Por-taj-able

Por-taj-able

Little Manny Estabon wasn't little all his life. True, he never topped six feet, but that didn't matter: his true height was on the inside.

Manfred, though most didn't know his real name and those who did didn't care, was born and bred in Upper New York State close to the Quebec border. Where the names are Indian but the accent, French.

As a boy, Manny was what the locals called an Adirondack Pack Mule. That is, he carried the packs, knapsacks, and duffel bags from one lake to another for the rich tourists from The City, Albany, Syracuse so they could get a taste of the North during the summer. The boys who earned their college tuitions in this way called the visitors Weekend Warriors long before the term became popular throughout the United States. Manny and his friends became masters of the portage.

But it wasn't the portages that interested the boy: they were simply wildwood avenues to get from one lake to the other. It was the lakes that fascinated him. He said he would walk a hundred miles with a fifty pound pack with tourists harping at every step just to see the lily pads in full blossom in Lake Oskatoosh. Or watch the pollywogs in Mawakoo Creek as they wiggled their way toward the French Canadian border. The creek, stream, river, marsh, muskeg, swamp, pond, lake,theywere the boy's lifeblood.

"Ah, theendof the portage! That glorious, life-filled body of water! To run for it, rip off my pack and sweat-soaked shirt, and uninhibitedly plunge in.That'sheaven."

But Manny wasn't the only one who immersed himself. All the boys wanted to rid their black fly-clinging bodies off, wash the sweat and mosquito dope off, and it cool down. It also quenched their thirst as they lay belly down staring at the duck weed, minnows, and startled crayfish.

To the person who has never been on a canoe trip this behavior may appear savage or even showoff. But to anyone who's been there, he knows that such plunges arenecessary. If it wasn't for the reward at the end of the work, life in the North would be all drudgery with no relief.

What Manny wanted was be a Paddler. These were the boys who took over where the Pack Mules stopped. They were invariably the older boys. They got to sit all day and just paddle the tourists around the lakes and rivers guiding, fishing, pointing out the landmarks and making up stories about their significance. Both Paddler and Mule knew that the city people couldn't tell the difference between fact and fiction so it didn't matter how flamboyant the tales. Manny learned young that the tourists cared mostly about was dodging insects, catching trophy fish, and not working.

During the winter, Manny went to school on the Indian Reservation. Though not a Native American, their school was closest. The non-Reservation bus would have to brave a great distance laden with considerable snow for the single boy at the end of the route. So Superintendents and Principals and various higher-ups met and allowed this one breach in cultural integrity. Dan Estabon, Manny's father, was overjoyed. The only people he worked with were the Oneida. Mother Penny was Full-Blood, and since many of the Pack Mules were from the Reserve, Manny fit in perfectly.

Manny was happy. He spent the winters running trap lines with his friends or fishing through the deep ice for the firm-fleshed Pike and Whitefish that lunkered at the bottom of the northern lakes. He also enjoyed cuddling in his goose down quilt reading. His favorite works were about the pisanos by John Steinbeck. He lovedCannery Row,Tortilla Flat,andSweet Thursday.The others were too philosophical for him, too flooded with social comments. His favorite chapter of all was "The Frog Hunt" inCannery Row."Oh, yes, that'sreal."

When the run-off drew the boys into the Maple groves, Manny and his friends shook off the winter's fat and headed for the Sugar Bush. When the sap poured freely and the smoke whiffed through the clear northern sky, all was the way it was supposed to be. But it was the thaw, the run-off, that mesmerized him. For all that water, that melted snow and transformed ice that had solidified the landscape those many months, poured life and freedom into. It gave him a chance to get back to the lakes, even if it meant portaging.

Manny Estabon grew into a stocky, powerful young man. He went to Syracuse University and excelled in football. As a halfback it wasn't uncommon for him to carry two or three tacklers into the end zone with him. His pack Mule days had served him well. And though never at the Rhodes, Fullbright, or Phi Beta Kappa level, he loved and did well in

literature and especially writing.

"Hey, Manny, they're looking for a columnist for the university paper. Why not give it a shot?"

In time, he wrote a weekly article he called "Portage." Not portage the way the Anglophones pronounce the word carry, but the Frankophone's way: port-taj. The writing experience changed his life.

"Fill it with Indian stories," urged the editor. "And tales of all the rich people you say wouldn't carry a handkerchief while you labored under all their canned food. Flood your column with experiences, Manny."

The young man felt so encouraged that he poured himself into the articles. And so successful were they, he was given a scholarship to the Journalism School, a thing the former Pack Mule never dreamed of.

Manny became a professional writer: he wrote a syndicated column called, "The North in Us All." It proved successful enough that he was able to afford a winter home in Buffalo and a summer place amidst his favorite place, the lake country of Upstate New York.

Because Lake Mericheekook was remote, it meant he had to carry everything to and from the home-made cottage. Meanwhile, the more articles he wrote the more he valued research. This meant lugging his encyclopedia, an unabridged dictionary, reams of paper, and his heavy typewriter three miles into the forest. He simply couldn't get away from his Pack Mule youth. But in time, he had to.

"The tourist-laden por-taj-er was the past," he proclaimed. "Now I'll go modern." He still carried reference materials, but now they consisted of a laptop computer and light software.

"Ah ha!" he said to the waves of his favorite lake. "Who would have thought that by carrying only a few pounds I would have access to two hundred pounds of books!" Manny opened his arms to the loons that stopped laughing before they dove underwater to get away from the crazy plunk-plunk of the keyboard.

One day Jerry White Pine strolled up to Manny's porch. "Hey, whatcha up to? Wanna go fishin?"

"You betcha, Jerry. Just let me finish checking a fact here."

Jerry was one of the writer's favorite people. They had gone to Reservation School together and passed many hours checking winter trap lines and pulling fish through frozen lake holes.

"Fact?" asked the Oneida. "Only fact I need is it cold enough to wear my parka? Maybe, are the fish biting? Sometimes, is there too much snow

to make the walk easy? "You got facts in that iddy-biddy box?" Jerry was smart, downright intelligent; he also liked to kid.

The Oneida stared at the monitor as if it were Lake Mericheekook itself.

"Hey, check this out, Jerry." Manny poked a button. The encyclopedia flashed on the screen. "Now ask me for a fact and I bet I can find it."

"Don't want to know nothing."

"No, I'm serious. Ask me something and I'll find it for you. Go on, ask."

"Okay. Will I catch a Whitefish today?"

"No, I mean afact."

"That is a fact. But if you don't like that, here's another. See if your magic box can find how much the Whitefish will weigh. Good fact, eh?"

While they fished, the journalist would finish an article so he slipped his laptop in his musset bag, picked up his rod, stuffed a pocket-sized bait box in his Levi's, and walked with his friend. Out of habit, they walked around the south end of the lake instead of paddling the canoe.

The men cast their baits off the steep, granite cliff. Jerry sat back and smelled the rich aroma of the pine needles, the intoxicating fumes of the Balm O'Gilead, and the faint musk from the distant beaver pond, while Manny plunked on his laptop.

"Heaven, eh?"

"Yeah. Everything a man could want."

Soon, Jerry's line went taut. "No jerk. Might be that Whitefish. Soft mouth, right? Could lose it."

The Oneida slowly hauled the fish upward. If the fish didn't flop or leap, the steady pull would be enough to land him even though the men stood forty-five feet above the water's surface.

"Deep hole. Good for Whitefish."

"Yes, yes," said Manny. "I get it."

And it was a Whitefish. Jerry White Pine smiled as he used his friend's pocket-sized scales. "let's see. Three and a half pounds. Pretty small. But still, a fact, eh?"

"Yes, Jerry, a small fact, and no, I did not see it on my laptop. Crazy stuff, this White Man's magic box, right? I know you, Jerry."

"Don't have to say nothing. You just said it for me."

Jerry stacked stones to form a fireplace, placed dry pine needles between them with splintered branches, and started the fire. As he was scaling and filleting the fish with his belt-sheathed knife, he fed larger sticks between the granite. The Oneida placed the firm fillets over the

narrow opening when the fire was hot but not too hot. "Rather let it sit for awhile so it won't curl up," said the Indian as if to himself. "But what the hell, I'm hungry."

All the time, Manny Estabon plunked on his computer.

"Whatcha doing, fact man?"

"Writing next week's article."

"What about?"

"Quebec and the Voyageurs."

"I heard about them. What do you know about them?"

"Not much. But the encyclopedia software fills in the gaps."

"Encyclopedia soft ware?" and he looked over his friend's shoulder. He knew about computers. Reservation School had bought half a room full when he was in Grade Twelve. But he didn't know much about recent software or what could be downloaded on hard drives or discs.

Jerry White Pine kept his eyes on the monitor and his nose on the fish.

"Pretty nifty," said Jerry. "All those names, miles, weights, and prices of pelts. Even size of canoes and length of por-tajes all the way from Algonquin to Blackfoot country. Regular magic box. Here, you better eat this before it turns black.

And the two friends, companions since their days as Adirondack Pack Mules, ate the pine-smoked fish.

When Manny had licked his fingers and plunked the last period on his column, he smiled and said, "It's done, thanks to the encyclopedia."

"Okay," said Jerry White Pine. "I won't say it again. Already said it."

"About the computer not being able to tell you that you would catch a Whitefish and how much it'd weigh?"

Jerry nodded.

"Still, you must admit, it's is a hell of a lot easier to carry a magic box in the woods than a whole set of encyclopedias. What if this were a five-mile por-taj, Pack Mule?"