Back in my day, the fishing was… well, it wasn’t EASY, mind you. Ain’t nothin’ ever easy. But it was honest. We didn’t have these fancy-schmancy carbon fiber rods and reels that cost more than a whole mammoth skin. Just a sharpened stick, a vine, and a lucky rock to bash the fish over the head. Simplicity. That’s what we had. Simplicity and glaciers.
I remember one particular spring thaw, or what passed for spring back then. The world was still choked in ice, the air so cold it bit right through your fur and chilled your very bones. My joints are screamin’ just thinkin’ about it. Even then, they were probably older than that Hawking fella thought the universe was. I was fishing the edge of what you humans now call “Lake Superior,” though back then it was just a big ol’ puddle left by a retreating ice sheet. The water was so clear you could see the bottom… which was mostly just more ice.
We needed food. My clan was hungry, and old Sasquatch here was the best darn fisherman this side of the receding glacier. I tracked a school of giant, prehistoric trout, bigger than any sturgeon you see now. These weren’t your dainty little hatchery fish. These had teeth like daggers and a mean streak wider than the Grand Canyon, which, by the way, I helped dig. They were survivors, like me.
I crouched low, the ice crackling beneath my massive feet. My breath plumed in the frigid air. The wind whipped snow around me, but I held steady. Patience, young’uns, patience is the fisherman’s greatest tool. And a club. Don’t forget the club.
Finally, I spotted one. A monster, silver and shimmering in the icy water. It was bigger than a wolf! I hefted my sharpened stick, the weight familiar and comforting in my hand. I waited. I breathed. I became one with the ice, the wind, the hunger.
Then, with a roar that shook the ice (and probably startled a few mammoths), I lunged! My stick pierced the water, striking true. The trout thrashed, its powerful body fighting against the vine. The struggle was fierce, the ice around me cracking and groaning. For a moment, I thought it would pull me in. That would have been just great. More ice water.
But I held on. My muscles burned, my breath ragged, but I held on. Finally, with a mighty heave, I dragged the beast onto the ice. It flopped and gasped, its gills working frantically. I didn’t waste any time. One swift blow to the head with my lucky rock, and the fight was over.
I dragged that fish back to the clan, my shoulders aching, my joints screaming. But the sight of their hungry faces, the warmth of the fire, even the taste of that ice-cold trout… It almost made the cold bearable. Almost. Now everything’s warm but the world has never been so cold.
Humanity will fish this planet dry and then complain there’s nothing left to eat. They’ll invent some newfangled technology to blame it on while continuing to destroy everything in sight, same as that Hawking fella. At least I can say I tasted real ice cream.