Annoyed at the thought of trespassers, I followed. Although the dog quickly disappeared through the crowded trees, his track and continued barking led me to a clearing, where another discard from my great-aunt’s sugar bush operation still stood, a small wooden shack once used for storing supplies. Sergei barked in front of one of the many gaps in the exterior’s weathered planking. From inside came a sharp shush followed by a burst of giggles. I could see a line of fresh snowshoe tracks leading from Migiskan land to the other side of the shack.
Not again, I thought to myself. I’d already had one bad experience with band members using my abandoned property. I wasn’t keen on facing another.
“Who’s there?” I shouted. Silence. Convinced it was a couple of lovesick teenagers intent on escaping parental eyes, I skied around to the side, where a door once kept the elements at bay. Now it was a gaping hole partially blocked by a trampled snowdrift. At the sight of numerous pairs of snowshoes propped against the outside wall or abandoned in the snow, I ruled out teenage lovers.
Not sure what to expect now, I gingerly poked my head through the opening. As my nostrils twitched at a sharp, cloying odour, I saw about seven or eight kids, boys and girls, fully clothed, some sitting propped against the rough walls, some lying on the frozen dirt floor. The oldest couldn’t have been more than sixteen, the youngest about eight.
“Okay guys, time to leave,” I said, wondering what kind of trouble they were up to.
More giggles, with one or two dreamy stares turned towards me. At the sight of a young boy wedged into the far corner lifting what looked to be a cigarette to his face, I realized the significance of the smell and knew immediately what I was dealing with.
It appeared Eric’s ongoing battle with kids and drugs was far from over. He might have had some success in getting them away from sniffing gasoline, but that was all. They’d merely switched to a different kind of drug, marijuana. And while it might not be as harmful as inhaling gas fumes, it still wouldn’t do them any good if it led to a dependency on other, more damaging drugs, even alcohol, my own particular problem.
I shivered and watched my breath mist in the frigid air of the shack. I realized it would be dangerous to let these children lie for several hours passed out in this freezing cold. Best to get them out of there. I tried to hustle the nearest kid outside, but he roused himself out of his stupor and fought back, kicking and swearing. I gave up on him and tried a young girl with a mop of thick black hair who looked to be about twelve.
Her sweet but flaccid face made my heart weep. In fact, the sight of all these lethargic kids made my heart weep. They should be outside having fun, making snowmen, throwing snowballs, doing what all kids do with winter’s first snow. Instead, these poor souls were lost in their own drug-induced stupor, obliterating not only the bad but the good in their young lives.
Although the girl spat and tried to claw my face, I was able to half carry, half drag her outside, where she promptly crumpled into the deep snow, which made me wonder if it was such a good move. Still, the sudden jolt of cold might serve to erase the effects of the drug faster.
I returned inside to tackle a boy who couldn’t be more than eight. He lay curled up on the frozen ground. His eyes were closed and his thumb was in his mouth as if he were lying snuggled up in his warm bed, except he wasn’t. Even I could feel the icy cold of the abandoned shack through my layers of long johns and fleece. And I was dressed for it. He wasn’t. His unzipped jacket revealed a thin cotton T -shirt. His dirty bare feet stuck out from the bottom of his jeans. His boots lay beside him.
He rocked back and forth as tears trickled down his cheeks. I tried to rouse him as I felt his violent shivering. I looked to one of the older teens for help, but he only nodded his head drowsily and said, “Everything’s cool, man,” as if repeating words he’d heard on TV .
I realized there was nothing further I could do on my own. Trying to wake these kids up and get them moving was not going to work. I needed to get help. So I zipped up the boy’s jacket, put his boots on and brought the girl back inside the hut, where she would be marginally warmer. I had Sergei lie down beside the shivering boy to provide warmth and hoped the dog would stay put once I’d gone.
Then I did the one thing I could do, removed the source of their intoxication, a plastic bag filled with the dried weed, some cigarette wrappers and a lighter lying on the ground beside them. I clamped my skis back on and headed off to the Fishing Camp to get Eric.
I followed the path the kids had made through the blackberry canes. It appeared well used, suggesting this wasn’t the first time my abandoned shack had served as a drug den. I decided that once the kids were safely removed, I would rid my land of any further temptation and demolish it and any other unused outbuildings.
Thankfully, Sergei remained behind. Perhaps he recognized in his doggy intuitive way that the young boy needed him more than I did.
A hundred metres later, I encountered a single snowshoe track which split away from the tracks I was following. No doubt another kid doing drugs in the shed. Then I noticed with shock an all too familiar orange cap disappearing over the next ridge. John-Joe’s signature hat. What was he, an adult, doing smoking up with a bunch of kids? But then again, maybe drugs were at the root of his abrupt change in character.
Angered that he would leave those kids in such condition, I started after him, but quickly checked myself. Getting help for the drugged children was more important than giving John-Joe a piece of my mind. I continued along the kids’ path. Within a couple of hundred yards, I skied onto the plowed road of the Fishing Camp and hurried to find Eric.
seven
Although it had taken me less than thirty minutes to return with Eric on his snowmobile to the abandoned shack, only a few pairs of snowshoes remained by the entrance. Clearly some of the kids had roused themselves enough to escape. To ensure they were okay, Eric sent Bob, one of the other crew leaders who’d come with us, after them while the rest of us checked out the remaining kids in the shack.
Sergei, still lying beside the little boy, rose to greet us, but the boy didn’t move. He lay as I’d left him, curled into a fetal ball, lost in his own drug-induced world. The girl was at least conscious. She attempted to stand, lost her balance and fell giggling back onto the frozen ground. Another boy, slightly older, sat wedged into a back corner, a silly smile plastered on his young face. But they were the only kids left in the shack. The rest, the oldest, were gone, leaving these poor tykes to fend for themselves.
“Hey, dude,” the older boy cried out as Gerry, another crew leader, rushed towards him. Shouting angrily, the father hustled his son outside. Within seconds, a skidoo engine roared into life and faded as it sped away.
“Stupid kids. Destroying their lives like this,” Eric muttered, mirroring my own thoughts.
While he told the last crew leader to take the girl straight to the reserve’s Health Centre, I knelt beside the little boy and tried to wake him. There was no response. His limp arms lay where I placed them. His sprawled legs remained equally lifeless. Worried, I put my cheek to his mouth and smelt the lingering odour of marijuana. Thankfully, I felt a faint whisper of air. When Sergei gave him a gentle lick on his hand, he smiled faintly, but kept his eyes closed.
“We’ve got to get him to a doctor immediately,” I said, picking the boy up. “Clearly something’s not right, and I’m worried about hypothermia.”
Although he looked to be about eight, he couldn’t have weighed more than a six-year-old. I wrapped my arms around his shivering body.
Behind me, Eric swore, “Christ, I was worried this would happen.” In his hand he held a Ziploc bag containing marijuana. I showed him the one I’d found.
“Damn, it looks as if we have a