Wind in the maple

So finally, after subtle prodding from my son, Luc, we launch the early summer with the building of a tree house. I say we, but really the arrangement is I get to pull together materials—in this case the good fortune of western cedar—and Luc, in cahoots with neighbour and man-ofall- skills Phill—spelled with two Ls since he fancies his name a match to the royal prince— undertake the design and build. Two summers have passed since we began to contemplate an ideal location for the structure, and finally, as Luc underscores, we have a plan. It’s time to be underway and the mature Manitoba maple close to the house is the winning candidate. For consideration was the fact that being close to the house is especially important when the likelihood of hunger, thirst, washroom or all-of-the-above needs arise.

In preparation, the unkempt and gnarly tree is stripped of the hangover Christmas lights, clothesline pulleys and bird feeder paraphernalia—to be re-installed at some point down the road. The idea is that the tree house will be incorporated around trunk and limbs and will serve the many basic principles that tree houses are fervently designed to serve: fortress; bridgehead of HMS Victory, Nelson’s ship at Trafalgar; sentry lookout—a guard against alien invaders or at the very least jungle beasts in camouflage. More often than not, the simplest of pleasures derived from tree houses comes from their role as escape hatches from the pragmatic world of adults. I speak for myself here, but the latter is listed as number one advantage in my books. Sure, you can have height and years on you, but you have to let go of baggage to be a tree house member. The currency is play. Ya can’t lug your stuff up a tree—ya follow? Tree houses are bona fide carefree havens.

So, after three days of sawing and driving screws, and more sawing and less planning, a tree castle has taken hold among the limbs and early leaf buds, one storey above the front veranda floor of my home. Taking into account the weekend is now over and my son is in school, I have advantaged the moment to do a test run of the place. A sort of under-the-radar tree-fort-sitting gig, you might say. I have made my way up the ladder-cum-Jack’s ridgebarked beanstalk and have installed myself to write. I am free of the world and most of its mosquitoes.

Please consider this note a wordy message in a bottle. And speaking of bottles, they do harvest syrup from acer negundo—this box elder, native North American tree. But that’s out in Manitoba, where the tree thrives amongst the grasslands.

Here I am, in the absence of the eight-yearold proprietor’s presence, making use of the delightful furnishings comprised of past-era apple-crate-cum-table and the no-longer-in-use outdoor cushions, now a repurposed armchair in his room with a view. Besides the decor, I’m finding out neat stuff about the personality of a perch such as this—a tree up close and personal sorta thing. Fir instance: I’m curious to learn more about the Papuan tribe of New Guinea who live in tree houses, 40 metres (130 feet) above ground as protection against a tribe of neighbouring head-hunters.

Also, we take trees moving in the breeze for granted when our feet are firmly planted on the ground. Up here, the subtle, almost imperceptible swaying, accompanied by the creaking sound of the limbs, is not unlike sleeping on the deck of a wooden, heavy-masted schooner lying at anchor. The sensation can bring on sea sickness I’m starting to think. And take the leaves as another fir instance. This species, also appropriately known as an elf maple—as in suitable for tree gnomes—is the only species of maple that has divided leaves. The tree grows quickly along rivers, flood plains and stream banks just like here on ol’ Slab Creek. And how the round, hairy buds, which later in the season to evolve keys—a fancy name for the seeds—are important winter food sources for small mammals and birds. Not to mention the airborne devices that will launch from here in a couple of months. You know the ones right? Unique to the female tree, the keys of the Manitoba maple shaped like oversized pollywogs that, when released from the branches, descend to the ground like a squadron of ultra-light helicopters. Collect a bunch of keys in your hand in the fall and toss them in the air, why not? Remind yourself of the magic in case you may have forgotten.

I can vouch for an afternoon in a tree house as tonic for the spirit. Up here, there is a want for nothing in the material plane. A place to drift alone at sea, secreted away from shorelines of day to day. And now the afternoon breeze has shifted off of Pleasant Bay, the leaves in the nearby tall poplars glitter on high. My sails are hoisted, and enquiring of the winds to carry me beyond the sweetness of the lilac, beyond the call of the Baltimore oriole, the house wren and warbling vireo, beyond to a faint and distant laughter of children, echoes from the still hiatus of summers long ago.