Elliot Lake The Way I see It.

Do you see it too?

There is a scene in that film 2001, by Stanley Kubrick where a space suited attired and helmeted man looks across the room where his space craft has landed. He looks into another room and sees yet another man eating a meal. Then we see life as from the man eating and of course it is the same face as the man in the spacesuit.

***

Today I had planned to go and see a movie. They show them free at the library here in Elliot Lake and it is I suppose a place for people to socialize. It was Saturday morning and I had got up in time to shower have my breakfast and go there. All went well and I was feeling really good about what could happen. I got to the library, parked and headed to the door.  The library is on the second floor which you take the elevator to get to. But inside the first floor when you first enter is multi-tiered array of plants that climbs up three levels. Although the rest of the building is air-conditioned the entrance panorama is humid with plant life.

I opened the door and went in. And then for some strange reason I left.

What I did instead was visit a plaque that I had seen on the highway, coming into Elliot Lake. Here parking in a rough graveled area, I followed a short path with pesky black flies about that led to a small cairn. I was standing in the exact spot that uranium had first clicked wildly on a Geiger counter. I wondered how much radiation was present looking over the landscape. With pesky black flies about and the thought of radiation, I did not stay long.

I then drove without purpose and found a road that said boat launch ahead. It would be yet another lake access I though and perhaps something I needed to see. It was a paved road for most of the way that took me on a turn to a gravel road. I followed the loose gravel road as it meandering and then to an open open space. Here there was a natural sloped part and a half floating dock to launch from. I parked and wandered off but not too far, but enough to see what was about. There were two lakes with one boat launch. It could have of course been one lake that bent around a stub of land. To find out that I would have had to hike a rough tracked road that off road vehicles had left their evidence of being there.

Instead of a lengthy hike to nowhere I decided to sit this one out. I always have paper with then and hunted for a pen to write with. I found one.

***

I drive and see some lake. I see another then another lake. They all have weedy flowers and stringy weeds that grow out of the waters and dance with the warm breeze. It is warm, but not tropical so not so difficult to handle. There are boat trailers nestled and in deeper the trucks that hauled them. I park close to the water, examine the uneven shoreline. The black-flies are here but most are blown away. A short three section floating dock is there. But then, when you look at the dock, only one section is actually free and floats and bobs and sways when ones walk on it. Across from the dock and were I am parked is another lake, It is gentler there and protected from the movement of air as the water sits almost glass like flat. I also see the remains of the Great Canadian shield; rocks that slip and fall washed by time that gracefully slip into the dark waters.

A small car rolls in, its darkened windows hiding who these people are. They take a swift look about then they are gone, retreating into their air-conditioned realism.

I wonder if they have not seen it.

Have they not seen the way the ripples of water that are brushing against the shoreline. The way the sunlight is reflected and dances like tiny stars blinking and pulsing light. The way young birch trees with their multitude of leaves like tiny pads of colour each leaf bleached and embracing a different green hue.

Another car has traveled in. The occupant a man steps out and looks at me strangely before walking off. He walks first into the trees, and then later I see him looking at the lake. He is thin and gaunt and bent over now and I felt he must have been taller before. Strangely he looks remarkably similar to me. He wears a white wide brimmed hat and loose baggy long sleeve shirt and pants, like I do. He walks with a hiking came.  He does not walk far, but he looks. He looks deep at the water and the trees.

I think he sees what I saw.