Sunapee – final (for now)

The lake sits in the lowlands between several hills and a few mountains. From the air, it looks a little like the profile of a goose mid-flap. According to legend, the name “Sunapee” comes from the Algonquin words suna and apee meaning “goose lake.” In the fall and spring, the lake is common ground for passing geese.

Long, slow days not filled by camp, lessons of some sort, or dates with friends were ubiquitous during the summers of my childhood. It was in these states of perpetual boredom and longing for excitement that I found myself constantly wandering back to the giant, year long and completely filled calendar on the bulletin board in our kitchen. I was checking off the days before we would finally do what we did every year around that time.

One remarkable feature of Sunapee is its population of islanders. Eight islands, deposited by the glacier that carved the lake, speckle the water’s surface. Great Island, the largest, has around 20 houses on it, each with history stemming from the days of steamships.

At the southern tip of Great Island, facing Mt. Sunapee, sits a cottage painted “Sunapee green”. It is situated so it can see the mountain, the sunrise, and the sunset. Many claim it has the best spot on the lake. It goes by two names: Isle’s End and One Great Island. Isle’s End was given to the cottage by the first of the Allen family to own it – in the late 1920s and 30s – and for obvious reasons. One Great Island sprang from the more recent need for a concise mailing address, and the youngest of the two Allen girls (the current owners) took it upon herself to begin the numbering of the lots at the end. Several years before this she had also felt the responsibility to dub herself “Queen” of the island as she had been coming there (almost) longer than anyone else.

As soon as we arrived someone (usually Dad) would inevitably yell “lets walk around the island!” It was a yearly tradition: to take stock of the landmarks dotting the outer trail and explore any changes or things we hadn’t spotted before. My favorite was Pirate’s Cove – a slight indentation in the shoreline filled with golden-orange pebbles I liked to collect. On the other side, almost back around to our house, either Mom or my grandma, Gamu would stop and note the old steamboat dock. It was now a pile of rocks jutting out twenty or so feet so I had a hard time imagining a steamboat (which I pictured Titanic-sized) pulling up there to let off the islanders and their supplies. But every time we passed the spot, I tried again.

It poured last night. I sat for a while in my bed, listening to the drops hit the roof and cracks of lightning touch down somewhere in the distance. This morning, though, it was warm and sunny, heavy moisture clinging up in the air. We were out on the path, Mom and I, looking for arrowheads. When it rains a lot, the water falls from the trees and converges into gushing streams following the footpaths. This is just like how the Grand Canyon was made, she told me. All the leaves, pine needles, dirt, and sand are washed away, leaving a new layer of earth exposed and the possibility of a new artifact being dug up.

North American Indians fashioned various tools for themselves out of the materials they had at hand. Quartz is prevalent in this area, and is easily chipped into blade-like pieces.

Gamu has shown me her artifact collection at least 20 times, but I still love it every time. She has a good number of arrowheads, but the neatest artifact is an axe about four inches long. The story of how it was found is fascinating, too – right off the shore in the shallows. She helps me relive its history: an Indian fishing. He sneaks up behind a big one, takes aim, and throws the axe tied to the end of a birch branch. He misses and the axe bounces off another rock to settle in its hiding spot for thousands of years.

Every island property on the lake is required to maintain a path around its borders. In the event of a fire, this allows people to get from one side to the other and be rescued. It also allows people to walk around the entirety of the island, and mingle. Two paths slice in half the long, skinny, north-south oriented island: longitudinally and latitudinally. These climb uphill to the center of the landmass, leading explorers to quiet and escape.

That year was cold and the water and rain that day were especially cold. My sister and I had been swimming in the lake when the rain started, and soon after we were chattering, our lips and extremities purple. The wetsuits we were wearing failed to keep us warm. But Dad was there too, and had the epiphany of the day: to pour jugs of hot water down our chests into our wetsuits. The warmth flowed around every groove in our bodies, held close by the neoprene. Dad’s barrier kept our lips pink and heads steaming as the cold drops kept coming.

It’s 7:00 AM and so hard to wake up. All other days so far have been 11:00 mornings, but today Dad, my brother and I are heading out for some smooth water and skiing. We grab coffee and bananas, jelly cinnamon raison toast, fire up the boat, and head north. “Take it Easy” off the Eagles’ Greatest Hits blasts from the small, tinny speakers in the boat. “I’ve been runnin’ down the road tryin’ to loosen my load…” Even though the morning air is still a little chilly, the quickly climbing sun keeps us warm. There are few things in the world that we enjoy more than this, here, right now.

One deep and favorite tradition at Isle’s End is playing charades, and is a particular favorite of the younger women. Everyone in the house is divided into two teams. Usually it’s men against women, but sometimes its decided by team captains or simply who’s sitting where. As the game progresses, people are drawn into it, feeding off each other to make the best, most efficient, most hilarious portrait of that thing written on their fragment of paper.

We had both changed a lot since Woody last came with me to Sunapee. We were several years older, for one, about to start our senior year in high school. We were more comfortable now with ourselves. My family and I loved his company, and he equally loved ours. But we were most interested in being adolescent boys – meaning girls and alcohol. Woody and I were staying in the guest house, which we had renamed the ‘brosef’ house, and one night, after everyone had turned out their lights, we snuck back into the main house and filled paper cups with the cottage’s vodka. We hurried down to the dock, giddy with excitement and nerves, stubbing our toes on rocks in the path. Sitting in the dark, a bit of the floodlight on the cottage filtering down to us, we drank it straight. Eventually we were up on the dock, walking in circles in our bare feet, skinny dipping, yelling, laughing, and calling our friends back home to tell them what was happening. It was the first time I was drunk.

The island has a history of good-humored scandal and debauchery. Could anything different be expected from the privacy yet intimacy of an island? Babies being conceived, virginities being lost, affairs being found, drugs and alcohol being consumed. It saw massive college parties, massive corporate parties, massive geezer parties. But it also saw just as many people married, forgiven, and found.

Woody came again last summer, and once more we had changed. Maybe we were more mature. We had a year of college under our belts, and I supposed we were looking at things differently. This time, Woody didn’t bring a 30 case of beers with him in his suitcase. We loved listening to the “older” people. We loved to hear their stories of college, of where they were and how they got there. I think they loved listening to us just as much. Where we were, where we wanted to go, and how we were going to get there.

People go there for a change. To do things meaningful because they are not things usually done. To take off work and relax in the beauty and the sun. To enjoy living. People bring their children there to teach them. To be with them, but also to let them go.

I walk through the house one more time, half looking for things I have left behind, half just wanting to give a proper goodbye – to plant a last image of each room in my mind that will last me until next year. I walk down the paths again, paying attention – the type you pay when it’s your last chance – to the trees, the rocks, the smells, the sounds, my emotions. From the dock I watch the mountain for a while, some boats playing on the waves, then hop into ours with the rest of my family and push off. The island slides by as we motor back to the mainland. I think of my stories from this place, and like all years past, I feel I will be returning home different. New experiences, new relationships, new ideas. I am reminded that I need places like this.

Only special people, people we love, get to come to Sunapee. It sounds exclusive and it’s meant to be: it’s the way we feel about the place. We get so much from each other here that we have come to expect people who are willing to offer much.

We are down at the dock with our luggage crammed into the boat. Our stay here has come to an end and we’re heading home. We think about next year. Gamu, as essential to the place as she is, is nearing death faster than the rest of us, and we wonder if she’ll be here when we come back. Time passes and we live. Generations are regenerated.

Islands are unique places. From their isolation comes intimacy. What really makes places like these what they are is the people who come to them, and that, like the geese, they keep coming back. Sunapee.

~ by d on March 22, 2008.