Hunting and belonging.

My appreciation of hunting stems from a love of the natural world that surrounds me, and from an acceptance that at my most basic, I am a part of that world.

As a hunter one must re-learn the skills of observation that our modern lives have cast aside. We must learn to see, listen, and even move in ways that are very much different than those required in day to day life.
Having said that, I would like to relate to you some of the fond memories that my time afield has afforded me.

I remember the morning as being cold with freshly fallen snow blanketing the trees and ground with a brilliant sun in a clear blue sky.

My friend Dave and I quietly took up positions within sight of each other on the narrow peninsula and settled in to await the others.
The others being the rest of our party who would hopefully drive the deer towards us.

I don't know how long we stood there, silent and unmoving, listening for the sound of any movement approaching our position and then it came.
Snap! went a dry twig followed by a barely audible rustling sound just off to my right.

I slowly raised my rifle to the ready position, placed my thumb on the safety and lay my forefinger across the side of the trigger guard and putting my left foot forward, scanned for signs of movement.

From this stance I could bring the rifle up to firing position, snap the safety off and have my finger by the trigger ready to fire in one motion.

I knew Dave would be doing the same thing so with a bit of luck, things were about to get loud.
Then my eyes detected movement about 20 meters away.
Another snap, more rustling and the I saw them. Two of them in fact and both coming right at us!

It was about this time that I lowered my rife as a pair of weasels all decked out in their beautiful white winter coats came bounding towards us in full on play mode.

The snow was flying as they chased each other around, over, and through a hollow log.
A little white head would pop up out of the log and call out with a  cheep cheep! at which the other one would bound across the snow and scramble into the hole that seconds before was filled by its companion.

There was no way any deer was going to come anywhere near us that morning.
Not perhaps due to the commotion cause by that pair of little scamps but more because of the sound of the laughter of two hunters echoing through the woods.

I have nothing but fond memories of that day as we watched those two little predators wrestling in a cloud of fresh snow and twitching tails and I would not have traded that magic moment for anything....

Another time I recall was of the day we were heading into town to drop off three deer at the butcher shop.
It was the last day of the season and in fact there were only about two hours left before sundown.

As we drove out towards the highway from the camp I yelled stop! I think I see a deer up on the ridge.
The driver hit the breaks as I jumped out of the truck, and sure enough there was the biggest buck I had ever seen and he was paying us no attention at all which is more than a little strange.

I slid my rifle out from behind the seat, took three rounds of 30/30 ammo out of my pocket and slid them into the loading gate of the rifle.
This was going to be a long shot but if I moved slowly and quietly I could make the shot without him moving.

I placed the rifle along the trunk of a tree to steady it and chambered a round.
Bringing the sight of the Winchester to bear on the bucks heart I steadied myself, took up some pressure on the trigger, inhaled slowly and held my breath.... And held it some more....

I then placed my thumb on the hammer spur, squeezed the trigger, and slowly brought the hammer to the half cocked position.
Some day this huge buck would die, but not that day and not by my hand and certainly not with two hours left in the season.

He was magnificent, muscular and in his prime with his head held high, topped by a massive set of antlers and I hope he lived a long life and passed his genes on to many fawns.

If I close my eyes I can still see him there on that ridge looking every bit like the lord of his domain.
What a sight he was!

I admit that had it been the previous day or possibly even that morning, I would have brought him down without a moments hesitation but as I think back I don't regret the way our meeting unfolded.

I could go on and on telling story after story of the memories that hunting has given me.
Many involved deer that I did shoot and many more that did not involve deer at all.
For me it's about my place in a natural world that I am lucky enough to be a part of.
And about respect for the land and respect for my quarry.
It's about spending time with good friends in an environment where I have always felt more a part of than any concrete jungle that separates us from the land we belong to.

Take note of my previous sentence because that's what I believe.
The land does not belong to us, we belong to it.
It's a shame that most of us have lost that belief.

The Haunted Pump-house Pt2

I don't remember how long we loitered about outside the pump-house before someone gathered enough fortitude to open the door which as if on cue, creaked on its rusty old hinges like something out of a gothic horror movie.
"We'll hold the door open" Rick said as the five terrified girls crept forward.
The bait having been taken, it was time to spring the trap! Rick reached inside to where he knew the switch for the motorized pump was and flicked it on.

I don't think that pandemonium is too strong a word for the scene which unfolded before us as the pump roared to life and gallons of water began gushing forth onto the floor soaking everyone's feet.
The slender connecting rod was all butt invisible in the darkness but you could just make out the pump handle going up and down at an incredible rate, as though gripped by some deranged spectre bent on frightening the life out of the living.

If I were to compare the commotion to a Hollywood film I would have to go with something like Nightmare on Elm Street meets The Keystone Cops!
Sort of a combination of blood curdling screams and running aimlessly about without any comprehendible objective.

It was a good thing that Rick and I had the good sense to get out of the way as the girls, having gained their bearing exited the pump-house at break neck speed, lest we be trampled in the ensuing stampede.
In retrospect though, had we really been thinking clearly that night we wouldn't have had to sit through the interrogation that would soon follow as the lights came on in the house.

I don't know if it's true that your hair can turn pure white from fright but I can attest to the fact that little girl's faces certainly can!
Still, other than a few bumps, bruises, and a few somewhat less than healthy looking complexions, "No harm done" as they say.

As I think back all these many years ago, I can not tell you if the semi stern talking too was the first one we got relating to our mischief making on the farm but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the last.

I recall the girls spending a night in a tent and something about a dozen or so chickens finding their way in there with them....
Isn't growing up just grand?

I lost touch with Rick as we grew older and some 25 years ago I found out that he had passed away from complications due to HIV.
I would have liked to have shared this with him.

The Haunted Pump-house Pt1

The old farmhouse that my childhood friend Rick lived in was haunted.

At least that's what was claimed, and as this was confirmed by my friends mother, I as a youngster had no reason not to believe that if not the stories themselves, at least there were those who claimed they were.

Rick and I first met when we were about eight years old after we had moved into a house which backed onto his family's home in Scarborough Ontario.
He and I became fast friends, as did our respective families and I recall we always seemed to be together doing one thing or another which for Rick and myself more often than not included some type of mischief.

While I don't recall exactly how long our families lived as neighbours I do know that it was only a year or two, after which we moved a few miles away which put me in a different school than Rick.
A short time later he and his family left Scarborough and moved into the old farmhouse in King City north of Toronto.

Our familys still saw each other socially though and I used to look forward to visiting the farm where we would often spend the weekends together.
On one such weekend there were several of us kids staying overnight at the farm which I suppose says something about the patience and easy going nature of Rick's mother Yetty.
There was Rick and his two younger sisters Cathy and Gloria, my sister,my self and two other young girls who were friends of Rick's sisters and whose names are long since lost to me.

With seven kids given free run of a farm there seemed to be no end to the potential adventures that awaited us, from the hay-loft to the various other out-buildings. All of which we explored every square inch of.
The old farm's reputation for being haunted was never far from our minds though, and that evening as the sunshine surrendered to a coal black moonless night, we found ourselves gathered upstairs in the farmhouse telling ghost stories.

Most of stories were of the typical type, with claims of objects seemingly having moved from one place to another of their own accord when you left a room for a moment, or of having the bed sheets pulled off of you in the night as you slept.
These ghostly tales seemed new to most of those sitting wide eyed in the darkened room and I shouldn't wonder if Rick's did not discourage the telling of them to the younger kids in the group.
For myself however I had heard them all before, until Rick started
Recounting the story of the farmer who had hanged himself in the pump-house.

As the story unfolded I gave Rick an inquisitive glance which was answered with a subtle "Go with me on this" look in return.
Aha! The game was afoot and things were about to get interesting.
My instincts and years of mischief making with Rick told me exactly what was going to happen later that night and I was more than happy to play along.

Before I go any further I'll tell you that the pump-house was a simple windowless wooden structure with a single door and which contained nothing more than an old fashioned cast iron hand pump, the type of which I am sure you are
familiar. I suspect that it had been their long before electricity was brought to the farm but at sometime in the past, some enterprising person had decided to ease the chore of pumping water by hand.
An electric motor had been installed on the floor next to the pump. From this, a V-belt ran up to  a pulley on the ceiling, to which was attached a metal rod, the other end of which was attached to the end of the pump handle.

If you have already surmised the turn of events that I am about to relate to you then congratulations, you may now allow yourself an evil little smirk. A smirk that my old chum Rick and myself had to deny ourselves on that dark night lest our hapless victims catch wind of their upcoming pitfall.

The last part of the yarn that was spun that night ended with a chapter about a man who had entered the pump one dark night, and how the door had slammed behind him barring his exit.
And how he had been found much later with his hair turned completely white, and that he spent the rest of his life in an asylum babbling incoherently.
As soon as the younger kid's blood had been suitably chilled came the obligatory dares as to who would be brave enough to venture outside and enter the pump-house in the dark of night.

There being no volunteers it was suggested and summarily decided that we would all go together and so down the stairs and quietly out the door we went as everyone else in the house slept.
Across the porch and off into the darkness toward the silhouette of the pump-house went five terrified young girls followed by two you scoundrels in guise of Rick and myself.

Cont....

A Letter to a Ghost (Tracer part2)

A few years after the closing of the store I found myself living just outside of Campbellford Ontario and working in a Hazardous waste transfer facility.

I think Tracer missed the store as much as I did but all good things must come to an end as the saying goes.

One day as my beloved friend Tracer walked by me in my living room I noticed that he was urinating as he walked which is something he hadn't done since he was a pup.

I quickly took him outside and my heart sank as I saw the blood mixed with his urine on the snow outside.
At that very moment I knew our time together was about to end.

Everything that could be done for him was done, and our last night together was spent with him sleeping beside me on the couch before heading upstairs to bed.
Tracer stopped halfway up the stairs and turned his head to make sure I was with him just as he always did.
I helped him up onto the bed and drifted off to sleep with him beside me as we had done thousands of times before.

The next morning he saw me off to work with a little tail wagging as was his way but I had the most horrible feeling inside as I left..

Below is a letter, a letter I wrote for the dearest friend I ever knew.
Until now, not many have seen it but here is what I wrote a few days later.
I can't explain my need to write it but it seemed like the thing to do.

You came into my life in August of 1988 and at that time I did not realize what a major part of my life you would become.

I will always remember the flow of friends and customers at the store parading through the living room to see you, a puppy of a breed none of them have ever seen before and you impressed everyone even then.

As you grew you quickly learned find and retrieve game birds and your obedience training came naturally, much without the need of collar or leash.

As you grow older still you took it upon yourself to protect the store and to bring in the morning papers for which you demanded the fee of an occasional freezie. A small price to pay indeed.

While in the field your eagerness to please a knew no bounds and if you injured yourself you never complained, wishing only to continue the hunt.

Although you were four times the size of your little friend Tuffy you would always let him drink first, eat first, or do whatever he wanted first demonstrating your good nature and big heart without exception.

At times after a hard day I rejected you and yet you never rejected me.
I am sorry for that and wish there were some way to repay your kindness.

I will always remember you're excited face at the door when I returned from work, your clear grey eyed stare that would pierce my very soul, and your feverish dance at the sight of a shotgun or hunting vest.

When that day that I knew must come finally arrived, I was not ready nor do I think I could have ever been and yet on that last day we spent together you still managed a small wag of your tail as if to comfort me.

I regret not being with you when you left this world but as was your way I'm sure you would have forgiven me.

Tracer I will always love you and miss you.
Sleep well my friend you've earned it.

I wrote that some 14 years ago and I can tell you that the scars still have not fully healed nor do I think they ever will.
Tracer was just that special.

I almost gave up bird hunting after his loss partly because I could not go back to our old hunting spots without him and partly because the sight of a grown man with a bushy beard and tattoos standing in the forest with a shotgun and crying like a fool might be somewhat unnerving to fellow hunters.

But then came Tracer's Great Nephew Northern Lights Jaeger.
Turn, turn, turn.

The Grey Ghost (Tracer part 1)

I was working as an exterminator in Toronto when my father passed away which was, needless to say a time I will never forget.
That is not my subject today however, it is more of a way of setting the stage to the story of how I met my best friend.

You see, after my father died, my mother felt the need for change and so purchased a small general store away from the hustle and bustle of the big city.

As for myself I was quite happy working for a small family owned pest control business, but when she asked me to accompany her and help to run the store I jumped at the chance to get away from city life.

I now fast forward to 1987 where along with my mother and a close family friend I found myself working, and because the store was attached to a house, living at the Railside general store in Hastings Ontario.

Several years before I had taken up hunting and so thought this was a good a time to get myself a bird dog as I could now devote the time needed to raising and training a pup.

Having hunted over a beautiful English Springer Spaniel by the name of Bandit who was owned by a dear friend of mine I became quite fond of Spaniels.
I had however always been impressed by pointing breeds and after much research decided to get myself a Brittany Spaniel which I saw a the perfect breed for me.

Now having a breed in mind it was only a matter of finding a good breeder of field dogs, which I was sure I could do at the annual hunting show in Toronto and that Fall, off to the show I went.
I really can't remember how long must a walked up and down the aisles in the sporting dog area of the show looking at pups of every description from beagles to Norwegian Elkhounds, and then I saw it.
The most beautiful puppy I have ever laid eyes on!
I wanted that pup! I needed that pup! And damn it, I was going to buy that pup! Incidentally that pup turned out not to be a Brittany Spaniel at all, but a Weimaraner!

So much for all the planning and research I had done!
It was all forgotten at the first sight of that very special breed lovingly known as "The Grey Ghost."
So much for my plan of buying that pup too, because she, and indeed all of her litter mates had already been sold.
My choice now was to go back to my original plan or put myself on a waiting list for the following litter.
I put myself on the list and returned home to await a phone call the following season.

That phone call came the following year and when the pups were weaned and ready to go we discussed how I was going to pick the pup I wanted.
The breeder told me that if I was willing to let him pick the pup for me he would meet me in Toronto with it thus saving me an extra four or five hours of driving time.
As the breeder seemed an honest sort of chap I agreed to his offer provided that in his opinion they would all be good field dogs.
He gave his assurances that they were and that all he needed was for me to tell him whether I was interested in a male or a female.

I don't rightly remember who brought it up but size was mentioned and the breeder told me that one of the males was exceptionally large.
Having always love big dogs I told him that was the pup for me and before I knew it I was driving to Toronto to meet my new best friend.

His registered name was Richmark Tracer and oh what a best friend he turned out to be.
He learned to come to heel and walk beside me in literally a matter of minutes, and he did this without me even using a leash.
While still a young pup, he was finding and retrieving bird wings without so much as a feather out of place upon retrieval.

Before he was a year old he had learned to follow hand signals and the meaning of various commands using only a whistle.
His desire to please was insatiable, his stamina in the field, insuperable and he had the heart of a lion.
Tracer was also a bonafide goofball who used to delight in sneaking stealthily up to the bank of the local river before launching himself like a guided missile at the carp in the shallows.

Once while on our daily walk along the abandoned railway tracks he suddenly bolted into the field to my right, quickly returning looking as proud as a prancing pony with a groundhog in his mouth! A very upset groundhog it was too.
Fortunately for said groundhog Tracer could be a gentle as he was powerful and there wasn't a mark on it.
As soon as I gave Tracer the command to release it he did so immediately and that groundhog hit the ground running and climbed the nearest tree as if its life depended on it.
Tracer, tail wagging like mad and looking all pleased with himself looked up at me as if to say "Just look at that, I didn't even know they could climb!"

As a bird dog Tracer was much more inclined towards upland hunting than he was towards waterfowl and used to cry like a puppy if he had to spend what was in his opinion too much time sitting in a duck blind.
When the shotguns were pointed out of the front of the blind though, his head followed and he would watch excitedly waiting for the ducks to fall.

While he excelled as a retriever his deftness  was not limited to Birds however and he took great joy in running out to the front of the store every morning to fetch the newspapers for us.
The local paper was not a big seller for us so we used to get only about three or four papers which were all rolled up and easy for him to carry.
One morning however, after he gave me the roll of newspapers he ran back towards the front of the store and did not immediately return.
I walked towards the front of the store and there found Tracer dragging a huge bale of Toronto newspapers back towards the house.
That bale must have weighed 25 lbs and how he equated that bale with the little roll he was used to is still a mystery to me this day.

Tracer used to love to trot out to the store counter to visit customers and all of our regulars used to look forward to seeing him when they dropped in.
One day I remember in particular though, a customer who was returning some empty pop bottles stepped behind the counter to put them in the crate instead of placing them on the counter.
Tracer who was in his usual position locked his gaze upon the gentleman as though he were pointing a bird and uttered a low growl that you could more feel than hear. The customer froze like a Deer in the headlights as I said perhaps I had better take those.
How that dog learned that the area behind the counter was off limits to customers is as much a mystery to me as the newspaper incident.

His prowess as a guard dog was again in evidence one year while I was away deer hunting leaving my Mother and family friend alone at the store.
Tracer was in his customary spot asleep on the couch when a knock came at the the door to the house well after dark and store hours.
My mother went to the door but did not open it, instead talking to a man who was unknown to her through the door window.
He claimed he wanted to buy something from the store and was apparently most insistent even after being repeatedly told that the store was closed.
Tracer quietly got up from the couch walked over to the door and stood up on his hind legs putting his front paws on the glass.
My mother told me he had an expression on his face unlike any she had ever seen before, and once again came the low growl, this time accompanied by a show of teeth.
Whoever it was at the door that night simply let go of the screen door, turned, and walked away into the night without uttering another word.
Of course I have no proof of his intentions but I think that Tracer just may have saved my mother from a violent robbery that night.
In any case I don't think that finding himself caught in the steely eyed gaze of 110 pounds of muscular Weimaraner was part of his plan.
My mother told me that after the man left, Tracer simply returned to his spot on the couch and went back to sleep. As I mentioned before, he had the heart of a lion.

As fiercely protective of us as he was, he was nothing more than a big lovable pup to his family.
I once pulled a two or three inch thorn out of his chest with a pair of tweezers and he didn't so much as bat an eyelid.
Another time I had to dress a nasty wound in his chest that he got from cutting himself on a piece of sharp stone while we were hunting.
He never made a sound while I cleaned the wound but cried when we cut the hunt short to get him stitched up at the vet.

I could go on for hours telling story after story about this magnificent dog. We were practically inseperable when we had that store.
But all things must pass and all stories must come to an end.
                (Continued)

The day I won the internet

I suppose that for younger people today, the internet must be much like the telephone is for me.            It has always been there and it's not something one gives a great deal of thought to.
For myself and those in my age group however it would likely have to be the most groundbreaking achievement in comunications that we are likely to witness in out lifetimes.

We now have the ability to instantly retrieve information at will from almost anywhere and at any time.
And not only can we retrieve information, we can share it with others around the globe at the mere touch of a button.

This is something that was unheard of even to my own father.
Although the internet was in existence  at the time of his death it was very much in its infancy, and any mention of it would have been met with little more than a perplexed gaze.

I can access the net through a wireless hand held device as I am doing right at this very moment to comunicate with a distant computer on which these words will be stored.
I can find out the price of gas at one of many gas stations in the area. Comunicate with friends, or even order my dinner should I wish to do so.
All this would have been seen as something straight out of a science fiction novel when I was a young man.

The power of the Internet was something that was demonstrated to me back in the 90's.
You see, I have always had an interest in genealogy and used to spend many hours tracking down information on Usenet which I'm not sure even exists anymore, but I digress.
The newsgroups as they were called were simple message boards where one could ask or answer questions of the other users.

For one such as myself who no longer resides in the country of his birth this made the genealogy newsgroups a valuable tool.
I was about to find out just how valuable.
You see, I was not born in a hospital as is the norm theses days, but instead I came into this world in a room on the second floor of The Vulcan Arms Pub in Stoke on Trent England.

This is one of the facts of my life that I have always had a sort of amusing pride in and on that day back in the 90s I decided to try to find out if the old pub was still standing.
I posted my information request and to my amazement got a response the very next day from a gentleman who knew of the place.

As it turns out, his wife also had a family history related to the old pub and much to my chagrin he told me that only the front facade of the building remained.
He did however claim to be in possession of a floor plan and a very old photograph of the place which he would be happy send to me by email should I wish them.

To be perfectly honest I thought that we must have been talking about two different places, I mean what are the odds?
Just the same, I gave him my email address and within a day or two of our initial contact I received an email from him complete with the attached photograph and floor plan.

I must have sat staring at that old picture for, well I don't know how long but I just couldn't tear my eyes away from it.
Is that the place of my birth? Could it possibly be the same pub?
I stared and stared mulling it over in my mind.
Looking at the gable on the front of the ancient looking building I could clearly see the words "VULCAN ARMS" and so it was time for the acid test, I would take it to show to my mother.

I had not mentioned receiving the picture or indeed any of my conversation about the pub to my mother thinking it better not for her to have any preconceived notions about what I would eventually show her.
That old printer seemed to take forever to reproduce the picture in as high a resolution as it was possible but eventually it was printed and dry.

I took the enlarged picture to my mother folded in half and without saying a word, simply unfolded it before her eyes.
If I had three wishes I don't think it would be a waste to use one of them to conjure up a picture of her shocked snd excited face that afternoon.
She did not ask me any questions, she did not hesitate even for a moment. She immediately pointed to a window on the upper floor and exclaimed "You were born in that room right there!"

And that's the day I fell in love with the power of the internet.