Robertson - Peregrinus Orior

It was cold! Tom lay in his sleeping bag with just his head poking out as he opened his eyes. Even inside the tent he could see his breath. He knew it would be colder still outside the tent, with quite probably a thin skim of ice along the shoreline of the pristine mountain lake that lay just feet away.

He quietly slipped out of the warmth of the bag and into his clothes, being careful not to awaken the eleven-year-old boy whose tousled head slept on beside him. This was quite a feat as Arthur had snuggled up tight during the night, trying to capture a few degrees of warmth from his dad, which reminded Tom of Trish, the boys mother.

Tom extracted himself from the tiny two-person tent and briefly surveyed the splendor of his surroundings: the cobalt blue of the lake, still as glass except for faint ripples from a pair of loons gliding along the far shore; the craggy mountains climbing high above him to the southeast, still snow covered almost down to the level of the lake.

Although it was only five in the morning, there was already ample light outside. That was one of the things he loved about this part of the world in spring and summer, with long days starting early in the morning and lasting until almost midnight. Tom loved the peacefulness of the early morning, especially when, as with this weekend, he could hike up into the upper bowls and ridges and enjoy the sunrise from near the top of the world.

Yes, Tom thought, there were a great many things he had to be thankful for. He was making a good living as an electrician in Golden, which, together with Trishs income as a part-time nurse at the local clinic, gave them all they needed with a decent amount left over for savings. They had three great kids, Arthur and his two younger sisters, Susan and Sigrid.

Golden was a quiet little town nestled in the Canadian Rockies, well connected to the outside world by the Trans-Canada highway and the Canadian National Railway, but providing Tom with almost instant access to thousands of square miles of mountain wilderness with all the skiing, hiking, fishing and hunting one could ever want. In addition to a comfortable home in town they had a tiny cabin on a small lake they shared with a few others on the benchland, plus the high camp at Shadow Lake, a six-mile hike three thousand feet above the cabin. Shadow Lake and its surroundings were crown land open to anyone, but, with no established access trail, Tom had never seen another soul there and felt like it was his own private temple.

He and Trish regularly attended St. Pauls, the local Anglican church. Though not dogmatic, they both believed in a power and a plan behind the creation of the universe, and a creator whose prime commandments called for love between all people. So, it was quite natural for Tom, as he stood in the frigid mountain air beside the serene yet icy lake, to raise a brief prayer of thanks to God and to seek a blessing on and the safekeeping of his young family.

As he finished his prayer, Tom caught a small movement out of the corner of his eye, a few feet away from the tent. A massive shaggy form rose from the ground with a gaping mouth big enough to crush a mans leg.

Hello, Beast, said Tom, breaking the mornings silence as the 150-pound, two-year-old Tibetan Mastiff stretched and ambled over for a pat. Beast was quite comfortable sleeping in the open at thirty degrees Fahrenheit, which was one of the reasons Tom had chosen a dog from that uncommon breed as his familys companion and protector. While Tom regularly sought Gods safekeeping for his family, he also believed that he himself was Gods first line of defense, and Beast was a key member of the family and a partner in that responsibility. In times to come Tom would be all the more thankful for his choice.

Tom knelt beside the ring of fire stones, which, besides the built-up bed of sandy earth on which his tent stood and a tiny biffy fifty yards upslope, were the only permanent signs of human habitation that would be apparent to a casual observer of the lakeshore. Everything else Tom and Art needed for their weekend of fishing they had carried in the four rugged miles from where they had left the family GMC Suburban and would carry back out. The route was not an established trail but rather a series of headings and distances laid out many years ago by Tom across the contours of a 50,000 to 1 topographical map, but long since committed to memory.

A few breaths brought the embers from last nights fire back to a steady glow. Tom grabbed the kindling, which Art had been tasked to collect first thing on arrival in camp last evening, from underneath the light tarp that kept it dry from rain and dew. Soon the fire was a small blaze and Tom had a pot of tea water warming and a half dozen strips of bacon sizzling.

He called to the tent Time to rise. Breakfasts on, knowing that food was the only way to entice the eleven-year-old from the warmth of his sleeping bag.

Art sleepily responded, What is for breakfast Dad?

Bacon and bushcakes.

Art perked up. Bushcakes. My favorite, he chirped.

Bushcakes were really nothing more than pancakes cooked in a little hot oil in a frying pan over an open fire. The surface of the cakes tended to get slightly crispy from the deep-frying effect of the hot oil if it was allowed to get a little too hot a regular outcome when cooking over an open fire. Tom had achieved the bushcake effect unintentionally some years ago on a family camping trip. When Trish had playfully commented that she had never had crispy pancakes before, Tom had defended his campfire cooking by stating that he was cooking bushcakes, not pancakes. Bushcakes had been a favorite of all the kids ever since.

Art emerged from the tent moments later, still in his pajamas. Dad, its so cold out, he said as he sat as close to the fire as he could without getting right into it. Can you build the fire up bigger please, much bigger? Im freezing.

Tom untied his own hooded sweatshirt from his waist and put it on the boy. It came down nearly to his knees. I cant build the fire up while Im cooking, he said, but that should keep you a little warmer. He had to agree with Art though, it was darn cold. Cold was to be expected at this time of year, latitude and altitude, but this was a little colder even than normal. On the other hand, it had generally been a warm winter, rarely colder than zero degrees Fahrenheit at town level, and occasionally above freezing. For that matter, it seemed to Tom that the winters had all tended to be warmer of late. It seemed like the minus-twenty-degree-Fahrenheit January temperatures he recalled from his youth were pretty rare these days.

Global warming was supposed to have added less than a degree to the worlds average temperature in his thirty-threeyear life, but it seemed more noticeable than that around here. Tom hoped that all the multilateral programs to put a limit on global warming were going to work, even if they were making a lot of things more expensive, especially fuel and power. As he looked up at the lip of the large glacier that cloaked the upper bowl to the east and fed the lake, he hoped it would still be a thing of grandeur when Art grew old enough to bring his own son here.

As he set the bacon aside to stay warm in a small pan and poured the first dollop of batter into another hot pan, he said, In another quarter hour the Sun is going to start to peek up above that notch between the mountains, pointing to the southeast, then it will start to warm up and well get our rods out and catch some trout for lunch.