I met Bill Harper in July 2007 on the Tree River in Nunavut, way the hell up north in Canada above the Arctic Circle. I couldn’t possibly have known at the time what an important person he would become in my life, but there were certainly some clues.
After our first day of fishing for Arctic Char, a cold beer was waiting on the steps to my tent platform and when I went to thank him, he was on his back under the kitchen shack busy helping the camp staff fix their water system. I thought I was being decadent bringing a Nalgene bottle of scotch. Harper had them fly in a case of beer and put it on ice. And even though we were so far north that the sun would hardly set, he, like me, brought a headlamp. In fact, he brought two. He probably brought two of everything, because Bill always shows up prepared and ready to help someone who has forgotten something (like when I didn’t bring waders to the Cape) or when someone breaks something (like I did with his spare rod when my bag was delayed by the airline).
Over the years we have spent more days than I can count together on water. Hiking to rivers, paddling out on the falling tides to walk the sand bars, drifting down them, jet boating up them, poling the flats, wading across rapids in search of hidden pools or standing chest deep in them. He’s the best fishing companion you could hope for. He never complains, he is always up for adventure, and enjoys every moment of it.
Along the way he has become my greatest friend and I’m not ashamed to say I love this guy.
The fishing guides love Bill too. It says something that on Cape Cod we have fished with the same fella, Steve Keen, for more than a decade. When the tide tables are released for the new year, Steve always calls Bill first and they line up the movement of the ocean with the cycles of the moon. So typically, in January I can count on a phone call from Bill trying to lock down our week for the coming year. While fishing is the main event, the countdown, the getting stuff ready and the dreaming about it, the anticipation, are just as important. Steve isn’t the only one. Guides just seem to know when they have a good dude in the boat. Someone who is eager but willing to listen and learn. Someone who is just plain happy to be there. I don’t think it hurts that Harper always seems to have a jar of honey handy to help grease the wheels.
Aaron Caldwell (Cod) is another one of those guides. Whenever I see him, the first thing Aaron asks me is how is Harper. Everyone calls Bill, Harper. Except maybe Dave Imbach, who mostly calls him Hulkster. It’s a moniker Bill has acknowledged and has on occasion tried to describe this side of himself to me to no avail. The Mr. Hyde to his Dr. Jekyll. It takes a lot to conjure this alter ego and thankfully it is more myth than legend.
Over the years I’ve learned my share about concrete coring, LEEDS certification, pellet stoves, and slate roofing. And I’ve subjected him to a similar education about broadcast licensing and telecommunications regulation. Thank God for fishing, otherwise our lives would never have overlapped. He’s also taught me a few lessons about being a good man and a loving husband. There aren’t many days when he doesn’t call Maryann. Maybe just to let her know he is safely back on shore, or to deal with some work issues, or to just say he missed her. They have the kind of relationship that the rest of us can only hope for.
When I introduced Bill to some of my other fishing pals in Alberta and in BC, he quickly fit right in. After enjoying his first double/double (two cream and two sugar) at Tim Horton’s coffee shop, we started kidding him that he was an honorary Canadian. This isn’t a judgement, just an expression of how easily he makes friends wherever he goes. But his unwavering love for the Boston Red Sox proved exactly where his loyalties lie.
Looking at pictures from these trips, you could be forgiven for thinking they are all the same. The same SIMMS shirts seem to come on every trip, the same hats – and the same thousand-watt grin. Maybe what has made our fishing friendship last, is that either of us is just a happy to see the other guy catch a fish. When one of us hooks up, we’ll stop and watch. Cheering the other guy on. It doesn’t feel like we’re competing against each other. I just wish he was a better photographer – I have more pictures of him holding a fish than I do of myself.
“Just one more”, he will say as the day winds down. Just one more cast. And more often than not something magical happens on the last cast. A summer-run steelhead from Shangri La or a nice Striper at the creek mouth on the long paddle into shore.
“Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” —Henry David Thoreau.
Bill is one of those who know it’s not just the fish that brings us together year after year. Between time spent fishing, we pass the hours gabbing, downing a cold beer, and enjoying a great meal (many times one we cook ourselves). When you do a trip to the same place year after year, you develop certain routines and habits. We spend a couple of nights each trip to the Cape parked on stools at Macs with martinis and a few dozen oysters. The bartenders have come to recognize us – the two fly fishing guys – and it feels like coming home.
After a night of fishing, nothing can compare with a gin and tonic at 9:30 in the morning with your eggs and toast. Except maybe the nap that follows with the windows open and the ocean breeze blowing in.
Some random ways he has impacted me.
1. I only BBQ on charcoal now.
2. I brush – not wash – mushrooms.
3. My favourite beer is Whale’s Tale Pale Ale.
4. I could definitely develop a taste for Bordeaux wine if I could afford it.
5. Even if you bring a cooler full of beer, you still must stock up on the local stuff.
6. The bun is just as important as the burger.
7. He feels the same way about tomatoes as I do about bananas.
If I have one criticism, it’s that Bill is too agreeable. He says yes to everything. What do you want to do for dinner, I’ll ask. Anything you want he says. Where should we go today? Anywhere you want. I makes me feel a little guilty sometimes and I wonder if we miss out on doing something he wants to do.
I guess the most incredible part is realizing how special it is to meet your best pal at my age and to have a passion, like fly fishing, that bonds us together. I wouldn’t say I’m particularly spiritual, but I know a good soul when I see one. And Bill is a good soul.
It was another great gift, after hearing about his time in Sante Fe to make a trip there with him. It was like a window into his “other” life. The one he shares with Maryann. He told me about hikes they would take and point to their favourite restaurants. We sometimes joke that she lets him out on these fishing play dates. But it’s only half in jest, because it tells me so much about their relationship that she is happy for him to do these trips. Sometimes she’ll comment when I post a picture on Instagram, and I read her delight in the knowledge he is having a good time. I hear the same pride from him, when he tells me all about what she is doing to fight reckless development or to support members of the community. He tells me about her and the dogs. He glows when talking about her pasta skills. This is what love is meant to be. As we head off the Cape for the airport, and Bill will then turn to home, there is always a stop for fresh scallops and later I hear about the dinner he cooks when he gets home. She is never far from his thoughts.
Between trips we send emails, texts and phone calls. Many of them on Friday nights as he and Maryann get home after a long week. I once told him my father referred to Friday night cocktails with my mother, as their “attitude adjustment” and it must have taken hold with him. Many times, the text I get from Bill is a photo of a glass of something intended to “adjust”. I’ve saved many of those texts. They’re in a unique shorthand and jammed with non-sequiturs that I puzzle over for hours.
As he has been battling cancer, I won’t lie, I’ve been scared as hell. Scared about what he is dealing with, and scared to contemplate a world where we aren’t free to plan our next trip. Lately Greenland seemed to be at the top of that list. It wasn’t too long ago we were saying that once a year should become twice a year or three times. We would joke about growing old and having some young fellas wheel us down to the drift boat in our walkers. I made the choice early on to be the person he could call for a break from all the treatment and from the day-to-day stress. My contribution would be comic relief or some distracting story. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t interested. I just figured he’s probably exhausted from explaining things to everyone. It must be tiring being responsible all the time for giving others hope. I have hope. I wanted to be that beacon for him.
But I have also been down this road before, and I confess my optimism is sometimes just a thin veneer. I used to believe in karma. That there is a kind of justice in the world that rewards good people. But now I know that lightning can strike indiscriminately. Somewhere my fear tilted towards anger. I’m mad. It’s not fair.
Fate plays a bigger role in our lives than we may care to acknowledge. Our meeting in Nunavut was fate. If Bill hadn’t broken his ankle and skipped a trip to fish in Alaska, he would never have been at the Tree River. How cruel am I thanking my lucky stars that his misfortune brought us together? I do like to think I have brought some happiness into this life as well. All the things I admire about him, I have tried to emulate. I wish I was half as good a friend to him, as he has been to me.
What do we most want in our last days? Maybe just the knowledge that we will be remembered. Perhaps we dare wonder how we’ll be remembered. So here it is. This is how I will think of you in ways unlike anyone else.
It’ll be on a fishing trip, most likely on the Cape, since that is where we spent the most time over the years. It’ll be 2 am and you are awake before me in the simple cottage on the road out of Wellfleet and you are pressing coffee for the drive ahead. We watched the Red Sox until about the fourth inning after a slow afternoon stretch riding the counter at Mac’s with a couple of plates of oysters, sushi and cold martinis. Even though we have organized our gear the night before, you will be checking and rechecking to make sure you have everything and stuffing another cookie, or fig newton in your bag. The coffee will be kicking in as we speed down the lonely highway to the turn off for Wharf Lane.
We’ll arrive at the launch ahead of Steve and we get out of the truck to put on our waders, lace up our boots and rig the rods. Even though we know what we are likely to tie on, we pour over the fly boxes in search of inspiration or a good omen. We are eager to be ready but trying not to look desperate. Steve’s truck will roll in and he’ll say good morning boys. It looks like a great day with barely a breeze. The surface is like glass and reflects the light of a full moon. Steve unloads the kayaks and drags them down to the water’s edge where the tide is steadily retreating. We look at the level of the water and try to guess if we have timed it right.
We shove the butt of the rod under the straps of the front hatch of the kayak and point it over the bow. We climb in the boats. You in red and me in yellow. This is unchangeable. The tide pulls us out past the old pilings and the rusty wires that link them to the shore like we are drifting on a river. Steve is not far behind, so we just coast and paddle only to point ourselves to the open water past the moored sailboats and around the buoys. The sun is still a few hours from rising but I can detect your silhouette against the morning glow. I know you are grinning because I have the same feeling.
We paddle out in some circuitous path that only Steve seems to sense, skirting sandbars that would hang us up and force us to drag the boats. We get to a spot up the deep channel that borders the main Brewster Flats and he sticks his paddle in to check the depth. It’s still too deep to get out and wade so we wait and listen for the sound of striped bass chasing bait and the telltale flushing of water.
We drift effortlessly. Drips of water from the edge of the paddle blade punctuating the silence. Steve has his binoculars out scanning the horizon for signs of fish, birds circling or bars revealing themselves. The water drops and the light comes up. It’s so clear we can see the lights of Provincetown in the distance. Running over a sand ledge we can see the rush of the outgoing tide. A conveyor belt of horseshoe crabs and clumps of grass shoot past. The spell breaks when Steve tells us to jump out and grab our rods. In their place we jam in the blade of the paddle, so it won’t drift away. Steve collects the boats by their ropes and points in the direction he wants us to head. He walks the boats some distance away and plants the anchor in the sand.
As we start creeping forward, we spread out but stay in sight. Line is peeled off the reel and primed with a few false casts. The bottom starts to fall away as we walk up on a channel cutting through the bar. We cast across and let the line swing in the current. With the butt of the rod tucked up under our arms we retrieve hand over hand at what we think is the right speed. Sometimes, it happens right away. The line comes tight and alive. I hear you chuckling, and I know what that means.
Steve sees you have hooked a fish too. Woohoo. Way to go Billy. He moves up beside you as you work the fish closer. I see the tip of your rod high against the dawn and bent in that glorious arc. I reel up my line and hook the fly out of the way. I turn it backwards and put it in my armpit as I rummage in my shirt pocket for my camera. The fish is close now and Steve reaches for the line to pull it into position to lock his thumb around the lower lip. He lifts it up and confirms it’s a good-sized fish and quickly lowers it back under the surface. You trade places and now you have the fish. You raise it up with your other hand supporting the body. The water drips off the tips of its fins. It is a kind of pure joy that exists precariously here in this moment, in this place. Lots of people wouldn’t understand. I do.
The fish is revived and released. You grab my hand and pump it enthusiastically, but I can’t really tell who is congratulating whom. We’re smiling and laughing. Steve reminds us there are more fish in there and we get back to business.
And that’s where I’ll leave it. Where the memory loop with start to play again. With you casting into the ocean, anticipating another jolt and smiling at the thought of it.
I wrote this in September 2023 after visiting Harper at home in New Hampshire. By November he was in a hospice. I went to see him there in mid-November, and he passed away a few days after that on November 18, 2023.