by Birgit Stutz
Sundance (left) and Belle settle into the rescue farm in Prince George.
During the entire rescue, most of the volunteers hadn’t a clue as to the identity of the person who owned Belle and Sundance—nor did we know the names of the horses themselves. All we knew was that the owner was an Edmonton lawyer named Frank. This information had come from Stan Walchuk, who had loaned this man two pack horses on a failed expedition to find the horses in October, and from Glenn at Spin Drift.
Reg, however, had known the owner’s full name even before I headed up Mount Renshaw for the first time: the brand office had received the name from the McBride RCMP. Confidentiality rules, though, meant Reg couldn’t tell any of us. Then, on Christmas Eve, CTV News aired an interview with the horses’ owner, but the segment used just his voice—no picture, no name. This interview revealed to us the horses’ names. It was nice, finally, to know their real names—but not critical. Renshaw and Reggae had worked just as well as “the gelding” and “the mare.”
I learned the owner’s name in early January of 2009 by contacting a TV reporter who was covering the story. Frank C. Mackay, it turned out, was born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. The son of a doctor, with a science degree from McGill University and a law degree from Dalhousie University, he had practised law with the Edmonton law firm of Cummings Andrews Mackay for some thirty-two years. The firm was founded in 1915 by a lawyer who would go on to become the Attorney General of Alberta. The focus of the firm was litigation following injury or accident, though Mackay himself—according to the firm’s website—was, at sixty-three, the firm’s senior solicitor, with “a wealth of experience in the area of real estate, corporate/commercial law and estate matters.”
One Alberta journalist, perhaps one of the few reporters to do so, actually visited Frank Mackay’s farm southwest of Edmonton. Daniel Z. Jacobs was researching a piece for a weekly newspaper called the Fitzhugh. The article he wrote for the January 8, 2009, issue was startling on several counts. Mackay’s candid opinions stood out for one thing; his salty language for another.
Daniel was mystified by his encounter with the man, and certain details remained fresh in his mind months later when he and I spoke.
“Is this Frank Mackay?” Daniel had asked him on the telephone before the meeting.
“It depends on who’s asking,” came his reply. “What’s your agenda?”
Daniel told him he had no agenda, that he was a twenty-six-year-old reporter who had ridden horses as a child. He wondered if he might come to the farm and interview Mackay there. Mackay agreed.
When Daniel arrived, the horses on the farm looked to him to be healthy and happy. The photo that accompanied Daniel’s story showed Mackay looking very much the rancher—brown wool hat on his head, orange scarf at his neck, an open brown checked shirt over several layers below and light-blue jeans stuffed into high boots. He was standing under a brilliant sky in a snowy paddock with a blue-eyed grey called Frank (named after the blue-eyed singer, Frank Sinatra). The horse, one of nine that Daniel counted on the farm, nosed around Mackay’s pocket, as if looking for a treat.
The reporter observed on Mackay’s forehead a large gash—the aftermath, Mackay explained, of an accident while driving home from Mount Renshaw on December 5. Daniel wondered privately whether Mackay had suffered a concussion in the accident and whether the head injury might explain his subsequent behaviour.
During the interview at the farm, Daniel asked, “Why didn’t you hire a trapper to find the horses and put them down?” Mackay turned the air blue with his reply. Daniel later huddled with his editor to edit out some of Mackay’s more profane utterances. The story, published under the title “Equine examination: McBride horse story more complicated than it seems,” nonetheless conveyed Mackay’s salty language.
Up on the mountain, however, the whereabouts of the owner was a common theme. Where was he, rescuers had asked, when they were there digging for eight numbingly cold days? Couldn’t he at least have come by with hot drinks? And would, as many rescuers hoped, the B.C. SPCA lay charges of abandonment and cruelty causing pain and suffering?
Near the end of January 2009, two things happened at more or less the same time. Charges of animal mistreatment were indeed laid against Frank Mackay, and the horses found new homes. Once the abandoned horses had been seized by the SPCA, their previous owner lost any chance of recovering them. They would stay at the Prince George Rescue Farm until responsible and caring new owners could be found. No matter how the courts decided, one thing was certain: Belle and Sundance weren’t going back to Frank Mackay.
Belle landed—and what a strange and wondrous coincidence this was—in the hands of Kim Gilbeau, whose daughter, Stacie Hewitt, is a friend of Gord Jeck, who had helped dig the trench on Mount Renshaw. But Kim learned this only much later.
It made her blood boil when she found out how Belle and Sundance came to be on the mountain. But it wasn’t pity that made this woman fall in love with Belle.
Kim and her husband live on a ranch near Red Rock, about twenty-eight kilometres south of Prince George. Belle, or Bella, as Kim came to call her (the Italian suits the mare better, she thought), arrived at Prince George Equine Rescue in early January of 2009, along with Sundance. One day, the rescue unit’s trailer arrived at Kim’s place to deliver a horse she was going to foster. Belle and Sundance happened to be on that trailer (they had gone to the vet for a checkup), and both horses were unloaded to make way for the foster horse. Kim herself ended up unloading Belle. Right away she fell for her. She thought the mare looked good but terribly skinny. What Kim loved immediately was her personality, her soft affectionate manner, and the way the mare had sidled up to her. She made inquiries about adopting her, and following some SPCA visits to her ranch, the papers were signed. Belle became a Valentine’s Day present from Kim’s husband, Tom.
Birgit rides Belle on a Rocky Mountain trail during Belle’s stay at Falling Star Ranch.
Kim and Tom have seven horses on their ranch (including one who is thirty-six years old!). The herd—with Belle and a gelding in charge—has the run of a hundred acres of pasture and bush. Kim, who calls herself a novice rider, planned to have me train Belle at Falling Star in the spring of 2010. Once she had a few miles on her, Belle would become a cutting horse and trail horse. Kim wasn’t sure about her breeding but guessed by her big feet that she is a blend of quarter horse and maybe Belgian or Percheron.
The hair on Belle’s belly—where she made contact with snow during all that time on the mountain—is now tinged with white. That bleaching might remain with her all her life, a reminder of what she endured.
By spring of 2010, Belle weighed thirteen hundred pounds; the bony mare I first saw on Mount Renshaw was some six hundred pounds shy of that. Kim said that when Belle first arrived at the ranch, she was very possessive of food. Woe to any other horse who came near her at mealtime. She soon became less food-aggressive and—to Kim’s delight—incredibly affectionate with humans. “When she sees me,” Kim said, “she’ll rest her head on my shoulders. She loves the attention.” That and apples and carrots and those once forbidden alfalfa cubes have worked wonders.
As for Sundance, he, too, landed softly—on an eighty-acre ranch called Poplar Springs near Kamloops in south-central British Columbia. His new owner, Catie Ward, has been riding horses since she was a kid growing up in southwestern Ontario, where she rode bareback. Catie has three other horses—all rescue horses—grazing her forty acres of mixed pasture, but it wasn’t long before Sundance was top horse in the herd.
Sundance at his new home on a ranch near Kamloops.
“Sunny is in charge of the world,” Catie told me. “He’s definitely the leader. But he’s such a gentle giant, a true gentleman and such a source of enjoyment for us. He’s so sweet. He’s a big doll—with the biggest head I’ve ever seen on a horse. I adore him. He’s the best, and I’m blessed to have him in my life.”
Unlike Kim, Catie—who volunteers with the SPCA—was w
ell aware of Belle and Sundance’s story as it unfolded. A friend, a cruelty investigator with the SPCA, showed Catie pictures of the starving horses. As soon as she saw the photograph of Sundance, she knew she had to have him. When he first came to her ranch in early March of 2009, he, like Belle, was very protective of his food. And, like Belle, he would eventually become more relaxed at mealtimes. In the spring of 2010, Sundance weighed fifteen hundred pounds; he, too, had gained six hundred pounds since coming off the mountain.
Sundance will one day be a trail horse for Catie’s youngest daughter, Sarah. “He has a tendency to startle a bit,” Catie said, “so we’ll work with him to gain confidence and trust.”
In the meantime, like Belle, Sundance has been enjoying his treats: soaked beet pulp, apples and carrots in abundance.
The reader unfamiliar with horses may wonder whether two creatures that bonded as Belle and Sundance clearly did might pine for one another when separated. It’s true that horse pals will show signs of distress when one is removed from the other: they may call out to that lost friend in hopes of being heard; they may pace or eat less for a few days. But horses are wonderfully resilient creatures, and they quickly make new friends and attach to another horse—which is precisely what Belle and Sundance did soon after settling into their new digs.
AFTERWORD
On February 24, 2009, following a lengthy B.C. SPCA investigation, Frank Mackay was charged with three counts of animal mistreatment—two counts under the Criminal Code of Canada (causing unnecessary pain or suffering to an animal and willful neglect in the feeding or care of animals) and one count under the British Columbia Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (causing an animal to be or to continue to be in distress). If convicted of the more serious Criminal Code offences, he could face a maximum fine of $10,000, up to five years in jail and a prohibition on owning animals.
Mackay was to make his first court appearance in McBride provincial court on June 12, 2009, but that was adjourned to August 14, and then once more to October 2. Some wondered if the case would ever be heard. Finally, on December 4, 2009, almost a year after the rescue, the erstwhile owner of Belle and Sundance faced the music.
There is no actual courthouse in McBride, but about five times a year a provincial court judge comes to town and sets up shop in the village council chambers, housed in a one-storey strip mall. The room used is modest, with high-backed faux leather chairs and armrests for the judge and court officials, low wooden chairs for everyone else, a framed picture of the Queen flanked by the provincial and national flags to lend the room a little gravitas and, finally, that traditional symbol of authority—a judge’s wooden gavel resting on a sound block.
Mackay’s court appearance marked the first time I saw him in the flesh—a compact man of average height with light blue eyes, receding grey hair and a ruggedly handsome face.
Light snow was falling when he arrived at the chambers around 10:00 a.m., with his lawyer, Alexander Pringle. One lawyer defending another, with seventy-four years of experience between them. He looked decidedly uncomfortable and, as far as I saw, made eye contact with no one.
The docket that day was full, as were the chambers. Several men and women were there to attend to their own brushes with the law—some to contest traffic tickets, some charged with more serious matters—and many others were family and friends of those so charged. Along with one of my farm workers, plus Ray and Lu, I was there to hear item number six on the judge’s list—the Queen versus Frank Mackay. So too was the editor of the Jasper Fitzhugh. As far as I knew, the five of us were the only ones present specifically to witness the meting out of justice to Frank Mackay.
The first order of business was to hear the charge. Mackay’s lawyer and the Crown prosecutor, Geoffrey McDonald, had before this day engaged in plea bargaining. In this process, the accused agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge in order to spare both sides the time, expense and uncertainty of a trial. What then goes to the court is called “a joint submission.” The two lawyers had agreed that the two more serious Criminal Code charges, which would have branded Frank Mackay with a criminal record, would be dropped. But the accused would plead guilty to the third charge, which was read aloud in court:Frank Mackay, between the 11th day of September, 2008, and the 23rd of December, 2008, at or near McBride, in the province of British Columbia, being a person responsible for an animal, to wit: horses, did cause or permit the horses to be or continue to be in distress [that’s contrary to a section of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, Section 24 (1)].
The judge asked Mackay how he would plead. Mackay, discomfited, replied, “Yes, sir, I plead guilty.” McDonald then laid out the story as he understood it. Calling the case “rather well known,” the lawyer said that “the Crown takes issue with Mr. Mackay’s conduct”—telling the RCMP in mid-September he’d be around to deal with the horses “the following weekend,” then not returning for six weeks. Then, when the accused did finally locate them early in December, the Crown considered unacceptable his decision to “let nature take its course.” Starvation, McDonald reminded the court, “is a rather nasty way to go.”
I had bristled the first time I’d heard Frank Mackay say it—“I let nature take its course”—when I interviewed him for the newspaper on January 7 of 2009. I bristled to hear it again in court that day. Many in the Robson Valley—and certainly the rescuers and diggers—strongly felt that nature hadn’t put those horses on that mountain. Frank Mackay had.
The Crown prosecutor told the court that Mackay had provided his office with pictures of the horses on the trip. Two local horse experts had determined by examining the photos that the horses were in good health and well trained at the beginning of the trip.
When it was time for Mackay’s lawyer to address the court, Pringle stated that his client had practised law in Edmonton since 1970 and was “well known in the Edmonton legal community as being a very highly regarded, ethical and responsible lawyer.” Mackay had during the past ten years been involved with two charities—the Tegler Foundation, which finances homes for seniors, and Meals on Wheels—and was known as “an extremely generous person who . . . normally would give the shirt off his back to somebody.”
Ten years ago, Pringle noted, Frank Mackay purchased three horses who were supposed to go to slaughter. He bought an acreage and acquired more horses. In September of 2008, Pringle said, Mackay had agreed—“as a fairly noble gesture”—to bring food to a friend who was hiking the Great Divide. It would be his first foray into the high country by himself, and Mackay thought that such a trip would offer a good experience for his horses too. The rest of the story that Pringle outlined was familiar to me: the muskeg encounter, the pack horses’ no longer following their owner, the two attempts to retrieve them and the decision not to euthanize the horses but to abandon them on the mountain.
“The irony,” Pringle told the court, “is that the horses survived by that decision. I am not saying it was the right decision. He has obviously made an error in judgment here. . . . He, upon reflection, recognizes there is more that could have been done.”
Pringle also described the single-vehicle accident that befell his client as he made his way back to Edmonton that December night in 2008. Mackay’s vehicle went off the road, leaving him with a significant cut on his head and a concussion. “He was in disarray,” the lawyer said, “for a couple of weeks thereafter.”
According to Pringle, Frank Mackay’s “error in judgment” had cost him dearly. He had received threats, been reported to the Alberta Law Society and been brought before the court. “For a man,” said Pringle, “who has never been engaged in any untoward behaviour before, this has been a harrowing experience, and he certainly regrets this event greatly and comes before you remorseful.” Mackay, said the lawyer, had “learned a lesson” from “this entire series of events.”
Through his lawyer, Mackay made a statement to the court, which read, in part:Your Honour, eighteen months ago I knew only that McBride was on
the Yellowhead between Edmonton and Prince Rupert. This is now my sixth visit to McBride and area. In this time, I have had the opportunity to speak personally or by telephone with many members of the community, whom I have found to be understanding, sympathetic, friendly and helpful. In particular, I wish to thank a local cowboy who loaned me two pack horses in my attempt to locate the horses . . . as well as the brand inspector who kept me advised to the progress of the volunteers who rescued the horses. . . . And most importantly, I wish to thank the rescuers who volunteered their time and effort to rescue these horses, which demonstrates the total unselfishness and community spirit of the citizens in the McBride area. It must have been a great feeling of contribution and success to bring these horses to safety, and, of course, it made a great Christmas story for all. If it had not been for the accident, I would gladly have participated in the rescue.
With Pringle’s remarks finished, Judge Michael Gray asked him if his client had contacted the RCMP or the authorities after the two failed attempts to retrieve his horses.
Mackay spoke up. “No.”
“No, he didn’t, sir,” said Pringle.
“I see,” the judge replied.
“He tried to do it on his own,” Pringle added.
