FLAT BAY BROOK...LEGEND OF A RIVER BOAT

Flat Bay Brook ....Legend of a River Boat. (Around 1969)


I was a young guy full of energy.I spent a great deal of my time travelling the country side, fishing , hunting with my uncle who taught me a great many teachings to survive in this great country of western NL.

In those days a boat was one of the tools to use is that survival.My uncle had a log cabin about 7 kilometers in on Flat Brook Brook road. Our boat was called Metrle. We used it to cross the river to check our trap line, used it to gather wood, and for fishing, bobbing eels and picking berries along the river banks.

We had the boat for a few years. One fall , about this time of year , we put Metrle on dry dock for the winter. Next spring after we went to his cabin the boat was gone.When the river raftered out that spring it took our boat on a clamper of ice.We never heard any thing after that about our boat.

Now we were lost and could do very little those days without a boat.

We did get another boat.

Some twenty years later I was doing a bit of prospecting for different minerals and decided one day to go down the river, I prospected about five kilometers and stated to get a bit tired, so I dicided to leave the river and walk up a bank which brought me to a cabin.

On the top of the bank I could see this old boat but filled with flowers. I looked toward the cabin and saw a women and she said hello to me.She asked me how I was doing and I told here why I was there , doing some prospecting , but desided to walk back on the road side.

She asked whether I wanted a cup of tea? I quickly said "Yes".

So we sat down sipping tea and I said "You have beautiful flowers planted in the old boat."


"My dear." she said " since my huspand and I bought this canp we have come here every spring and plant a gardoen in our boat. We fished the boat off the beach some twenty year ago. It came from up river but no one claimed the boat so we kept it.."


"Young fellow, this helped my husband and me to be together today.It's our secret place to restore our love for one another.I don't know what we'll do without the boat.There is only stone here and we have to carry ground to have such a nice flower pot."


In my mind I knew it was Metrle, but I never said a word.


I thanked her for the tea and left walking back to my uncle's camp and thinking about all those years spent wondering where the boat was.


Three or four years later my baby sister, Gertie Mai Muise , bought the cabin and I told here the story,  and she gave me the boat.


After all the years it was a big loss to my uncle and me, but it helped two other humans share their love together.


So if you loose anything special while your passing down here, it not realy a lost. It may be useful to some one else.


VJM/Sake