Loons in the wilderness

“Crazy is back,” Boon says as we’re loading the heavy old boat that will ferry us and our stuff to the Old Camp. “He’s got a wife too.”

“How do you know it’s Crazy?” I ask.

“Comes when you thump the dock. No other loon does that.” At 87, Boon knows this pond like I know my hands, and not a single loon escapes his notice. Loons define the pond, wild cries and laughter in the wilderness.

Yesterday we kayaked to the lower pond*, a mere hour of hard work away. That pond is remote, but with a look of civilization to the camps. Fresh paint, nice docks, some solar panels and wind generators showing enterprising attempts to civilize the lack of electricity out here. But our pond, the upper one, reeks of wildness. The few camps on the perimeter are old and hidden in the woods, scarcely showing till your kayak is almost on them. Boon’s Old Camp is close to 100 years old now, and the New Camp is past 50. New is relative in this part of the world.

This morning I’m sitting on the steps at seven am in the bright light, steaming coffee in my hand. A loon breaks from the cove to the right and sails across in front of me. Crazy? Perhaps, if loons live long lives. Crazy was tamed by Boon’s sister more than a decade ago. This one cruises across the lake just out from shore, a black frigate in the yellow mist of morning that rises from the pond surface in streamers. I watch him in silence, tamed again by the wilderness.

Later we take the kayaks again and head to the east end of Upper Pond, exploring as we go. Halfway across the pond we find two loons cruising, separated by about 100 yards. We quietly float between them listening to their cries and laughter. Are we being discussed and monitored? We linger between them enjoying their communication echoing off the mountains, till suddenly they dive, and we’re left alone, but with a feeling that we’re still being watched.

We explore all the brooks that feed water into this pond, finding beaver dams at the end of each. Hours later, we head back to the Old Camp, shoulders weary with paddling. As we pull the kayaks onto the dock and turn them over under the huge cedars, the loons cry again, wild and eerie in the total stillness.

Crazy.

*In New England, a lake is called a pond, and a ‘camp’ is what elsewhere would be called a cottage.