Bears & Associated Characters

British Columbia, Canada

1971

I had not been in British Columbia long when I met Brian Ironmonger. Brian and I became friends and our friendship has lasted to this day. Brian had busted his neck a couple of years before I met him in a logging accident and it messed him up, left him without the full use of his legs and hands. He kind of shuffled around dragging his feet. But he was still a Cowboy, having rode many a Bronc and Bull in his younger days. Brian had more determination and was more stubborn than anyone I ever met. He never gave up. If he fell, which he did quite often, the worse mistake you could make was trying to help him up. He would give you a good cussing, which he was real good at, and say, “I fell by myself and I’ll damn well get up by myself”. After my first cussing I would always just leave him lying there and ignored him. He would eventually get back on his feet and act as if nothing had happened.

Brian Ironmonger in his saddle shop about 1993

Brian was the biggest jokester I ever ran into. He was always pulling some pretty serious crap on his friends and neighbors. One St. Patrick’s day he went over to Howard Masons house when Howard and his wife was in town and put some stuff used for cleaning fish tanks in Howard’s bed. That was the night before St. Patrick’s day and the next day Howard and his wife had turned green from this stuff Brian put in his bed. Howard was furious and swore he would kill whoever pulled that stunt on him. Howard and the wife stayed green for over two weeks. I reckon the stuff finally just wore off.

Another time he took a pair of Mary’s dirty panties and put them in Big Joes pickup knowing Big Joes wife might find them which she did. She raised plenty of hell and gave Big Joe a hard time over this but the capper came a week later when Brian wrote a love letter to Big Joe, spilling perfume all over it and mailing it to Big Joe. Well, when Joe’s little wifey got her hands on this she just moved out and went home to Momma. It took Big Joe about two months to convince her that he had no part of what had went down. He was suspecting Brian as he knew there was no one else that would do such a thing. I don’t know if Brian ever told Big Joe that he was responsible or not. Anyway it nearly ended Big Joe’s marriage.

One time a few years after the tale written below Brian and I had bought a piece of property together and both had built cabins there. One day in January with the snow about two feet deep and temperature down around minus 25 degrees I walked over to Brian’s and Mary’s for a visit and a cup of coffee. Brian had another visitor there at the time whose name I don’t remember. I do remember that he was always in trouble with the law and was reputed to be a drug dealer and a thief. I wondered right away what he was doing at Brian’s. Later on Brain told me he was hiding out from the law. I sat down at the table and was shooting the crap with them and enjoying a steaming cup of coffee when I noticed a Browning 22 leaning against the wall near the table. I knew Brian could not afford a rifle like this so I asked whose rifle it was. Brian visitor spoke up and said it was his and he wanted to sell it cheap as it was broken, that the barrel was loose in the action. I picked it up and right away saw what the problem was. It was nearly a new rifle and in mint shape. I figured the rifle had been stolen for dope money by Brian’s visitor. I didn’t let on that I knew the fix for the rifle and asked what he wanted for the rifle and he replied fifty dollars. I remember that I had fifty one dollars in my wallet which at that time was a miracle in itself. I gave him the fifty bucks and the rifle was mine. When I finished the visit I headed towards the house which was about 200 yards away through the trees. I walked out of sight of Brian’s cabin where I would not be seen and unscrewed the barrel and tightened up the barrel nut a bit and screwed the barrel back on the action, it was a perfect fit. I later sold the rifle for two hundred bucks.

In 1970 Brian and his worse half, Mary, was renting a ranch near Elko, BC. And I visited him there many times. One fall day while there having coffee with Brian we saw a black Bear about 500 yards across the hayfield along the edge of the woods. At that time Brian nor I was any good at long range shooting. We both laid on the ground and got a good rest. Brian had a Remington 720 in 270 caliber and I had a BSA in 7 Rem. Mag. Both had 4 X scopes. Brian counted to three and we both shot. I didn’t think either of us came anywhere near the Bear as it took off into the Bush, hell for leather.

Brian had two old hounds that was pretty near useless but we decided to put them on the Bear to see if they would tree him. Brian put the dogs in his pickup and we drove over to where the Bear had been and put them on his track. Lo and behold, them old hounds took right off, baying like they had been doing it every day. There was a big hill there covered in timber and the Bear had went straight up it. I followed the dogs and Brian said he would drive his truck about a quarter mile further and come in around the back of the hill on a rough track you could get a 4 X 4 over and wait to see if the Bear would cross in front of him.

I could hear the dogs baying several hundred yards ahead of me as I climbed the steep hill. I got to the top and saw that the dogs and the Bear had gone down the other side towards the road that Brian was supposed to be on. I went on down and crossed the road not seeing Brian anywhere. I figured he had not had time to get this far. In front of me was a very steep hill, so steep I could hardly climb it. I could hear the dogs somewhere up there and it sounded like they were not moving. I climbed as hard and as fast as I could and could tell I was getting closer to the dogs. I came up over a slight rise and there about 10 yards away was the Bear standing on his back legs with his back up against some big boulders and he was pretty mad. I was very much out of breath, breathing hard and scared to boot. It would be a miracle if I would be able to hit a Barn if I was inside it. The dogs was giving him hell but the very second he saw me he dropped on all fours and stared at me. My rifle was up the same instant and his big head filled the scope. The image was out of focus due to the Bear being so close but I could make out his features a bit so I gave him one between the eyeballs. All hell broke loose then as the Bear came down the hill in a blur with the dogs trying to grab a mouthful. If I had not jumped to one side I would have been run over. My first thought was that the Bear was still alive and about to eat me but when he came past me I could see he was rolling over and over. The dogs was raising hell trying to get a mouthful and I was plenty shook up. The Bear rolled and slid plumb down to the road I had just crossed.

I went down behind the dogs and the Bear finding the Bear piled up in the middle of the track. Brian was still nowhere to be seen so I started skinning the Bear out after I got the dogs tied to nearby trees. They was still excited and raising the Devil.

Brian finally drove up in the truck and helped me finish the skinning job. I cut off the feet and head, leaving them attached to the skin and finished turning them at home that night. We spread out the hide and measured it at a bit over seven feet square. Of all the Black Bears I killed over the next thirty years this one was the biggest.

I took the hide to a Taxidermist (Odd Ossland) to be made into a rug mount but he never did get it mounted. Three years passed and I finally got tired of calling him so I went over there one Saturday and ask him where my damn Bear hide was. He said he thought it had never came back from the tanners yet. I wondered why in Hell it would take three years to tan a darn bear hide. I could see a pile of hides there in a corner and told him I would look thru them as I could recognize my Bear hide by the bullet hole that was closer to the left eye than the right. About halfway through the pile I found it. It had been nicely tanned and the hair looked slick. I told Odd that I would take it with me as I didn’t think I wanted to wait another three years to have it mounted and made into a rug and so I took it home and nailed it on the wall. Several years later my Uncle Bob and Aunt May came for a visit and I gave the hide and a bunch of antlers to him and he carried them away to Virginia. I never saw the hide again nor Uncle Bob as he crossed over the Great Divide the following year and Aunt May a few years later. Uncle Bob had no kids and Aunt May left everything to her nieces and nephews so I guess the Bear hide ended up somewhere in North Carolina among her kinfolks.

I never did have anywhere this much excitement again hunting Bears and I never forgot this one. It was shot in the Spring of the year and we figured if it had been shot in the late fall that it might have weighed 500 to 600 lbs. I never did shoot even a Grizzle that weighed that much but again they was all killed in the Spring season right after they came out of hibernation and some Bears are downright skinny at that time of the year. Big Joe and I once shot a boar Grizzly that according to the tooth we turned in was 35 years old. He might have weighed 300 lbs but no more. When skinning him we found three 25 caliber bullets just under the skin. One had broken his lower jaw that had long since healed up but the lower jaw was twisted and the teeth didn’t mesh right. This might have explained the bears poor condition as he probably had a tough time chewing his food. The bullets had silver jackets and we figured they was from a 250-3000 Savage as none penetrated very much. One was in his shoulder and one in a front leg. All had a hard growth around them. I was about 31 in 1974 when this bear was shot, so the bear, if he was 35 was four years older than I was. Its was possible that this Bear could have been wounded way back in the 40s sometime as he was probably born around 1940.

On another Spring Bear hunt I was still hunting in some big timber at the back of Big Sand Creek along an old logging road. It was very quiet walking the road as it was covered with Pine and Spruce needles. I would walk about twenty feet and then stand still for about ten minutes and then move on for another twenty feet. As I was standing there as still as a mouse I heard quite a commotion over to my left. I moved ahead for a better look through the trees. I saw a Black Bear trying to either mate with or fight a larger brown black Bear. They was about 50 yards off the trail I was on. I decided to shoot the larger brown Bear which I did and it fell at the shot. I was carrying a Remington 700 in 7 Rem. Mag. And it usually did the trick on anything I pulled the trigger on. I always hand loaded the Sierra 160 grain Game King bullets at the fastest velocity I could get them to shoot good.

As soon as the sound died away the black Bear tore off in my direction about as hard as he could go. I did not know if he saw me and wanted to eat me or if he had been frightened by the sound of the shot and was merely trying to run away. Anyways there he was coming straight at me on a dead run. I bolted another round into the 7 Mag. And when the Bear was about 20 feet from me I gave it one in the chest which halted the Bear in his tracks. After a few minutes of trying to get my shakes under control I examined the Bear. It had been coming through some Alders when I had shot and I found that the bullet had went through a three inch Alder before entering the Bears chest. I was amazed that the Bear had been killed with this shot but when I skinned it out I saw that the bullet had went on into the chest cavity and through the boiler room doing some pretty awesome damage to the Bears heart and lungs. The Black turned out to be a Boar.

I skinned the Black out and then climbed up to where the Brown one was lying. It was a female and it had mange on its head and was nearly baldheaded but I skinned it out anyway. I skinned both Bears and turned the heads and feet as I was going to have to pack the hides out on my Trapper Nelson pack board and wanted to get rid of as much weight as possible. It was nearly dark when I finally made it back to our camp. I never knew if that Bear was going to eat me or what, but it did give me quite a fright. I guess it was trying to mate with the female and was really pissed off that I ended his love making session with the female. The time was May so I suppose that would have made the time right for Bears to breed. I could be all wet on that idea, heck, I ain’t no biologist. Anyways, the Blacks luck was bad and mind was good that day as his love life was wrecked forever.

Last hunting trip with Dan Piccioni 1987

Close encounter with a Boar Grizzly

Fast forward to about 1987. I took my old hunting and shooting buddy Dan Piccioni way up in the back of the Bull River Elk hunting. Dan was a great White tail hunter but had never shot a nice Bull elk. Dan had a by-pass operation on his heart the year before and he had to take it easy climbing and hunting in the mountains. Dan had bought along his Pop-up camper which was a nice big one and we parked it right beside the river in a nice little glade made by a push-out. A push-out is made by the road crew when making a logging road. They bull-doze the trees along for as far as they can push them and then bull-doze them off to one side off the road for about thirty or forty yards. They then cover the pile of broken trees, logs and stumps with some topsoil and plant grass on them. These places make good camping sites and also a good place to pick mushrooms as the mushrooms seem to like them and grow in great numbers every fall. All I ever picked was the Shaggy Manes and Morels, but Dan knew mushrooms better than I did and picked and cook several different ones. I was always afraid to eat anything other than a Morel or a Shaggy Mane so Dan got to eat all them other ones he cooked up.

This pic was about 1975 at Galloway, BC

Reckon I ought to tell you a bit about Dan. He was an Italian from the old school and very much a Northern Italian. He was very picky in his friends and would give them hell if they made the wrong comment about Italians. He had absolutely no use for Germans or Frenchmen. He once told me when we was on a bird hunt in Alberta that I was the only person that ever told him Italian jokes and lived to tell about it. We got along pretty good as long as he could be the boss, but if I asserted myself he would get pissed off. We use to shoot Trap together and traveled all over Western Canada and the Northwestern States to Trap shoots in the late 70s. Dan was about the best wing shot I ever saw, but when it came to Trap I could clean his clock pretty good. We once ended up in Wallace Idaho in the late 70s on the way home from a shoot in Spokane Washington. Dan liked his women friends. I sat in the Bar and had a drink. Enuff said. Dan can’t deny this as he is now pushing up Daisies in his Garden. That’s where his wife Pat threw his ashes. She told me later that he wanted her to carry them up the Bull and throw them in the river but she figured that he had spent so much time in the garden that it would save her a 160 mile round trip on a gravel logging road so she unceremoniously dumped the ashes in the garden and then sold the place. I don’t blame her a bit as Dan treated her badly over the years and in later life she left him to do his drinking and womanizing and moved into town. Pat was a lot better friend to me than Dan ever was and she was a good friend to my wife Loretta, until Loretta passed over the Great Divide in 1992 and still to this day remains a great friend to me. The story I am about to tell you about was the last hunt I ever made with Dan. He lasted about another 12 years before his death in 2002.

Dans White tail Buck from Sheep Mountain, about 1976

We parked Dan’s camper in a push-out on the main Bull River road about five miles below the summit near Haynes Creek. Normally I camped at the mouth of Haynes creek but this time it was full of hunters and not enough room for another camp. The campsite at Haynes Creek was made by the loggers for their work camp when they logged Haynes Creek and Big & Little Tower Creeks that ran into Haynes Creek.

After a supper with a lot of Mushrooms thrown in we hit the sack. We was up early and had breakfast. It would take about three hours of climbing to reach the little lake in the basin near the top of Sugarloaf mountain where we planned to spend the next night. It was a good place for Elk as there was these huge Spruce trees left by the loggers as they could not get machinery into the basin. These trees were all around the little lake and looked just like a Park. There were a few open slide areas that ran plumb to the top of the mountain. I had bugled in Elk here several times before and I knew the only hunters we were likely to see was maybe the outfitter that guided this area although I had never run into him up here before.

Finally our packs were ready with everything we thought we would need for the overnight trip so we left the campsite and waded the Bull river and headed up the mountain. The Bull was not very big here as we were only a few miles below the summit where it started. We both had wore a pair of Running shoes for wading the river and after we crossed we removed them and put on our boots with a dry pair of socks. We left the running shoes and wet socks tied in a nearby tree for the return crossing.

Dan was not able to make much time as the going was pretty steep. There was no Alders here on the South side of the mountain which would have really slowed us down but the timber was pretty thick. I had been up here many times and knew the trail pretty good and Dan had to follow me. I would go up a hundred yards or so and sit down and wait on Dan. Occasionally I would whistle so he would know which way to come. When he caught up with me I would have to wait another twenty minutes or so for him to rest. The further we climbed the more I knew we would be lucky to reach the little lake above us before nightfall as our progress was greatly slowed by Dan’s slow go and having to rest so much due to his health. Normally I would reach the lake in about three hours if by myself. Whenever I was climbing really steep terrain I would climb counting ten breaths and then stop for as long as it took for ten breaths and then climb for another ten and rest for ten. It would be like that all the way up. What this amounted to was that I rested as much time as I was climbing and never got too much out of breath. The elevation was about 6000 feet and the air was a bit thinner up here. It made a big difference for a fellow that was not used to it.

I had been climbing for about a half hour and Dan was somewhere below me. I thought he would be within hearing distance as I tried to stay close enough that he could hear me whistling. Ahead of me was a big rock outcrop and I climbed up on the top of it and sit down for a rest and a little snack and to wait for Dan to catch up. I had been sitting there about fifteen minutes and had been whistling about every five minutes for Dan when I heard a little noise on my right side. I turned my head to see what had made the noise and I saw a huge Grizzly about 10 feet from me staring right into my eyes. He was so close I could smell him. My first thought was that I did not have a round chambered in the 7 Mag. And my second thought was that I would not have time to turn the rifle and fire if this Bear wanted to eat me. Before I could have a third thought the Bear turned inside out and took off down the side of the mountain like a racehorse, heading straight where I thought Dan would be. I fired the 7 Mag In the air three times to signal him and yelled as loud as I could………….Bear……….Bear………Bear. It sounded to me like the Bear had turned across the mountain and went crossways between me and Dan. I hoped the Bear would not run Dan over.

About this time the shakes started so I sit back down and thought about how close a call that had been. Evidently the Bear had heard me whistling and maybe thought I was a gopher or a Marmot (Western Groundhog that lives at high elevation) and that I was food for him to investigate. I reckon he was as surprised as I was when he saw me and made the decision to haul ass. If the Bear had been a sow with cubs I more than likely would not be here writing about it. The sow would have gone into a protective mode and would have beat me up before I had a chance to chamber a round and if she had two year old cubs with her they would have joined in on the beating. So I was just plain lucky or God was looking out for me. My Mom always said God looks out for fools and drunks. I wasn’t drunk so I reckon that made me a fool.

I waited and waited but no Dan, I was beginning to think the Bear had got him. I fired my rifle about every five minutes so he would know where I was. I gave up the whistling as that had nearly gotten me killed. Finally about a half hour later Dan showed up. He said he heard the shots but not me yelling. He had sit down for a rest and went to sleep. I had climbed on up further above him than I had thought. He said he never heard or saw the Bear.

I could see he was getting pretty worn out and tired so I mentioned to him that I knew where there was a level spot over to the East several hundred yards and we should just camp there for the night. Dan figured this was a good idea so we started over in that direction. There was deep draw with water in it between us and the level place and when we came to it we stopped to rest for a minute. About the time we were ready to move on a Bull Elk let out a bugle within 200 yards of us on the other side of the draw. Dan whipped out his bugle and made about the awe fullest Elk call I ever heard. I knew Dan had never hunted Elk much and did not have much experience calling Elk so I told him to put his caller away and let me do the calling. Well that was the wrong thing to say to Dan. He became extremely agitated and replied that he could call an Elk as good as anyone. I said to him, Dan, your bugling is about the worse I ever heard, you’re a damn good Whitetail hunter but you ain’t worth a shit on Elk, now put the damn caller back in your pack and let me do the calling. Dan jumps up and says, Hell, I don’t want no damn Elk anyway. I’m going back to camp and go home. Well, this kinda dumbfounded me and sort of hit me the wrong way so I says for the hell of it. Hey Dan, I never saw an Italian that could hunt Elk anyway. At this he gets up and heads down the mountain. I yells after him……Hey Dan, if you don’t mind would you throw anything of mine out of the camper and leave it. I’ll get it later, I’m gonna stay and shoot this Bull and I might not get back before you go home, so don’t wait on me. I heard him mumble a couple of choice words as he disappears down into the timber. That was the last time I saw Dan Piccioni for about two years and when I did see him it was at the Hospital in Cranbrook. I had went to visit my friend Harry Struve and was going out the front door when I saw this old man sitting on a bench out front in a hospital gown smoking a cigarette. I walked on past thinking he looked familiar. Then it came to me that it was Dan. I walked over and sat dawn and said, Hello Dan, how you doing, ain’t seen you since that Elk hunt up the Bull. He told me he had had another heart attack and had driven himself to the Hospital the night before. He told me that Pat had left him and moved into town and he was by himself. I did not have to ask him why she had left as I knew Dan spent his time at the Legion in Kimberly drinking red wine and chasing women. I wished him well and went about my way. I never saw Dan alive again. He crossed over the Great Divide while I was away in the states a few years later. My relationship with Dan was the hardest I ever endured in all my years and I did try hard to get along with him but our ways of living kept conflicting. So long Dan, hope you’re chasing Whitetails and there’s some Red Wine wherever you are.

About a half hour after Dan left I got out my bugle and give a few grunts on it. The Bull answered right away. I was not in a good place to shoot as I could only see maybe ten yards so I crossed the draw and went on to a place that had a ridge running down the hill. I climbed a Fir tree so I could see above the Alder patch that the Bull was in. I let out a good mean sounding bugle which was the worse thing I could have done. The Bull did not answer for a while and I started thinking he was not a herd Bull but a smaller Bull and he wanted nothing to do with a big old herd Bull. In a few minutes he did bugle from a farther distance away. I listened intently to determine if he was a smaller Bull and came to the conclusion he was. I grunted a few times and the Bull would answer but each time was a little further away. I got down out of the tree and made my way thru the Alders, finally finding a game trail going crossways of the mountain. Eventually I was close enough to hear the Elk. There was several cows with the Bull and he was having no part of a bigger Bull, being afraid he would loose his cows. He kept moving across the mountain just staying ahead of me. I knew I would not be able to call him close but was hoping to find a high place in the terrain that I would be able to see and shoot from. About a quarter mile further I finally topped out on a high ridge running up and down the mountain. I quickly moved up this ridge and found a small clearing I could see from. Watching carefully I finally spotted the cows moving single file through the Alders over the next ridge about 350 yards from me. I got ready with the rifle as I knew the Bull would be last in line and sure enough he was. I saw the antlers first then his left side as he turned a bit. I was ready and gave him one holding about even with the front of his shoulder as he was still moving. At the shot I heard the bullet impact on flesh and he disappeared from my view and I heard him crashing in some timber just below where he was when I shot.

I made my way over to where I thought he was and found he had rolled over a bit of a cliff and was down the hillside about 75 feet from where he was shot. He was only a five point and I was disappointed at that. In some places a five point Elk is called a 5 X 5 but not here in Southeast B.C. Back east he would be called a ten point. Roy, my hunting pard here in Virginia still gets kind of perplexed when I call his 10 point Buck a five point. Heck, some of the fellows in Virginia call anything a point that they can hang a ring on.

The Elk I shot on Sugarloaf Mountain

I opened the bull and gutted it and removed the rear quarters and back straps. I took one quarter and a back strap about 200 yards down the hill and pulled them about 15 feet up into a tree and tied off the rope to another nearby tree and lashing the other quarter and back strap to my pack board I started down the mountain. I would come back in the morning for the other quarter and back strap. It was almost a sure thing that the Bear I had the encounter with would be on the Elk carcass the next morning. I figured I ought to be able to sneak in and get my hindquarter and back strap without bothering the Bear if he was on the Elk. It was near dark by now and I had to use my flashlight to find my way. I didn’t care where I hit the river at, as there was an old logging road on my side running up and down the river an I would come out on it somewhere and then I could locate the crossing Dan and I had made this morning. Finally about Midnight I found the road and thinking I was further upstream than where I had left my running shoes I headed downstream and soon came to the orange tape I had tied on a tree there. Another fifteen minutes I was at the push-out. I had been hoping that Dan was not too mad at me to not leave my stuff. If he had not, I would have only Elk steak for supper. Sure enough I found my stuff in a pile right where the camper door had been. I took the Elk meat down the road about 200 yards and hung it in a tree so the Bears would not bother me during the night. I cut off a right nice size piece of back strap and went back and got me up a fire. While it was burning down I made up my bedroll and found the coffee, butter, bread and a can of Beans. After the fire was glowing coals I hung the steak over it and waited. When it cooked enough that I could not see the glow of the coals thru it I knew it was done perfect, and it was. I thought it was the best supper I ever had as I had only had a can of Sardines and crackers for lunch and that had been about 13 hours ago. Seemed like a week. I sat there for about an hour having my supper and thinking about the days events. Once a vehicle went by but it did not stop. I had hardly thought about the Bear after getting on the Elk and now I re-thought the whole thing, I came to the conclusion that I was very lucky with the Grizzly and somewhat unlucky with Dan, as I kind of felt bad because of the falling out we had. He was a hard man to have for a friend. I figured we both would get over the spat as we usually did and things would be as they were before, but I was to find out later that this day was the capper on our friendship.

The next morning I walked over to Haynes Creek about a half mile as I knew there was hunters camped there and I would know most of them. Sure enough Ernie and Bea was there and I had breakfast with them. Ernie and Bea Herzog were old friends of mine and still are today. They were getting too old to do much hunting but loved to just come and camp here during Elk season and visit with the hunters they had known and had camped with on this spot for years. Ernie asked me why I was walking and I said it was a long story, maybe someday I would tell him but I never did, just told him I was with Dan and he had gotten sick and went home. Ernie said him and Bea had planned a trip into town today for supplies and that they would drop me off at home. It was nearly 80 miles to Cranbrook and most of it was a gravel logging road. I told Ernie that I had to go get the Elk meat up on Sugarloaf and ask if he could wait. And he did and I went an got the meat. I did not go near the Elk carcass but I was sure the Bear was on it so I was pretty quiet getting my Elk meat. I was back at Haynes Creek in about four hours and Ernie hauled me into town after retrieving my camp and the meat I had hung in the tree there. I chopped the horns off the Bull and bought them out but should have left them as they were awkward to carry and were not a trophy. I later gave them to my son Curtis.

Bea Herzog in Elk camp

Ernie Herzog in Elk camp

Rodgers Pass 1984

The Bear that came to lunch

In 1984 Canadian Pacific Railroad decided to drive a tunnel through the top of Rodgers pass in an effort to cut the number of pusher Engines it took to push a freight train over the top of the pass. Rodgers Pass was plumb smack in the middle of Revelstoke National Park. At the time I was working out of local 1719 United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. I was one of the first carpenters dispatched to help build the three construction camps at the top of the pass to house all the construction workers. The first camp was on the east side or Golden side near the CPR pusher station and the second was near the top of the pass on the East side. The third camp was on the West side near the summit. This was the first camp built and where I worked. At that time we were allowed to drive our vehicles up to the lodge at the summit where we were to live until the first camp was built and in operation and then we would move into the camp.

We liked the Lodge as the food was great and we each had our own room with TV. The food was very expensive but Atco, our contractor paid for it. We brown bagged it for our lunch at the jobsite. I used to have a nice steak and lobster tail about 3 nights a week. After supper we would go into the Bar and have a drink or two. I remember that house coffee, Baileys Irish Cream, Kaloua and Grand Marnier with whipped cream and a cherry on top cost 10 bucks. Rye or Bourbon straight up was about 6 bucks. Needless to say, no one drank too much. I’ll never forget the Black Forest cake they had there. It was the best I ever had and I had a nice slice of it every night with my supper. It must have cost a small fortune for Atco to feed and put us up there at the Lodge. They must have been pretty happy when we finally got the kitchen going at the camp. That was the end of the Black Forest cake but I have to admit that construction camp food was pretty doggone good. We didn’t get Lobster tail but every Friday was seafood night an we had rib eye about two nights a week.

We had not yet finished the kitchen or bunk houses when the Bear came to dinner one day. There was a forty foot trailer set up that had a row of tables down the center so men could set on both sides. Everyone had their own place and when we got off the bus from the Lodge in the morning we put our brown bag lunches in the trailer on the table. We would come in at ten in the morning for coffee and tea and then have lunch at noon and another break at three for coffee.

There was this one carpenter Robbie Sorensen who was always first into the lunch shack every time we went for lunch or coffee. Robbie’s nickname was Sasquatch and he kinda looked like a Sasquatch and certainly had a Sasquatches disposition. His Dad, Axel who was a Union carpenter for years, had, at one time on his way to Canada from Denmark, stopped off in Greenland to work there for awhile and had married an Eskimo gal who was Sasquatches Mother. Sasquatch also had two brothers that was Union carpenters on this job as well as was their Dad, Axel.

This particular day we was all headed for the lunch shack at noon and as usual Sasquatch was leading the pack. He got to the trailer and was in there for a few minutes before the rest of us arrived. About the time we got to the door Sasquatch, yelling and screaming pretty near knocked the door off as he come tearing out. Before we could say a work as quick as a wink this huge Black Bear came tearing out after Sasquatch, but he was not trying to catch him, he was only trying to escape. As the Bear disappeared into the bush we looked around for Sasquatch. He was about 200 yards away and still picking them up and putting them down. I swear his boots was smoking. He had never looked back and was headed plumb out of the country. It took us several minutes to get him calmed down so he could tell us his story. He said he had walked right in and sat down at his usual place and started to chow down when he noticed someone sitting across the table from him. Knowing he was always the first to enter the lunch shack he looked up to see who it was and saw this huge black man sitting there eating his lunch. Sasquatch said it took a few seconds for it to dawn on him that the huge black man was a Bear. He said the bear never made a move toward him, just sat there eating somebody’s lunch. He said it was at this point of realization that he got his feet moving and near tore down the door getting out. I guess all this commotion got the bear excited and got him into the idea that maybe he ought to vacate too.

I reckon this was the most fun I ever had in a construction camp anywhere. We all got a good long laugh out of that one. The Bear kept hanging around and after a few days the Conservation officers came and caught the Bear in a trap and hauled him off to another part of the Park.

Later that summer we had to park our vehicles out of the Park near Golden and ride the camp bus to camp which was nearly finished and we were living there. Sasquatch had the same light skin color that his Dad Axel had. If he had took after his mother he wouldn’t have had the problem with the sun. It was mid summer and it really got hot up there on the mountain and Sasquatch came down with bad sunburn and near heat stroke. He laid around camp for a day or two then he decided he would go home. When he couldn’t talk the company into letting a Teamster drive him to Golden where his truck was parked he decided to hitch hike. Well, he couldn’t get a ride. If you ever saw a Sasquatch hitch hiking would you give him a ride? Sasquatch looked much more like an Eskimo than he did Danish and with that long black hair and black eyes he was sort of mean looking. He told us later that he finally started waving a hundred dollar bill before someone stopped and gave him a lift to Golden. He said he was getting near a heat stroke and was barely able to stand before he was finally picked up. I know lots of stories on Sasquatch that took place over the years but I cannot tell them here.

During the 1990s I was building houses in and around Cranbrook, BC. Cliff Lockrie and Monty Bisset were my drywall contractors. I also sold a home to Cliff in 1990. The following story was told to me by Cliff about 1994.

Lake MacDonald was located just north of Golden, BC. about a three hour drive north of Cranbrook. Cliff and Monty had planned a Spring Grizzly hunt in the area for the Spring of 94. Lake MacDonald was a huge manmade lake and was really back in the boonies. The mountains surrounding it ran right down to the waters edge and held a good population of Grizzlies.

Cliff and Monty had taken a power boat up the lake to the mountain they wanted to hunt. Leaving the boat they hiked several miles up the creek that dumped into Lake MacDonald and made a camp here. The next day they glassed the mountain slide areas above them and located several Grizzlies feeding around the slide areas. In early spring Bears would search around the snow slides that had came down during the winter looking for the carcasses of dead animals that might have been caught in the slides. Sometimes they would find a Mountain Goat or gophers and other critters that had gotten caught in the slides. Finally deciding just exactly where they wanted to hunt they took enough grub to get them through the day and headed up the mountain to a slide area where they had spotted two bears, one of which was as far as they could tell a big old Grizzly Boar.

They finally got in a position just below the big Boar and a sow that was messing around the slide. The Boar was a bit further up the mountain than the sow. They decided Monty would shoot the Boar first. Monty had a .338 and he got a good rest and shot the Boar. The bullet knocked the bear down but it got up and ran out of the slide into the Timber to the right. The sow was not frightened by the shot and was still on the slide. Cliff decided the sow was big enough for him so he shot her, killing her outright with his 30-06. She fell and slid a couple of hundred yards down toward Cliff and Monty and came to a stop nearly at their feet.

Monty wanted to go on up and check out the Boar he had shot but Cliff convinced him to help him skin out the sow which would give the Boar time to expire and then they would both go and see if they could locate what they hoped would be a dead Bear. They had the sow nearly skinned out when Monty could not stand it any longer and told Cliff he was going to go up and check on the boar while Cliff finished the skinning job on the sow. Cliff told me that he knew it was foolish for Monty to go check out the bear by himself but that he could not convince Monty to wait.

Monty had been gone about fifteen minutes when Cliff heard a bear roaring and carrying on something fierce up above him, so fearing that Monty was in trouble he grabbed his 30-06 and tore out up the side of the mountain. About 200 yards up he found Monty lying in the water of the melting slide. Monty was not moving and Cliff thought he was dead. Getting up closer while keeping an eye out for the bear he found that Monty’s face and scalp had been tore off in places and ripped to shreds. The bear had first grabbed Monty by the thigh and had shook him nearly to death before going to work on his head. Monty was barely alive but talking. Cliff said Monty looked really bad and thought he would die. Monty begged Cliff to go for help but Cliff told him that the bear had to be killed or else he would come back and finish the job on him.

About this time Cliff heard something in the bush over to the right of the slide. He looked up just in time to see the big Boar Grizzly charging right at him and Monty. Cliff raised his rifle and shot at the bear, emptying his magazine. He did not know how many rounds had hit the Bear but it stopped his forward charge and he turned and ran off into the bush again. Cliff had come up the mountain with only enough rounds to fill his magazine and 10 extra rounds in the shell holder on his stock. Now he was left with only the ten rounds of which he reloaded with, leaving five rounds in the shell holder. Cliff could hear the Bear thrashing around in the brush so he decided to go after the bear to finish him off. He could hear the bear ahead of him as he quietly creped through the bush. He had gone several yards and then the bear became quiet. This lead Cliff to believe that the bear had expired. He advanced several more yards and then suddenly the bear came charging out of the thick brush right at him. The bear was nearly upon Cliff before he got the rifle working. He shot twice and when the bear was close he ran to one side and the bear passed him and tore down the side of the mountain. Cliff fired the remaining rounds in his rifle at the fleeing and enraged Grizzly.

Cliff said he followed the bear judging his location by the noise the bear made. About fifty yards down the mountain side he came to a clearing and the bear was going downhill in the middle of this clearing. It appeared that the bear could no longer climb uphill and he turned and saw Cliff but was unable to come uphill. Cliff had his last five rounds in the rifle and said he shot at four into the bear, The bear rolled down the very steep mountain side and off a small cliff. Cliff ran down to the edge and looked over, The Grizzly was lying there below him about thirty feet trying to get up. Cliff fired his last round into the bears head which put him to sleep permanently.

Cliff made his way back up to where Monty lay and had a good look at Monty. His face was torn mostly off and to one side. Cliff said he tried to put Monty’s face back but Monty would scream at the pain. Cliff said he was surprised that there was not much bleeding. He dragged Monty out of the stream of ice cold water and built a fire on each side of him. He decided there was no way he could get Monty to the bottom of the mountain and to the boat so he decided to leave Monty and go for help. He said Monty begged him to stay with him as he felt he was going to die right where he lay. Cliff took off his coat and vest which was dry and put them on Monty and chambered a round in Monty’s rifle and laid it near him. As Cliff started down the mountain he figured he would never see Monty alive again.

Cliff got down to their camp and reloaded his rifle from the ammo he had left there in his pack. He then made his way down to their boat and cranking it up he headed down the lake about forty miles to the highway. He had traveled about tem miles when he saw another camp of Bear hunters. He stopped and told them the story about Monty an ask if one of them would go for help and the if the other fellow would go back with him to spend the night with Monty. He also borrowed a shirt and Jacket as he was getting pretty cold. The Sun had nearly set and the temperature was dropping fast. Cliff told me it was nearly midnight when he and the other hunter arrived back on the mountain side where Monty was lying. He was still alive but was getting hypothermia as the fires had gone out and he was still wet. Cliff had bought their sleeping bags so they got Monty into one and built up the fires. Cliff made coffee and they ate the grub that they had with them. Cliff said it was the first thing he had to eat since early that morning when the Bear attacked Monty. He said they all spent a very cold and uncomfortable night on the mountain trying to keep Monty alive.

The next morning soon after sun up a Chopper came in from Calgary for Monty. The pilot had located them from the smoke of their camp fire. They could not land the chopper as the mountainside was so steep so they lowered a basket for Monty and he was hauled up into the chopper and flown to the Calgary, Alberta hospital where he was treated. He was there for about three weeks before they let him come home. About a month after Monty went back to work he and Cliff came to do a drywall job in one of my houses. I nearly did not recognize Monty. I can tell you he was no where as pretty as he once was and he walked with a limp. We talked about the Bear attack for a few minutes and Monty told me the Bear had very bad breath when his head was in the Bears mouth and this was the hardest part of the whole thing to get over. Said he would wake up at night having nightmares still smelling the bears breath. He told me his whole outlook on hunting had changed and at this point he didn’t care if he ever went hunting again. Cliff had skinned out both Bears and they had rug mounts made from them but Cliff kept both Bear rugs at his home as Monty wanted nothing to do with the big Boar Grizzly. I knew Monty for several years after that until I moved back to the states in 1999 and I never knew Monty to hunt again. I reckon if he lives to be a hundred years old, that he will never forget the Grizzly that nearly killed him.

Wolverine, 1977, Bull River

In the spring of 1977, Dennis Head and I made a day trip into the back of Bull River hunting Bears. We were glassing the slides as the Bears in early spring spent a lot of time nosing around the slides looking for any critter that might have been killed by the snow slides. Bears are mighty hungry in the spring when they wake up from their winters long sleep. By fall of the year when a Grizzly goes into hibernation their claws are worn down from a summer of digging out Gophers and roots. During the winter nature replenishes the claws by growing them to full length again, sometimes reaching a length of four to 5 inches.

Bull River, look at the high water mark on rock at the left side. The river would be about 12 feet higher during the spring run off

Hunting season on Bears in BC always was in the spring and Bears were always at their lightest weight at this time of the year. A bear in hibernation will use up nearly all of the several hundred pounds of fat he stored up during the summer. A Bear just going into hibernation will always weigh several hundred pounds more than in the spring. A lot of mountain Grizzlies killed in early spring would weigh no more than two hundred to four hundred pounds. One of a Bears favorite food is Huckleberries. They spend a lot of time in the Huckleberry patches in the summer and late fall. When Elk hunting in September you have to be mighty careful when going through a Huckleberry patch as there’s a good chance you will run into a feeding Grizzly or Black Bear. I have sat and watched from a safe distance, some really nice big Grizzles eating Huckleberries in September. wishing hunting season was open.

I met Dennis Head and his brother Steve about 1971 at the Wolverine sawmill at Elko where I worked for a summer running the de-barker. This was a stud mill only and sawed nothing but 2 X 4 studs. Both Dennis and Steve and I hunted a lot together in those years. They both loved hunting as much as I did and were pretty good hunters. Dennis was the oldest of the two and a big burly fellow with a good attitude. He had once gave a RCMP cop a good whipping and spent a couple of nights in the hoosegow for it. The Mountie had stopped Dennis for some sort of traffic violation and for some reason wanted Dennis to get out of the car. Dennis didn’t want to get out so the cop reached in and grabbed him and jerked him out. Whut-oh, bad news for the cop as this got Dennis all riled up and he proceeded to punch the cops lights out. Dennis went on home but the RCMP arrived shortly after with plenty of help. Dennis got a record for this and forever afterward his wife had to purchase firearms for him as he could not legally buy them.

Dennis Head at a Bear camp in Big Sand, about 1976

Steve was younger than Dennis with a cool head and and a steady aim. He was one of the best offhand shots I ever saw. He was about 24 years old when I first met him. Steve and I shot a lot of Trap together later on and he never missed many clay targets, always right in the center and the clays would burst in a puff of dust. One day Steve and I went Whitetail hunting on Sheep Mountain near Elko. I let Steve out of the truck and drove off to another spot where I would hunt. I stopped the truck about a quarter mile from Steve and when I got out I heard him shoot. I drove back to see if he had killed anything and he had. When Steve got out of the truck he had to answers natures call and have a dump. He had not much more than got his britches down when a huge Whitetail buck stepped out out of the pines and Buck brush about fifty yards directly in front of him. Steve’s rifle was nearby so he picked it up and shot the buck. He had to finish the dump and was just doing so when I drove up. We walked over to the Buck for a look and could not hardly believe the size of the rack. It had double brow tines on both sides that was about 10 inches in length. The G-2s was about 15 inches. If my memory is right after 35 years the Buck scored around 185. I believe the Buck took the East Kootenay for biggest Buck that year.

Richard Franklin & Steve Head in a Spring Bear camp, about 1976

Richard & Dennis in an early spring Bear camp about 1975

Getting back to the Bear hunt that day up the Bull River with Dennis. We was in my Ford 4 X 4 driving down a logging road in granny gear which is pretty slow. Suddenly I saw what I took to be a Bear cub come up the bank on my side into the road and turn and run down the road ahead of us. As soon as it turned I saw it was a full grown Wolverine. I threw on the brakes and jumped out with my rifle but Dennis was a bit quicker and fired at the running Wolverine that was hauling ass away as quick as he could pick them up and put them down. I saw the bullet strike just beyond the Wolverine. By this time I have a round chambered and took a snap shot at him. He was about fifty yards away and going around a bend in the road. Another few feet and he would have disappeared behind the road bank. At the shot the Wolverine went ass over tea kettle and skidded to a stop. When we examined him we saw the bullet from the 7 Mag. had entered just above the tail and traveled up the back, stopping right between the should blades. I just knew the hide would have a pretty big hole where the bullet exited but the hide was not damaged in the least. We could hardly believe the bullet did not go plumb through the critter as it was much smaller than an Elk and most Elk I shot with the 160 grain Game King Sierra bullets would travel plumb though and stop against the hide on the far side.

When we skinned the varmint out we saw why the bullet had not gone all the way through. After getting the hide off, the body looked like a wrestler with huge bulgeing hard muscles. I had always heard that one of these things could fight off a Grizzly weighing many times what he weighed at about forty pounds and now I could understand why. His legs were short but very stout and the feet were big with short sharp claws.

This was the first Wolverine Dennis or I had ever saw in the wilds and considered ourselves lucky to even see it, let alone shoot it. Many people and hunters have lived all their lives in the back country of British Columbia and never laid eyes on a live Wolverine. I had trapper friends that trapped a few each winter but even they told me they had never seen one in the wilds other than in their traps. I, later at home, fleshed the hide good, turning the lips ears and feet and salted it away. A couple of years later I had it mounted into a life size mount.

Rich & the Wolverine

That morning on the way up the logging road we came to a big mud hole in the road so I stopped and put the tranny into four wheel drive. I eased into the mud hole and got stuck. The truck would not go either way. “Durn it, I said, I can’t believe we are stuck in this little bog hole in a four wheel drive pickup.” I had a big chain come-a-long and a logging chain so we got this out and the chain just barely reached the one single Spruce on the side of the road behind the truck. We got everything all connected and I got in the truck to gun it and Dennis took up the slack. We managed to move the truck about two feet when the Spruce suddenly gave way and toppled over. It was only about a six inch diameter trunk on it and we didn‘t have enough chain to reach another tree. We were pretty perturbed at this turn of events and just got out the thermos jugs and sat there having coffee and trying to figure out what to do. “Heck, said Dennis, there might not be anyone this way for a week, we gotta figure some way to get out or we might be here awhile“. “Yeah, I said, its about 80 miles to the highway, an I ain’t up to walking, just exactly what do you recommend?” “Well Dennis said, its breakup now and the logging crews won’t be driving up and down the roads, Maybe we just ought to sit here til the mud hole just dries up and we can go on our merry way………….he…he” We thought that was funny and had a good laugh. “Rich, you did turn in the hubs, didn’t you?” “Heck, I replied, I ain’t turned them out since we started Bear hunting a coupla weeks ago”. “Well shit,……… and speaking of that, I gotta have one” and he got up and went to the truck and got the ass swipe and walked off into the bush. I got up and walked over to the truck and looked at the hub on the drivers side just for the heck of it. Right away I saw that the hubs was not locked. Hmmmm…..how could I be that dumb?, I thought. I locked both hubs and went back and sat down. I got to thinking this was a good time to get a good one on Dennis and when he came back I said to him. “Hey Dennis, I know what we can do”. “What, he sez? “Well,………….. mebbe we ought to do an Indian dance and pray to the Great Spirit”. “Shoot Richard, I know you ain’t dumb enough to even think that would do any good” I got up and walked over near the truck and did an Indian dance and muttered a few words in what I thought would pass for Indian lingo. Dennis was laughing at me, but when I got in the truck and cranked it up and drove right out of the mud hole he stopped laughing and had a look of amazement on his face. Now it was my time to laugh and I laid it on good. “I don’t know what you did Richard, said Dennis, But I know that dancing jig didn’t do no good”. We loaded everything in and went on up the road and Dennis kept asking how I had got the truck to just drive right out of the mud hole. “Dennis, I said, I swear I didn’t do nothing but that Indian dance and praying to the Great Spirit to help us out of that hole”. And I didn’t tell him the truth til several weeks later when I heard him telling some friends how I got the truck unstuck by doing the Indian jig. He glared at me pretty hard and for a minute I thought I might be smart to run, but then he started laughing about it.

I guess the Great Spirits was getting even with me as the next fall I was up Sand Creek Elk hunting by myself and got the truck stuck WITH the hubs locked in four wheel drive. I was right in the middle of the road and no one would be able to get by me on either side. It was a little after dark and I knew the chances was small that any one would be coming in tonight, so I got out and started hoofing it. I left the truck unlocked with the key in it in case someone did come by before I got back and they could pull it out and get by. I was about six miles from the highway and then another three to my house near Galloway. I believe I finally got home about midnight and had walked every step of the way. The next day I called a buddy that had a four wheel drive and he picked me up and we went and got the truck out. He asked how I got home and I said. “Walked it, every damn step” and I was thinking about getting stuck with Dennis and the Indian dance.

The headwaters are to the left, down stream is to the right, Fernie BC is just over the 1st mountain range