memory

My first photographic memory was bronzed at six and a half years, and took place about an hour's drive north of the Frog Lake Massacre (no frogs were massacred), close to the Alberta/Saskatchewan border. My father was leading me on one of my first fishing expeditions. The middle part of the expedition involved crossing over the Beaver? Athabasca? river by means of a steel girder railroad bridge. As I followed him across, I began to ponder the width between the railroad ties, realizing that the ties were spaced almost wide enough to allow me to slip through, god forbid a misstep should happen. There was no walkway beside the tracks. On my right hand side were two or three wooden barrels, full of water. Each barrel had been placed on a small balcony, but one could squeeze onto it if a train should come along. Looking between the ties, although this was a classic meandering river, a long freefall would take place before one splashed into the water. A fast current.

About a minute after crossing the long, 150 foot bridge, then bushwacking through the willow bushes growing from the sandy flat shore, I looked back. A steam locomotive was charging across the bridge. Was steam or black smokepouring from the funnel? I cannot recall the image of the train, just the memory of its passage. My father was silent about the train, and any possibility of a steam-powered encounter.The big pickerel was caught on time, within the next hour.