The Little Lake

When waterlilies on the lakes of America’s northwoods die out in the fall, a little lake, barely more than a pond reveals a secret, a mystery unresolved. Tiny freshwater lakes such as this one can appear on maps as drops of wilderness within growing grids of expanding density. One could wonder why every one of them isn’t already encircled with boat docks, and paddle boats, and houses set just right for the view. But many lakes in America’s northwoods are still pristine, with the appearance of ancient places. This is a story about one little lake in an area where maps still show large sections of green to indicate the predominance of forests and parks. 

There is nothing particularly special about this little lake. It is characteristically full of fish and water lilies in the summer. In the winter, because of its small size, ice fishing lasts longer than on the nearby big lakes.  A shallow shelf creates the lake’s shoreline, and beyond that a boggy edge—almost a perfect bathtub ring around a dark center where the fish go to dive and thrive in the late spring.

But in fall, as the lilies die out, and when the light is right, the remains of six small wooden rowboats appear floating inches below the water’s surface. They are mostly vintage plank boats, lightly built for ease of rowing. Their disintegrating keels have been floating below water for decades. Cradled in pondweed, ten to twenty feet from shore, most of them sit with their bows facing out as if they just slipped away from their owners. Forgotten, they are now under their own power heading toward the deep hole in the middle of the lake. 

150 years ago, this area of the far north was considered timber country where the ancient pines, oaks and ash were so plentiful it seemed they would last forever. But of course, they didn’t. After European-American’s arrived, the forests that had been growing for hundreds of years, didn’t survive as long as the boats those trees became. 

And in just a half century the old forests were gone, and the little lake was encircled by vast open fields of stumps connected by caches of discarded wood. Anything that could not be sawn into boards or fed into towering iron and copper furnaces was left behind. The wood debris was everywhere and eventually caught fire. Then it was fields of dark, impenetrable char that surrounded the little lake; then, millions of red pine seedlings planted by strong young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps. The tree planters had no time for boating. They were busy planting millions of pine trees. 

The planted lands looked like Christmas tree lots with the trees arranged in perfect rows. But as the trees grew, the green returned to the little lake, and all the lakes, large and small, within hundreds of miles. So many trees, that in a few decades, the Northwoods began to reappear. People loved the wooded lands so much that they built cabins, resorts and towns in amongst the growing trees. Some families cut the trees so they could build bigger houses with views of the water. 

It is understood that those who fished this little lake kept its details secret, as much as that is possible in a small town. But even so, one incident with a sinking boat would have been talked about for years. How is it that six got left behind? Perhaps with the abundance of materials, it was easier to take chances and leave a boat, then to drag it out. 

Some of the sunken boats appear on satellite images like underwater drawings. If they were made from the pine plantations’ predecessors—the massive white pines of the old growth forests—the planks would have been dense and strong, and capable of surviving collisions. Now they rest like bones below water in the shadow of the old forest’s replacements—the perfectly planted pines growing tall and skinny, way beyond the height of the telephone poles they were destined to become. Remnants of the once vast tree farms planted in the 1930s still hide the little lake from view, but the trees have been neglected and the plantations divided in ways that make them difficult to log. The trees continue to grow taller and thinner out pacing their value as product. Along with the little lake’s sunken boats, the trees are rotting…and waiting. Waiting for humans to fix them.