Pirate Gershwin and the mountain above the clouds

Once upon a time, there was a pirate named Gershwin, and he got bored of sailing around the oceans. He’d found lots of treasure. He got his ship and moored it at the local port of a place called Somtopia, just off the coast of Canada.

He stopped there because he was so tired of being in the ocean. He wanted to get as far away from it as possible, and the only way he could do that was by climbing the tallest mountains. They went even higher than the second clouds.

Pirate Gershwin got off his ship, put all his treasure in his bag and walked. He walked and walked for five days solid, through trees and through mountains, but not up the mountains, where he longed to be.

Very soon he happened upon a village called Banff. Everybody in Banff loved the mountains, so he thought, “These are the people I want to make my crew.”

He rounded up seven people. “Would you people like to join my crew? We are going on an adventure up the tallest mountain.”

Everybody said no. None of them wanted to climb the mountains Pirate Gershwin wanted to climb.

“I’ll do it myself,” said Pirate Gershwin. “Pass me that rope.”

He tied the rope around his waist and wrapped it around his chest and arms so he could carry it easily. Then he set off towards the mountain.

He looked up and couldn’t see the mountain’s top. Clouds were stopping him from seeing it. He started climbing. At the bottom, it was a beautiful summer’s day, thirty degrees and stifling hot. But as he climbed, he could tell it would get colder, so he was happy he’d brought his extra thermal underwear. Those were very, very thick and very, very warm underpants that kept you warm under your clothes. He didn’t need them yet, so he carried on.

He climbed and climbed and saw some little raccoons. “Hello, Raccoon! Never seen you before.” The raccoon had never seen a pirate before and scrambled up the nearest tree. All right then. Gershwin carried on.

He walked a little further, and a herd of deer pranced past. “Hello, deer! I’ve never seen you before.” The deer stopped, stared at him and ran as fast as they could back the way they had come, because deer are a bit silly like that.

Very soon he saw what he thought was a very big deer. It was ginormous, twice his size. The pirate was shocked. “I don’t know how something like you could be loose.”

But the pirate mixed up his words. Instead of “loose”, he said “moose”. “I can’t believe you be a moose.”

“Oh, that is what I shall call you. I shall call you a moose.” He thought it was a funny name for an animal like that, and from that day forward, we learned about a moose.

The moose kept walking, and so did the pirate. Very soon it got a little chillier, and he had to put a jumper on. He’d never worn one before, because he’d only ever been at sea. He sailed around the Jamaican islands, where it was always warm.

He put on his jumper and walked a little further, then stopped for a few minutes to sit on the floor and eat his sandwich. He was a big, rough pirate and didn’t need a bench. Besides, nobody had ever climbed this mountain before, so there weren’t any seats.

He looked around and could see other mountains. They were small. He knew because he could see all their tops from where he sat, and they were below him. He knew he’d picked the right mountain because he wanted to find the biggest one.

He got up and carried on walking. Very soon, the sun began to set. It was late, so he pitched his tent, crawled into his sleeping bag and fell fast asleep. He dreamed of mountains, trees and touching snow for the first time.

He woke while it was still dark because he heard a snuffling. He didn’t know what it was. He took a gentle peek out of his tent and saw a red animal, about the size of a dog. It looked a little like a dog, just thinner. It was a fox.

Pirate Gershwin threw out a couple of scraps of food left over from his day so the fox could eat. The fox guzzled them down. The pirate went back to sleep and was woken by birdsong.

He packed his tent into his bag and kept walking. Soon he had to push through some big, white, fluffy things floating in the sky. I think they called them clouds. He pushed his way through the first set and thought, “I must be at the top of the mountain now.”

You know what? He was not. There was still way, way, way further to go. As he got through the clouds, he looked up and saw another set of clouds.

He kept climbing. Very soon, there was cold, wet, white stuff all over the floor, something he’d never seen before. Snow.

Walking in the snow became really difficult. He would walk up a little and slip, walk up a little and slip. He wasn’t really getting anywhere.

He dropped his backpack to the floor and opened it to see what he had. Remember those people who were going to be his crew? They hadn’t come with him, but they had filled his backpack with everything he would need. Inside he saw two things that looked like tennis rackets with big straps. These must be snowshoes.

He strapped them to his feet and set off again. He felt a little like a bird, slapping his feet around as he walked. But he wasn’t slipping down in the snow any more. He was walking and walking and walking.

Soon he had to stop to put on his long johns. Suddenly he felt warm, and he was happy he’d brought them.

He walked some more until he reached the next layer of cloud. He pushed through as quickly as possible, and on the other side he saw exactly what he’d come for: the top of the mountain.

He walked to the very tip, a little above the top clouds, and pulled the skull and crossbones out of his bag. That was the pirate flag. He stuck it into the top and claimed the mountain as his own. Nobody had ever climbed there before him.

“I claim this mountain for Long John Gershwin.”

Even to this day, some people think Long John Gershwin is still up on the mountain. Some say he made a log cabin from the trees and lives there with the foxes, the moose and perhaps even the bears. Some say he built himself a pair of wings and decided to fly into space.

We don’t actually know what happened to him. But I think perhaps he did fly into space. That’s a story for another day.