Stories from Gary Ibsen - Canoeing Dagma on Stanley Lake

Canoeing Dagma on Stanley Lake, Idaho.

I'm Canoeing Daagma in the Early Morning

My ‘yacht’ is a canoe – artfully handcrafted with hardwood ribs and a fiberglass hull for a sleek and steady performance on the water.

For many years, I’ve enjoyed camping and canoeing with Dagma on Stanley Lake in Idaho, not only because this pristine lake is nestled beneath the spectacular Sawtooth mountains, but also because of the quietness and the availability to the resident wildlife. I’ve had the pleasure of slipping next to a beavers’ lodge to hear the squeals of young kits and close enough to be splashed by beaver tails. I’ve been thrilled at sightings of big horned sheep, bald eagles and all manner of migrating water birds.

Not too long ago I wrote this to Dagma:

Just After Serving Coffee to a Waking Dagma

“Once upon a time on a lake, I asked you in the dark of night, from your sleeping place, to 'join me' in the canoe to complete your sleep in the nest of blankets and pillows I made for you.

I pushed the boat into the dark quiet of still water and you returned to sleep, paddled to the center of the lake where nothing could be seen, with only the sound of dripping water from my paddle, cautiously easing each stroke from the sealskin black like a curious fish…moving through the water reverently…head up, shoulders down, invited into the Milky Way, I waited – for dawn.

As first light rolled over my back and into the peaks beyond, I called softly to you in the bow, 'Good Morning Dagma, wake up, I have something for you…a new day.'

I began to back-paddle from my right side so the canoe would be turning in a slow clockwise circle to greet your opening eyes with a kaleidoscope of a swirling sky of stars, pastel colors of high-mountain snow catching dawn, and onyx ribbons of light on the water, like so many snakes leaving home from my watery invasion. Your eyes peeked from the blankets and opened widely like an astonished child. 'Wow!'.

I filled a cup from my thermos and passed it to you on my outstretched paddle, 'Coffee?'

A loon’s haunting call skipped across the surface like a stone."

After Canoeing on the Lake We Fall Asleep in the Hammock

The last time I woke Dagma for another middle of the night cruise it was a cold thirty degrees. “Really Gary,” you whimpered to me in the tent. “It’s cold."

“Take my hand. I’ll tuck you in the boat.” She slept warmly for a couple hours until light. After coffee I had to pee so I pushed to get us back to shore and standing in the canoe was not an option since I didn’t want to risk both of us going in the icy water. Almost ashore, one leg out ready to abandon ship when it was shallow enough, I went in…I mean completely under. I stood up in the water, pulled the boat ashore, helped Dagma out while saying in my shivers, “I’m getting too old for this kind of endurance. Let’s get in the car, turn on the heat and drive into town for breakfast.”

There have been many other times I’ve paddled us during mid-day heat to the marshes on the far side where the slim river of melted snow enters the lake. We would sit in the boat and just listen to the breeze bend the reeds and the chittering of bird calls…or I would read to her…another love song.