Contents
Praise for adrian payne
In the Shadow of the Long Range Mountains
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Preface - The Long Range Mountains
Across the Long Range Mountains on J5
Hunting by Snowmobile
Lost in the Fog
To the Ice
Longliners Coming In
Big Game Winter Hunt
My Outfitting Years, 1986–2009
Hunting Camps: The Beginning of Blue Mountain Outfitters
Building Brian’s Lake Cabins
Injured in the Middle of Nowhere with No Way Out
Hunters and Good Friends
Dealings with the Paper Companies
Guides and Guiding
Moving Forward
A Close Call at Dawson’s Lake
Never Rains but It Pours
Another Close Encounter and Scary Moments
The Lighter Side
The Rabbit and the Mink
The Relay Race
Out of Africa: My Elusive Waterbuck
Back to Africa
Off to New Zealand
9/11
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Visit Flanker Press at:
Life on the Great Northern Peninsula
“Mr. Payne recounts his stories in an unembellished yet vivid manner. I found it all very interesting.” — The Miramichi Reader
“Vivid recountings.”
The Telegram
A Memoir
Flanker Press Limited
St. John’s
Title: In the shadow of the Long Range Mountains : a memoir / Adrian Payne.
Names: Payne, Adrian, 1940- author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210176970 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210177063 | ISBN 9781774570401
(softcover) | ISBN 9781774570418 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781774570432 (PDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Payne, Adrian, 1940- | LCSH: Hunters—Newfoundland and Labrador—Great Northern
Peninsula—Biography. | LCSH: Outfitters (Outdoor recreation)—Newfoundland and Labrador—Great
Northern Peninsula—Biography. | LCSH: Great Northern Peninsula (N.L.)—Biography. | LCGFT:
Autobiographies.
Classification: LCC SK17.P39 A3 2021 | DDC 799.292—dc23
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Copyright © Adrian Payne, 2021
All Rights Reserved. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well.
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We acknowledge the [financial] support of the Government of Canada. Nous reconnaissons l’appui [financier] du gouvernement du Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities.
I grew up facing the Atlantic Ocean with the Long Range Mountains behind me.
For as long as I can remember, I saw those mountains every day of my life, except for a few short years when I lived in Ontario. As a young boy I would often wonder what was on the other side of those mountains. Sometimes I would just stand and stare as if they were calling to me. I knew from listening to some of the old trappers and hunters that there were many lakes and valleys that were unexplored.
Little did I know back then that a great part of my life would be connected to these mountains and I would spend the better part of sixty years hunting, guiding, and exploring in the area. I made my first trek to the foothills at just fourteen years of age.
There seemed to me to be some magic in the Long Range Mountains, especially on a clear night, when I would watch a big harvest moon rise over the top. Those mountains are part of the Appalachian chain and are older than the Rocky Mountains.
It was only natural I would become a fisherman and guide since my upbringing was so closely tied to the mountains and the ocean, the very things that had such a big influence on my life.
In 1974, I decided to go on a moose hunt with my cousins, the Keoughs from Parson’s Pond. There were Doug and Liz, Frazer and Lillian, Charlie and Marguerite, and my wife, Carol, and me. We planned to go across the Long Range Mountains to a place in Area Three (Harbour Deep) we called Long Hill. Carol and I each had a moose licence, as did two of the other boys.
The Keoughs had a machine called a J5 that they used for logging. This was a machine with tracks, rubber tires in the middle, and sprockets up front. It had a flathead Dodge motor of 250 or 300 horsepower. This machine could haul just about anything you could pack on a sled. We spent a couple of days the week before the season opened down at Five Mile Road, just north of Parson’s Pond. There we made a big old mud-sled to pull all the luggage and gear in and to bring the meat back out. We would be going into the mountains and up over the hills at a place called Nobody’s Hill.
We planned on leaving the day before the season opened. But a few days before that, Carol came down with a bad cold. She saw the doctor and was taking antibiotics. We hoped she would soon be feeling better. We wanted to get away by 4:00 a.m., but when the clock alarmed, she still wasn’t feeling very well. After getting up and sitting on the side of the bed, it was decision time. I knew she wanted to go because all my cousins’ wives were going, but to take a sick person twenty miles back over the hills to stay in a cotton camp for a week wasn’t a good idea. I was disappointed, but I suggested that she not go. We decided to eat breakfast and then see how she was feeling.
We eventually decided that she would go. I had packed everything aboard the truck the night before, so right after breakfast we were on our way to meet up with my cousins at Five Mile Road. We all arrived at approximately the same time, loaded everything aboard the mud-sled, and were on our way just before daylight. Just a half-mile into our journey, we had to take the J5 around a long pond called Steady Pond. Doug and Fraser did this while Charlie and I took the four women up the pond in a boat that the boys had put there. Some of the boys also had a cabin at Five Mile Road. After we all met at the upper end of Steady Pond, we were ready to head for Nobody’s Hill, which is part of the foothills of the Long Range Mountains just north of Parson’s Pond. The women sat atop the luggage on the mud-slide. Doug drove the J5, and the rest of us walked behind. After a couple of hours we were at Nobody’s Hill, where we would be going over the mountains. I’m not sure where our trouble started, whether in the lowlands or atop the hills, but the track kept slackening up on the J5, and we tightened it up with a grease gun through a grease nipple.
We would go a little ways, the grease would come back out of the grease nipple, and the track would slacken up again. We had three or four tubes of grease, but by the time we got one-third of the way in, we were on our last tube. We had to figure something out quickly or we would be out of grease and broken down in the middle of nowhere. Someone suggested we fill the tubes with butter. At the rate we were using grease, that wouldn’t last long either, and then we’d be out of butter. After looking through everything in the tool kit for a nipple, I suggested we take one of the centre wheels and replace the bad one. We took one of the centre wheels, plugged the hole with a stick, and replaced the one that was giving us trouble. Now we could tighten the track and it would stay tight.
We finally got something to work, and this raised our spirits. Maybe we would make our trip after all. We started to make up some time. By noon we were halfway across the hills to where we would be camping at Long Hill. We stopped by a small pond and boiled the kettle and had a lunch. But shortly after lunch, as we got on our way again, our luck at replacing the grease nipple ran out and we discovered a bigger problem.
The right front wheel was wobbling, and this meant only one thing: we had a bearing problem. We stopped and took the wheel off, and sure enough, that was the problem. All of the bearings fell out of the cone. Well, it looked like our trip was over, but first we would try taking the bearing out of one of the middle tires and put it in the front, because the front tire was the most important one to keep the track tight. That way we could cripple back home, as we didn’t want to be caught out on the open hills with four women. Although we had tents and everything for survival, it wouldn’t be nice in a rainstorm without a fire. On top of the mountains for the first twelve or fourteen miles it’s just open tundra with little or no firewood to cut, just patches of tuck bush. I was also worried about Carol, although she was doing pretty well. While the boys were changing tires and bearings, the girls played cards to pass the time. I was sizing up the axle. I said to one of the boys, “What’s the size of the axle?” It looked to be about two inches. When Doug confirmed this, I said, “I brought along my two-inch auger in case we needed it for repairs to the mud-sled. Let’s try making a cone to fit the shaft.”
There were some small black spruce in the area, and it’s a very hard, tough wood. I sawed down a black spruce about three inches in diameter, leaving three inches on the stump. I then took my two-inch auger and bored a hole in the stump. Then I sawed it off and tried it over the shaft. It fit perfectly. After that I took my knife and started to taper it down on the outside to fit into the cone that the bearing used to fit into.
After some time cutting and trying to fit the wooden cone into the wheel drum, I had a pretty good fit. I measured the right length and sawed it off with a handsaw. I packed it with the hard grease that we had left and put the wheel back on, praying to God it would work. Everyone kept their fingers crossed. We decided we would give it a shot and continue on our trip, so away we went.
Just when we thought nothing else could happen, we started having fuel trouble. We ended up having to drain the tank and clean it out. However they got there, there were wood shavings in the bottom of the tank.
After solving that problem, we finally made it to Long Hill. After twelve or fourteen hours on the go, we set up camp just before dark. We set the tent up in a hurry and got the stove going for the ladies. Except for my gun, we only unloaded the necessities and some food for the night. I left my gun leaning against the nearest tree. I had carried it all the way across to Long Hill in case we saw a moose. The other guns were tied on the sled. After getting a lunch, we settled in for the night in our sleeping bags. There were eight of us side by side.
Early the next morning I heard Doug outside making a fire. The boys and I joined him, and we sat around on five-gallon buckets waiting for the kettle to boil before daylight. This would give the girls a chance to catch a few extra winks. Dawn rose to a blanket of fog. We were hoping it would burn off after the sun came up. There was a little brook about twenty-five yards from the camp where we got water. Then I thought I heard a moose grunt. The boys said it was probably just the brook, but then we all heard it. This time there was no mistake. It was a moose grunt.
We stood still for a few seconds. Then, out of the fog stepped a six-point bull. While the boys went for the guns that were still tied on the sled, I grabbed mine from the tree. With the magazine already in the gun, I chambered a bullet and fired. Some screams came from the camp, and one of the girls stuck her head out. “What happened?” she asked. “We just got our first moose,” I replied.
For the next three or four days we hunted and filled our other three tags. Some days Charlie would stay with the girls and get wood to keep the fire going for them. Liz, Marguerite, and Lillian taught Carol a new card game called Hi Jack. Some nights we men would join in with them. It was quite a bit of fun, and we did a lot of laughing.
Other than the breakdowns with the J5, we had a great trip. The weather was pretty good other than a night of rain when water got in under the camp and soaked our sleeping bags. We had snow the day before we left to go home, but it didn’t last. We just took it all in stride.
We collected all the moose with the J5 and brought them back to camp the day before coming home. We loaded the four moose onto the sled, then all of our luggage and the two tents. It was quite a sight and quite a load. With the girls sitting on top, we left for home. Farther out on the mountains we ran into a few snowdrifts that were two and three feet high but nothing the J5 couldn’t handle. The weather was good, and for the most part the men walked the fourteen miles across the hills into the lowlands.
I had my shotgun, and I shot four partridges on the way out. Everything went pretty good coming back, and we had no big problems. Even my black spruce bearing was holding up. In fact, Doug and Frazer made another trip across the mountains later that fall with some other hunters with the same wood bearing.
When we got off the mountains, we still had a few miles to go before we got back to the trucks. It was dark by the time we got the girls back to the boat. Then we waited for Frazer and Doug to take the J5 around Steady Pond. What with the muddy trail and all, it took quite a while to do that, and it was 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. by the time we made it back to the trucks. They were a good sight after the long day, especially for the women.
By the time we had everything unloaded from the J5 and then loaded aboard the trucks, it was getting late. When we headed for home, I believe it was between twelve and one o’clock in the morning. When we pulled into our driveway, it was too late to pick up the kids, so we left them at my mother’s and sister’s for another night. This would give us a chance to sleep in. After getting up at six that morning and walking all day and punching eighteen hours on the beat, we were finally home sweet home. Exhausted, we fell into bed, and in about ten seconds flat we were fast asleep.
When the first snowmobiles became available to us, it was a while before I had money enough to buy one. But I do remember the first one that was in Cow Head. A friend of mine, Leo Hynes, went to Deer Lake and bought a twelve-horsepower Olympic Ski-Doo. He traded a motorbike and set up a payment plan for the Ski-Doo at Handy Andy’s, the dealership at the time. This was sometime in the 1960s. Leo purchased the Ski-Doo and then decided he would drive it all the way to Cow Head after dark. He told me that he got stopped by the RCMP just outside of Deer Lake, and he figured for sure that he was in trouble. The officers wanted to know where he was going, and when Leo told them that he was going to Cow Head, one officer replied, “That’s a long way to go on that thing.” Leo then told them that he was waiting for a guy with a truck to pick him up. “I don’t suppose you have a couple of cigarettes on you?” the officer asked. “Yes, I do,” Leo said. After he gave them a cigarette each, they said, “Be careful,” and let him go on his way. I guess they knew there was no truck coming to pick up Leo.
I remember another time when the cops saw him driving his motorbike on Main Street in Cow Head. The chase, of course, was on. Leo didn’t have the bike registered, nor did he have a licence to drive it, so naturally, when he saw the cops, he didn’t want to get fined. When Leo saw them coming, he was near Isaac Brown’s Lane, which went into the woods. Leo knew that the lane wasn’t wide enough for the cop car to follow him, so he headed in there. When he looked behind him, the cops were waving for him to come back. Leo said, “That’s the last they saw of me that day!”
Leo came from a big family of two girls and twelve boys. His father called his sons the twelve disciples. Tom, Leo’s father, was a very funny man who had a way of making people laugh. Leo also had a large family but managed very well and wanted for nothing. If something new came out, Leo would be the first to have it. I remember that he was the first in Cow Head to have a television. Leo and his wife, Eliza, always had quite a number of people in on Saturday nights to watch the hockey game. The picture was a little fuzzy back then, and everyone would take their antennas down on Saturday to clean them before the game.
Over the years I’ve taken quite a few trips with Leo: moose hunting, rabbit catching, and fishing. This particular story took place a couple of years after Leo got his first Ski-Doo. Leo, his brother Wayne, our friend Joe, and I wanted some meat and decided to go on a hunting trip. Leo had his Ski-Doo and Joe had a Snow Jet, the first I’d seen of that type. Our wives were busy baking buns, bread, and perhaps a molasses cake that we would take with us. We were busy gathering food, gas, and guns, and making certain that our snowmobiles were in good working order. Finally, we were ready for the trip.
We had planned this trip to the Rock Cut, which is to the east of Cow Head and west of Caribou Brook. Job Hutchings and Ronald Hutchings were the owners of an old camp where we stayed the first night. It was located near the brook that ran out of the Rock Cut. Years later, Leo’s son George, Obediah Payne, Max Brown, and Victor Payne would start a band, and that was the name they chose—the Rock Cut.
The old camp belonging to Job and Ronald was getting worse for wear. It had no bunks or table, just a few boughs on the ground to sleep on and a wood stove. But it was better than having to pitch a cotton camp in winter. Nothing had really changed in the area since my first trip to the Rock Cut, except now we had snowmobiles instead of dog teams.
The brook was good that year with lots of ice and snow, and it looked like we could take the Ski-Doos right through to the pond. If so, we would be the first to take snowmobiles through there. We could then go on to the bottom of the hills, a place called Bottom Pond, where we planned to build a small camp and stay for the rest of the trip. The next morning we were up bright and early. We packed our luggage and headed up the brook with the Ski-Doos. One of us would walk ahead of the machines with a long pole to check for snow-covered openings. Everything went well, and within an hour or so we were on the first pond. Now we had smooth sailing on to Bottom Pond. This was as far as we could go on Ski-Doo. Farther on there was a fairly steep climb of an hour or more to get to the top of the hills. But first we had things to do, and we set to work with bucksaw and axes to build a shelter.
We needed to get our blood warmed up after the ride on the Ski-Doo. It had been a pretty cold ride on the sled with Joe: after fifteen or twenty miles with the snow coming at me from the Ski-Doo track, I was like a snowman. It was a very cold day. In the big timber the trees swayed gently, cracking with the frost. We would hear this all night long. I believe my wife said it was minus thirty or lower while we were gone. And at that time we measured in Fahrenheit!
We worked all through the day building a crude shelter for our three- or four-night stay. While cutting logs, we made a big fire where we were going to build the camp. The fire would thaw the snow, which was four or five feet deep, down to the ground. By 2:00 p.m. we had enough logs cut and material gathered to lay the bottom logs for our camp. By now the snow had melted enough to let us get started. We chose the largest logs for the bottom. After the fire went out, we had the first square of logs laid on the ground for an eight by ten camp. We then put about a foot of boughs in the hole for our bed. They also covered up the soot from the fire. We hoped there would be some heat left in the ground, as this would make for a cozy bed for the night. We put a small stick upright in each corner to which we nailed the logs. At about five feet we were at the top of the snow. We then added another log, and this gave us walls approximately six feet high. Dark was beginning to set in, so that was as much as we got done that day. We had already cut some small sticks about two or three inches in diameter and about ten feet long that we would use for rafters. But for that night we just laid them across the top of the logs. We would secure them the next morning.
By now it was nearly dark, so we hurried and put the sticks across the top of the logs about a foot apart. Leo had brought three or four old bedsheets that he had sewn together. We used these for the roof and laid them over the rafters. We then cut a hole in the sheet for a flange. The stovepipes would go up between two rafters. We had brought an old piece of tin that we had cut a hole in the size of the pipe to make the flange.
After all this was finished, we got a fire going, and soon it was pretty comfortable inside. Because it was so cold outside, we would keep the fire going all night. But we still had lots of work to do on our makeshift cabin. Cinching the seams would have to wait until the next day.
After another cup of tea and a visit outside to answer Mother Nature’s call, we finally settled in for the night. We blew out the candle, and fully clothed with a junk of wood for a pillow, we lay back on our bed of boughs. Despite the frost creaking in the big trees and having to see to the fire, we managed a few catnaps and were glad of the shelter.
Pleasantly anticipating the moose hunt, we passed a peaceful night. Here in the middle of nowhere, with the shadows flickering off the walls from the little wood fire, and the moon shining down through the tall timber, I truly felt at peace with myself and the world. This is what I had dreamed about during all those years I’d spent in Toronto. It was as close to paradise as it could get. It was the life I had longed for.
As I write this, my memory drifts back to those wonderful times when life was simple and free. I can picture that spot as clear as if it were yesterday. I wonder if time has erased our presence there or if there are still some remnants from fifty years ago, when our footprint was light upon Mother Earth.
But there is a sad reality. When Gros Morne National Park was established forty years ago, all hunting was banned within Park boundaries. I flew in over the area in 2012, and it looked like a moonscape. What had happened to the beautiful boreal forest where I had hunted fifty years ago? Then there had been a forest of coniferous trees (balsam fir, white spruce, white pine, black spruce) and deciduous trees (birch, mountain ash) and many other species. And it took less than forty years to destroy it all.
You can walk the Long Pond ridges with someone on the top and someone down on the bottom and you can see each other at 500 yards apart. There is nothing but grass for the whole length of the ridge, with the odd spruce that moose will not eat. It made me very sad to see such devastation. I had thought that parks were supposed to protect areas like this. Isn’t that why they exist?
The answer, of course, is simple. As soon as the Park banned hunting, the moose population exploded. I saw first-hand that any tree up to eight feet high was eaten bare. Limbs the size of a person’s thumb were eaten when the moose yarded up during the winter. And there was no replacement for the older trees that had died.
Well, Parks Canada couldn’t let us backwoods people from Newfoundland go in there and destroy all the moose and all the forest. By taking our traditional hunting rights away, Parks Canada created a problem that would not be easily fixed. It could take 200 years—or more—to bring the area back to what it was forty years ago.
People in the coastal communities have hunted and used the forest in various ways for hundreds of years. After thirty years you could go back and cut logs where people had logged previously. We used everything wisely, only taking from the forest what we needed and hunting only when we needed food. Now, except in designated areas, we’re not allowed to cut one tree—and even that privilege will end with my generation.
Shortly after the hunting ban, there were obvious signs of moose devastation, and Parks Canada was told what was happening by rabbit hunters and snowmobilers. But it took them thirty-five years to do something about it. Even though they’ve now opened the Park to hunting, the rules are very restrictive. One that makes no sense to me is not being allowed to light a fire to boil the kettle or dry your clothes if you get wet. And to think they pay people to make up and enforce these rules. As far as I’m concerned, fewer rules and more common sense would have been much more helpful.
Hunting moose kept the system in balance. The answer was right under the Park’s nose, but hunters were just regarded as culprits. There wouldn’t have been a problem in the first place if the hunt had continued. Now there is destruction everywhere, especially along the foothills of Gros Morne National Park, where the old growth forest is destroyed. And it all boils down to poor management.
This brings to mind a story that took place in the 1980s, when I first became an outfitter. I needed to haul a boat I’d built in over the mountains to one of my hunting lodges. The trail was an old country trail that had been used by trappers and hunters for 150 years or more. In March, I enlisted the help of a couple of guys to transport the boat. We had cut our high teeth going over the Long Range Mountains by this route. Before we left to haul the boat in, we did a trial run, and on some of the turns I had to cut a small tree or a dead stump in order to get around the turns with the boat. Leo’s brother Dennis was with me on this trip. On the weekend, we left to haul the boat in and would spend a couple of days and nights cutting firewood. We also took a few pleasure rides up to the Western Brook Gorge. When I arrived home on Tuesday, my wife informed me that someone from the Park office had called, and I was summoned to see one of the Park wardens as soon as I got home.
The next day I dropped by the office, and the Park warden, whom I knew pretty well, was sitting at his desk. “What’s the problem?” I asked. “Well,” he answered, “I traced your trail into the mountains, and I counted forty-one saplings that you had cut down.” I said, “Yes. That trail was used by my grandfather over one hundred years ago, and also by me long before the Park was established. How do you propose we get boats and supplies back over the mountains? That’s the only way you can get on the mountains from here.” He said, “No cutting trees of any kind in a National Park.” “Well,” I said, “I just hope that this is the biggest problem you run into while stationed here in Gros Morne.”
I didn’t get a summons to court, but I did receive a warning. But, as I’ve said, sometimes common sense should prevail over rules. I really believed that nature would quickly replace forty-one saplings over fifteen miles.
Now back to the story of our trip to the Rock Cut. Early the next morning we stripped the sheets and rafters off and proceeded to put up the gable ends and a ridgepole. Then we put the roof on and finished stogging (cinching) between the logs that we hadn’t had time to finish the day before. This was done mostly with maldown (caribou moss) and rind (bark) from the birch trees. Most of the second day was gone by the time we got the camp finished and had cut a good supply of wood to last for a couple of more nights.
The third day we were ready to go on the hills. We donned our snowshoes as dawn was breaking. As I said earlier, we had an hour’s climb or more before we got to the top of the Long Range Mountains. We were dragging a hand-sled up with us in case we got meat. We had an old dog with us, Trigger, that Leo’s family owned, but he was just along for the trip or to chase a moose out of the woods for us. He wasn’t a harness dog. I remember Norm, Leo’s brother, telling me how old Trigger could smoke cigarettes. Norm would roll up a cigarette and stick it between the dog’s lips, and he would keep it there until it burned down to just a butt. Then he would sneeze and spit it out. Whenever Norm and I were together and Old Trig was with us, we would roll up a cigarette for ourselves and one for the dog and we’d all have a smoke together. As young boys, we got a great kick out of that.
After travelling across the mountains for a couple of miles, we came to some big timber where we figured there were some moose yarded for the winter. Sure enough, we came across some moose sign, and it wasn’t long before Old Trig was on the sign and into the woods. He drove two moose out of the woods and onto the pond, where they split off. One went in on a big steady, and Leo and Joe gave chase. Wayne and I followed the other moose. When we got a shot at it, it went into an open brook into about two feet of water, but only its hind legs were in the brook. It was still standing, so we waited awhile to see if it would come out of the brook. But it was wounded and just stood there. Finally, we had to finish it off, and now it was down into the brook. After much tugging and pulling, we finally got it partly out of the brook and got it cleaned out. We were both soaked.
We were both getting pretty cold. It was late afternoon, and we hadn’t eaten much all day. I had a couple of raisin buns in my pack, so we ate those. Wayne gathered some dry twigs and limbs, and I tried to make a fire. I was at the point now where I was trembling and shaking. It was minus twenty, and I knew hyperthermia was setting in. I was shaking so badly I couldn’t light a match, and I knew I was going to be in trouble if I didn’t soon get a fire going. Luckily, Leo and Joe arrived, and it wasn’t long before Leo had a fire ablaze. After I dried up a bit and the heat got to me, I began to feel a little better. Leo and Joe had also been successful and killed a monster moose.
We skinned a couple of quarters of meat and tied them on the hand-slide, with two or three more hours to get back to our little shelter before dark. We had close to 300 pounds of meat on the sled. I wasn’t in very good shape, and Joe was worse. He could barely keep his rope tight. With nothing in our stomachs, it wasn’t going to be easy. We had no dogs to haul the sled. I was behind with a rope over my shoulder and also steering the slide. We were sinking a foot into the fresh snow that had fallen overnight. Good thing we were wearing snowshoes. We had to do this all over again the next day in order to pick up the rest of the meat before leaving for home. Leo ended up having to take the biggest quarter off the sled. It was close to 200 pounds. He put it on his back and carried it up a big hill that we had come down on our way in. He was a raw-boned, strong man—nothing fazed him. About three hours later we finally made it to the top and from there to our little shelter in the valley. We were glad to be there after a long, hard day with nothing to eat but a raisin bun. The first thing was to get a fire going—then we’d get some food into us and dry our clothes. Before turning in, we had the traditional feed of moose liver. After the tasty liver was cooked and eaten and a warm glow flickered in the little shelter, it wasn’t long before we nodded off and fell asleep.
The next day the plan was to do it all over again. We picked up the rest of the meat and hauled it and our luggage out the two ponds and through the Rock Cut to the old cabin where we had spent the first night. When we left the old rough cabin that we had built, I kind of felt bad that we were leaving it behind: it had served us well in the sub-zero temperatures. I really loved those trips, and of course they put meat on the table. The challenge of it—like building that cabin—was the thing I most loved about our lifestyle.
It was an hour before dark, and we had to get everything loaded up and ready to leave for home. Joe had a big sled that we loaded up with over half the meat and luggage. This was done on the brook, and after everything was loaded on Joe’s sled and hooked to the Ski-Doo, the ice started to crack. We all made for shore. The sled, Ski-Doo, and everything disappeared into the brook, under the ice! Well, now we had a problem. As we looked down into the hole, the Ski-Doo and sled were sitting in the brook about six feet below us in about a foot of water. The brook had run down after it had frozen over during the winter and left the ice way above water level.