By Nathan Freake
My dad loved to fish. I did not, though I never found it boring. I quite enjoyed the slow passage of time and the little snap of a line when a brook trout bit. The problem was that I was allergic to mosquito bites. And, boy, does that ever make for a harsh reality in the summertime growing up in the Big Land.
When I say I was allergic, though, I’m not being totally truthful. It has never actually been proven. I don’t recall ever having been diagnosed per se, but I don’t know if I ever had to be to know for certain. For most of my childhood summers, I would be swarmed by bugs and feel every tickle as they landed on me. Apparently, it has something to do with your blood type, as flies are attracted to certain types more than others, but I’m not sure if that’s just a theory. Either way, I noticed when others weren’t bothered by flies as much as I was. I’d see a mosquito land on someone and wonder how they didn’t feel it the moment it landed. I was hyper aware of their existence, and, as it turns out, they were hyper aware of mine.
Each bite left giant, swollen knots on my skin. My mother kept my hair shorter in the summertime, not to fight the heat, but so my hair wouldn’t stick together from all the bites on my head. At one point, she brought me to the doctor. She often tells the story of the nurse, who, with a look of disgust, lifts my arm with her forefinger and thumb, and, inspecting it hesitantly and reluctantly.
I remember one particular fishing trip along the Kenemich River, east of Northwest River and Happy-Valley Goose Bay, where I went to sleep in the small camp we were staying at to the sound of aimless high-pitched buzzing of mosquitoes in the air. When I woke, the whole right side of my face itched, and my eye was swollen shut. The next day at school, I felt an odd mixture of embarrassment for my swollen face and pride because my teachers couldn’t believe that mosquito bites did that.
You can imagine, then, how little I must have felt along a river, scaring off all the brook trout because of how often I’d be slapping mosquitoes all over my body. My dad, however, could simply stand on a rock and cast for hours on end, unbothered by the zipping flies. To this day, I don’t believe I have ever seen a fly bite on my father. He’d walk away, fish in hand, with a smile on his face, while I’d walk away covered in welts.
Lately, though, I’ve been thinking more about the life lessons that fishing teaches, like patience, resourcefulness, provision and resilience. If you’ve read my stuff before, it’s no surprise that I’ve had this realization at this stage in my life. I tend to feel like I’ve missed the boat on a lot of life’s pleasures. Just a part of getting older, I suppose.
Unfortunately, my fishing skills in the early days didn’t develop much, but I plan to change that around. I’ll never forget those times when there were fresh trout in the pan on the stovetop. It never registered to me then, but those meals were provided by my father’s own hands, and with that, there was a sense of pride that’s hard to explain. For both me as a son, and, I’m sure, him as a father. I think there’s an important lesson there that’s easy to skip by, and for that reason, I intend not to let it slip from the hook.
Over time, I aim to make fishing a more regular hobby. I hope that my children have a better experience with it growing up than I did (and I certainly hope they don’t develop a mosquito allergy). I learned a lot from my dad in those days, watching him cast a line and wait patiently for the line to snap. Even if at the end of the day he came home with nothing, he never got upset. He just packed up and headed home with better hopes for the next trip.
I, trying my best to fend off the flies, made it through, caught fish here and there, but was always left frustrated with the outcome. No matter how many fish I caught, I had a thousand more places to itch for the next week.
Though I guess if I want my boys to learn the life lessons that fishing has to offer, I have to start somewhere. My dad still loves to fish. I am getting there.
