I was mildly pleased to read the name of my former home town in Mark Steyn’s commentary on the cherry-picking of the BC “Human Rights” Tribunal by a bunch of Ontarians:
“Khurrum Awan, the Osgoode Hall law student on the witness stand, is an alumnus of the Osgoode Hall in Toronto, not some entirely different Osgoode Hall at Fort Nelson.”
He’s right. Fort Nelson’s law school isn’t called that at all.
There’s a man in Fort Nelson General, (let’s call him Zechariah), who is slowly recovering from a stroke. Aside from the wheelchair, he is a comely gentleman, bald, with glittering eyes and a well-trimmed peppery moustache. He understands what is being spoken to him, but can generally only reply with “Yeah.” He speaks his one word with an amazing versatility of facial expression, intonation and head movement, so you can usually get a good idea what he means. The other day, the Fillyjonk and I went to say goodbye at the hospital, where Zach had wheeled himself to the door for his daily sit in the shade.
Fillyjonk: “Good morning!”
Zach: [Smiling and vigorously nodding] “Yeah!”
Ditch: “How are you?”
Zach: [More quietly, but contentedly] “Yeah, yeah.”
Fillyjonk: “We came to say goodbye.”
Zach: [Frowning] “Yeah?”
Ditch: “Yeah, I’m moving to Ontario, and FJ’s going to Vancouver.”
Zach: “Holy shit!”
And he turned completely red and looked ready to cry. The two of us nearly burst into tears on the spot. God bless him, and send us more friends like him.
So I just got back from a three day, 50 km hike into an isolated boreal lake. Too many stories for now, but here’s the summary: two healthy paramedics and a young veteran of the Chilkoot Trail were thoroughly embarrassed by a 75 year old man with a fused spine and a pack ten pounds heavier than any of ours, using a 12 gauge as a walking stick. More on ‘Pappy’ when I get to the rest of the story.
1. Fuelled up on the way to a call.
2. Stopped in the middle of a Code 3 run to wipe the mud off the headlights.
3. Burnt out the siren.
4. Packed food to eat on the way to a call.
5. Pulled over for a pee break on the way to a major motor vehicle accident.
I once told a couple of city friends about a call I’d attended involving an injured sheep hunter. They burst into mirthful laughter, obviously imagining a guy dressed in camo crawling through the mud of a fenced pasture with a rifle. So here I set the record straight: mountain sheep have about as much in common with their wool-gathering cousins as weasels have with eggplant. They’re so hard to hunt that the locals don’t bother, unless they’re in the business of guiding foolish southerners.
The Sheep are Smart
You see them all the time next to the road, because they know you can’t hunt them there. Off the road, I have found innumerable sheep trails, piles of fresh sheep droppings and even the occasional tuft of sheep hair, but in my whole life only one sheep, gazing serenely down on us from the ridge above the wash-out we were hiking.
Me: “How far do you think he is?”
Geordie: “Too far to shoot.”
Sheep: [Majestically descends the far side of the ridge.]
The Sheep are Athletic
They run up unstable hills so steep that I can’t even crawl up them without getting caught in a rock slide. Several times while hiking narrow canyons, I’ve found myself on the sheep trail and congratulated myself on finding the “right way.” Invariably, I motor along for a hundred feet or so and then reach a point where the standard traffic procedure is obviously to jump fifteen feet over a deep cut full of big rocks, landing on a crumbly surface the size of a dinner plate. I grumble and backtrack.
The Sheep are Cursed
Even after you shoot them, they get even. I know of a sheep hunter who broke a leg carrying his sheep back to camp. Earlier in the same trip, he had shot an elk and then lost it to a grizzly bear. Of course none of this compares to his half of the $15,000 poaching fine, earned partly for the elk he never even skinned and partly for the eternally vengeful sheep.
OK, I can’t not post this stuff. The intersection of the Liard River and the Alaska Highway is four hours north of town, in the geographical centre of no-where. The water from the springs is hot enough to support an eerily jungle-like spread of greenery in an area that reaches -40 in the winter, and the characters who drift through or set up camp are even weirder. Here’s a brief dramatis personae:
Trapper Ray: Pretty well the definitive hotsprings legend. Built cabins over a wide area of the Liard watershed, ran a trapline, and used to own the Hotsprings Lodge. Founder of the Fur Spider Hoax (See March ‘06). Once shot a moose from across a river, and carried it back in pieces across the shifting ice floes just after breakup. Was allowed by the government to shoot possibly the only Kermode bear ever observed in the Northern Rockies, because they didn’t believe that he’d seen one.
Stanley the Buffalo: Used to hang out at the Lower Lodge and watch the customers through the windows. Sometimes he would stand aimlessly in the gas station for several hours at a time.
Crazy Old Bill: Maybe not exactly crazy, but definitely a little odd since he cut down a tree onto his own head. Used to run a jade mine, which produced many green rocks, some of which, it stands to reason, may well have been jade.
Lucy: Grossly overweight stray horse that begged food off whoever would cough it up at the Hotsprings Lodge.
Kenworth the Buffalo: Still goes by the moniker he earned when he was hit by a Kenworth truck on the highway and survived. The truck was a write-off.
Ranger Al: The duty to remove fur-spider crossing signs from the highway and explain to tourists that the creatures were imaginary fell to Ranger Al. Consequently, he didn’t get along too well with Trapper Ray.
Jan: Fugitive from the FBI who just showed up at the Lodge one day and started working. Picked an assortment of wild mushrooms one day, and then disappeared for a week. Eventually hauled off by the mounties.
Cowboy Ron: Former inmate of the Kingston pen, and artisan of a still so sophisticated that it now belongs to the collections of the Penitentiary Museum.
And all this without even mentioning Toad River! Maybe one day.
There are not many specialists in Fort Nelson. Most people dabble in at least one side job, often completely unrelated to their professions, and a number of businesses house operations that would be considered mutually exclusive in a bigger town. Even the doctors are family/emergency physicians with a dash of minor surgery and a hint of veterinary practise. Adam Smith would throw a fit. What, for example, would he think of a paramedic and substitute teacher who moonlights as a barista? Or a laundromat/’love boutique’ that also provides hot showers, commercial coffee brewers and buffalo meat? Need a fiddle lesson? Just head down to the camera shop and they’ll set you up. One of the town’s couriers is also the carpet guy. At least the van from which he operates gives something like unity to his business. At the DHL, on the other hand, the packages share the space behind the counter with a thriving pet groomery. “No, you should have that assignment by now… unless… nah…”
To all my Californian friends: here, in the words of Stan Rogers, is why I don’t move down there to be with all of you.
“In a few more years I won’t remember what it was to play,
The music of old friends who need to live so far away,
But can I once taste Northern waters, then forsake them for the South,
To feel California’s ashes in my mouth?”
P.S. I’ll never forget what it was, Stan notwithstanding.
One of the little modifications to your daily routine in a northern winter is two stops at every stop sign: one before the road to check for cars, and one before the sidewalk to check for snowmobiles.
The primo local escape destination for Fort Nelsonites is a sulfur hotspring two hundred miles north of town. Yesterday, a friend and her family introduced me to the joys of winter dipping. The steam coming off the surface of the pool hits the -15 air, covering the trees with hoarfrost and condensing into a five foot deep, gently precipitating snow cloud. We watched beads of ice collect on eachother’s hair and eyelashes for a while, then had a water fight. In the background, some parents from Arizona were telling their kids to stop putting snow on their heads. I decided to go for my camera before it got too dark. “So the idea is to go to the hot end for a while, and then dash out and change really fast, right?” Nods of affirmation. After the requisite overheating, I stomped out of the pool, grabbed a towel, and headed for the change room, trying not to slip on the ice or let my wet feet freeze to the deck. By the time I had changed, I couldn’t wring out my swimsuit, because it was stiff with ice, and had begun to freeze to the bench. I went for my toque, but I could barely get it on, because after the water fight, my hair had solidified into a hedgehog of little haircicles. I melted the frost off my camera with my finger. Can’t wait to show you the pics.