The Old Finn and His Fish

Something from the tackle box:

       Nothing on earth is more beautiful than the morning sun.  Even if you live to a ripe old age, you should try to enjoy each day, because darkness will come and will last a long time.  Nothing makes sense.

       Be cheerful and enjoy life while you are young!  Do what you want and find pleasure in what you see.  But don’t forget that God will judge you for everything you do.  (Ecclesiastes 11:7-9 CEV)

       I’ve told a few stories about fishing with my grandfather on my mother’s side, Delmar Carr, and how I’ve come to own the place on Long Lake that he originally bought when I was just a youngster.  Now I’d like to tell a story about fishing with my grandfather on my father’s side of the family, the Old Finn, my grandpa Eino Jarvie. 

decorated for heroism in France 1918

       My grandpa Jarvie really was an old U.P. Finn, the genuine article.  He was born in the Duchy of Finland in the year 1896 and came across the Atlantic to settle in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with his parents, and a whole lot of other Finnish immigrants, right around the beginning of the Twentieth Century.  Apart from his beginnings in Finland, the time he went west as a youngster to work on a cattle ranch in Wyoming (another good story), and a couple more years in the Army helping push the Kaiser out of France in the Great War (yet another good story), my grandpa lived out his life in the U.P.  For most of his adult life he lived with his wife Goldie, raising up a dozen kids on a small farm located about half way between St. Ignace and the Soo near the town of Rudyard.  He was a genuine Yooper.

       I didn’t get to spend an awful lot of time with my grandpa Eino when I was a youngster.  My mom and dad had met as students at MSU in the early fifties, had gotten married, and then started teaching careers in the southern part of the state, which is where I grew up.  It was a good seven-hour or more road trip from our house to grandpa Jarvie’s place up north, even with the new Mackinaw Bridge in place.  So I got to see grandpa Jarvie once or twice a year, when we would go up for a week during summer break, or when grandma and he would come down and stay a day or two with each of his several kids who worked downstate in turn. 

       I can say that I didn’t get to know my grandpa Eino nearly as well as I now wish I had been able to.  But that wasn’t all due to the fact that I only saw him for a few days each year.  Even when you were around him, it was kind of hard to get my grandpa to say very much of anything.  He was a taciturn old Finn, which I have come to understand is a pretty common quality in that race.  He was pleasant enough, always had a smile and a hug for all of us grandkids when we came to visit, but it was grandma Jarvie who did all the talking.  And she did a lot of it.  She was not a Finn.  Grandma would sit and share the news, spread the gossip, tell the stories and jokes, and otherwise keep the conversation going around the room admirably.  Grandpa would just sit and smile at it all, and maybe say, “yep,” every once in a while.  But I liked him – quite a lot. 

       Raising a big family on a small Upper Peninsula farm was a lot of work without a lot of prospects for material wealth in return for it.  You could get by, and even be quite happy, if you didn’t mind working hard and living very simply, which is just what my dad’s family did when he was young.  It was a good life, but there wasn’t a whole lot of time for just goofing off, at least not for days on end, without some kind of hope for a return on it.  Yes, there were many pleasant days spent in the woods hunting and on the water fishing, but venison roast and canned sucker were pretty regular items on the family menu because of it.  If they had not been you could bet your bottom dollar that those pleasant days spent hunting and fishing would have been far fewer and further between. 

       When I came along, my life would be much different for me as a youngster than it had been for my dad.  When I got old enough to hunt and fish in the mid 60’s, those activities were way more about having fun than getting food for our family.  Sure, we ate fish and game, and liked it too, but it wasn’t really of any great concern whether we had it on our table or not.  If we were going to hunt or fish it would be because we liked to hunt and fish.  Getting a good meal out of it was secondary and, to be honest, totally beside the point. 

       Things had also changed for my grandpa Eino by the time I was a child. In many ways life was much more relaxed than it had ever been for grandpa and grandma in their youth.  All twelve of the kids had grown up and were out on their own, starting their own families.  He and Grandma moved into a new little house, built right next door to the old farmhouse where the family had been raised and which was now occupied by my uncle Delbert, his wife Jean, and their three boys.  No one had to put food on the table for as many as fourteen every day any longer.

       Things like taking vacations and having fun without a point to it were now a much greater possibility, and they took advantage of that.  For instance; spending two weeks away at Deer Camp with old friends, not really trying all that hard to shoot a deer, became something my grandpa Eino looked forward to doing every November. 

       I guess I’m telling you all of this because, although I only was around him for a week or two each year, it was kind of fun for me as a child to see the lighter more childlike side of my grandpa Jarvie come out in ways my dad says he rarely, if ever, saw when he was a child.  The best example I can give was the time grandpa came along on one of our family trips to go pike and walleye fishing up around Longlac Ontario. 

       I can’t remember exactly how old I was that time grandpa Jarvie came along fishing with our family, probably around twelve.  I do know that it wasn’t my first trip up to go fishing in Canada.  I had made at least a couple of fishing trips by then and felt like an old pro.  It would be fun to show grandpa Eino the ropes.  Or, at least I thought it would be.  Turns out he already knew what he was doing.  And he did it with such enthusiasm!  He was like a little kid up there!

       Grandpa appointed himself our ‘camp cook’ right off the bat.  I think that might have been his habit at deer camp, sort of hunting with his buddies, and he was a pretty good pancake chef too, but liking to cook was not the reason he did this.  He just wanted to make sure that everyone was up and ready to fish well before sunrise.

       Grandpa didn’t have to wake you up with his voice.  You never heard anyone make so much racket in the kitchen whipping up pancake batter in your life.  It sounded like he was right next to your bed mixing the batter up in a big metal bowl with a big metal spoon. Whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack. 

       If a couple of minutes of that didn’t get you rustling out from under the blankets and pulling your socks and shoes on, it would get even louder.  WHACK, WHACK, WHACK, WHACK, WHACK!  There was no sleeping in on a day of fishing up in Canada with the old Finn along for the trip.  WHACK, WHACK, WHACK, WHACK, WHACK, WHACK! On this fishing trip you would be watching the sun rise over the water - from the boat, - that was guaranteed.  The pancakes were pretty good, though. 

       It was fun to see grandpa smiling from ear to ear in the boat.  At least it was for me.  His joy was evident even by the half-light of pre-sunrise dawn.  Perhaps some along on the trip might not have been quite so appreciative of the old Finn’s early morning gusto, but no one was mad.  The fishing was very good, and everyone was having fun once they had all of the sleep rubbed out of their eyes.

       We caught a lot of northern pike and walleye, as we did on all of our Ontario fishing trips, but this trip held one special fish to be caught by the Old Finn.

       We all had our favorite lures.  Mine was a short blue and silver Rapala wooden minnow with only two sets of treble hooks, as opposed to the three sets found on the standard length lures.  I caught a lot of pike on that lure, even when it was getting pretty chewed up.  When I recommended the blue and silver pattern to grandpa, or the more common black and silver if he didn’t have a blue one, he would just shrug and say, “yep,” with that happy kid grin on his face.  I don’t think that he was taking my advice and, as he was catching his fair share of fish, I couldn’t press the point. 

       I don’t remember if grandpa had brought his own tackle box, or just used some of my dad’s gear, on that trip.  What I do remember is that he was kind of secretive about what he was trolling with, - didn’t let you get a good close look at what he was hooking up to the end of his line most of the time. He’d chuckle as he slipped his lure over the sideboard and play his line out, saying he wanted to fish a little different than we were fishing, and maybe catch something special, which is exactly what he did in the end!

       We’d all caught our fair share of walleye and pike by the last afternoon on the last day of our trip, but grandpa was still fishing a little differently than the rest of us, hoping for that something special fish.

       And then it came!  Grandpa’s rod bowed over hard and started to twitch in a way unlike anything I’d seen before on any fish I’d ever caught before.  He laughed and said, “This feels like what I’ve been looking for!” 

       The rest of us reeled in our wooden minnows and spoons to make room for the fight it looked like the Old Finn was in for.  Then, about forty yards out from where grandpa’s rod tip was pointing, the water exploded!  A huge black and silver looking fish came flying up, dancing in the air completely out of the water, before splashing down and taking the line deep again! 

       I’d never seen anything like it before!  Walleyes generally stay down until you haul them up.  Pike will bust the surface as you draw them to the boat, but not come right out of the water and fly like a bird!  This was exciting!  The next time the fish launched itself like a Polaris missile from a submarine, it was only twenty yards from the boat.  Grandpa kept the line tight even though that fish shook like a wet dog as it flew through the air.  One last airborne acrobatic exhibition, less than ten yards out from the boat, actually splashed water on us.  But the Old Finn knew what he was doing. 

       Soon my dad had the fish in the net, and landed into the boat.  My grandpa’s grin was downright infectious as he picked up that fish with a finger through the gill and curled out the corner of its mouth. 

       “Look at my big Lake Trout,” he chortled!

       I’d never seen a trout of any kind before that day, at least not up close and personal.  It was the only trout that any of us ever caught on our trips to Canada fishing with my dad when I was a kid, and I held my grandpa Jarvie in high regard for having caught it.  I’ve never seen a happier kid than he was that day. 

Something to take home in your creel:

       That one trip was the only fishing adventure that I ever had with my grandpa Jarvie.  I’ve caught my fair share of trout as an adult; browns, brookies and rainbows, fly-fishing on streams in the Lower Peninsula.  But I’ve never caught one as big or as exciting to watch getting caught as the big Lake Trout I watched my grandpa catch when I was a kid. 

      As I got older; college, work, marriage and starting my own family took up most of my young adult life.  I still got up north to see him at the little house near Rudyard in the eastern U.P. once in a while though. 

       The Old Finn passed away in 1982, when I was almost 26 years old. My last memory of grandpa Eino was watching a frail old man bounce my infant firstborn son, Zachary, on his knee, as he smiled that big smile of his and sang Finnish nursery rhymes to the little tot.  It was the only time I ever remember hearing my grandpa speak in his native tongue.  I think he looked almost as happy as I remember him looking the day he caught that Lake Trout. 

       Don’t ever lose your love for life.  Don’t ever let go of that childlike delight in catching a fish, or in singing nursery rhymes to little children, for that matter.