Swedish Zen

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to ice-fish and you show him a whole new way to drink scotch."

-Zen Master of the Great North Woods

"Where the hell are we?"

-My best friend and Lutheran Pastor, Mike, this morning, on the ice, in white-out conditions and gale-force winds

"Would it be too much to pray for two ministers to have a brain?"

-A member of my congregation, who finally found us

Tales of Minnesota and Lake Wobegon abound not only in the oral tradition, but are also chronicled in a canon of scripture which graces bookshelves most everywhere. Garrison Keillor has put Minnesota on the map with his tales of life in the North Country. I am particularly fond of his boundless fount of stories about winters there in general and ice-fishing in particular.

I grew up in the Adirondacks of Upstate New York, a place, in the winter, like Keillor’s Minnesota - without the Lutherans. Some of my fondest memories are of sitting in a shanty on Long Lake or Tupper Lake fishing for perch, pike, or whatever had the energy in that frigid water to open its mouth and take the bait. I love it. It’s peaceful, quiet (save for the gentle booming of the ice as it shifts), and provides time alone, away from the office to contemplate one’s soul.

The past three afternoons of fishing have been great. Twelve to fourteen inches of ice, crystal clear weather, moonlight to light the way back to shore, and decent action with the fish. Mostly some time to renew and forget about work. It was with that thought in mind that my best friend and Lutheran Pastor, Mike, and I set out this morning to get some exercise, talk, stare down a couple of holes in the ice and will the fish to bite.

It was seven o’clock and still pitch black as we walked out onto the ice, dragging our portable fishing shanty, ice auger, heater, rods, bait, and scotch, behind us. There was a light to medium snow falling which had already laid down a couple of inches on the ice. This made for slippery going, but we had done it before. Landmarks still stood out in the darkness and we found our way to our favorite spot in about twenty minutes, got the shanty set up, drilled holes, got the heater fired up, and settled in to wait for the fish to come. As always we were lulled by the sound of the ice shifting beneath us:

The fish began to bite as it got a little lighter. Mike hauled in the first one: a hog of a perch that promised to be the beginning of a great breakfast later this morning. Mike and I can’t help but get into competition about who catches the first fish and this morning was no exception. He was a-hootin’ and a-hollerin’ as this monster flopped around in the bucket and I started working harder to bring one in. Finally got one. Really heavy, pulled hard. Got it up to the hole and saw it was a big pickerel, a "lake snake" to the locals, a fish with a good fight and good size, but not worth the minnow you caught it on. Fortunately, it spit the hook as it nosed up through the hole and I was relieved of the nuisance of trying to hold it down, unhook it, and throw it back. I re-baited my hook and sent another minnow down to the depths. Moments later I had another hit and hauled in a perch that couldn’t have been much bigger than my finger, but it put up a hell of a fight. (Ahh, the exuberance of youth). Mike couldn’t stop laughing when I pulled it up through the hole in the ice and he pointed to his fish and said,

"My fish," then pointed to mine and said,

"Your fish."

"My fish, your fish, my fish, your fish."

Got it off the hook and back into the water as fast as I could. We spent the next few minutes ragging each other, laughing our asses off and didn’t even notice the sun come up.

"What was that?" Mike asked.

"What was what?" I replied.

"Looks like the wind is picking up a little now that the sun is up," I said knowledgeably.

"And the snow’s coming down sideways, too." Mike observed through the window of the shanty.

"Uh,huh," I said as nonchalantly as possible, still concentrating on the hole in the ice, but with a suspicious eye toward the window.

We decided to continue to fish in the "freshening" breeze and clearing skies. It wasn’t long before we regretted our decision.

We heard it coming long before it hit us; A freight train bearing down on us, tied to the tracks and nowhere to go. (Cut now to a tight shot of Wiley Coyote’s face as he realizes there’s a train coming out of that tunnel he just painted on the side of the cliff.) When it hit, it lifted our shanty and 450 pounds of men of the cloth up off the ice like so much scrap paper and set us down a foot from the holes that mere seconds before had been conveniently inside the shanty with us.

"That’s it, we’re outta here!" we both said to noone in particular.

By this time the wind had blown up to a full gale. We opened the door of the shanty and the snow which had been so gently laid down earlier was hitting us in the face like razor blades.  The wind cleared buckets and anything else that wasn’t tied down out onto the ice and down the lake with no hope of rescue. The shanty was all over the place as we tried desperately to get it collapsed and back into its sled mode. With all our strength, we got the stuff that was left packed up and strapped on the sled/shanty and headed back to the beach and respite from the wind, which was now gusting to over thirty miles and hour and was bringing the wind-chill close to -20.

We started walking, hard into the wind, in the direction from whence we came. Forget about our tracks coming out: they’d been erased by the wind after the first gust. Forget about the fact that the landmarks were barely visible through the driving snow. Hell, we knew this part of the lake. We’d fished here on the ice so many times before. So we forged ahead, Mike occasionally turning and asking,

"Where the hell are we?"

I didn’t reply. I was too busy trying to make out the landmarks. But somehow, I knew where we were and all would be revealed when we got back to shore. We kept walking, heading toward what looked like the home of the parishioner from which we embark on these frigid expeditions. Mike continued to turn and ask,

"Where the hell are we?"

and I continued to head for the house that kept winking in and out of sight through the blizzard. When we finally reached shore about fifteen minutes later, I surveyed the area, waved at Mike and said,

"Where the hell are we?"

We trudged on up through the woods and into the front yards of closed-up summer homes we had never seen before. We gave up on the idea of being cut off from the world and I reached in my pocket for my cell phone and called Diane, another of my parishioners who lives close to where we had started.

"Where the hell are we?" I asked.

From the land marks I described, she had no idea. I said we’d look around and call back later. We found an unplowed road and followed it out to the main road which we finally recognized and realized we had missed the cove we had come out of and had walked completely around the point and over to the adjacent cove, not far from where we started as the crow flew, but nearly two miles walking from where we were. I called Diane back, told her where we were and she headed out to find us. She showed up a few minutes later and greeted us,

"You idiots!" she giggled, "Would it be too much to pray for two ministers to have a brain?" We allowed as how it wouldn’t be and would begin as soon as we got back to our car and got it, and us, warmed up, thank you.

"Five minutes more and I would have been on my way to town for Bridge Club," she said. "I’m late now, but I called ahead and told the girls I’d be there shortly." Mike and I exchanged glances. The whole town would know about this escapade before lunch. Ah well. Such is life in rural Americana.

Suffice it to say, my wife had a huge breakfast waiting for us (bless her), Mike went home afterward, I took a hot shower and pondered the spiritual aspects of our encounter with forces much larger than we. All I came up with was "Thank God we made it." That about says it all.

Oh, and not completely cutting oneself off from the world when seeking solitude. The cell phone saved our idiot asses.