A Fish We Remember

We had tucked into the little cove at the north end of Denman Island for the night, with no intention of staying over the next day. We had made a fire on the northeast beach, the only place there was any beach left above a very high tide. It was a still, quiet evening, and when it was dark the salmon started rising to the light that our fire cast on the calm water. Peter was feverishly carving a spear and hardening its point in the fire—just in case a fish came close enough to the little rocky point.

Off the end of Denman Island there is a great sandy bar that extends more than half a mile to the north and more than four miles west, almost to Cape Lazo. Plain sand would not be such a menace, but all the shallows are strewn with great boulders, which I think must wander all over the place in big winds. Just as you can move a boulder out of your garden by tucking more soil underneath it with the crowbar until it moves slowly but surely up to the surface, in the same way the big waves and the sand shift the boulders here and there.

It means going a long way round to Cape Lazo, to get past this sandy bar. If you try to cut through, you are suddenly surrounded by a maze of boulders. Every time you turn to avoid one, another steps directly in front of you to block your way. In other summers you may have taken fixes on distant points or trees, and think you have worked out a passage. But the boulders have anticipated this—and have spent the intervening time inching their way into your supposed channel. At low tide there is perhaps six feet of water over the sand—sometimes more, sometimes less—but no one ever knows how much over the boulders.

John and Peter shelter in a makeshift lean-to.

A salmon rises and splashes in the fire-​light, and then a seal surfaces with a loud snort. Peter, who has been standing on the rock with his spear poised for the last half-​hour, groans, “Missed, just by inches.” We all laugh, for it had been at least six feet.

Then I hurry everyone off to bed. Peter is crying because there will never be another chance like this. I who knew he never had a chance at all, console him by saying we will tie a heavy fish-​line to it next time and he can cast the spear. A minute later he is laughing about the seal who had snorted because it had also missed the fish by inches.

I had planned to leave after breakfast and cut across to the mainland and up into Desolation Sound. And here I was gazing out over low tide on the sand-​flats—the sea like glass and not a cloud in the sky; and surely after lunch would do just as well . . . The youngsters sat there watching me anxiously, with deep sighs . . . Then—they somehow knew before I did myself that we were going to stay, and I had to hurry up with the proviso: “Just until after lunch.”

The tide must have been slack as well as low, for not a ripple nor a current stirred the surface of the water as we drifted silently over the sandy bottom and the surprised boulders. I just gave a gentle pull on the oars now and then . . . trying to blend ourselves in with the life of the sand-​dwellers below.

Big red crabs with enormous claws would sidle across at an angle—making for the shelter of a boulder. We didn’t know who their enemies were. Perhaps they didn’t know who we were. We must have appeared like strange two-​headed beasts to them—our faces joined nose to nose with our reflections in the water.

Bands of silvery minnows darted in unison—first here, then there. Some unknown mass signal seemed to control them—like sand-​pipers flying low over the edge of a beach—the fluid concerted movement, concave edge changing to convex, and then vice versa . . . Or crows at some unknown signal dropping helter-​skelter, head over heels, down through the air towards earth and destruction . . . then as suddenly resuming their flight on normal wings like perfectly sane crows. With the minnows we could see that it was probably a preservation idea—they and their shadows escaping bigger shadows and threatening dangers. But who gives the signal and how is it made?

“Look! Look!” in whispers, first from one and then the others. I could see on my side of the dinghy, but not on John’s. Jan up in the bow had a sea of her own—Peter’s end, particularly his.

Suddenly, on my side, suspended perfectly motionless about four feet down in the shadow cast by the dinghy, was a strange fish—as though there by intent, waiting for us.

“Ss-s-s-se-e,” I hissed, pointing carefully . . . and all the crew hung, suspended motionless and precariously, over the edge—all eyes focused on the fish.

It was about two feet long, shaped rather like a salmon, but there the resemblance ended. This fish was a pale cream colour, laced over with half-​inch bands of old gold in a large diamond pattern. Its eyes were dark, large and oval. Dark folds or eyelids opened and shut, opened and shut . . . It lay there chewing, or was it the gills like a jaw-​line that gave it the ruminating appearance?

Something hadn’t liked this cream-​and-​gold fish—one piece of its tail was gone, and one of its side-​fins was torn and ragged—all rather dishevelled and routed looking.

It just lay there quietly—raising and lowering its large oval eyelids; we suspended in our dinghy, it suspended in the safety of our shadow. That of course was probably why it was there—for protection.

Then a seal broke water and the glassy surface was in a turmoil. When it had quietened, our cream-​and-​gold fish had gone.

“Probably the same seal that ruined my fish last night,” said Peter.

Then he and Jan slid into the water and tried to see how many boulders they could touch before they got to shore.

The tide was rising and the water still so glassy that, when we left after lunch, we cut across the bar of sand and the boulders with John and Peter lying flat in the bow. Then we ambled across the twenty-​five-​mile stretch of open water towards Savary Island over on the mainland. We fooled around and tried to find Mystery Reef and couldn’t. Then we moved on up to the Ragged Islands for supper, and perhaps the night. I think we all felt groggy with the glare off the water, and it was good to get in close to the cliffs in the shade.

There seemed to be a slight, hardly noticeable swell as I cooked supper with one foot up on the steering-​seat as usual. The air was almost oppressively still, and my face was burning like fire. A tugboat tooted at the entrance to the cove; he wanted to tie up just where we were anchored. Why on earth did they want to tie up on an evening like this? Then the pieces began to fall into place, and I snatched Jan’s bathing-​cap off the barometer where it had hung all day. The glass was down to 29 and it had been over 31 at breakfast time.

I told Jan to take over the supper and handed the table that lived on top of the engine-​box to Peter, and told them to carry on. I waved at the tug, which tooted again, and I pulled up the anchor. If we were going to ride out a southeaster, we would do it up in Desolation Sound in the cove on Mink Island, where there was water and room to move around—not in a ragged cove with a restless boom.

Before we reached Mink Island, the mares’ tails in the sky were trailing wildly. Then it was dark and the waves at our heels were throwing the phosphorus out ahead of them.

The stars only showed now and then, and it was hard to find the entrance to the cove. I sent Jan up on deck with the flashlight—and after a little while we made out the sheltering points and crept thankfully in and round the turn to drop our hook.