The Hermit's Story by Rick Bass
"The Hermit's Story" by Rick Bass is a captivating narrative that blends elements of magical realism with a tale of survival and connection to nature. Set against the backdrop of a Thanksgiving gathering, the story unfolds through the recounting of Ann, a dog trainer, who reflects on a significant experience she had two decades prior in Saskatchewan. During a winter excursion with a man named Gray Owl, Ann and the dogs find themselves lost in a snowstorm and encounter a frozen lake, where an unexpected incident leads Ann into an enchanting underground world.
As Ann and Gray Owl navigate this icy underworld, they discover a magical atmosphere, where the cold and warm air interact, creating a surreal environment filled with wonder. The experience not only challenges their survival instincts but also deepens Ann's understanding of the bond between herself and the dogs she trains. The narrative evokes themes of memory and transformation, particularly how extraordinary experiences shape our perceptions and relationships with the natural world. Ultimately, Ann's journey beneath the ice serves as a metaphor for exploring hidden depths and insights in both nature and life itself. This thought-provoking tale invites readers to reflect on the mystical connections between humans and animals amidst the challenges of the wilderness.
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The Hermit's Story by Rick Bass
First published: 1998, as short story; 2002, as short story collection
Type of plot: Magical Realism, frame story
Time of work: The 1970's and the 1990's
Locale: Montana and Saskatchewan, Canada
Principal Characters:
Ann , a dog trainerRoger , her husbandThe narrator and his wife , visitors at Ann's homeGray Owl , a man who hires Ann to train his dogs
The Story
"The Hermit's Story," a magical tale about entry into an alternative reality, begins with a sort of poetic overture about the blue color of an ice storm. The narrator and his wife have gone to the home of Ann and Roger for Thanksgiving dinner. The power is out, and after the two couples eat pie and drink wine before a roaring fire, Ann tells a story about an experience she had twenty years earlier in Saskatchewan with a man named Gray Owl, who hired Ann to train six German shorthair pointers.
After Ann has trained the dogs all summer and into the fall, she takes them back to Gray Owl to show him how to continue to work them. She and Gray Owl take the dogs out into the snow, and Ann uses live quail to show Gray Owl how the dogs will follow the birds and point them. They work the dogs for a week until they get lost in a heavy snowstorm, drifting away from their base by as much as ten miles. When they come to a frozen lake and Gray Owl walks out on its surface and kicks at it to find some water for the dogs, he abruptly disappears below the ice.
Ann decides to go into the water after Gray Owl, for even if he is already drowned, he has their tent and emergency rations. However, when she crawls out onto the ice and peers down into the hole through which Gray Owl has disappeared, she sees him standing below waving at her. When he helps her climb down, he says that what has happened is that a cold snap in October has frozen a skin of ice over the shallow lake and then a snowfall insulated it. When the lake drained in the winter, the ice on top remained. Ann goes back to the shore and hands the dogs down into the warmth created by the enclosed space beneath the ice.
The world under the ice is a magical one, the air unlike anything they have ever breathed before. The cold air from the hole they made meets with the warm air from the earth beneath the lake to create breezes. Although the ice above them contracts and groans, they feel they are safe beneath a sea, watching waves of starlight sweep across their hiding place. When they build a fire from cattails, small pockets of swamp gas ignite with explosions of brilliance.
The two head for what they hope is the southern shore, the dogs chasing and pointing snipe and other birds. They finally reach the other shore and walk south for a half a day until they reach their truck. That night they are back at Gray Owl's cabin, and by the next night, Ann is home again. The story ends with the narrator considering that Ann is the only one who carries the memory of that underworld passage. He thinks that it perhaps gave her a model for what things are like for her dogs when they are hunting and enter a zone in which the essences of things are revealed.