A new world for Adam ~ July 1, 1993

David Heiller

We wanted to show Adam the world, or at least our world. Adam is my sister’s 11-year-old son. He’s from a suburb of Dallas, Texas. He recently stayed with us for 12 days. My sister wanted him to get out of the city and see a different way of life. We wanted him to get to know our son Noah better, since they’re only a year apart in age.

It was a dangerous proposition in a way. We only get three TV channels—no cable. Noah’s closest friend lives four miles away, not four blocks. Everything that you find in a city is glaringly absent in Birch Creek Township. No parks, no pools, no malls. I was a little worried that Adam might be impatient with our way of life.

Adam

I shouldn’t have worried. He said more thank yous than I could count, even to people like Palmer Dahl who sharpened Adam’s tomahawk. “You paid for it,” Palmer said in a surprised voice. He wasn’t used to a polite kid either, but Adam meant it.

I knew the rest was working out on Adam’s third night. He and Noah and I were taking a sauna, and Adam said out of the blue, “If I was at home, I would have watched about 14 hours of TV today.”

Instead, we had gone to the Northwest Company Fur Post in Pine City. Our family had never been there, but because of Adam, we went. At the post, a voyageur had taken us back in time. The kids watched him throw a tomahawk into a log, and that took care of any urge to watch TV.

When we got home, I gave them an old steel hatchet, and they spent hours throwing it against a slab of white oak. Later in the week, they went to a store and bought their own tomahawks, and Palmer Dahl put a fine edge on them, thank you.

The fur post got them talking about building a wigwam, like the one there. They didn’t do it, because they didn’t have time.

I had worried that they would have too much time, but I forgot how kids can fill time. I also forgot how much our area and rural lifestyle have to offer.

They shot Noah’s bow and arrow. Adam hit a rabbit, but it got away. They biked over to Noah’s friend’s house four miles away.

They spent an afternoon helping clean the calf barn and milking cows at our babysitter’s farm. Adam was amazed at how the cow manure was taken away through a grate in the floor. He described the size of the cows udders, spreading his arms like he was holding a 20 pound northern.

Noah, David, and Adam and
one of their favorite activities.

You won’t find that in Dallas.

Adam helped me weed the garden and didn’t complain. I showed him how to chop and split a log with an ax. He liked that. Why couldn’t he have come in the fall, when I have 12 cords of firewood to make?

We went to a pow-wow in Hinckley. He and Noah bought dancing sticks, and joined the Indian dancers in an intertribal dance. Cindy and I watched them until we finally got in and danced too.

This past Sunday, they spent all afternoon hiking at Banning State Park. Adam described how he climbed up some “kettles” or vertical holes in the sandstone rock. Cindy told me later, “He was definitely at risk a few times,” which translated into, “I’m glad he didn’t fall.” In other words, he was being 11.

When Adam returned, he asked me if we could go canoeing. Normally after a trip like that, on a Sunday night, I would say no. But I wanted Adam to go canoeing, if he wanted to, so after supper we went to Fox Lake and paddled for two hours. We told stories and sang and watched a mother loon holler at us as she kept her eye on the baby swimming by her side.

In the canoe, I told Adam about trips to the boundary waters; how you can drink the water. I wished we could have done that. It was on our agenda.

And that night, I looked up into the clear night sky, which is something we haven’t seen much this summer with all the rain, and I wanted Adam to see some northern lights.

Maybe next year.

The next time some old timer tells you that kids don’t know how to play anymore, tell me and I’ll give them Adam’s address. He’ll set them straight.

We did show Adam a slice of our world. Adam liked it, and that reminded me about how lucky we are to live where we live.

Our house is going to be empty without him. And that will remind me of how lucky I am to have a nephew like Adam.

A quirky vacation of turtles and blackflies ~June 23, 1994

By David Heiller

The black flies struck with fury when we arrived at Kawishiwi Lodge. They swarmed over me as I fished for sunnies in the shallow water in front of our dock. They bit rings around Cindy’s legs, so that she looked like she was wearing red anklets. They chewed a circle of bites around my daughter’s stomach, where her T-shirt ended. My son’s neck had at least 150 bites.

Ah, what a vacation.

None of us knew what a black fly was before last week. We don’t have black flies here. We have gnats. They swarm around your head when you’re playing softball. You swing and cuss at them.

Don’t cuss at them. Thank them for not inviting their big cousins, the black flies.

Black flies are like giant gnats, with machetes. They land and stab. Their bites make big red welts. They itch, and stain your shirt with blood.

They are worse than mosquitoes, because there is no repellant to keep them off. Nothing. We can put a man on the moon but we can’t make a spray to keep off black flies.

This is a picture from 
the newspaper of David 
in his blackfly-proof hat.
 You really can't see the netting, 
but trust me, it kept us sane, 
mostly, on this vacation.

We finally resorted to buying the goofy netting that you see in the photo. At first we felt silly wearing it. But if it’s netting or not fishing, I’ll take looking like a nerd any day.

Not that it helped our fishing much. I had spent so much time telling the kids how good the fishing was at Kawishiwi Lodge that I jinxed us. Noah sensed it right away, and bet me a dollar that we wouldn’t catch a northern over two pounds.

He won, but not without a close call. On Thursday, I fastened a small perch that had swallowed the hook onto my line. Something grabbed it and took off. I set the hook, and felt the biggest fish of my life on the other end. Bigger than that eight pound lake trout. Bigger than that 10 pound carp.

I finally brought it up to the dock and picked up the net with my left hand. I expected to see the northern of my dream.

But with a shock I saw something else: a huge snapping turtle.

It weighed 15 pounds, maybe more. I didn’t get too close with my DeLiar scale. It’s head was the size of my fist, and the jaws on that head took a snap at me.

Noah was awed by what the bear did
in the previous evening.

I wish I could say our vacation had perfect weather and lots of  fish, but it didn’t. Cindy and I wanted our nephew from Texas to catch a big northern so badly. We said we would pay $10 a pound for him to catch one, but we never had to pay. One lousy rock bass and small northern were all he brought in.

But in between the black flies and the snapping turtles, the rain and the diarrhea, we had fun. We paddled dozens of miles. We saw beavers and loons. We explored bays and creeks. We toured the wolf center and talked about the Root Beer Lady.

A bear tried to get into our cabin one night. It busted the screen door, then ran off when I turned on the porch light.

We stayed up late, ate meals at all hours. And there’s something about sleeping in a cabin on a lake in a thunderstorm that’s mighty peaceful and cozy.

A quirky vacation. Aren’t they all?

And man, that snapping turtle. Biggest one I ever caught. My nephew fried it up. It tasted just like chicken. Better than northern any day. Yeah, right Dad.

***~~***~~***~~***~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***

(The next week this letter appeared in the Askov American)

 Editor erred with game fish bait

Editor, Askov American:

In spite of your patronizing of law enforcement officials (see headline Sheriff 1, Train 0; editorial “3 Cheers, for Don”; article titled “Faulkner to seek second term” et al.) I’m afraid you may have run slightly afoul of the law if we can believe your column in the issue of June 23, 1994. You mention attempting to catch a northern by fastening a small perch to your line. I’m sure you must have known, being the piscatorial challenged nimrod you are, that it is illegal to catch or attempt to catch a game fish using “whole or parts of game fish, goldfish or carp for bait”. Since perch is classified as a legal game fish (the daily limit is only 100) I’m afraid you have admitted your guilt in front of the 3,800 people who subscribe to the AMERICAN.

Your only hope is that of the 3,800, none is a certified peace officer.

GLENN H. HEILLER Woodland, MN

EDITOR’S NOTE: My column last week was supposed to say “birch,” not “perch.” It was a typographical error. I fastened a small piece of birch to my line, and a turtle took it. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

David Heiller