Spring and my friend Blackie

I have, for the past 50 or so years, had some luck in predicting when spring is going to occur. I define spring as that point when the frost is leaving the ground and one can smell the mud (and other things that have been frozen all winter). I was told the secret by a man who I have always thought of as Blackie. I don't know if that was really his name or if it is just a name that has become fixed in my memory. As well I have always believed him to be a Mohawk from Kahnawake or as we use to call it - Caughnawaga. But it is so long ago that I sometimes wonder if this was just some romantic fantasy of a boy who spent far too much time dreaming he was a courier du bois living in the forest away from everyone.

I met Blackie at Camp Upward Trail on the shores of Lake Memphremagog in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. I was a lonely 10 or 11 year old kid who was not fitting in very well into the culture of organized camping. I couldn't swim and therefore was not allowed in the canoes, I really didn't like doing crafts and I had no friends in my cabin. Blackie who was a counsellor was my only friend. He spent time with me showing how to tan a rabbit skin and then stretching it over a hoop. Then he let me write a prayer on it. On the day that that hoop got hung in the dining hall I can remember feeling as if I had earned membership in a special kind of club.

Blackie told me a couple of his people's creation stories and he told me how to predict spring. That was over 50 years ago and I have never forgotten that secret or Blackie. For a variety of reasons, some springs I just don't get chance to hear/see the cues. Then spring, when it comes, is as much a surprise to me as anyone else. But there is usually a day when I can say - spring is in six weeks time. More often than not I have been reasonably accurate within a couple of days.

But the weather and all of the animals that respond to its ways, no longer follows the usual patterns. Geese no longer fly far to the south to avoid winter. They just head to the warm waters around the nuclear power plant in Pickering. I heard song birds on Saturday. It was obvious that they too had wintered just a bit south of me. Last spring while there was frost was still in the ground I saw flocks of robins. What they ate is anyone's guess. There certainly were no worms.

But in spite of the changes in the weather patterns - I am predicting that spring will arrive in all of its glory and smells six weeks from yesterday. That is on or about April 14 the frost will be out of the ground and we will smell the mud. It may snow after that, it may get cold for a few days but spring will be here. And at least for one more year I will think of Blackie and be grateful for the stories he told me.

P.S. when I thought about writing the above I assumed it was going to be a minor rant about climate change and our apparent inability to work collectively to deal with it. Instead in turned out to be a bit about a lonely kid and and adult who made life a bit easier for him. Thanks Blackie.