Dick's Hideaway

Dick MacKenzie - www.dickshideaway.com

Letters from Marilyn

Yesterday an email from a special friend in British Columbia popped into my box. It was so unexpected – Marilyn and I haven’t talked for a couple years – and so warm and touching on a cold, rainy day at camp that I wrote back and asked Marilyn if I might share it with friends.
Marilyn found me somewhere on the Internet a few years ago and got in touch because she had spent a few pre-teen and teen years in Sioux Lookout back in the 1950s, and of special interest were her remembrances of summers spent at the family cabin on Pelican Lake, not awful far from where Mary and I have our cabin today.
Over the years we have exchanged many thoughts and compared notes and talked of friends and acquaintances we share. If I remember right, Marilyn has a long-standing wish to return to Sioux Lookout for a visit, but hasn’t been here for many years – possibly since the ‘50s. She and I have never met.
In 1978 I stumbled upon a run-down cabin up in the trees while fishing. Curiosity prompted me to put ashore and go take a peek. I found a few odds and ends among the rotting rubble, including some interesting bottles and some household items. I planned to go back one day and scout around, but until Marilyn got in touch a few years ago, I kinda forgot.
Since we’ve been in touch, I have looked and hiked and scouted in various locations that seemed like right where it should be, but have never been able to find that site again. Maybe it was Marilyn’s old cabin. Maybe it wasn’t. From the time her family last used the camp until 1978 was 20 or 25 years. Lots of growth and changes can happen in the wilderness in two decades. And, of course, more than four more decades have come and gone since my 1978 discovery.
Every once in a while I still get the urge to go explore to see if I can find the spot. Maybe one of these times I’ll stumble back to the right place.
Early this morning I took a picture of the sun shining on the trees across the bay from our cabin. We don’t see the actual sun rising from here. It breaks the horizon just east of our view and is obscured by a little hill and the trees of the forest. It’s at such moments that I’m reminded I don’t need to see the sun to know it’s there. I can gaze on its wonders at play across the bay and soon enough it will be overhead. So, this picture is for all of you – but especially for Marilyn in appreciation of her kind thoughts and words.