I had, in fact, noticed the remains of the smaller cabin in the summertime. All that remained were a few rotten logs almost lost in thick grass. There was nothing to indicate that it was a burial site.
Fearing that the rest of his family might starve, Frank Sr. set out to walk to Terminus, sixty miles downriver. Terminus is slightly closer than Ware, and he must have thought that it would be the fastest route to help.
Meanwhile, in Fort Ware, Frank Jr. was getting worried. With no word from the family, and knowing the country as he did, he feared that the deepening spring snows could bring starvation for anyone caught out on the land. He loaded a pack with food and set out for the thirty-mile cabin. It must have been an excruciating trip; as Martha told me, “the snow was over his knees every step.”
Not far from the thirty-mile cabin, Frank Jr. met his mother and the kids. Driven by hunger, she’d decided to strike out for Fort Ware, a route she may have been more familiar with than the trail to Terminus. I could imagine the joyful reunion as Frank Jr. untied his pack and gave them food, dry meat perhaps, or maybe hardtack and lard. There would have been sorrow, too, as Frank learned of his brother’s death, compounded by terrible anxiety, as he heard of his father’s desperate departure.
As it wasn’t far, they snowshoed back to the thirty-mile cabin, and with the food Frank Jr. had brought, the family soon revived. Now Frank had a difficult choice to make. He couldn’t have brought a lot of food with him, so the family would have to go back to Fort Ware. Would he accompany them, or should he go look for his father? If he did strike out downriver, it would mean that his mom would have to set out alone with the kids; in deep snow, that would be a grim task. No doubt he weighed the possibilities, questioning his mother about his father’s condition at the time he set out, wondering how far Frank Sr. might have made it and whether it was worthwhile to set out after him. Finally, he made his choice. Packing up what food was left, he and his mother and the kids set out once again for Fort Ware.
When Martha reached this part of the story, she paused and looked down at the cracked linoleum. After a few moments, she said, “Frank still thinks about that.”
When the family arrived back at Fort Ware without Frank Sr., a ski plane was chartered and Frank Jr., the priest, and an RCMP constable flew north and landed on the far end of the Pike Lakes. They walked down the creek, and in a little camp by the river, they came upon Frank’s father. He had tried to make a fire, cutting alder sticks for fuel. Weakened by hunger, he had been unable to chop through a small, dry tree, something he could have done with one stroke had he been well. He died there, and beside his frozen body they found his axe and the partly chopped stick.
Frank must have known then that had he gone downriver those seven miles instead of taking his mother back home, he might have saved his father’s life.
EVERY FEW DAYS throughout that first winter, I made the snowmobile trip to thirty-mile on the trapline rounds. No sign of the second cabin could be seen under the unmarked snow upriver.
Often, as I sipped my tea or finished up a meal, my eye drifted to the cryptic inscription lit by flickering candlelight, high on the wall behind the stove. Tough living, oh boy. Were they written that tragic spring? And if they were, whose hand had held the pencil? Was it Frank’s mother’s, while she waited, or his brother’s, before he died? Or was it his father’s, before he snowshoed into the silent, snowy forest?
And as the months passed, I began to understand the land in a whole new way, not as a visitor, but as someone to whom it was home. During the long nights at the thirty-mile cabin, stars glittered over the frozen river and above the line of serrated, icy peaks beyond. All was still. The land was wrapped in profound silence. As the hours passed, the temperature plummeted to –40°C, then –50°C, and lower. From time to time a crack rang out in the darkness as another tree exploded under the grip of the cold. The tiny tin wood stove fought a losing battle and the frost line hovered at knee level. I huddled in my sleeping bag on the spruce-pole bunk, the same one the Egnells had used so many years before. I listened to the small pops and whispers from the stove and watched the firelight flicker on the logs. I thought about the life-and-death choice that Frank Jr. had made. I thought about my own life and my choice to take up trapping. It seemed that Frank Jr. had made the best decision he could have, given all the factors he’d had to weigh. And so, I thought, had I.
Bruce Kirkby
MUSKWA-KECHIKA
“DID YOU hear that?’ Wayne Sawchuk whispers, freezing mid-stride. For the past twenty-four hours we have tracked a lost horse through dense woods cloaking British Columbia’s northern Rocky Mountains.
Well, more accurately, Sawchuk has tracked the young horse, and I have followed Sawchuk, who is making me feel like a neophyte in the wilderness for the first time in decades. The logger-turned-cowboy-turned-conservationist stoops often, finding clues that I would have missed, running his hand over blades of bent grass and scuffs on rocks, changing direction, retracing his steps, muttering, and all the while deciphering the mystery of the horse’s flight. Scars in alder bark show where the frantic horse smashed his panniers. Prints of elk, moose, deer, caribou, and galloping horse litter the thick carpet of moss underfoot, and Sawchuk patiently points out the differences. Despite such tutelage, they all look the same to me—as if a drunkard hopped through the forest on a pogo stick.
Watching Sawchuk walk through the woods, or sit motionless atop a horse while scanning the horizon, offers a rare glimpse of a man utterly and entirely in his element. Every summer since 1989, Sawchuk has mounted gruelling (upward of ninety days) horse journeys through this vast and virtually forgotten corner of Canada—and brought commercial clients with him. These are no run-of-the-mill eco-tours. “Participatory expeditions” is how Sawchuk describes the experience. The guests who join him for two-week stints, flying in and out of remote lakes on float planes while the pack string continues its relentless march over the rumbled landscape, are expected (and desperately needed) to pitch in with saddling horses, loading packs, cooking meals, gathering wood, and setting camp.
Two days earlier, an eighteen-wheel transporter unloaded twenty of Sawchuk’s horses at Summit Lake on the Alaska highway: eight for riding, twelve for packing. After a fitful sleep under the midnight sun and the usual “rodeo and yard sale” that comes with the first day of any horse trip, our nascent team of strangers leapt atop their saddles and the excited pack string thundered up a steep trail leading to alpine tablelands above.
Sawchuk’s string is comprised of proven, trusty mounts. Hazel, the patriarch, is the veteran of twenty-seven expeditions. But each year, a handful of new horses are broken in. It was after a lazy lunch on the banks of a clear creek that Buddy, one of three novice pack horses, panicked and bolted. Maybe it was a gust of wind, or just his reflection in a puddle, but by the time we realized something was amiss, Buddy had vanished into the tangled choke of trees that rise steeply above the north fork of the Tetsa River.
Dismounting, we followed on foot, retracing Buddy’s trail through a maze of trunks and fallen trees. “Poor horse was out of his mind with panic,” Sawchuk noted. “It will be a miracle if we find him alive.” Every bash and bang of his hard plastic panniers would have added to Buddy’s terror; his unabated full-out gallop was evidenced by all he’d left in his wake. Tent poles, cans of beans, and fluorescent jackets were strewn through the forest, leading us in an enormous loop. Eventually, we found ourselves lost in a confusion of hoofprints going every which way. Riding our horses to the top of the mountain, we scoured the upper limits of the forest to ensure he had not crossed into the next valley, but found nothing.
“He’s still down there somewhere,” Sawchuk declared at day’s end, “and we’ll find him.” I did not share his confidence. We were travelling at a snail’s pace, trying to find a charging horse with a full day’s lead on us, amid a wilderness so large that Ireland could fit within its borders. It felt like the proverbial search for the needle in the hays
tack.
The next morning, as we prepared to resume the search, Sawchuk slipped a lever-action .308 Browning rifle into his backpack. (This rifle, along with a mirror-polished axe, is always slung from Sawchuk’s saddle, within arm’s reach.) It was a reminder of the grim reality: if we could not find Buddy—who might already be dead, or lying stricken with a broken leg—he would surely perish in the days ahead. Sawchuk’s pack horses are fitted with a muzzle each morning to prevent grazing on the trail. If bears and wolves didn’t get him, starvation would.
NOW, AFTER SIX painstaking hours of following whispers of Buddy, Sawchuk—who auditioned for the part of Mantracker in the popular television show—has heard something. We stand motionless. Clouds of mosquitoes press around our faces and ears. A squirrel screeches in protest at our presence. A chipping sparrow flits past, and on a nearby snag, a pair of hairy woodpeckers dance in circles. Then, hidden amid these gentle sounds, comes a faint grunt.
“That’s the sound of a struggling horse!” Wayne exclaims, and strides off at a near-sprint. Soon Buddy is before us, standing motionless in a cluster of pines. The remains of a saddle and rigging hang in a tangle beneath his belly. Sawchuk approaches slowly, steadily, whispering encouragement. The horse is exhausted but unharmed. Gently wrapping an arm around Buddy’s neck, the normally stoic Sawchuk turns, with misty eyes, and asks me to snap a picture.
IF YOU SPREAD a map of North America across a table and then poured an entire bottle of red wine upon the heart of the continent, the subsequent stain—soaking the high mountain cordillera to the west, drenching the Prairies, engulfing the Great Lakes while seeping southward toward Mexico and north to Alaska—would represent the historical (or “pre-contact”) range for most of the New World’s large carnivores and ungulates.
With time, that spill has been steadily mopped up. A recent study by the American Institute of Biological Sciences shows just a splash survives today. Plotting the current populations of North America’s large species (ten carnivores and seven ungulates) reveals that in one—and only one—spot on the entire continent does the full palette of original wildlife remain: the sprawling wilderness straddling the northern spine of British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains known as the Muskwa-Kechika. And arguably no one has played a bigger role in protecting and preserving the Muskwa-Kechika than the misty-eyed man with his arm around the neck of Buddy.
In the early 1990s, British Columbia set the ambitious goal of developing a comprehensive land-use strategy for the northern half of the province. Early processes on southern lands had proven bitterly fractious; determined to find a better way, the provincial government gave a unique directive to northern stakeholders: find consensus. No votes, no split decisions; policy must address and satisfy all concerns. And everyone was invited to the table: forestry, mining, oil and gas, recreational users, organized labour, guide outfitters, trappers, conservation groups, hunters, first nations, and local government.
Sawchuk—who knew the wild lands of the northern Rockies intimately and understood what was at stake—leapt headlong into the process. It may seem contradictory that a man equally comfortable behind the wheel of a logging skidder or guiding a big-game hunt has become one of Canada’s leading conservationists, but that is exactly what Sawchuk is. The seeds of his environmental ethic were sown during his youth in the 1950s and ’60s, when he watched his father raze forests, farms, orchards, and entire towns in advance of dam construction. The loss of so much beauty felt wrong, even then, and he wasn’t about to stand by and watch it again.
The solution the diverse group of stakeholders eventually arrived at represents a unique attempt to find balance between the competing needs for wilderness protection and industrial activity. Ultimately, 6.4 million hectares—an area ten times the size of Banff National Park—was set aside: 1.6 million hectares in a constellation of twenty protected areas, and 4.8 million hectares in a special management zone where, although industrial use is permitted, wilderness and cultural values are factored into all operations, and the land is returned to its previous state when they are complete. An advisory board—with members representing every interest—reviews all plans and proposals, offering its opinion to the provincial government, which makes the final decision.
With timber prices at record lows and significant gas discoveries just outside the boundaries of the Muskwa-Kechika, fate has admittedly played a hand in keeping demands and tensions low. Nonetheless, approaching its fifteenth anniversary, this groundbreaking experiment in the co-management of wild land continues to provide hope that a successful balance can be found.
When asked why it works, Sawchuk is unequivocal. “Consensus. If the board wasn’t obliged to consider every view, it would all fall apart.” One recent example: when shale gas deposits were found in an area designated as critical stone sheep habitat, the board ordered a detailed population survey. The sheep, it was discovered, utilized only half the zone set aside for them. So development proceeded in the other half—during winter, when the footprint was almost nil—while the sheep population remained protected.
Despite its size and success, you’ll be excused if you’ve never heard of the Muskwa-Kechika: it may be one of Canada’s best-kept secrets. A recent study showed that only sixty percent of area residents recognized the name. Awareness plummeted to five percent in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, and while the poll did not cross provincial boundaries, it’s easy to guess where the numbers head as one travels east. Which is a shame, for the lessons of cooperation the Muskwa-Kechika affords, both on a national and international stage, are desperately needed today.
Even more regrettable is that the British Columbia government has made no commitment to fund the Muskwa-Kechika advisory board beyond this year; this delicately balanced solution is in peril of collapsing before its lessons can spread.
WITH BUDDY safely back among the pack string, our party continues south, travelling against the grain of the land, rising and falling as we cross the rumpled foothills of the front ranges. The desolate alpine grasslands are spotted with the purple and white of spring—avens and lupines which our horses greedily nibble. Far to the west, snow-capped peaks crowd the horizon. Aspens cloak closer hillsides like summer grass, their leaves rippling in waves with every passing gust.
The rivers draining these peaks—impossibly clear and the colour of Bombay Sapphire—have carved narrow canyons, begging exploration, through the limestone bedrock. Not one prone to frantic hydration, I find myself guzzling litre after litre of the clear stuff. It tastes that good.
We follow whispers of ancient trails carved by outfitters, guides, explorers, and first nations long before us. Some wind through ghost forests of burnt spruce, others beneath sheer rock faces, thousands of feet tall. The pack string acts like a Rototiller, eighty hooves pounding into the soft earth exposing rich, brown soil whose aroma mixes with the scent of the horses. In places where the trail has been dug into a trench, the horses prefer to balance on the edge, perched—perilously, it feels to the rider—on the narrow ribbon between gulch and forest.
One of the grand luxuries of horse travel is not having to perpetually stare at your feet, or “push bush.” This lends itself to constant observation—a good thing, as there is plenty to see in this “Serengeti of the North.” One day alone we spot 160 elk, thirty-five caribou, a dozen stone sheep, two moose, and a black bear. As hunters have long known, wildlife that would flee a walking human does not vanish at the appearance of a mounted rider. The mountain caribou are particularly curious, running toward our horses, sniffing the air, sprinting away, and then returning to tail us.
“I WANT TO show you something,” Sawchuk says after dinner, rising from the campfire on one of my last nights in the Muskwa-Kechika. We set off together down a faint game trail near camp. A nighthawk calls, and to the east, a waxing moon rises in a purple sky. After several hundred metres, Sawchuk drops to his knees and begins combing the gravel.
Then he finds it: a tiny piece of black chert, no lar
ger than a dime. I turn the piece in my hand and the smooth face of a conchoidal fracture glistens in the fading light.
“That was knapped by someone hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago,” Sawchuk explains.
A tingle passes over me as I ponder the history of the flake. Chert does not naturally occur in the area, and whoever brought it here almost surely was shaping a weapon where I now stand. My eyes stray over the land, sitting silent around us. Little if anything has changed in the centuries since the flake landed amid the river-smoothed gravel.
“Why do you leave it here?” I ask.
“Why would I take it away?” Sawchuk counters. “I worry a horse may step on it one of these years, but this is where it belongs.”
He pauses for a bit. “Far too many people today are thinking only about feathering their own nests. If we could just see beyond that, and leave things the way we found them.” Then he is silent again, and we listen to the nighthawk.
Bruce Kirkby
WALKING OFF THE
EDGE OF THE WORLD
IT TOOK several days for the true extent of our isolation to become apparent. In that time, we’d trekked inland from the coast, past desiccated gypsum hills and along the shores of Buchanan Lake, where towering cliffs soared up into the blue Arctic sky and hinted of peaks to come. Then came a labyrinth of braided rivers and narrow canyons, leading steadily upward. Emerging at last atop a vast interior plateau, we stared across unremitting plains of burnt-red rock and mochabrown earth. A few wildflowers were sprinkled about, but nothing that could assuage the mood of desolation.
In four days, we hadn’t seen a single human footprint, nor any sign of humanity at all except a dilapidated cache and bronze plaque commemorating a 1959 scientific expedition. Apart from Arctic hares—which bolted across the tundra on their hind legs, like figments from Alice in Wonderland—we’d seen no animal life, either. Which isn’t to say there wasn’t any. Muskox trails wove across the landscape. There were plenty of wolf and fox prints, and countless caribou droppings. But how did they survive? We’d passed not a sprig of vegetation taller than my big toe. That animals endured in the face of such scarcity seemed miraculous.
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