| Return <snip> ALMAGUIN NEWS, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2006 VOL. 120 NO. 9 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR NEWS FROM ALEX THE TURTLE It takes something mighty powerful to stir a hibernating turtle. Especially so for one sleeping in the mud along the cool flats at the bottom of Lake Cecebe. But sure enough, I was awake and not happy about it. Not awake like a human when you jump out of bed in the morning. No, but awake in a special cerebral sense that only we turtles and certain other amphibians are capable of. Billy, the champion bullfrog, was awake too, and I could sense that. Billy is the biggest bullfrog to ever swim the Magnetawan River and he won many jumping championships during his early years as Sam’s pet in a village you humans call, “The Mag”. He has legs and a voice like no other along the river system. We were hibernating in our favourite spot beside the starboard paddle wheel of the steam ship Wenonah II. That steamer went down off Echo Rock over 100 years ago and has lain almost upright on the bottom undisturbed ever since. We like our old steamship, all 62 tons of her, and we are not alone. Scores of other turtles and frogs and clams and crayfish and creepy crawlies sleep in the mud beside the old ship too. But Billy and I are the only ones awake, and for good reason. Something very bad has happened on the surface and by means unknown to humans the news reached us and jolted us clean out of our deep winter sleep. Many city and town people bond with pets representing great varieties of other species. Their numbers must be staggering if the proliferation of veterinary clinics is any indication. In some cities they seem as common as Tim Hortons. But city people seldom relate to wild outdoor creatures in the same way that country folks often do. And few country people befriend turtles in the way that one did with Alex. Alex and Billy both knew in some magical telepathic way that their human friend was hurt and in trouble, big trouble. I first met Richard Thomas as a small boy playing at Brook’s Falls on the South Magnetawan River. In those days I spent my summers at the falls often sleeping in a cave behind the raging curtain of water. Richard knew about the cave too and sometimes ventured in there “hunting wild Indians”. The day Richard stuck his head inside the cave and spied me looking back, well, we each scared each other half to death. It was during that chance encounter that I discovered he could communicate with me telepathically if we made continuous eye contact. I handled the phenomenon as a mature adult turtle, but the sensation initially moved the young farm lad to tears of surprise and fear. From that point forward, however, over a period of 65 years, we would meet along the river in quite serendipitous fashion. I am an extremely old turtle and would often give the lad, who I called “Dickie”, advice on matters of world affairs and other human foibles. This would eventually produce a man of uncommon depth and reason. Our series of regular, but chance encounters was broken only by Dickie’s decision to move up onto the North “Maggie”, as he calls the river. It took me a while to find him but eventually we bumped into each other again and swam regularly in the cool clear pool above the big ox bow on Dickie’s farm. Now an old man with a shock of white hair and matching beard, Dickie usually swims in the Maggie at the end of each work day and I do my best to meet him at a huge smooth boulder along the south bank. There we sit and chat and argue - usually about the peculiar affairs of humans. But today I dare not think of those halcyon
days of summer. Dickie is badly hurt and suffering multiple fractures
from an accident that would have killed an ordinary man. I recall last
summer my shell being battered and bruised during a slide down the Thompson
Rapids on my way to a family reunion in the marshes of Lake Cecebe. Humans
are of such strange design. Bones on the inside with no protective shell
- no wonder they get hurt so easily. And not even a shell to protect the
top of their heads like a common Klingon. But this situation is not a
joking matter, not at all. Bob Miller, |