GONE FISHIN’
Excerpt from The Last Guide’s Guide
On Thanksgiving Weekend 2000, Citizen readers met Frank Kuiack for the first time. Frank is the last full-time fishing guide in Algonquin Park, and the Citizen story led to a bestselling book the following year, The Last Guide, published by Penguin Canada.
Sixteen years later, a sequel to The Last Guide has been published. The Last Guide’s Guide is the story of Frank’s life since 2000, along with a 12-step guide to everything he has learned in 73 years as a fishing guide in the Algonquin Highlands.
Again on Thanksgiving Weekend, the citizen is pleased to Publish the following excerpt from The Last Guide’s Guide:
Frank’s second birthday party was a few days later. Again, still before his actual birthday. Although a much smaller affair this time.
Frank had been working at Arowhon Pines Resort in Algonquin Park that day. Guiding in the morning. Unofficially overseeing the construction of a new swim dock in the afternoon. (“Do ya believe those kids been workin’ on that for three days?”)
He was on his way home, walking to his van, when Theresa Pupulin, the general manager at Arowhon, came to find him. She said there was something Frank had to look at before he left. Then she started heading to the games room, a standalone cabin not far from the lake.
As they walked Frank thought it was about time they did something with the games room. It was a good log cabin with an unobstructed view of Little Joe Lake but it didn’t get used much anymore. He wondered if shuffleboard tables were quite the draw they had once been.
When he walked into the games-room people started laughing and singing “Happy Birthday.” A lot of people. The camp counselors he had been teasing most of the summer were there. Most of the maintenance and housekeeping staff. The clients he had taken fishing that morning were there as well, having heard about the party from Theresa and asked if they could come.
Sitting on the shuffleboard table was a cake burning with candles and a frost-icing outline of Frank’s face. A pastry chef had thought of the idea and done an admirable job. Frank’s nose would be three slices easily.
Frank blew out the candles, people cheered and then everyone started to pat him on the back and leave. Frank stood there with a cake server in his hand wondering what was happening. Theresa came up to him, put her arm around his shoulder and said:
“That cake’s for later, Frank. There’s something else you need to do for me first.”
She took him by the arm and led him out the games room. As they walked under the pine toward the lake.
Frank remembered being in Arowhon a long time ago, someone holding his arm that day as well. He showed up drunk looking for his brother, Dominique. To borrow money probably. He couldn’t remember.
But his brother was guiding and they threw him out. Two large waiters pinned his arms and jerry-marched him to his car, The owner of the resort bringing up the rear, telling Frank he didn’t want to see him back there unless he was with his brother.
Forty years later that owner, Eugene Kates, was the one who phoned Frank to ask if he could start guiding at Arowhon. He had seen Frank’s book at a store in Huntsville and wanted Frank to know two things: He liked the book. Second, a story on Frank Kuiack was about the last thing he ever expected to see in a bookstore in Huntsville.
Frank had done well for himself Eugene said and it would be nice to have him working at the resort as a guide. They had a lot of good trout lakes around Arowhon. Frank wouldn’t need to go far. Eugene had read in the book that he wasn’t doing any more overnight guiding.
Frank thought for a minute and then said:
“You got Burnt Island.”
Eugene laughed so hard he started coughing. He was in his late 80s by then but remembered how every good guide he knew as a boy kept Burnt Island Lake as their back-up plan; for when they absolutely needed to catch trout before heading back to Arowhon in time to hear the dinner bell.
“Yes,” Eugene said, when he had recovered enough to speak, “We got Burnt Island, Frank.”
The first clients from Arowhon called him two days later. That would have been ten years ago.
Frank kept walking toward the lake, over the spot where fishing guides used to pitch their tents every spring. He had no idea where they were heading. Then Theresa turned toward the dining hall. Frank slowed his pace without being aware of it and Theresa leaned her head in to say:
“You need to have dinner before you can eat cake, Frank.”
“Nah. Nah Theresa. Look what I’m wearin’.”
“I wouldn’t want you looking any other way.”
Before he knew it Frank was through the front doors. Something that had never happened before. To him or any other guide. Fishing guides were not allowed in the dining room at Arowhon Pines Resort. Never had been. The best ones, the most favoured ones, might get into the kitchen. If a client invited you, a guide could sit on the verandah and see into the dining room.
But no guide had ever been inside that room.
Theresa walked to a maître d’, who bowed deeply, shook Frank’s hand and said his table was ready. “My table?” “Yes sir. If you’ll just follow me please.”
A part of Frank felt like running right then. Every person in the dining hall was staring at him. A cigarette he had hastily butted outside the dining room was stuck behind one ear. But the maître d’ was in front of him, Theresa behind, and he was rather trapped.
So he kept walking. Trying not to stare at the people eating dinner, drinking wine, people from far away, with small flags in the centrepiece of their table to show where they came from: German flags. British. Japanese. Australian. American.
It felt to Frank as though he were walking down a receiving line. Right to a table overlooking the lake. Next to the stone fireplace. A table for two that had been stripped and re-set for one.
The maître d’ pulled back a chair and Frank sat down. When he was seated, Frank motioned for Theresa to lean down and he said:
“Theresa, this is real nice. But I don’t belong here.”
“Frank, this is exactly where you belong.”
“No I don’t. Look at your guests. I don’t belong here at all.”
Theresa stood straight and motioned to the maître d’, who had gone back to his station but had kept his eyes on the general manager. He turned to grab something from the reception table.
“Most of these people know who you are, Frank. For crying out loud, we’ve got a scrapbook about you in the lobby.”
“That still don’t mean I belong here.”
“Don’t talk for a minute Frank. Just watch.”
Theresa stood back to let the maître d’ pass. In his hands he carried two small objects. The first was a Canadian flag, perched on a small pedestal that he placed in the middle of the table. The second was a card he took carefully from the palm of his hand and slid into a birchbranch placeholder.
While he was doing this people in the dining room began to point at Frank. Before long it seemed everyone in the dining room was pointing at him. Then a man seated two tables away stood up, walked over to Frank and extended his hand.
“You’re the Last Guide, aren’t you?” said the man and Frank nodded slowly. Stuck out his hand. “It’s Frank,” he said. “It’s a real honour to meet you, sir.”
Then the man shook Frank’s hand but didn’t say anything else. Turned and went back to his table. Like he jumped up and thanked people all the time.
“Have a nice dinner, Frank,” said Theresa and then she was gone back to work.
Frank sat there for several minutes, not believing where he was. In the dining room of Arowhon Pines Resort. Seated at the best table in the room. About to have dinner with people that not only knew him, but seemed to like him.
He wondered if it was like this for everyone who lived to a certain age. Stick around long enough and you’ll arrive at the opposite end of everything.
Just before the first course was served Frank reached over to turn the placeholder around. These sat on each table. Fashioned from birch branches, with a saw-cut in one branch that let you slip in a card with the family name of the people sitting at the table. Where they were from. If it were a business function, there would be a title or occupation.
The card read: Frank Kuiack. Fishing Guide. Algonquin Park.
The next day Frank turned eighty.