Rediscovering the Road Less Traveled

lick image for a preview of the chapter

 

April 18, 1976 a weekend trip from Copenhagen to a deserted island.

Where Gar Beckstead found himself on April 18, 1976 was on the nearly deserted island of Useppa. Not the island you'd easily recognize today, although beneath the surface it was that and much more. What was evident on the surface was worn and twisted. Weathered windows and salt-grey timbers, bleached by the sun and battered by time and wind and tides and the most ravaging force of all, neglect. And from where he sat, all of that neglect was laced with vines, pricker bushes, pokeweeds and telltale signs left behind by an already occupying army of crawling creatures. That was what he knew. Yet, at that moment there was much he did not know. He did not know that nearly thirty years hence he would be at the very same spot, brooding over a sight not unlike the twisted remains that lay before him now. He also did not know the heritage buried beneath the ground that seasonally, for an astounding six to ten thousand years, brought people to this place with the same dreams - at first for what they saw but later for the vision of what could be. Nor did he realize that for at least two years to come, he would still be fetching fresh water by boat from nearby Pine Island in an Igloo cooler.


 

Return to Table of Contents
of Sport Fishing