The Christmas Map – Part 1
John Luthens
Like the Christmas ornaments that come out of our storage closet every year, this story always seems to get unpacked with them. It’s a winter’s tale of old that’s never seen the light of print – maybe because I just keep forgetting about it till the holidays roll around, but more likely because I don’t want people thinking I’m a total nutcracker.
Avalanche.
I remember it was somewhere around Christmas – that time of good cheer designed to break the dead winter lull spanning the close of one trout season and next spring’s opener. A trout fisherman buried in Wisconsin winter remembers any good cheer happening his way. Yes, it was definitely the Christmas season when the lost trout map was discovered.
Before that fateful day, back along the fishermen trails of Christmas ghosts long gone by, the map existed only in my mind and I hadn’t even known it was there. My wife tells me there are a lot of things in my mind that are undiscovered. But that’s really here-nor-there regarding the map.
It was a bright, Christmas Eve morning when my family made the fateful seven-hour pilgrimage to a pine-nestled cabin in northern Wisconsin. It’s a wonderful drive at that time of year: The snow piles higher and the air changes, becoming sharper, carrying balsam and spruce fragrance further. My kids were excited, visions of brightly-wrapped packages under a fresh-cut pine dancing in their heads.
There had been a last-minute disagreement, which my daughter soundly won when she contrived, by overwhelming will power, to bring the family cat on our Christmas pilgrimage. Even so, it was only a minor rip in the waders of my holiday spirit.
The cat didn’t seem to understand the true meaning of Christmas. In fact, I don’t think it cared for Christmas at all; staring out the car window, turning up its nose at the fresh balsam scents, morosely lamenting the iced-up rivers and lakes and pouting at the piled snow. I believe the beast may have been even more of a trout fanatic than I.
The cat tried pushing my patience, but I just smiled. A short seven hour jaunt with a grinchly feline was easy. This Christmas was going to be a family reunion, and while the cat was busy clawing its way into my holiday cheer, my brother was busy driving his family to the cabin from Colorado. He had three strong-willed children of his own, and he had been hoodwinked into bringing the family dog.
A fire crackled in a cozy mantle fireplace, and a tinseled tree was nestled in a corner when we arrived. Grandma and grandpa waited with outstretched hands and freshly-baked Christmas-cookie joy for the grandchildren. My brother and I caught up on family gossip, watching out the window as turkey, blue jays and partridge came together in mutual accord to feed under snow-draped pines. There was peace on earth. The lost trout map still lay dormant.
Then, before my first cup of eggnog had cooled, there arose a rumbling clatter as cookie-fueled grandchildren bounced from one end of the cabin to the other. This was old hat to me and my brother. We shot token stern glances and warned the kids that Santa was watching, all the while my brother and I watching, making sure no one made an errant dive into the fireplace.
Even though they’d technically started the cookie-induced drama, the commotion unnerved grandma and grandpa a bit. They were used to their tranquil, northern solitude being disrupted by howling coyotes and timber wolves. And it was well-documented that black bears routinely paraded through the yard to tear the bird feeder from its mooring – but screaming children, well, they can eventually wear the merriest of holiday nerves to a razor edge.
Before I could float the suggestion that the kids go outside and play in the snow, the dog took a stubborn, Colorado stance and chased the Wisconsin cat up the Christmas tree. With howls and piercing cat calls, and with pieces of garland still floating in the rustic cabin air, I suggested to my brother that we go outside and play too.
“Take shovels and a roof rake,” my mom screamed after us as we headed out the door. “There’s two feet of snow on the roof already, and the weather report says more coming tonight.”
I found myself shoveling snow off the cabin roof and sending down avalanches onto the heads of laughing youngsters. My gaze drifted off the roof, and down the steep bank upon which the cabin perches; drifting like fallen snow to the small winding trout stream below. In an instant, all thoughts of dogs, cats, and who’s been naughty or nice drifted away too. There were gasps of air from beneath the tumbling, rooftop snow banks. I don’t even remember what happened to my brother.
It’s a spring creek, clear and frigid, feeding the Bois Brule River about a mile below the cabin. The Bois Brule is a famous river that has beckoned past presidents of the United States to whip its waters with presidential fly rods for brown, brook, and rainbow trout. Trout of stunning proportion have dallied in the Big Brule for generations.
The Little Brule, as the small stream below the cabin is aptly named, is not at all presidential. It wouldn’t even qualify for media credentials at a primary election. It is packed tight in alder brush and second-growth timber slashing. From the first weekend in May to the last weekend in September – the duration of the Wisconsin trout season on most waters – the Little Brule becomes choked by stinging nettle, and its banks support the liveliest population of wood ticks and mosquitoes this side of the equator.
Topping it off, the Little Brule grows a strain of green, underwater weed that sways beneath the water, reminiscent of a mermaid’s hair, and allowing for infinite trout hidey-holes. Like the fabled Sirens, these mermaid-like weeds have lured countless trout fishermen to their doom. At the very least, they’ve lured this fisherman to countless doomed lost flies and hooks. In short, it is a near-impossible trout stream to fish, but it is brook trout water. I can’t seem to get enough of it.
From my rooftop perch, clearing the way for Santa’s sleigh, the idea leapt into the chimney of my mind in a moment of clarity reserved for progressive thinkers or one-track trout minds. The Little Brule’s snow-covered banks and weed-free water were as accessible now as they were ever going to get. If I were to make a map of hidden trout holes along the stream – the ones impossible to see in the summer until you stood on top of them – why, then I could map out exactly how to fish these spots without every trout in the neighborhood knowing I was at their doorstep.
Here was a trout stream. It was not trout season. I was going fishing anyway, not with fishing equipment, but with an idea. Like the anticipated glow when the plug is connected into the outlet, one way or another, in a breathtaking display of pageantry or a shower of ozone-reeking sparks, the Christmas map was about to blossom forth.