THE VIR6IN COVE FIASCO
Donatus Aryan Patrick Fulford
The days of our childhood - how we grew up - those memories as we grow older sometimes become fresher in our minds. The spectrum of emotions condensed into such a short period of life on the island as we were growing up are almost bewildering today when I think of how times have changed.
One of the most poignant memories that I reflect on, recall, and repeat every now and then happened when I was about ten or eleven years old.
As a small boy, I remember my father, Bill Fulford, my old buddy Uncle Ferg, and Mike Fulford preparing after Christmas each year to make their trip to the Virgin's Cove. I still remember the flour bags full of homemade bread and other food they would need to sustain them. They usually rowed down from Little Merasheen in the winter time to the Virgin's Cove where they hauled up their dory and brought their supplies to the tilt where they would eat and sleep while they were there.
This tilt was a very rough type of cabin about 8 feet by 10 feet. It had an earth floor covered with boughs, two bunks at one end, a small table, and % of a 45 gallon drum for a stove. Here they would spend their nights and by day they would cut wood, set slips to catch rabbits and trap beavers for their skins. (Me thinks there was sometimes the odd brew behind the stove and a coil of copper wire doing a bit of condensing).
My dream as a small boy was to spend just one night in the tilt. I still remember the longing and regret as the dory shoved off from the beach in Little Merasheen leaving me behind. This regret worsened as my older brother, Kevin, was finally allowed to go, but I was still too young.
The time finally came when I was considered old enough to handle an axe and carry my weight in the woods. With great ceremony, I was told by my father that the next trip I would be taken along. I was to leave on the first weekend when the weather was fine along with my brother Kevin, my father and Uncle Ferg. Finally, I would get to spend a night in our tilt in the Virgin's Cove. OH the anticipation!
I recall finding an old rusted axe and spending many hours cleaning it up. I remember walking out to the Western Head and finding a nice piece of spruce which would make a sturdy handle. This spruce was brought home and in my mind it was shaped to perfection and placed in my axe, a helf second to none. .
Every evening after school my brother, Kevin, and I would rush over to Mr. Mac Best's stage and hone the edges of our axes to razor sharpness. Of course, my brother, Kevin, being the older and the expert, did the sharpening while I turned the stone.
At last the weekend arrived. I was the first out of bed. I had made sure the splits were dried the night before for a quick fire for breakfast. This was my day! With my razor-sharp axe in hand, my flour sack full of grub on my shoulder, and a frosty February morning, it seems I covered the distance down over the mash to Little Merasheen and the dory in seconds.
As we pushed off the dory, the feeling was unreal. With an easterly wind to help, Kevin and I with an oar each, and my father and Uncle Ferg pulling strongly on theirs, we were heading for the Virgin's Cove. We carried some sticks from the bank to pull the dory up. In short order we had her up past the high waters mark and secured. At last, finally, here I was with visions in my head of a hot fire in the old drum, a mugup, a day in the woods, and wonder of wonders - a night in one of those bunks which I'd only seen before on a few short trips!
At this point, I would like to say that brothers being what they are, Kevin never missed an opportunity to remind me that he was the older brother, the smarter, the professional with the axe, the best in the woods, and if I watched him closely, I could learn a thing or two. Little did he know that I did watch him closely, copied his every move for he was everything to which I aspired.
Of course, I was also watching his every move because I knew he had a pack of Target and a roll of papers which would be put to good use when my father and Uncle Ferg moved off the path to do some cutting.
After we had mailed our gear in the tilt and I had sized up the spot where I would be sleeping that night, we had a mugup. My father and Uncle Ferg figured they would check a few slips they had in around Round Pond before heading over to the area of the slide path to cut some wood.
On our way back along the path, I was way ahead with my axe, with the keen edge, on my shoulder. I was moving fairly fast when my foot hooked in a small tree which had fallen across the path. In a flash I dropped my axe and placed both hands in front of me to break my fall. Break my fall I did, but my axe which I had honed to perfection fell down my back, cut through several layers of pants and underwear, and cut an incision in my left buttock with surgical precision.
The pain, the panic, the squirts of tobacco juice from Uncle Ferg and my father rushing around didn't bother me half as much as my brother Kevin looking on with that look on his face as if to say, ‘You're too young, Bro! You just don't have the experience to be in the woods with the likes of us!‘
I was literally picked up and carried back to the tilt. To my great embarrassment, I had to kneel down alongside the bunk and drop my many layers of underclothing. It was there with a very private part of my anatomy exposed I was examined by those most critical medical professionals. It was decided that flour was needed to stop the flow of blood. Uncle Ferg figured that an application of turpentine would be handy in the mix to close the gaping wound. With axe in hand, he proceeded to cut some turpentine blisters from a tree nearby. With the flour and turpentine mixture applied and flour bag pieces bound tightly around my bottom, I was bundled into the dory for the trip back home. In just a few short hours, I was once again back at Little Merasheen under the satisfied and ‘I told you so’ gaze of my brother, Kevin.
I couldn't believe that in such a short period of time I was back in Little Merasheen instead of spending the night in the tilt in the Virgin's Cove. I was carried to our house and deposited on the daybed in our parlour. Shortly afterward I looked through the window to see Kevin, my father and Uncle Ferg once again heading down across the mash to Little Merasheen, the dory, and the Virgin's Cove. What a night I went through with visions of Kevin snuggled up in the bunk in the tilt!
The next morning I was down in the dumps, stiff and sore from my confrontation with the axe. I had to be some kind of contortionist to use the pail. I wasn't a very happy boy.
About ten o'clock I heard some loud voices. Someone was coming up the mash from Little Merasheen. I slowly pushed myself up from the daybed and looked through the window at first in disbelief and then in total glee and satisfaction. What did I behold but the professional woodsman coming with his hand wrapped in blood soaked flour bag bandage! I couldn't wait for him to come through the door and read the message on my face.
"Vengeance!"