"Yes, who would you like the money to go to?"

"Can I donate it to the Lake of the Woods Ojibwe band?" she asked.

"I will have to find out how to register that," I answered.

"Okay, what do you need to know from me?"

"What is your birth date?"

"My birth date is January 2, 1884. I am 92 years old," she said while inspecting her new carving.

"Sign here," I put a pen and the policy on the table. I lied on all the underwriting questions about her health. Then I bent down to pull up my socks. When I returned to the table, I folded her policy and gave it to her. Without looking, I closed my underwriter's kit.

"Great, thank you. And someday I am sure the Ojibwe people will appreciate it, too!"

"I have something for you," she said with a smile, as she handed me the mouse she had carved.

"Thank you, Marie," I said and put it into my pocket, "It's getting late so I should be getting back." I stood up and gave her a bear hug. "Don't get too lonely out here."

I paddled back the same way I came, but the shoreline seemed different. "If the trees could speak," I thought out loud.

Around the next bend. I was being escorted from the wilderness, one owl gave a screech. A few seconds later another hoot answered in the distance.

When I arrived back at the outfitters, the resort owner asked me about my trip, "How was your voyage?"

"It was great," I said. "I came upon this old cabin where I met an elderly woman named Marie."

He stood there expressionless as I told him a fish as big as my canoe capsized me. "Come with me," he welcomed, motioning to his bar.

I sat at his bar and looked at a map of the lake on the wall with a bunch of pins stuck in it with dates at various locations. I assumed they were camping spots.

"What can I get you?" he offered while wiping off the bar top. "You must be thirsty after all that paddling."

I had closed my first prospect and I supposed I earned the right to celebrate. "I will have a beer on tap," I ordered.

The resort owner set the beer down in front of me. It was golden brown with frosty foam on top. I took a good gulp.

"So, what's this you say about meeting an elderly woman on an island?" he asked.

"Yeah, she was a cool 92-year-old lady who carved mice and rabbits," I replied, then downed my beer.

"Can you point on the map where you saw her?" he asked.

I got up from my barstool, and, to my best estimate. "Right about there." I pointed to an island on the map.

He looked at the spot, stuck in a pin, and wrote the date.

"The sightings go back at least 50 years to when I opened this resort," he told me.

"The last sighting was 10 years ago. A fisherman told me how they came across an old woman living alone on an island. According to Indian legend, it’s magic to see an owl in the daytime. Especially an owl that takes human form. The sighting is a symbol of learning and mental change. It also represents a fresh start and a new beginning. You may be about to begin a new phase in your life. What did she tell you, son? The stories vary. She doesn't appear to anyone. Chosen you were."

The news left me dumbfounded. I thought he was pulling my leg. "I wrote her a life insurance policy," I said.

"That's a shiner if I ever heard one," he laughed, "I don't suppose you got her signature?"

"Yes, I did," I pulled out my underwriter's kit and flipped through the policies to the last one. I looked in disbelief and the signature line was blank.

"How about a beer on the house?" he offered, laughing again.

"But she said she was the cousin of the person who built on Mallard Island," I questioned.

"Oh, that's a new one," he said and poured me another beer. "Ernest Oberholtzer was a famous explorer and statesman in these parts. He saved the lake by getting it declared as a national park. I suppose if it wasn't for Oberholtzer the owl of the lake would have lost her lake."

A wet feather lay over me.