Song of the Loon

day 6 of unemployment: rent a canoe, listen to a song, play a game of checkers.

I was relieved to return the canoe. for one week I tied it to the rack of the car with a set of ratchet straps. Invariably it would slide around chaotically whilst driving. sitting behind the steering wheel, I nervously watched the bow of the boat through the windshield swing left or right whenever the car hit a strong gust of wind. i prayed to the canoe gods (successfully) for my canoe to stay on top of my car. I rented the canoe for the last week of our stay. unfortunately, unlike the first 2 weeks which were clear and sunny, we encountered many foggy and misty days during our last week.

It’s strange and i guess a little dangerous to embark on a journey on a lake or pond cloaked in fog. no one was on the pond except for us.  if anyone were there to witness us, we may have appeared to be a hardcore nature loving family, but in reality, the push for the family canoe trips in foggy conditions was my miserliness. once i commit cash for a canoe, i feel i have to use it no matter the weather conditions. indeed, with the one week rental, i forced the family to see we saw acadia from the water perspective on jordan pond, somes pond, long pond, echo lake, north east creek, and eagle lake.

At eagle lake, in thick fog, we heard a loon's haunting call echo through the valley. Sitting in the middle of the lake, we put our paddles in and looked off into the distance. as the boat creaked and the water lapped against the side of the boat we heard the loon's mysterious call repeatedly fill the valley. We never saw the loon that day.

it wasn't until the following day, through the fog at Jordan pond, that we saw the birds responsible for the haunting calls and tremolo sounds. they were small in stature compared to the expansiveness of their sound (kind of like the female singers of abba who only stand 5'-8"). with no destination in mind since we couldn't see the mountains that ring the pond, we followed the loons aimlessly for a couple hours. they surfaced, we listened to them making their calls, they dived, we paddled to where we thought they would surface, inevitably miscalculating their trajectory.  i thought of how thoreau played 'checkers' with loons on Walden Pond 175 years ago.

"I pursued with a paddle and he dived, but when he came up I was nearer than before. He dived again, but I miscalculated the direction he would take, and we were fifty rods apart when he came to the surface this time, for I had helped to widen the interval; and again he laughed long and loud, and with more reason than before. He maneuvered so cunningly that I could not get within half a dozen rods of him. Each time, when he came to the surface, turning his head this way and that, he cooly surveyed the water and the land, and apparently chose his course so that he might come up where there was the widest expanse of water and at the greatest distance from the boat. It was surprising how quickly he made up his mind and put his resolve into execution. He led me at once to the widest part of the pond, and could not be driven from it. While he was thinking one thing in his brain, I was endeavoring to divine his thought in mine. It was a pretty game, played on the smooth surface of the pond, a man against a loon. Suddenly your adversary's checker disappears beneath the board, and the problem is to place yours nearest to where his will appear again. Sometimes he would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, having apparently passed directly under the boat. So long-winded was he and so unweariable, that when he had swum farthest he would immediately plunge again, nevertheless; and then no wit could divine where in the deep pond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a fish, for he had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in its deepest part. It is said that loons have been caught in the New York lakes eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout -- though Walden is deeper than that." 

By canoe, we were able to see the loon rather close up. i was surprised to see its eyes were red, as the rest of its body was black and white. its black neck is ringed with white vertical stripes. during the breeding season, the black back of loon is "checker boarded" with a regular pattern of white spots, contrasting sharply with its white underbelly. This checkerboard pattern is similar to light reflecting off water and enables the loons to camouflage themselves from overhead predators.

it's hard to imagine there was a time when loons were hunted. before the protective Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918, Native Americans killed loons with bows and arrows, spears,  The loons’ skins were fashioned into medicine pouches, coats, and seat covers. Feathers were used in pillows, blankets, and beds. The beaks were used for arrowheads and awls. European settlers hunted loons too— for its meat, for sport, and because fishermen saw the fish-eating birds as competition. Thoreau lamented that hunters would come by the dozens to eventually drive the loons out of existence at Walden. for my chinese readers out there who eat anything that moves, and are curious what loons taste like, "But whether boiled, broiled, or dried, loon meat did not taste great, according to historical reports." The ornithologist John Audubon called the flesh “tough, rank, and dark-colored.”