How much is too much?
Dueling with Dragons
How quick thinking, flower pots, and being Canadian saved me from a near-death encounter with ancient dragons
The northern lights (or Aurora Borealis) are awesome in every sense of the word. Entirely captivating in their scale and majesty, they inspire reverence and the cannot help but bring about the creation of myth. At least, that’s what I thought the first time I saw them. Surely ancient civilizations with more rudimentary understandings of astronomy and physics must have believed them to be warring gods or dancing spirits. The image that came to my mind (despite being in northern Canada, where aboriginal myth had no such creatures), was of dragons.
Like most such encounters with mythical creatures, the dragons’ involvement in what transpired next were at best indirect, and more probably entirely imagined. Nevertheless, if not for them nobody ever would have suggested, as we floated gently down the South Saskatchewan river on a home made raft constructed out of scrap wood and styrofoam flower pots, that we turn off the headlamps that were lighting our way to get a better view.
After initial pushback from the more cautious of the crew, it was agreed that a first dragon sighting definitely deserved optimal viewing conditions, and (as dragons are notoriously shy creatures) headlamps and flashlights were extinguished. In compete and utter darkness, with only pinprick stars and a sliver of a moon competing for our attention, the dragons mesmerized us with their cosmic ballet. The longer we watched, the more immersed we became, until we could almost hear them—their low growl growing louder as we inched slowly closer, eyes toward the sky.
“The longer we watched, the more immersed we became, until we could almost hear them—their low growl growing louder as we inched slowly closer, eyes toward the sky.”
Quietly, at first, their dull roar began to envelope us, growing in volume and pitch until it became clear, just slightly too late, that what we were hearing was not, in fact, dragons. Rather, it was a large rock protruding from the river, with which we were on a collision course. After a mad scramble for lights and oars that we had previously discarded to better enhance our dragon viewing experience, and a warning to “Brace yourselves!” from our fair captain, we watched helplessness as out humble vessel crashed into, and was pushed over and around in approximately equal measure, the barrier in our path.
Thankfully, the damage was surprisingly light, and a solid understanding that handiness is at least as important as handsomeness had led to us to (in true Canadian fashion) stockpile duct tape and rye whisky, at least one of which is always bound to be helpful in a near death experience. This time around, we chose the tape, which we used to lash spare wood (and leftover flower pots) to the damaged portion of the raft until it regained its buoyancy and structural integrity (at least, as much as it had it to begin with).
With spirits and bodies buoyed up by adrenaline and flower pots, we continued into the night on our now battle scarred vessel, vowing, as do the men and women that witness such things, that we would tell tales of our battle with dragons.