It’s quite an experience looking out over a large clearcut, spotting dozens of people spread out over a hundred acres of rolling terrain one minute, then being the only person left standing in the middle of all of that wilderness the next. I watched in awe as the taillights from the last truck disappeared below the road, leaving only a thin column of dust in its wake.
No more voices calling out in the distance. No more whistles, no more shouting, no more singing or spontaneous bursts of laughter. No more dogs barking or truck engines straining. Silence. The only interruption: the pounding inside my chest and the occasional ruffle from a stray breeze. Scanning the wide-open landscape heightened the senses. The air became heavier, the temperature cooler. It felt as if the sun had suddenly drawn blinds down on itself—light seemed denser. I don’t believe I had ever felt so isolated, so exposed, so alone.
With my head down and 250 seedlings weighing heavy on my hips, I continued to work my land. By 5:30 the forest that bordered the top of the cutblock had cast a dark shadow over the upper third of my area. It was getting late in the day. I was beginning to feel more anxious. There were times when I thought I detected movement along the treeline, or within the shadow it cast below—a shadow that continued to creep down the slope toward me as the sun continued its inexorable retreat.
The setting was ripe for the overactive imagination. My nerves were on a hair-trigger. Though it was necessary to maintain a hurried pace, I paused periodically to scan the terrain above me, surveying the landscape for anything out of the ordinary, anything that might present a threat. I was a little more than halfway through my final run by 6:00 p.m. I calculated that I could bag-out by 7:00 p.m., but I needed to stay focused.
I bagged-out at 7:00 p.m. on the dot. Excited, I raced back to my cache and packed up my gear, preparing for the long trike ride back to camp. There was roughly one hour of sunlight remaining in my day. Barrett had estimated that the ride home would take ninety minutes.
The trike was a fairly simple ATV. It had no clutch and only four gears. It was a pull-start machine, though, and I knew from experience they could be moody. I took a couple of pulls on the starter cord, played with the choke, took another half-dozen pulls. Nothing. I stopped and examined it from top to bottom to make sure that I hadn’t missed a step. The key was turned to the on position, it had plenty of fuel, the fuel line was open. I took a few more pulls. Nothing. A dozen more pulls yielded the same damn result. After fifteen minutes of increasingly frantic pulling, I succeeded only in tearing the callouses off the palm of my hand. I was exhausted. My hand was bloody. After catching my breath, I took another half-dozen desperate pulls. Nothing. It was nearly 7:30 and I was losing daylight. Fast. With my heart pounding, I weighed my options. It didn’t take long to conclude that my only real play was to begin hiking the thirty-five kilometres back to camp.
I couldn’t spend the night on the block. Temperatures were still dipping well below zero in the wee hours after nightfall. My one hope was that, at some point, someone in camp would discover that I hadn’t made it back and would send a truck out after me. Then, I was struck at once by several realizations:
One: I had been keeping a fairly low profile in camp in the evenings by heading to bed early. My absence in this case wouldn’t have been deemed out of the ordinary.
Two: I had instructed Barrett not to fuss. I hated people fussing over me. Rejecting his offer to set aside my supper, I had told him that I’d simply raid the kitchen for leftovers once I arrived back in camp. That was a monumental error on my part. Someone at some point would have noticed an untouched plate of food. It would have set off alarm bells.
Three: I had convinced Debbie not to fuss on my account as well, knowing that she had worked her ass off that day and was thoroughly exhausted. I’d insisted that she not wait up for me.
Four: The camp took on a carnival-like atmosphere at night. I knew that my presence wouldn’t be missed.
Taking inventory, I discovered one severely bruised Granny Smith apple at the bottom of my pack that had been taking abuse since day one. I also had a one-litre bottle of water—meager provisions, but better than nothing. For protection, I had my long-handled staff shovel with a heavy steel blade at the end. I also had a six-inch lock-blade knife. In the event of a hostile grizzly encounter, I figured I could escape the situation by using the knife to slit my wrists. Shaken but not deterred, I began my long trek home.
Separating reality from the forces one perceives to be threatening is no easy task, especially when one is physically and mentally exhausted. I was also famished, not to mention scared shitless. The reality: I had planted trees for over eleven hours, I was in the heart of bear country, I was defenceless, I had less than thirty minutes of daylight left and I faced a challenging five- to six-hour hike back to camp. The forces that I perceived to be threatening: whatever hungry or territorial carnivore that was already aware of my predicament, and whatever menacing element loomed, concealed in the shadows around the next bend in the road.
The road leading out of the cutblock rose to the top of a ridge before dropping back down into a long continuous series of older clearcuts. My view from the crest of the ridge was expansive, and it appeared that my road cut right through the centre of these clearcut areas. That was a good thing. My greatest fear in hiking through the darkness was following a road through a dense stand of mature timber, one where every vestige of available light would be blocked out by the canopy above. I worried that my visibility would be reduced to nothing. I worried about what might be lurking inside, concealed in the shadows. I remembered travelling through at least two such areas on the way in earlier that morning. It was only a matter of time before I’d be forced to confront them.
I was no more than thirty minutes into my long trek home when I came to a junction in the road that I didn’t recognize. As I examined my two options carefully, I noticed a moist set of tire tracks leading away from a large puddle that spanned the width of the road on the left fork. I knew that my crew had left them. I was fortunate in having just enough residual light to spot them against the dry, hard-packed gravel. I could easily have missed them. A sense of uncertainty, one that had already taken hold, deepened. This was likely only the first of many such junctions. I thought the path home would be obvious. I thought wrong.
One hour into my trek, I came to a stretch of road that I did recognize, even though the sun had completely set. The road entered a narrow canyon with jagged walls that rose up steeply on both sides. I could hear the sound of fast-running water to my left, but it was difficult to pinpoint its location. Judging by the hollow roar, it was likely following a flume that had been cut deep into the rock along the far edge of the canyon. Though my visibility was limited, I scanned the canyon walls thoroughly as I walked. I was looking for movement…anything that might signal danger.
The steep topography of the canyon produced crazy echoes. The sound of my hiking boots scuffing against the gravel road bounced along the sharp, rugged terrain like an Indian rubber ball. If there was ever a time when I needed to walk softly, this was it.
Midway through the canyon, the sound of surging water began to intensify as the road tapered toward its source. Then the road swung hard to the left and I suddenly found myself crossing a bridge elevated high above the maelstrom. I felt my legs tremble as I crossed over. It was an old bridge. Large gaps between the deck planks exposed its support beams underneath. Beyond the beams, unimaginable