Looking Back: A Berry Pick with Consequences

This story started with an invitation by my brother to go to the Middle Kootenay Pass to my father’s favourite huckleberry patch and where he had buried dad’s ashes some years ago.

In my recent column, “Recollections of a Huckleberry Hound“, I briefly mentioned an incident in a pick nine years ago, in 2016, that took a nasty twist at its end.  This story started with an invitation by my brother to go to the Middle Kootenay Pass to my father’s favourite huckleberry patch and where he had buried dad’s ashes some years ago.  Unlike earlier trips to the Middle Kootenay gate, which were done in a pickup, this one required quads for the climb. The 2013 massive rain event had damaged, like many other places, that tricky roadway up. It then looked more like a creek bed with a deeply gouged centre after that.  So it was that we loaded two quads onto my brother’s trailer and off we went down Hwy 507 early one September morning.  Just before the turnoff to Beaver Mines Lake my brother brought the truck and trailer to an abrupt halt and to my astonishment began backing up the highway.  It seems he, being the hawkeye that he is, had spotted a Barred Owl hung up on a barbwire fence.  To the rescue we went then and found that the owl was in pretty good shape but had somehow wrapped part of his wing around the wire.  After several attempts to unwind him Bill realized we would have to cut the wire on either side of him and take him to the truck to be able to work on him better.  He told me to hold his one claw as he worked, but warned me to watch out when the second one was released. I didn’t react in time and Mr. Owl drove one of his claws half way through the palm of my hand.  Eventually Bill got him extricated from the wire and with his heavy gloves carried him to a fence post and sat him on it. The only blood drawn that day was mine and our owl friend eventually flew away.   

Then it was off to the ski hill area where we parked, unloaded and headed up the road to the gate.  A short distance down the road, in the valley bottom, we came across a large steaming mound in the middle of the road that I recognized as a very fresh bear deposit, which was full of our berry of choice.  While I was quite unnerved by this sight my brother cheerfully exclaimed, “This is a good sign.” What?

“Bear in mind” that this was only the second time I had ever operated a quad and this one was big and tricky to handle. On the way up I got caught a couple times in the V that was the creek/road, became stuck and tilted sideways in the V but managed to work my way out. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever survive the trip.  We parked at the gate and then headed west up the hill through some old familiar picking spots and then…