A BEAR STORY-Cpt.Quinn

O.K. So if there were a check list for things one must experience before being officially declared and adventurer, number one on the list would be: *shit in the woods and somewhere close behind would be *get charged by a bear!  The latter often induces the former, so you are likely to cross both off the list at the same time.

Inspired by the book "Born to run", I decided to try my hand at a little bare foot running.  Dragging my buddy along for the jaunt, Gary and I each threw on a pair of flip flops and made our way out onto the gravel road that follows the Nass River from New Aiyansh to the Cranberry Junction. 

This stretch of gravel road is riddeled with bears-we passed four on our way into our campsite.  The thing about inspiration though, is once you find it, nothing else really enters the equation.  If Gary had asked me to go for a jog and I hadn't just finished reading "Born to run", I would have asked him if he wanted to go get mauled by a bear and when "no" was the obvious answer, perhaps tucked into another "smore", with my 30/30 lever action Marlin close at hand.  However, this was not the case.

So there we were jogging shirtless in short shorts and flip flops down a logging road that is probably more frequently travelled by bears than automobiles.  There was a light breeze and the sun was out.  It was fantastic!  As I explained to Gary the theories of running style and mechanics illustrated so wonderfully in this book, kilometer after kilometer whipped on past.

Gary-"It makes you run on your toes, it's, completley different." Captain-"I know right, I feel so light!" Gary "Me too." Totally in the zone, the two of us were flying, completely absorbed in the act of running, oblivious to everything else...

WHAM!!!

Captain-"AHHH SHIT!" I just booted a large rock with my big toe and split it open, blood was leaking everywhere.  Luckily I had a pair of soc's in my pocket, not sure why, but I did.  So I put one over my cut toe and away we went again, running down the sunset, bare foot style.

Not sure how much time passed but eventually Gary said "Should we head back?" "Uh...Yah I guess, sure."  So we spun around and began to make our way back to camp, I am guessing about 10 km. As we made our way back the wind was now at our faces.

We came around a corner, I spotted something ahead, something large and black.  I squinted to get a better look and than stopped in my tracks and pointed it out to Gary.  "Uh, is that a bear?" The answer was yes! It was sniffing around right where I stubbed my toe. Probably licking up the blood looking for this injured animal, already drooling in anticipation over his next meal-ME! 

As we stood there watching this beast roam around completely in our way and seemingly unaware of our presence, the only logical option we had, in my opinion, was to run it off.  We couldn't go another route, there wasn't one.

So, I let out "THE CAPTAINS ROAR!" However, given the target of my roar (a 400+ lbs Black Bear), it came out sounding something like what a teenage girl would sound like at a Justin Bieber concert.

"ROOOOOOAAAAR/squeek"

The bear spun around and imediately started sprinted straight for us like Usain Bolt in a fur coat, with five daggers in each hand and fangs that could rip through the thick hide of a moose.

...

Although that description does paint an intersting picutre I don't feel like it does the beast true justice, so lets just say it was running at us like: A 400LBS BLACK BEAR!!!

Having just made some new Nisga'a friends in Kinkolith, some words that the wise First Nations folk spoke stood out in my mind.

-If you come across a Black bear, stand your ground and look it in the eyes, try to look big and don't back down.

-If you come across a Grizzly, put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.  Or you can back away slowly keeping your head down and never look it in the eyes.

I knew right away that it was a Black bear so I reluctantly planted my feet, put my hands in the air, looked it in the eyes and stood my ground.  Gary followed suit.

OOOOOOOOH SHIIIIIIIT!!!!!

"WHAT DO WE DO WHAT DO WE DO?" Gary asked.

"WE ARE DOING IT!" I replied.

The bear kept coming and picked up speed as it did. The closer it got, the heavier my jogging shorts became until finally about 50 feet away it hit the brakes, sized us up, backed off a bit and than came at us again even closer this time. He was drooling and huffing and really really mad. 

I don't know what my pulse was at the time but I am guessing somewhere between 150-180 million. 

The bear hung around in this fashion for about 15 minutes and we just stood our ground.  Eventually he started to back off until there was a comfortably gap between us, but he was still hanging around.

Suddenly I heard a faint rumble and a Volkswagon van appeared with two American tourists in it asking for directions.

EEEERCH!

"Hey how do you get to the Cranbery Junction? Oh and by the way there is a large Black bear just back that way."

"NO SHIT!"

So we agreed to give them directions in exchange for a ride back past the bear-A fair trade!

When we arrived back at camp, I changed my shorts and than russelled up some grub and wondered what would have happend if the VW van didn't show up.

I love tourists!

Until next time, Keep on adventuring,

Captain Quinn

My first camping adventure-Derek

Big Bar Lake

In the late 1990’s my friends and I were in our late teens and were discovering the outdoors for the first time on our own. We all came from good middle class households where we were exposed to a variety of camping trips, vacations and other journeys with our parents, but we were now approaching the age where we wanted to set out on our own adventures. We were young, inexperienced, and under-prepared, but it didn’t matter. We were full of energy and optimism so nothing was going to keep us from our first big camping adventure at Big Bar Lake up by Cache Creek in beautiful B.C.

Back then, the Internet was definitely not what it was now. If you wanted to go camping in B.C. you couldn’t just jump on the web and do your research, you couldn’t get online driving directions, and there were no virtual tours or photos of the Provincial Park you wanted to visit. We have it good now and things are much easier, but back then the research was part of our adventure. In those days if you wanted to visit a Provincial Park in B.C. you needed a couple things. First, we needed this booklet (I don’t remember exactly what it was called, but it was something like the B.C. Parks Guide) and it had all of the info and location of every Provincial Park in B.C. My friends and I would get that guidebook every year as it was the bible when it came to planning our trips. Next, we needed a map (there was no GPS in cars back then). Finally, we needed some money for supplies, money for gas, and of course money for beer, but none of us really had any money, so this was a bit of a challenge!

The plan came together pretty quickly one evening as we sat at my friend’s parent’s house and planned it out. We wanted to go somewhere we had never been before, we wanted to go somewhere far away (but not too far), and we wanted to go to a lake. After spending countless hours reading through the guidebook we decided on Big Bar Lake. It had great camping, hiking, fishing, and it was located in a part of the province that none of us had explored before. So, after saving a little money, wrestling a little more from our parents, buying our supplies, packing our car, and swinging by our favorite 19 year old friend’s house for our beer, we were off on our adventure. Now, let me tell you that back then a 1985 Honda Accord was considered a great car, but when you cram 3 sweaty teenagers, all their stuff, and venture off on a long journey then you wouldn’t think it is the best vehicle in the world. Well it had to do because it was all we had. During our journey we got to see new landscapes, forests, and rivers that we had never come across before. I always loved the adventure because you never knew what would be around the next bend, which kept me wanting to always go further, and see more. 

Finally after what seemed to be an eternity we arrived in Cache Creek where we decided to load up on some gas and supplies before making our way down the logging road out to Big Bar Lake. We met some interesting characters in that town especially the one old man sitting out front of the liquor store. He was an old, wrinkled, very short man, in a jean tuxedo and ball cap. The stuff that came out of his mouth was incomprehensible, but he sure wanted to talk. We gave him a beer, made his year, and continued on our journey. 

About halfway down the logging road my friend noticed a smell of gas coming from his car. We pulled off to the side and we all got out to see what was up. I guess that 1985 Honda Accords are not designed for the bumps of a logging road. With all the tough terrain that we were going over his gas line had rattled off. We were now leaking gas and we were miles away from any gas station. Of course we had no tools either because we were a bunch of punk teenage kids who where more concerned with getting there then getting prepared. We turned around and went back to Cache Creek where we found a service station that was able to fix our car in a jiffy. So, finally, back underway. We made it down the logging road this time without any problems and rolled into the Provincial Park campsite. On arrival we realized that this was not a super tent friendly campground. It was super exposed and the sites were right on the side of the lake. Everyone had nice big trucks, campers, boats, state of the art fishing gear and all the warm clothes you could imagine. No worries, I had two of the best friends money could buy, twenty-four hotdogs and a bunch of beer. We were set!

Setting up camp seemed to be a bit of a challenge. Being young punk kids, we failed the first test of camping. We got there, went exploring, drank, and where now in no shape to setup camp in the dark.  We sat on top of our tents/tarps and looked out over the lake.  The gentlemen in the camp next to us came over to lend us a hand. With a bit of direction and some more sober minds we were able to get things setup. As we sat back, in our lakefront campsite, with the fire burning and that smell of sweet campfire filling our noses we roasted wieners over the fire and looked out over the big open sky. We thought he had found a little piece of heaven. 

The night went by quick (probably because we got wasted), but after a few hours with three guys in a two man tent we decided to get up. We fixed some breakfast, relaxed and got ready. We decided to go on a hike and explore the big open rolling yellow hills of the park. We wanted to climb to the top, see the views, maybe spot some wildlife and just take everything in for the first time. As we ventured out we began to hike along the top on this one rolling hill when out of nowhere our one friend said to us “that he wanted to go up and explore the upper ridge” and just kind of took off. My other friend and I decided to maintain our current course as it was a beautiful ledge along the lake and it was taking us towards an open plain that we wanted to explore. After about 45 minutes we realized that we were on the lower hill and our friend was off in the distance on the upper ridge. We could see him as clearly as day. As we came over the next bend we spotted a black bear off in the distance. We sat back and watched it make its way though the meadows. Soon after we noticed that the bear was not alone. It had two bear cubs with it. We decided to take a seat, keep our distance and just observe. It was amazing. Looking one way we had this big open sky above us and a beautiful lake filled with fly fisherman and the other way we looked we saw this great meadow with 3 bears doing their thing. All of a sudden a quick movement caught our attention. We noticed our other friend off in the distance sprinting across the upper ridge back towards the campsite. Thinking the worse, we thought he was being chased by another bear or worse maybe a cougar! We could see him, he looked panicked, he was sure moving, but he couldn’t hear us. 

We decided to make our way over to him to see what was wrong. We hiked straight upwards over the rolling hill to the upper ledge that he was on. We searched around for him, but there was no sign of him. So, we decided to begin to make our way back to camp. As we were walking along, we noticed the biggest, grossest, pile of crap you had ever seen in your day. Just past it looked like some cloth or something. Thinking to ourselves “what kind of animal would lay a crap like this one right along a hiking trail?” It boggled my mind, but I soon forgot about it. As we made our way back to camp we spotted our friend sitting back in his lawn chair, enjoying the view, with a beverage! He had a huge grin on his face and looked oh so pleased with himself. We said to him, “hey man, we saw you up on the hill. Were you being chased by a bear or something? You looked panicked and you were running so fast!” He looked over to us, smiled, stared away for a second, looked back, paused, and said, “ya, there was no bear.” We were like, “No, there were three bears! Didn’t you see them? Isn’t that why you were running?” He chuckled a bit, held back and then said, “No, I really had to take a crap!” Right then and there, I knew that dirty pile of steamy dung that we had come across right on the middle of a beautiful trail, in the middle of a spectacular park, up in Caribou country, was the result of our friend eating too many hotdogs, ingesting too many beers, and having one too many cans of stag chilly the night before! I turned away, laughed, and thought to myself, “this trip can be summed up in one word…amazing!”

-Adventurer Derek

Margaritas & Facial Reconstructive Surgery-Cpt.Quinn

Never Again

As I stair out the window of Air Canada flight AC 2468 a sudden hard smack on the arm causes me to spill tomato juice all over my already ketchup stained pants.   A deep breath followed by a long sigh helps me to ignore the sudden onset of an impulse to strike back.  An impulse developed in response to growing up with a younger brother.  A history involving countless scrapes, bruises, stitches and tears.  "Hey," my brother says, "look at Oma," our 86 year old grandmother is standing in the lavatory line up with a pack of "Virginia Slims" in one hand and a lighter in the other.  "Hmm, I wonder what she's up to", I reply, as if it weren't blatantly obvious.  The tomato juice has now secured its place in history deep within the denim fabric of my pants.  Its been nearly 8 hours since our dear oma's last cigarette, 7 hours and 45 minutes longer than usual and she's about had enough.  My brother and I exchange a look that could only suggest one emotion: curiosity.  I glance back out the window and think to myself, "this is going to be a long 7 days".

Our mother "The Major" thought it would be nice if the 2 oldest of her four boys were to spend a week in Cancun at an all inclusive with their dear sweet oma.  Not my type of adventure but I love my oma to pieces and I wasn't about to get her on a overnight snowshoeing trip, so I settled for some quality time in Margaritaville.  My brother, my oma and I in Cancun, Mexico. Sounds relaxing enough...

It didn't take long for my overly competitive 6 foot 5, 220 pound younger brother to secure the title "king of the pong".  I observed him with amusement as he slammed ball after ball into his opponents half of the table, where it would than bounce about a mile off into any which direction. Mojito in one hand, paddle in the other, he made a slightly less than humble spectacle with the celebration of each point.  After all, it was important that his opponents knew who the "king" was.  His competition: a line up of boys and girls ranging in age from 7 to 14 years.  Parents stood by in shock as this monster of a man sent their children off chasing ping pong balls all over the quiet familly resort, one after the other, no shame.  What childhood trauma haunts these children as a result of that days exhibition, I have no idea.  But I'll bet to date, if you were to ask them who the "king" is, not one of them would reply, Elvis. 

After about 4 days of playing dominos with oma and destroying the competition at the ping pong table my brother and I found our selves sharing a cuban cigar and a bullshit on the beach as the sun went to rest for the night.  It didn't take long for our young entourage to discover our area of refuge.  They began a series of cart-wheels, back-flips and twists to entice us into entertaining them again.  Recognizing this as my cue I got to my feet, handed off my glass of vino and took the stage for a back-flip, a move that previously posed no problem.  Perhaps the blood hadn't quite rushed back into my head, or maybe I had one too many at dinner, whatever the reason, the next stunt would cause this trip to become the most expensive grandmother-grandsons vacation on record.  It would also force us to seriously question our decision not to get travelers insurance.

It took about 2 seconds for this aerobatic stunt to put me face first in the sand/rock.  As I rose to my feet the thing that hurt the most was my ego, never mind the fact that I had just turned the bridge of my nose into a door that could hinge open to my sinus cavity.  "Hey bro, am I bleeding?"  There was no need for an answer, his face said it all.

It didn't take long for my brother to return from our room with our wallets which would soon be scraped clean.  Now for the very long journey to get my face put back together.  We made our way to hospital number one, not in a ambulance but in a taxi (their faster) we were assured, no need for safety at this point.  The doctor gave me a once over than told me in very broken english that he couldn't help me, I needed plastic surgery.  Back to the taxi, now with a neck brace and gauze to hold my beak in place instead of the paper towel I was previously using.  

When we arrived at the next hospital we were greeted by a small mexican lady who didn't speak a lick of english.  Next thing I know I was tossed onto a mobile hospital bed and wheeled into a room where I was instructed with hand gestures to remove all my clothes.  So here I am standing in a mexican hospital holding my nose on my face, naked to the  world.  It was at this moment that things really began to sink in.  Next, I was handed a hospital gown that I desperately used to try and cover as much of my 6 foot 2, 220 pound naked body as possible.  An attempt that proved to be all in vain.  The gown fit like a child's medium t-shirt, without so much as a stitch to hold the back shut.  So there I stood, bloody gauze covering my busted face and a child's medium t-shirt covering my upper torso.  While the rest of me just hung out for all to see.  I would remain in this fashionable attire for the next 24 hours. However, this was no time for humiliation, instead we had to find a way to come up with $22 000 US, or else I was told they couldn't operate.  I had 8 hours before the tissue in my nose would die, after which according to the doctor it would just fall off. Wonderful news.  

My brother somehow managed to get on the phone, ring oma at 2:00 am, who has no idea what is going on, and max her credit card out at 14 g's.  Still 8 short.  Well, we only had 3000 between the two of us which was quickly picked clean.  So now for the dreaded call to the "The Major".  To say our mother is protective would be a gross understatement, she used to follow us around on halloween in the mini-van until we were 17 and she probably still would if she didn't have two younger boys to mother in our place.  Needless to say, we knew she would absolutely freak out upon hearing of our predicament.  My father would have said "What, you need 5 grand, well than you better get a job".  My brother tried to break it to her as softly as he could and being the amazing mom that she is, without hesitation picked up the rest of the tab.

Time for surgery.  Of which there is not too much I can remember, as I was put under for the whole process.  I do remember being rolled, again butt-naked, onto a rather chilly stainless steel cross and strapped down.  Next a small man came into my vision, only long enough for me to make note of the annoyed expression he was wearing.  He covered my face with a mask, muttered something about a burrito and I was out. 

 As the wheels touched back down in Canada, it marked the end of an adventure that I am not in a hurry to ever relive.  I was happier than I think I've ever been to be home.  I now have quite a hefty debt, but I still have my sniffer.  A thousands thanks to my brother, oma, and mother as well the team of mexican doctors who helped put Humpty Dumpty back together again.