ISSUE NO. 3: HIGH SEAS

Earlier in the day the fish were alive and in Michigan, and so were we. I watched you pull them from the lake, throwing them callously into a red bucket. Nearby, there were scores of blueberry bushes scorched from the sun and raspberries growing wild up the narrow dirt path. I put them in a basket, pulled mint, and returned with your family to their cottage. There are rumors of making pie, or even jam. 
In the kitchen, bowls are conjured from cupboards, knives are produced out of drawers. I tie an apron around my waist. I have never prepared a fish before, but I watched videos in anticipation of the event from my bed in Brooklyn. I studied how to gut, then cut them. The videos did not prepare me for the slime of the Pike, how it would slip from my fingers as I knifed along its spine.  
I hold the fish in a dish towel flush against the counter and, careful not to sever the backbone, slice it into two small fillets. I dispose of the heads in a bucket that will be dealt with later. Your cat eyes it, finally interested in what the humans are doing. There are assignments: you dredge, I fry, your father supervises. Hot oil splashes my arm as I lay another piece into the skillet. Everyone has a beer. It is not unlike a Rockwell painting. When we open our bags in the city, it will smell like this dinner.

Before we arrived on Lake Manistique, we waited for hours on the tarmac in New York. Our plane was delayed because of a surprise storm in the Midwest. You received a text from your employer, the daughter of the elderly woman you are a live-in caretaker for, that notified you that you are fired (effective almost immediately.) She planned to hire a new financially vulnerable person, someone she could pay less or not at all. You would no longer have a room or an income and we were about to spend a week without any internet connection. There was not much that could be done from the tarmac. The storm that was delaying our plane had finally let up, we’d already bought the tickets–– we were going.

The first few days, we had seen the inside of the canoe, a million ticks (you swear they were never this bad before,) and fish brushing against our thighs as we stood in the clear, cool lake. It was unnaturally warm here, according to recent memory. In a hammock, you brought out a few guest books dating back at least fifty years with visitors and temperatures, who caught what kind of fish and where. When you were younger, you drew pictures of your cat sleeping in the margins and noted which of your school friends had come out to spend time with you. We saw that there are notably less trout, if any, and increasingly hot weather. The lake water is finally comfortable, your father notes. 
We went to the wildlife refuge, where I saw a Great Blue Heron flying broadly over the wetlands. Wasps were making a large nest in the damp wooden dock, a note was taped up nearby asking guests to stay away from the area. In the future, the state of Michigan does not know how it will respond to rising water levels, their 2013 Habitat Management Plan notes that officials should look into the situation more.

On our last day, we drive with your parents to the Great Lakes Shipwreck museum on Lake Superior. Inside the museum, you pay a fee to view the small room. People with cameras are reminded not to take flash photos. In the room, there are detailed accounts of freighter and passenger ships that were unable to survive storms. These incidents occur because unlike many waters, the Great Lakes have very few natural harbors where a ship may seek refuge during a storm. On Lake Superior alone, there are an estimated 350 shipwrecks, with over 10,000 victims. The Great Lakes are so cold, that the bodies of those victims stay at the bottom of the lake because little bacteria grows in the water. In glass cases, we see that divers have recovered artifacts, like little glass bottles and a bell from a newly discovered wreck.  

When I return to my apartment, I will find forums dedicated to the wrecks. People suspect that with warming waters, the victims of the shipwrecks in Lake Superior will begin to rise to the surface. It’s hard to guess when it will start happening. In the meantime, you start looking for work and take gigs from friends as you find them.   Before we leave the museum, we walk through the gift shop where you are able to commemorate your visit to the site of these well-documented disasters with t-shirts and tree ornaments. It is lucky this is here, I think. Some disasters don’t even get a gift shop. 

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Abbey Little