comedy and tragedy

The point of this blog is to share a small bit of our lives living here in a northern town and sharing our adventures and thoughts as we discover more about what living here entails. This weekend was a bittersweet mix of such a life.
On Saturday The Man and I decided to go for a casual stroll on the trail around the lake just behind our apartment. It's a lovely walk that includes a boardwalk winding through wooded thickets, a bridge across a creek that feeds into a nearby river, lovely views of the lake and waterfowl feeding in the shallows, climbs up wooden staircases to an overlook of the lake and view of the town, chances to munch on wild cranberries, blueberries, currants and rosehips and simply, an enjoyment of all that a walk in the woods should offer. Although it is close to town, portions of the trail feel as though they might be miles away and provide a nice solitary respite from living in a population centre.
Sometimes we've brought our cameras and binoculars and have snapped many photos (yet to be developed, sorry) of plants and animals we've enjoyed seeing but for this walk we left it all behind, ensuring of course, that we would see something we'd wished we had the binoculars or camera for.
Not 5 minutes down the trail, after pausing to watch a small flock of LBJs (little brown jobs, or small, unidentifiable brown birds -especially so sans binoculars) flit through the alders and from the upper branches of one spruce tree to another, we were distracted by the sounds of something falling through the foliage. The Man looked up, and expecting to see a red squirrel throwing down spruce cones for later storage and munching, said as plainly as if he was pointing out mail in a mailbox, "It's a bald eagle." Following his gaze I looked up to see the adult eagle calmly peering down at us from a spruce bough not 30ft away. And of course, we didn't have a camera! Amusingly, what we had heard was the bird defacating and the glop falling and splatting on the foliage below. (Thankfully, not on us.) It was a good thing though, for we likely wouldn't have noticed the eagle otherwise.
The bird watched us for a moment or two until I slowly removed my sunglasses for a better look. That must have been enough attention for the bird, who then turned slowly and swooped down over and across the lake, suprising a small group of ducks who quacked and skittered for cover as the eagle passed over.
After this lovely sighting the walk was going to be memorable enough but it was truncated unexpectedly around the next bend in the trail when we discovered a portion of the boardwalk had been set on fire and was still smoldering. While The Man began digging up the burning boards and peat, assisted momentarily by 500ml of water from a passing cyclist's water bottle, I returned to our apartment for a bucket and a hammer. While I was gone, the cyclist helpfully refilled his bottle from the lake but as 500ml at a time wasn't going to do much for the effort, he continued on his way after a few friendly words.
I hauled 4 or 5 buckets of water up from the lake and The Man dug up the fire pit and ripped out a few more boards to expose the bits of fire slowly snaking under the boardwalk and into the burning peat. Within about 30 minutes the fire was completely out and the area was sufficiently soaked and muddy, as were we unfortunately. We walked back up the hill to our apartment and rewarded ourselves with bowls of chocolate ice cream.
The Man made a phone call to the town office to let them know about the fire, but as it was the weekend, there was no answer and as the fire was out, he decided to wait until this morning to let them know there would be some repairs needed for that section of the trail.

Yesterday afternoon we learned that the fire we put out may have been one of a few drunken stops by a group of youth that ended tragically in a drowning down by the town dock shortly before we'd left for our walk. We had heard sirens shortly before we left but didn't know what they were in response to. On previous walks on the trail around the lake we've seen evidence of past fires, all within a short stretch that is easily accessed from a cutline leading down to the trail from a single street on one side of the lake (the street that runs past our apartment). We've seen trees hacked at for their bark or branches, ashes and half burned branches and scattered beer cans and bottles nearby on the trail. On one occasion midday, I passed a couple too drunk to stand or speak clearly but determined to finish their bottle and mumble to each other as they lay in a thicket along the trail.
We've not heard more about the drowning other than that the group of youth that had been drinking decided to go for a swim and a young woman began having trouble. Two of her friends tried to pull her up and out onto a barge moored at the dock but she sank under and they somehow lost hold. As of yesterday her body still hadn't been found.

Tragedies like these are of course, not unique to small northern towns, but it is in small centres that such events are likely to somehow connect, however directly or indirectly, to more of the residents, whether through direct involvement, relationship or as in our case, perhaps simply through other indirect consequences influencing perfect strangers.
Likewise, seeing people drunk on the street, or passed out in the bushes, is simply more likely when the living centre is small and activity concentrated to one main street or a few park trails, for instance, as compared to large cities where similar events occur, but the average citizen won't encounter them directly.

This morning I have seen a fire engine and a few police vehicles pass by as they drive down our town's main street. I hope that they have recovered the body. I don't know the woman that drowned, nor her friends and family that are undoubtably suffering the pain and loss of such a horrible event and I am saddened to think of their hurt.
This morning the LBJs are also flitting among the sunlight and shadows of the birch trees just outside my window and the rising sun is gaining strength and breaking up the fog that covered the hills and lake this morning. Behind the birds and past the trees on the other side of the main street I also I have a small view of a hill leading away from town and the scattered birch and poplar trees are bright yellow among the spruce. The wind breezing past my window is fresh and cold in contrast to the warm sun on the trees. Life is bittersweet sometimes.