Briggs Lake Guestbook

 

Briggs Lake Cottage Guestbook

2/21/21

2330

 

               We are greatly enjoying our stay here at the Briggs Lake Cottage. Our hosts have spared nothing in the ways of comfort and convenience. The full moon, moderate temperature, and the silhouettes of the trumpeting swans above and across that same moon would make this visit unforgettable…save for the fact that something so astonishing happened to us out there on the ice today…so remarkable that I am convinced few human beings have ever experienced such a revelation.

               But first I must include some background. Years ago, in the late 1970’s, I was a Nurses Aide in the nearby town of Milaca’s community hospital. (We preferred “Nurses Aide.” (N.A.) “Orderly” seemed to Jerry Lewis.)

               At any rate, a patient there, an elderly fellow, was speaking of fishing. Many of them did. Somewhere in the narrative he mentioned that he would never again fish Mayhew Lake, a lake in Benton County north of this place.

               When I inquired further, he shrugged it off but did allow that he felt it dangerous for some reason of which he did not care to elaborate upon. Being young and impressionable, I found this intriguing.

               And then another time, another patient, another old-timer, told me, completely unsolicited on my part, that he would never fish Mayhew Lake again. Immediately I enthusiastically asked him why. He became distant, withdrawn – he turned to the window and shrugged. His bright and engaging demeanor replaced by a grimace. He shuddered then. 

                Naturally my interest was accelerated thereafter. I did, on occasion, stop at Mayhew Lake and just look. I sat there in my Pinto and watched. Never once was the surface disturbed by unusual currents, roiling springs or any troublesome phenomena whatsoever. If Mayhew Lake held secrets – she never revealed them to me.

            

                 I have, infrequently, returned to those conservations over the years, and, given more time and life I have wondered if maybe there was something confessional in their revelations to me. Perhaps they just needed an impartial, nonjudgmental party…get it off their chests so to speak. For instance I do not know if they were fearing an ominous future in regards to their medical conditions and therefore felt compelled to speak… before it was too late. This, my long experience has taught me, is not an uncommon behavior in those facing the end.             

               

                And so today…this morning. The four of us were out there, skating in the sun. Even though our hosts here provided us with an ample rink, recent conditions had allowed the snow to melt and then refreeze inviting us to exceed the rink’s boundaries and glide off across the lake mostly unimpeded. And, the ice was nearly transparent, affording us the sensation of flight. As if we were floating in the air.

            Soon we noticed, through the ice, that we could easily view the depths below and, given the clarity and undisturbed nature of the water, fish were easily made apparent. and some of them were large. Perhaps Pike? Maybe carp? We could clearly see their shapes and strangely, even more readily, see their shadows on and across the bottom.

Now what I am to describe next is, as I have alluded to already, singular. I, too, have gratitude for the fact that all FOUR of us witnessed this manifestation. If it had only been one - well, perhaps he or she could be forgiven for keeping it – let he be thought mad by the rest. And two? Well, that claim would surely most certainly be met with ridicule. But four? That does not accommodate any of us to question our own faculties, or sanity for that matter.

The entire incident could’ve lasted no more that fifteen seconds. – surely not longer than twenty. And as with any startling event, each of us, the witnesses, were resulted with differing perceptions, impressions and conclusions as to what we had borne witness to out there on the ice.

So this evening we assembled, at this very table, to distill our separate realities – a post-incident debrief so to speak. Now to the precipitate of that review – and although there were some disagreements, sometimes sharp, what follows is a reasonable accounting of our experience on Briggs Lake earlier today.

 

As I said before we were out skating in the sun. We had just made note of those fishes below when suddenly, and without warning, bearing down upon us, from the northeast, there came, under the ice at a great velocity, an immense shadow.     

Surprisingly we all saw this at the same exact instant, nobody needed shout “LOOK!”

It was then there passed below our feet a most miraculous creature that will certainly surpass my puny powers of description.

But I will try.

Here will follow a brief head to tail description of the creature:

Its head was about this size of, perhaps, a picnic cooler and shaped like a missile. Eyes forward. Clearly a hunter. The entire thing, it seemed to us, gave the impression of a bird rather than fish or reptile, not least because there extended forward a long cutlass of a beak, pale ivory, or slightly yellow in color. We feel there was an aperture at the nape which was employed when skimming along the undersurface of the ice to consume the oxygen trapped under there as a result of wintertime plant photosynthesis. The water-swept head was suspended upon a long and elegant neck which arced the head to and fro gracefully. The large body followed and was teardrop in shape and from alongside there sprouted not fins, or flippers, but rather vestigial (or nascent?) wings. It employed these with impressive alacrity to the ends of navigation, course adjustment. Then after followed a huge powerful fan-shaped tail which could produce incredible thrust and, likewise, braking.

The entirety of the beast was not adorned with a solitary feather or scale but, rather, was sealed in a black, or dark navy blue, seamless hide. Overall we figured its entire length to be slightly longer than a GM Suburban or a large modern-day pick-up truck.

In an instant we were off and giving chase. It moved with a studied deliberateness, but it also performed with a grace and dignity not expected given the size of the thing, its swift undulating motions defying its apparent mass. Overall the entirety the entirety of the thing was very essence of hydrodynamic streamlining.

Understandably we could not keep pace. Soon we approached an area of crusty snow that impeded our forward progress. But just prior to passing from our sight, we saw it impale one of those big fishes I spoke of earlier, pinioning on its rapier bill.

And there we stood watching its shadow against the snow diminishing, fading, and finally, disappearing entirely.

 

Now to return to those fishermen and their shared revulsion for Mayhew Lake.

Not less than 10 years ago we went one night to a roadhouse in nearby hamlet of Santiago. We were dancing to the Lamont Cranston Blues Band there when, between sets, I wandered over to a bulletin board affair on the wall. Glassed in, it contained clippings, some colorful, some quaint, garnered from a long defunct local country newspaper.

Suddenly my attention was fixed upon two words: MAYHEW LAKE. The article reported that a man’s severed arm had been found at nearby Lake Julia. This was in 1936 or thereabouts. The story continued noting that the arm had before belonged to an unfortunate ice fisherman who had recently perished when he had plunged though the ice one early spring day while in pursuit of “Crappies that were really biting that day.” Through the ice on Mayhew Lake!

The arm had been identified by the remnants of his shirt and his wristwatch which, remarkably had stopped running “At about the same time his fishing companions saw him go under for the last time. About 3:30 in the afternoon.”

Local authorities were still trying to locate the rest of his remains. Naturally the fact that his arm was so far removed from Mayhew Lake was the cause of much speculation. A local game warden had fairly put that concern to rest when he had opined that the arm was probably delivered to Lake Julia by an eagle or other large raptor.

I found that explanation dubious and lacking in the rationalization for how the extremity had been severed in the first place but, maybe it was thought that an eagle could do that too.

These events reverberated here in my mind tonight along with another, perhaps related realization.

Within the last year or two, while idly perusing the web, I came upon some research done in 1966 by the institute for Great Lakes Research, now part of the EPA. It is located in Duluth MN where we now reside.            

At any rate, what caught me eye was a monograph by Adkins et al regarding some basic readings done on a selection of anomalous lakes in the upper Midwest – curious lakes that have very little similarity to those predominating nearby.

One of those grouped into the study was the cluster of tiny – surface area wise – “pothole” lakes just to the west of Lake Mille Lacs. Southwest of Garrison to be more precise.

This piqued my interest because my grandfather, fifty or more years ago, would icefish on those very same “potholes,” as he called them too. He mentioned that they were “Bottomless.”

The paper confirmed the same: Lakes of little surface area but of considerable volume due to incredible depth.

The research also recorded scientific measurements of temperature, clarity, pH, and other numerous details.

However, and this may be germane to today’s event, the author hinted as worthy of further consideration/investigation, the fact that they had noted unexpected currents and wide temperature deviations, and strange tidal effects which, just as a cast-off observation, might suggest deep subterranean communication between the bodies.

Now couple that with the fact that in Santiago that night there was another article from the same extinct newspaper, dated the early 1950’s, describing the discovery, by some children at play – on the shores of Briggs Lake no less - of an old boot which had entombed therein the skeletal remains of a human foot, ankle, etc.

This story included wild speculation upon the source of these remains. Apparently the editors had forgotten their own story of 20 years prior, that of the fisherman’s severed arm…at least at the time of the publishing the above.

But someone had speculated upon the link though, since there was drawn, with a red marker, a two-headed arrow linking the clippings. There also was a large red question mark above that arrow.

And there is a figurative bright red question mark over this story I am penning here late tonight. Is there an extensive network of underground waterways frequented by the creature we saw today?

What had those fishermen witnessed on Mayhew Lake?

                                            

Like I said, we are having a fine time here at Briggs Lake Cottage.

                                                                                                         -Jeff Smith