by Richard Wagamese

Created on: March 01, 2008

I had a hero when I was six. He wasn't a hockey player, a rock star, a comic book hero or even a movie star. He was a mechanic, a tall, slender, chain smoking grease monkey who smelled of oil, tobacco and Old Spice after shave.

His name was Joe Tacknyk and he was a Ukrainian Canadian. He was a quiet, thoughtful, reflective man who cackled when he laughed, spoke of Jimmy Rogers, the Old Chisholm Trail, and life during wartime. He was my foster father. I came to live with him and his family when I was five. He saw the fear in me from that first moment and did what he could to make that disappear.

He'd come for me early spring and summer mornings. He'd scratch at the soles of my feet with a wooden spoon and hush me to silence with a finger to the lips. Then, while everyone else slept, he made an elaborate game out of sneaking me out of the house with our fishing gear and into the old green pickup truck in the driveway.

We'd drive out of Kenora, Ontario on the gravel road that ran north out of town and he'd slip me a cup of coffee and warm perogies wrapped in a napkin. We'd watch the land roll by and the silence we sat in was as profound as any I've ever experienced. There was nothing to say. Mystery. We sat in the hold of the mystery of the land and there were no words to describe that feeling.

When we got to the marina my job was to load the gear in the old wooden boat while Joe hooked up the gas tank. Then, we'd pull away from the dock and he'd look at me. I'd scan the river, pick a direction and point and he'd head us that way. He'd find a cove or a bay or a rock point somewhere and we'd start to cast. Wordlessly. Always. The only language we needed was the quiet way of fishermen , the nod, the gesture when we needed tackle, each of us content to look at the land and the water and the deep endless bowl of the sky.

I landed a huge jackfish when I was six. When it hit my bait the rod literally bowed under the keel of the boat and I could feel the whale-like pressure of the fish at the other end. Joe sat and watched me. The only words he offered were cautionary ones, cryptic tips on how to play it. After twenty minutes or so he netted the exhausted fish and hoisted it into the boat. It was enormous. My hands were sore from clenching the rod but I held that fish up by the gill case and felt proud and noble and strong. He smiled at me, ruffled my hair some and went back to casting but I knew he was proud of me. That made the effort worth it.

We let that fish go.

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