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than what I was leaving. I didn’t even know what the full
name, Auberge Ciel Chasse et Peche, meant. By the end of the first
summer I’d already moved from kitchen to outdoor work, and when the
hunters arrived in the fall they didn’t bother me much at all. I
was just so happy being there. Lost in the remoteness and beauty of
the place, I noticed nothing else.
    In those early days I immersed myself in
solitude and hard physical work as much as possible. At night I
stayed in my room reading. On my days off I hiked in the forest
with Garou or canoed remote parts of the lake. It wasn’t until the
next year, when the steady, healthy routine of lodge life began to
heal me, and Jay came back into my life, that I started to think
about what the hunters actually did.
    Then I began to observe and think about
things like the bearskin rug on the hearth and the chairs with arms
made from antlers. Like the scruffy stuffed moose head over the
fireplace in the main lounge, whose glassy eyes now always seemed
to be watching me. Accusing me. By the next fall I could no longer
ignore the blatant contradiction between my idealized vision of the
lodge as my own peaceful retreat and what it really was.
    Chasse et Peche. Hunting and Fishing.
    It was hypocritical perhaps, but I found I
could tolerate the guys who came in the summer to fish. Usually
they brought their wives and kids and stayed in one of the cabins,
just having a family holiday. We had a swimming raft and a
pedal-boat, a wooden lawn swing and a horseshoe pitch, and when
there were lots of kids playing around the grounds everything
seemed okay.
    But come fall the hunters made me want to
vomit with their apparently primal need to kill. They destroyed all
wildlife – moose, deer, bears and anything that flew – just for
fun.
    They were murderers!
    Whenever I saw them, so conspicuous in their
florescent orange jackets and vests and caps over their camouflage
clothes, I was reduced to powerless fury. They looked so unnatural,
so ugly, so evil. And the sound of their shots exploding the skies,
shattering the silence of dawn and dusk, again and again and again,
day after day after day, was unbearable.
    I know I was guilty of stereotyping the
hunters. They couldn’t all be bad. At least a few must have been
quite ordinary people, living dull, harmless lives the rest of the
year. But so many were so despicable they obscured the rest. My
hatred was total and toxic.
    I couldn’t face another season. Just thinking
about it made me crazy, made it impossible to think sensibly about
Nick’s offer. As impossible as it would be to shoot a deer myself.
I realized I was rocking the old pine chair with violence, gripping
the arms so hard my fingers hurt.
    I decided to go for a swim to calm down. I
changed and headed for the waterfront with Garou racing ahead. I
passed the guests’ swimming area, the only sandy beach on the whole
lake, and at the far end climbed an outcrop of gray rock. Its
surface was still warm from the afternoon sun, the pale green
lichen both soft and rough on my bare feet.
    When the lodge was out of sight I stopped by
a lone ragged pine which clung to cracks in the rock with thick,
gnarled roots. Then I stood looking out over Lac Poisson-du-Ciel
and the high wild hills all around.
    I knew this place as intimately as my own
body. I’d explored it on foot and by canoe, leisurely discovering
its timeless secrets. I knew which hidden meadows offered the best
raspberries and blackberries, which islands were carpeted with
blueberries. I knew where wildflowers bloomed in the woods, and
where marshes hid blue flag irises and pink lady’s slippers. I knew
which streams lead to ferny waterfalls, which paths were
portagable. I knew where deer and rabbits grazed, where turtles
basked, in which secluded bays loons nested.
    I knew and loved it all so much I wanted to
dig in and cling on for dear life, like the pine on the rock behind
me. A slight breeze ruffled the forested hills