Counting loons begins below the surface.

By Alexis Raymond

Summer of 2001

Haunting, high-pitched howls from loons echoed across the glass-still Watchic Lake of my childhood. Hot mornings were interrupted by boat engines, and cannonballs filled the afternoons.

The dock was my lily pad; my eight-year-old body was never there for long. But one day I sat still, watching my memere wade into the water, descending the rough rock steps my great-pepere made when he built the camp 50 years ago.

A mother loon cried for her loonlet, still covered in its cloud-like downy feathers. Her baby was small enough to fit inside Pépere’s coffee mug. As it swam up to Mémere, I could see that a clam was pinching the bird’s tiny beak closed. With its mother looking on, Mémere picked up the loonlet and removed the clam. The lady loon howled loudly as they returned to the middle of the lake. “She’s thanking you,” my mom said from the dock steps.

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