Marlin Bree

Excerpted from Wake of the Green Storm, copyright by Marlin Bree

The water was bright blue and the roundels of islands high and green as I sailed back from my voyage to the Slate Islands, on Lake Superior’s rugged Canadian north shore.

It was a great day to be on a boat, but a problem came up quickly as I neared the Government Dock at Rossport, Ontario, the tiny fishing hamlet on the Big Lake’s northernmost arc. There was no room to dock my 20-foot centerboard sloop, Persistence.

Circling slowly alongside the dock, I saw the dock boy come out of his shack.

“Where can I tie up?”

“Next door,” he yelled back. “Lady says it’s OK.”

Odd, I thought. Someone was going to loan a stranger the use of their own personal dock? It seemed too generous and hospitable to be true, but I swung my bow eastward, and, soon I saw a private dock extending into the water. A woman looked up, waved, and I headed in.

“Thanks,” I told her. “I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, taking my dock lines. “We have the space, and you are welcome to use it.”

I was at the waterfront home of Ray Kenney, a grand old man of the lake. I ambled up to pay my respects for his generosity and found Ray in his wheelchair. At age 91, the old skipper’s eyes still twinkled blue and he told me he was glad to see me out cruising the lake, as he had done for so many years.

Captain Kenney was an ex-school teacher, who taught in Canadian schools for 40 years during the winters and “boated summers,” taking charter parties in his all metal powerboat, the Yennek, which was his name spelled backwards.

The man in the wheelchair spun a tale of his boat and their many adventures together. Over the years, they took scientists, adventurers, journalists and cameramen out on the watery route through the beautiful islands offshore of Rossport, to the Slates. These are some of the most spectacular islands I’ve ever seen -- something like those in the movie, South Pacific.

Ray had taken cameramen out from the National Geographic magazine for a feature article on the Slate Islands, and, even worked with the Cousteau series on Lake Superior. He saw big waves and big storms. “If you make a mistake out there on Superior, you usually have to pay for it,” he told me.

Over the next several days, Ray and I spent some time together, and all too soon, my cruising days for the season were over, and I trailered Persistence back with me behind my 4 x 4 to Shoreview, MN. But I have never forgotten that fine old man and the splendid Canadian hospitality he had shown me, a total stranger. I wrote about Ray, the Yennek, and the Rossport Harbor, in my last book, Wake of the Green Storm.

A few months ago, I got a dreaded telephone call. “Ray has passed away,” Joyce Dahlgren, of West Point, Ia., told me.

My memory slipped back to that remarkable summer. Joyce, and, her husband, Harold, had trailered their 17-foot runabout up from Iowa, and, also had tied up on Ray’s dock. They had come up to fish with Ray.
“He still goes out?” I tried not to let my surprise show. I had only seen him in his wheelchair.

“He used to take us out,” Joyce said. “Now we take him out.”

Joyce explained that when they came to Canada about 27 years ago, they fell in love with Rossport and the nearby islands. “We met Ray and we used to go out with him in his Yennek until it got too old to go. He’s still showing us some of his favorite spots.”

“Where are you going today?”

“Wherever Ray wants to go.”

Some motion on the dock caught my eye. I turned and stared. “Look there,” I said, alarmed.

It was Ray, down on his hands and knees, crawling slowly down the dock. “Does he need help?”

“Naw,” Harold drawled. “He prefers to do it himself.”

Captain Kenney had steered his wheelchair down to the water’s edge and was making the rest of the way down the dock on his own, with some obvious pride.

“Need help?” Harold asked.

Ray shook his head. No. He was doing OK on his own.

“He really prefers to do it himself,” the Iowa boater repeated mostly for my benefit.

I got the message, and, felt a surge of pride.
And that is the final memory I have of Captain Ray Kenney, age 91 with a proud twinkle in his eyes, once more heading out onto his beloved lake with his friends.

I watched a while from his dock as the runabout cut a wake through the blue harbor, bathed in sparkling morning sunlight, out toward Quarry Island, where a little fog was whisping in.