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A January Morning on Paragon Road [by John1987]

I've been trying my hand at putting some of my outdoor experiences into stories. This is a true account of a January morning on Cave Run Lake back in 2015.

I'd appreciate some honest feedback from you folks. I'm hoping to preserve some of these memories in writing, both for my daughter and for others who enjoy the outdoor stories.

Hope you enjoy it!

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It was a bitterly cold morning in the middle of January 2015 when I turned off Highway 519 onto a little road called Paragon. I had several beaver traps to check in the backwaters of Cave Run Lake, and, as far as I was concerned, it was a fine morning to be doing it.

Of course, a fellow can make some mighty poor predictions before breakfast.

Paragon Road winds through the country near where the North Fork meets the lake. I had traveled it plenty of times, but I have learned that familiar places are perfectly capable of surprising you. The woods don't seem to care how many years you've spent in them. Every now and then, they find a new way to remind you that you don't know quite as much as you think.

Snow lay on the ground, frost covered the trees, and a thin layer of ice had formed along the edges of the water. The open stretches looked almost black against all that white. There is a special kind of quiet in the woods on a winter morning. It's the sort of quiet that makes a man forget the cold for a little while and remember why he got out of a warm bed in the first place.

I have always loved that time of day. There's work waiting, but no hurry in the world except the one you put on yourself. I was looking forward to a morning on the trapline, the kind of morning that ordinarily ends with some tired muscles, muddy gear, and a good story or two.

Well, I got the story.

At a pull-off beside the road, I finished the last of my coffee, shut off the truck, and unloaded my Old Town canoe. I could have walked a good portion of the shoreline. The mud was frozen hard, which made walking a good deal easier than it would have been in warmer weather. But my traps were scattered along both banks, and I figured the canoe would save time by letting me cross wherever I needed.

At least, that was the plan.

The ice near shore was thin, perhaps half an inch thick in places. I pushed the canoe against it and watched it break. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I loaded my trapping supplies, settled myself into the canoe, and pushed away from the bank.

I hadn't gone fifteen feet when the morning took a turn.

The ice wasn't giving way quite as I expected. The right side of the canoe began to rise, and I shifted my weight to correct it. Unfortunately, I corrected it a little too enthusiastically. Before I could straighten myself out, the canoe rolled.

One moment I was sitting there thinking about beaver traps. The next, I was under the freezing waters of Cave Run Lake.

I've been cold plenty of times in my life. I've hunted in snow, worked outdoors in miserable weather, and spent enough winter mornings in the woods to know what cold feels like. But having an icy lake close over your head is a different matter altogether. That water stole the breath right out of me before I had the good sense to hold it.

I was only under a few seconds, but those seconds seemed quite sufficient. When I broke the surface, I had no grand thoughts about trapping, the beauty of winter, or the satisfaction of honest work. I had one thought, and it was a simple one: get out of this lake.

Thank the Lord I was close to shore. I swam for the bank, scrambled out, and stood there dripping from head to toe, trying to gather what was left of my thoughts. The shock hadn't worn off, the cold was already working through my clothes, and I was shaking.

Then I got mad.

Not at the lake, or the ice, or the canoe. I was mad at myself. I knew better than to get into that kind of predicament. And as ridiculous as it sounds, one of the first things I did was look around to make sure nobody had seen me do it.

Imagine that. A man has just taken an unexpected swim in an icy lake in January, and he's worried somebody might have witnessed the performance.

Pride is a funny thing. Apparently mine was still in good working order, even if the rest of me wasn't.

It was about then that I looked back toward the water.

My canoe was floating away.

There it went, about twenty feet out and drifting farther, with my trapping supplies along for the ride. I looked up and down the bank for something I could throw out to catch it—anything with enough reach to hook hold of the canoe and drag it back. I couldn't find a thing that would do the job before it got farther away.

I stood there looking at that canoe and considering my options. I had just gotten out of the water, and I knew exactly how unpleasant it was. I had no desire whatsoever to experience it again.

But I didn't care to watch my canoe and traps disappear into the backwaters, either.

In the end, stubbornness settled the argument before good sense had a chance.

I went back in.

For the second time that morning, I was swimming in Cave Run Lake. I caught up with the canoe, recovered my supplies, and worked the whole wet mess back to shore. I emptied the canoe, straightened up my gear, and took stock of the situation.

The canoe was still there. My traps were still there. I was still there, which was beginning to feel like the most important part.

I had lost only two things, I told myself: my warmth and my dignity.

Looking back, there was a third thing I had misplaced, and it was considerably more valuable than the other two. Somewhere between climbing out of the water and chasing after that canoe, I had lost the good sense to call the day finished.

But I had a trapline to check. And in those days, I was not much inclined to leave a job undone simply because it had become uncomfortable. I had made up my mind to run those traps, and I intended to do it.

So I pushed the canoe back into the lake and climbed in again.

Slowly, I might add.

Very slowly.

By then my jeans were already growing stiff, and the cold had settled into my arms and legs. Ashlee had bought me a new Carhartt jacket for Christmas just a few weeks earlier. That jacket had kept some of the water out and held warmth around my chest. I was thankful for it then, and I have thought more than once since about what that Christmas present may have done for me.

My arms and legs were hurting badly, but I could still feel enough warmth through the middle of my body to convince myself that I was all right.

And so I kept going.

For the next two hours, I paddled through those icy backwaters, checking my beaver traps. I never climbed out of the canoe again. Every stroke of the paddle carried me farther down the line, but it didn't make me one bit warmer. My wet jeans stiffened until they were about as cooperative as a pair of fence posts, and the cold kept working deeper into my arms and legs.

What had begun as a peaceful morning in beautiful country had become a contest between the cold and a stubborn man who refused to admit he ought to go home.

At the time, I would have called that determination.

Age has taught me that determination and good judgment are not always the same thing. Sometimes they're not even close relatives.

When I finally paddled back to the pull-off, I discovered just how cold I had become. I tried to climb out of the canoe, but my legs would hardly move. I don't mean they were simply stiff or sore. They would not do what I was asking them to do.

There I sat, within sight of my truck and finally finished with the trapline, unable to get myself out of the canoe like an ordinary human being.

I ended up turning the canoe over and rolling myself onto the bank.

It was not a graceful exit. Then again, grace had abandoned me somewhere around the first swim.

I worked my way up the bank, managed to get my legs underneath me, and finally reached the truck. Somehow I got the canoe and my gear loaded into the bed. I started the engine and turned on the heater, expecting the sort of relief I'd been dreaming about for two hours.

Instead, as feeling began to come back into my skin, it burned. The heat hurt almost as badly as the cold had. I sat there long enough to get myself warmed up a little, then started the drive home along Paragon Road.

There's a gas station about halfway home, and by the time I reached it, one thing had taken up nearly every thought in my head.

Coffee.

Hot coffee.

I didn't want it. I needed it.

I went inside and got one. Now, I won't tell you it was good coffee, because it wasn't. It was downright bad. On an ordinary morning I might have taken a sip and wondered how anybody managed to make coffee taste that way.

But that morning it was hot, and hot was the finest quality a cup of coffee could possess.

I drank it, went back for a refill, and headed on toward home. To this day I can remember how welcome that lousy coffee was. I have had far better cups since, but precious few I appreciated as much.

By the time I got home, I still had one more struggle ahead of me.

I started taking off my wet clothes right there on the front porch. Or perhaps I should say I attempted to take them off. My jeans had frozen so stiff that I practically had to peel them from my legs. My Muck boots were another matter entirely. I finally had to brace against the porch steps and pull to get them started.

It had taken less effort to get the canoe out of the lake than it seemed to take to get those boots off my feet.

My teeth were chattering, my whole body was shaking, and I had reached the point where I wanted nothing more from that day. No traps, no canoe, no adventure. Not even another cup of coffee.

I wanted a warm bed.

I made my way inside, crawled under the covers, and lay there trying to get warm. I don't know that I had ever been so thankful for something as ordinary as a bed. After the morning I'd had, it felt like one of life's finest luxuries.

I can laugh about that day now, and I do. I laugh about looking around for witnesses after dumping my canoe, as though being caught in the act would have been the worst thing that could happen. I laugh about going back into the lake after I'd finally gotten out of it. I laugh about wrestling my jeans and boots off on the porch, and about a cup of terrible coffee that seemed fit for a king.

But beneath the humor is something I have never forgotten.

I was fortunate. More fortunate than I understood at the time.

Had I been a little farther from shore, had the ice been thicker, or had I lost a little more strength, that day might have ended very differently. The hardest part to admit is that I had already reached safety once. After the first swim, I could have gathered myself up and gone home. Even after recovering the canoe, I could have loaded my things and called it a day.

The traps would have waited.

I was the one who couldn't stand to quit.

That's a difficult lesson for a stubborn fellow, because there's nothing wrong with being willing to work hard or finish what you've started. I still believe in both. But there's a time to push on and a time to recognize that the job in front of you isn't worth the risk. I had been given several chances to make the wiser choice that morning, and I ignored every one of them.

I think about that more these days because I'm teaching my teenage daughter, Ren, the things I learned as a boy. My grandfather Johnny taught me about trapping, encouraged me to do the work myself, and gave me memories that have stayed with me all my life. Now I have the privilege of passing those old ways on to her.

I want Ren to know the woods and the water. I want her to learn the patience of a trapline, the excitement of finding a catch, the disappointment of an empty set, and the satisfaction of working through a hard day. I want her to stand in the winter woods with frost hanging from the trees and understand why her dad has always loved being there.

I also want her to have stories of her own. Some of the best lessons in life come from the days that don't go the way we planned. I wouldn't trade every mistake I've made, even if a few of them still make me shake my head.

But there are risks that teach us something, and there are risks that can take away our chance to learn anything at all. That's the difference I want her to understand.

I don't want to remove every hardship from her path. I want her to grow capable, confident, and willing to take on difficult things. I just want her to know that no trap, no animal, no piece of equipment, and no day's plans are worth her life.

That is part of teaching the old ways properly. It isn't just showing her how to set a trap. It's showing her how to come home from running one.

Maybe someday Ren will tell her own children about the January morning her dad decided to go swimming in Cave Run Lake. I expect she'll get a good laugh out of it. I hope she does. I hope she tells them about the canoe, the awful coffee, and the boots that nearly refused to come off.

But I hope she'll remember the reason I told her the story, too.

Life has been good to me. Not every day has been easy, and Lord knows not every decision I've made has been wise. But I've been blessed with a lifetime of memories, people I love, and the opportunity to learn from mistakes that could have cost me dearly. I'm grateful for the lessons my grandfather gave me, and grateful I get to pass them along to Ren.

The older I get, the more I understand that the best part of a day in the woods isn't necessarily what you bring out of them.

Sometimes it is simply the privilege of coming home.

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