DW and I were hiking in Gatineau Park with a couple of our friends, Nina and Brian, and were making our way to the Carbide Willson ruins, a place we've visited too many times to count. You would think that, by now, I would be tired of bringing a camera, that I've captured enough angles of the remains of the mill and the waterfall.
But no, I could never get tired of photographing this site. Every season brings a new look. The light can vary, depending on whether the sky is sunny or overcast. There's always a new angle that I haven't shot.
Sometimes, I dropped behind my companions to capture a moment but I would always catch up. I had a quick pace and I knew the trail well. By the time we reached the ruins, we were together, though once at the site, we would split up and explore the structures and the falls on our own.
I'll share some of my photos on Wednesday.
Just before we were ready to head back to our cars, about one-and-a-half kilometres away, we all gathered by the rocks on the other side of the waterfall from the shell of the mill, to sit, rest, drink some water, and snack.
I took my smartphone out of my pocket and set it on the rock, next to my D-SLR. Sitting on such a hard and uneven surface, I didn't want to risk cracking the screen or bending the metal. Being next to my camera, I wouldn't forget it when I stood again.
But when I stood up and grabbed my camera, I wasn't really looking next to me. The camera was resting against my leg and I instinctively scooped it up as I stood. I also had a water bottle in my other hand, and something in my brain told me that I had only been carrying two objects.
My companions and I stood up and started heading toward the trailhead without looking back.
Back at our vehicles, DW and I were invited to lunch at our friends' house, and we gratefully accepted. We agreed to follow their vehicle back to their house.
I placed my D-SLR in the back seat area but under the driver's seat, where it can be relatively secure. I placed my water bottle in one of the cup holders between the front seats, and I reached into my back pocket to retrieve my phone, to place it on the cordless charger below the car's console.
My phone wasn't there but when I looked at the charger area, there was a phone already in that place. For a second, I had thought that I had already placed my phone there, but a closer inspection told me that the phone belonged to DW.
I felt all of my pockets. I looked in the back seat, wondering if I had placed my phone, absent-mindedly, with my camera. It wasn't there.
I closed my eyes and remembered that the last time I had seen my smartphone was when I set it next to my camera, on the rocks near the mill. I remembered that I had set the phone on the far side of the camera, such that it was slightly out of sight, and I had made a mental note that perhaps that wasn't the best place to set it because I might not see it when I stood up again.
I never forget my phone, I told myself. Famous last words.
Our friends said that they would go ahead to their home and that we could meet them there, after I retrieved my phone. I high-tailed it back to the ruins.
I've never walked that fast on a hiking trail. At times, I sped to a trot, letting my momentum carry me down some of the steep sections of that path. DW was following me and she later said that she was challenged in trying to keep up.
Eventually, she stopped trying. She'd catch up with me at the ruins.
As I passed people, heading toward the parking lot, I asked almost every one of them: "Were you at the ruins, and did you see a smartphone?" I asked it in both English and French. To my surprise, some people had, indeed, seen the phone, and described where they saw it. It was exactly where I had been sitting.
I continued to ask the question, even after I had received the first confirmation, just in case someone had decided to pick it up to take to the park's visitor centre. The first person had told me that she had considered taking it with her, but she had left it in place in case someone returned to look for it.
Several people had seen it there.
The last person who confirmed seeing the phone was less than 10 minutes away from the mill. I was fairly confident that I would get to the rock and find my phone waiting for me, wondering why I had abandoned it.
 |
| From another time but close to where I left my phone. |
It wasn't there.
Several thoughts went through my mind: someone had found it and was on their way to the visitor centre, but had taken one of the side trails; someone had found it and decided to keep it, and had lied to me when they had said that they hadn't seen it; someone had found it and thrown it into the falls, just to see what would happen.
I swore a mean streak. I walked all around the site, looking in spots that might have seemed a more obvious location to discover a forgotten object. I remembered that I had seen several people who appeared to be part of a running group, and I didn't stop them to ask if they had seen a phone. They were concentrating on the path and I figured that they wouldn't have stopped to pick up a phone. Where I had sat wasn't particularly along a trail, though it wasn't far from one.
DW and I headed back to the car but my anger, at myself, kept me moving fast. I could hear the blood rushing in my head, past my ears. A strong, solid pulse that sounded like a war drum. My breathing was loud, taxed. As I climbed one of the inclines, I turned around to see how far DW was from me.
I was light-headed, and if I was going to pass out, I wanted her close by. She was only about 40 to 50 metres behind me.
I continued at my brisk pace.
When we reached the parking lot, I approached the attendant and asked him if anyone had turned in a smartphone. No one had. DW and I got in the car and drove to the visitor centre. The ladies behind the desk had told me that someone had also called to enquire about my phone.
Nina.
I gave details about the phone, DW's phone number, and my name. I was assured that if someone from a running group had come upon it, there was a very good chance that it would be turned in. I was also told that sometimes, running groups met up at Les Saisons, a café in Chelsea. DW and I knew the place, as it was where we usually stopped to treat ourselves when we cycled in the Gatineau Hills.
We grabbed ourselves a drink and a treat, and sat outside Les Saisons, but there were no runners or cyclists to be found. Nina was keeping in touch with DW and said that she was sending regular text messages to my phone, which gave DW's number and said 'lost phone.' If someone had my phone, they would see this message appear.
DW said, "Well, if we don't find your phone, maybe I can entice you to moving back to an iPhone."
"Never," I said, "I'm an Android person."
I wasn't looking forward to replacing my smartphone. It was my 'pandemic' phone. I had purchased it at the beginning of the COVID lockdown, in April of 2020. It was a Samsung Galaxy S10 and still worked perfectly. I had fully intended to use it until it was no longer supported or until it came to a natural end of life.
There wasn't a scratch on it. It looked like new.
Sitting on the patio, I started thinking: if I had my phone on me, I'd likely be on social media, posting about how I had foolishly left my phone on a rock and had to walk an extra three kilometres, at speed, to retrieve it.
But it was lost. I had lost my phone. Others had found it but left it in place, and now it was lost again. Why couldn't they have taken it to the trailhead with the intention of leaving it with the parking attendant?
I sat at the café, worrying that I'd never see that phone again. DW and I would have to cancel our lunch plans with our friends, and I'd have to get myself a new phone.
DW's phone pinged. A woman had found my phone. She was with a running group but had taken it home, trying to figure out what to do with it when she saw a text message that said the phone was lost and to contact DW.
The woman gave her address, in Aylmer, about 20 minutes away. We quickly finished our drinks and snacks, and jumped in the car.
"She didn't pass us," I replied.
"How do you know?"
"Because she's a very good looking woman. If she had run past us, my eyes would have noticed her."
For that, I received a major eyeroll.
It was good to know that as worried as I was without my phone, the panic wasn't as strong, the urgency wasn't as great as when DW and I had lost Kid 1, years ago, in Québec City. Not by a long shot.
But the feeling of the possible loss was real.
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