I'd like to share one with you.

     The sound of motors disturbed the frigid, still air as we scurried about Long Lake in our snowmobiles, power drilling holes in a spiderweb of intersecting trails.  There were 10 of us with five ice fishing traps apiece.  That made for a busy time before we dropped first line.  With that many hardwater anglers our smelt bait was kept alive in multi-quart coolers instead of bait pails.

  We were generationally as spread out as our tip-ups, varying from a six-year-old youngster, to a teenager, to the middle-aged parents of both, to a man in his sixties, to a gentleman on the brink of his fourth-score year.  Despite the cold that the solar heat couldn't break down, the sun shone in a cloudless sky glaring off the snow and giving each of us an ice fisherman's face-frontal tan.  As if by some act of providence the landlocked salmon and brook trout played along in nonstop action in an all-day feeding frenzy.  To top it off the fish were big, icing 18-inch brookies and four-and-five pound salmon.

     Whenever a flag signaled a strike the whole entourage zoomed to the hole in a snowsled convoy.  Each of us hovered over the porthole in a group huddle, peering into the depths, anxiously awaiting first sight of the handlined gamefish.  Once the finned fighter was released back into its watery home someone would anxiously look about and yell "Flag!".  Then in a snowmobile version of musical chairs, people would jump for the nearest seat and speed off to the new adventure as if not trying to be the first person to arrive would be a sacrilege.

     One of those anglers was Claude "Babe" Beaulieu, my wife's 64-year-old uncle.  Babe, a big man with a sincere heart, was ice fishing for the first time.  At 17 he had left Aroostook's St. John Valley, joining the army and eventually settling down in Connecticut.  Upon his retirement last year, he and his wife, Lorraine, returned to their Acadian culture after being away for 47 years.  This was Babe's first winter at home, and he was making up for lost time.

     Despite Babe's age he still possessed great physical strength to drill holes through three feet of ice with the skill of a construction worker, which was his vocation.  His natural charisma, adolescent enthusiasm for the sport and softspoken humor filled those pauses between strikes with kindred laughter.  Dressing the part, even Babe's garb spoke of his character.  He reminded me of a Sherpa guide trekking the Himalayas wearing an oversized parka, glare reducing goggles and a sprawling hat that sprouted flaps from all directions made from at least a couple of forbearing animals.

     Although his personality was one that was as happy for you when you caught a lunker as he would be if he did, he really whooped it up when he landed his own four-pound salmon.  We had an ice fishing convert.  As the day waned, group and individual photos were taken reminiscent of a family reunion finale where people fear they may not see distant relatives again.  How prophetic.

     Babe bought his own new snowmobile and ATV after that.  This past summer he was constantly coursing ATV trails, absorbing The Valley he had longed to retire to.  What he didn't know is that while a new life was dawning for him and his wife, he was actually in his twilight.  On October 20th cancer took him from us.  The unused snowmobile sits as vacant as our hearts to his loss.

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