I was wearing a sweatshirt, but the morning was warm so I just had shorts on. The first thing I noticed was a rash of goose bumps on my legs. I shivered and looked up. The fog was almost on me. It hung like a rolling, heavy curtain over the water a few feet away. Oddly it appeared to be moving toward me unusually fast. In seconds I wouldn’t be able to see a thing. Quickly I glanced at the shore to try to get my bearings. I caught a glimpse of a dark line of trees before the shore, the water, the sky, everything, disappeared. It was even hard to make out the bow of the canoe through the smothering fog. Digging the paddle in hard, I turned the nose of the canoe toward where I had last seen the shore. If I concentrated on keeping even paddle strokes on each side, and was lucky, I should hit the shore and be able to work my way back to camp. If I didn’t, I would end up going around in large circles until the fog cleared—not a prospect I relished. Already I was feeling chilled in the damp air.
