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 north over to a drop off. Below us lay a beautiful large basin which I was informed was “the” patch. The scenery was spectacular that early September day and as I sat on that hillside facing the ski hill, I recalled a pick at the gate a few years earlier with my sister Nancy, someone who loved the solitude of picking hucks in the mountains. I remember that, out of boredom, she began singing and her sweet voice carried out beautifully across the valley towards the spectacular Rainy Ridge.

Unbeknownst to us pickers that day, she had brought along a can air horn and mid-day, with us all quietly filling our pails and all sound being muted by the quiet murmur of the wind in the trees, she stood up and let loose with a blast in all four directions. I remember my pail went flying and that garish blast shocked us all thoroughly. Nancy informed us then that this was just to let the bears know where we were. Well, even Lundbreck knew where we were that day.

Getting back to the 2016 trip, when the sun slipped behind the ridge to the west, we loaded our pails of berries into packsacks, hiked back to the quads and headed down. I knew the trip would be scary for me and it was tricky knowing when to use the gas and when to brake along that road turned ravine. It eventually went terribly wrong for me and, with my berry packsack on my back; I tipped over into the V and was slammed into the hillside and pinned by the quad. My berries went flying everywhere and I could not move for the weight of the machine. It was crushing my leg and my brother rushed in immediately to see if I was okay. It was just then that a pair of Hutterite men on a quad truck came along, heading up the hill to where their women pickers were busy further up the pass.

I was very lucky then and these picker escorts were able to help Bill extricate me, at which point I became hugely distressed. A bit of shock had set in and the adrenaline rush turned me into an emotional mess, bemoaning not my pain but more importantly the precious berries. I scrambled to gather up my hard won pick, which was now full of clay and rocks, so that I could let the Hutterites pass. I knew I was hurt somehow but was able to make it down to the trailer and off we went home. When I walked through the door, still pumped with adrenaline, I sheepishly handed that pail of rocks, clay and berries to my wife, who was astounded and asked what in hell I thought she was going to do with that mess. But, being the trooper that she was, she got them all cleaned up and eventually brewed up some of that one of a kind huckleberry liqueur I mentioned in my last column.

It was shortly after the accident that my baby finger and half of my ring finger on my left hand went numb and I developed persistent pain in my wrist, upper arm and neck and, of all places, under my left shoulder blade. It diminished very slowly through several months and made many things painful to do. But with the help of gabapentin, a nerve blocker, it eventually moderated some. It was apparent though, through a consult, that I had a serious neck issue that was affecting my ulnar nerve. You know the one that causes the funny bone effect. In this case, not so funny. Some months later I found myself in the spine clinic in Calgary for EMG testing and another specialist consult. If you haven’t experienced EMG testing you’re in for a treat. Well, more like a shock actually. In fact, a lot of shocks, as this diagnostic procedure uses electrodes attached to your skin. The technique measures how well signals travel along your nerves using short bursts of electricity. Needless to it was unnerving as I never knew exactly when it was coming. The technician evaluated my unaffected right arm as a control against my left, but when all was said and done and both sides graphed, she found that my right was just as bad as my left. In came the specialist then who did further tests, this time using just an open safety pin, here there and everywhere, which did not endear me to her whatsoever. In the end she ordered x-rays, some designed physio, blood work and asked that I have special wrist braces made. As I left she looked at me seriously and said, “You have no idea how close you came to a catastrophic event”.

The braces were for the apparent carpal tunnel issues that complicated the test results. All this was followed through and the numbness and pain began to recede. But there was one complication from the testing that turned up that proved a bit disconcerting. The blood work revealed an abnormal protein that they termed MGUS and my doctor then scheduled a visit in Lethbridge for yet another consult with a hematologist to discuss this oddly called disorder. I say oddly called because, amusingly, MGUS stands for monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance! How’s that for an obscure term. Turns out this abnormal protein rarely causes an issue and all you have to do is monitor it but in 1% of cases it can…, well we won’t go there. I had pretty much recovered my feeling until 2019 when I had another incident that worsened the pinched nerve in my neck (called cervical riduclopathy) but this time my thumb, index and middle finger decided to try out numbness. This then was the median nerve, which runs to those fingers, being pinched in my neck. Unfortunately it was revealed, once again at the spine clinic, that there was to be no recovery this time and surgery was not an option. So that was that. Now, six years later, every time I burn my fingers on my left hand, on toast or a frying pan, it is because the nerve signals don’t travel quick enough up my arm in time to warn me. I also tend to drop things held by those fingers which sometimes leads to cursing. Was it all worth it all, the berries that is? Damn right it was, cause there is nothing and I mean nothing like a huckleberry to feed the soul.