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6 | (continued) One of the best examples: on a lush, heavily-forested hillside, from the side of a dusty, seldom-used concession road, I saw a high fence atop a berm, looking almost like a government installation. In the fence was a recently-unlocked gate, which I could not resist passing through, out of sheer curiosity. I climbed the berm to see what lay beyond. Inside the enclosure I found a large pond, of about an acre, as still as a mirror under the summer sun. What I had thought to be a berm was actually a dike, the side of an earthen dam that impounded the pond. I saw no one around, so I walked out along the dam, hearing only the water leaving the spillpipe, falling to the streambed some yards below. I stood for a while and looked out across the tranquil space with a deep sense of pleasure—it was the largest body of calm water I had seen in many months. Only gradually did I notice the silent slaughter taking place above and upon its surface: hundreds of large insects, probably mayflies, hatching from the pond, were being devoured by invisible fish from below, and a frantic but silent flock of swallows, darting back and forth across the open space, taking many of the flies that had escaped the fish. I’m sure that few of those flies survived. My pleasure fell away, but I refused to let this uncensored vignette of Natural Selection spoil my day; the outflow of the spillpipe was glassy and cold, and I gingerly climbed down the face of the dam to soak my sweaty head and torso in water that was several echelons superior to the stuff from Boss’s well.
As I say, I’ve never been depressed on a bike; it’s when I get off that the trouble starts.
One day in early fall, I biked out on a highway well into the east end of Durham Region, a quiet area of farms and substantial homes, that I had seen only once or twice through the windshield of a rental car on assignment. Near the intersection of that highway and another, I found an improbable public campground run by the good folks of Durham, for wayfarers very different from myself. It was immaculate, in a way that forests never are, with manicured lawns beneath well-pruned pines, whose lowest branches were well beyond the reach of the tallest children, or Daddy’s hat, whichever was higher. Its neat gravel driveways leading to properly-spaced, logically-numbered “campsites,” each with its own connections for electric power, water, and maybe even cable TV, although I didn’t check. It was primarily a trailer park, I suppose, but the reason for my uncertainty is that the place was deserted except for its staff. That staff included a woman who was Professionally Pleasant, who said yes, I could camp there in just a tent if I wished, but the fee was the same for everyone: $8.50 a day, no discounts for longer stays. I was Shocked and Appalled—$59.50 a week ($255.85 per month) for a tentsite? For a few minutes, before she told me the rate, it had actually crossed my mind that here was a respectable and legal alternative to my present address, complete with shower, flush toilets and an outlet for a reading lamp. The location, near the highways (typical of such a park), was certainly not what a peace-loving camper would have chosen, yet it had actually triggered a fantasy in me of moving up in this undeniably pleasant part of the world. All the way back to my woods, I was filled with a mixture of resentment and regret. Dreams die hard.
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I went back to the bike thoroughly refreshed, wrung out my shirt, combed my hair, and was about to leave when I heard a jolly whistling wafting across the pond—it was the caretaker, who crossed the dam scarcely a minute after my trespass and walked down through the gate like the happiest old man outside of a musical comedy. He told me that a whole series of ponds along that road had been built by a fishing club decades ago, and stocked with trout in such numbers as to guarantee that no member should ever have to go home empty-handed. Only the world’s worst karma could prevent anyone from absconding with a basketful of fresh trout for an hour’s work at any time of the day or night, all summer long. I didn’t quite know what to make of so much killing—some natural, some not—in so lovely a place, so I confined my comments to the usual run of euphemisms and courtesies, then left.
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