There was a family who lived across the street from our house in Campbellton. They had a son, whom I occasionally hung out with; we were both 9 years old. He was an only child, a bit spoiled, and his parents fiercely protected him from all dangers. Whenever he was injured, even if it was nothing more than a bump, he would run home crying that he had broken something. He was quite pampered, so different than the way I grew up. I can’t remember his name.
One day, this family invited me to go swimming up at Echo Lake with them. There was one stipulation, and that was that I needed to be able to swim. I could not swim, but I assured them that I could. Getting to the lake was fun; the old general hill was steep and quite curvy. We finally arrived and set up just below the Echo Lake Lodge. This lodge had, at this time, been turned into a private residence. Two of my schoolmates lived there with their families. I have tried to find information about the original lodge, but have not been successful. It is no longer there, not sure when it disappeared, maybe heard it burned down.
The lake is a very pretty lake surrounded by forests with some mighty big trees along the west side, some where the highway runs. This was not always so. When Elk River Timber’s camp 8 was going full steam, the west side of the lake was logged right to the lake. Rail trestles crossed the east side of the lake, and the camp was on the north-eastern shore.
This was a big camp that even had a school. But by the time I was a lad, all the crew accommodations and infrastructure were gone, or at least most of it. The only stuff left were the offices and the mechanic shops. All that was visible of the trestles were some pilings that remain to this day; the forest has grown back around the lake. Nature has begun the journey to heal the land around the lake.
Echo Lake would freeze up in the winter, and when I was a teen, we used to go ice skating there. Sometimes it froze so thick that you could drive your car out onto the ice. We had a steel barrel that was cut in half, and we would set this up on a log support and build a fire in the barrel. We could skate over and warm up when you get cold. Someone would have an 8-track stereo blasting out tunes. It was lots of fun. We could camp at the lake in the summer, and we would catch some good-sized trout. There is no camping allowed now, but the fishing is still good, and there has been a fishing float has been added that is wheelchair friendly. Echo Lake is fed by numerous springs that bring in nutrients. It’s not a big lake, but trout up to 15 pounds have been caught there.
There have been smallmouth bass illegally transported into Echo Lake. Smallmouth bass are an invasive species that prey on smaller fish. These fish are threatening native fish populations like salmon and trout, which could worsen if introduced into the Campbell River watershed.
At the lake, my friend pulled out a snorkel, mask and flippers that he said I could try out; he had 2 sets. I had never used these before, but found that with my face down and breathing through the snorkel, I could just float around. I was fascinated by the wonders that were visible to me for the first time. The dark green colours amid the shadows, and the incredible array of life. Seeing this breathtaking underwater world was beyond awesome. The bottom was covered in sunken logs from the logging days, and you could see fish of all sizes swimming among them. To my surprise, there was also a variety of insects, both at the surface and within the water column itself. For the first time in my life, I was swimming in water that was over my head, and it was all very exhilarating.
Then, all of a sudden, I dipped the snorkel end into the water, and with water flowing down my throat, I began to panic. Reality came rushing back, and I became hysterical. I called out for help as I struggled to keep afloat, but they were just looking at me. Suddenly, the realization that no help was going to come, and whether I drowned or not was going to be up to me. I got hold of myself, held my breath, put my head face down, and swam for all its worth and made it to shore. Once there, my friend’s parents were quite angry with me and were saying, “What if you had been really drowning and not just pretending?” I said I was sorry. This was the day I almost drowned, and no one but me knew it. They never took me swimming again.