Stardust
© Richard  Culpeper


I rode in the front seat of the spaceship.

Someone tailed me down the logging road to Superior at three in the morning. When I arrived at Jarvis Bay, a fellow hopped out of the truck behind me and took a run at me, but stopped short and said, "Oh, your not after the wife."

 "No, I'm after the meteors." The situation was more than a little confusing.

Fortunately, out trotted a cat from under a camper, and it immediately took a liking to me. It was the fellow's cat, and he trusted the cat's judgment, so he relaxed a little, and said that there had been an altercation earlier that night with some hippies, who were down from the inland hills for a swim and some nekkid stuff, and that "the wife" was in the camper.  From the looks of it, earlier in the evening things got a bit out of hand here in the middle of nowhere. I was just glad the cat liked me.

So off I went, about a kilometre down the beach, accompanied by the cat. Oscar the camping cat, the fellow had told me. I laid out my kit, stretched out on the beach, and bundled into my down bag. What a sky! There had been pockets of ground fog on the road in, but a very gentle breeze off the Bay kept my view clear. No light pollution - - just a great wide night sky above me.

Oscar decided to stay with me for the night, sniffing about, occasionally running and pouncing, and occasionally curling up on top of my bag. I breathed in the cedar scent of the groves behind me. The water in the Bay gently lapped on the shore, and high cliffs to the north and to the south were silhouetted by the stars. I could hear wind and breaking waves from the other side of the peninsula to the south. I could hear my breathing, my heartbeat.

And above me were the stars and the meteors, two separate showers at one time. Most flew to my right, some starting with bright flashes, and some with long trails. Some flew to my left, with fewer tails, and usually not as bright. And there were so very many of them.

There I was with a cosmic cat, laying in the front seat of the spaceship, hurtling through space, into and past the stardust. I always enjoy watching ships gradually sink below the horizon as they steam away. It shows me that yes, we live on a globe. And I even more marvel at meteor showers, for they show me that our globe is indeed hurtling through space. We're all on a marvellous ark together.

Come the hour before sunrise, the sky began to show pastels and the meteor show faded. Only a few flashes. A raven cawed from the south, and another answered from the north. Somewhere behind me, far in the distance, some Canada Geese honked.  I packed up my kit, and made my way back down the beach with Oscar. There were quite a few deer tracks, a moose track, a bear track, and a wolf track, and close to the vehicle, what looked to me to be "the wife" track. A pretty busy place for the nose of a spaceship.

The sound of the wind and breakers from the other side of the peninsula had grown as the sky brightened, and patches of low cloud scudded in from that direction, so after spending a few minutes pulling Oscar out of my vehicle, then off of my vehicle, then out of my vehicle again, I set off down the road out to the end of the peninsula, hoping to be able to hike down its south face for a look at the big lake before the mackerel sky brought in rain. My little bay where I had spent the night was very sheltered, but the south side of the peninsula was open to Superior. While winding my way, I thought I glimpsed a pack of dogs chasing me. At first I wondered if I was having cat dreams, but no, there really was a pack of dogs chasing me. They were huskies pulling a fellow on an ATV. I moved into the first clearing available, but the musher shot me a nasty look as his team charged by. My trail head was at the end of his trail. He was such a Grumpy Gus that I wonder if he was involved in the hippie altercation.

There were no paths at the end of the road, so I wandered along the edge of the escarpment until I came across a game trail making its way down. At the base the forest floor was mostly deep moss, with ferns still green, but with a litter of birch leaves. The over story was mainly birch and spruce, lending a spruce tang to the air. Although the forest was dense, finding the lake was no problem - - not with the sound of the breaking surf guiding me. When I broke through to the shore, there was a enough wind to bring a chill, and two to three foot surf breaking on the cobble. Time for the last dip of the season. Eeeeek! Cold! Cold! Cold! Stupid idea! Stupid idea! Stupid idea! A seagull on a boulder laughed at me. An invigorating bushwhack back in to the top of the escarpment, and then back into town for a sauna.

While doing the bake and baste back in town (200F for ten minutes, then cold shower for three minutes, repeat for one and a half hours until marginally conscious and completely relaxed), I again marvelled at how much life there is on our small planet, and how our planet carries us around the life giving warmth of the sun.

And I marvelled at how lucky I was to have had for a night a front row view of it all as the stardust rained down about me.