Tales of the Incredible Hoke Robertson

                Once again we begin an adventure with me, Buell Winkle, nephew of Hoke Robertson.  If you have interest in such adventures, you probably don’t have much of a life yourself.   Although there was near universal praise for my New Zealand Adventure on the Banga-Sheila River to spear the pesky Platypus, the responses were less than enthusiastic for my whale hunt on the Japanese research vessel, the Gor-ri-Maru.  Apparently the photo of me holding onto the harpoon deeply imbedded into the still twitching Humpback calf was a bit too much for some people and potentially could be in violation of some international treaties; none of which by the way I ever signed.  However, rest assured that after dragging them onto their ships where they are lightly killed, the Japanese are diligently working to find all possible scientific breakthroughs which will result from vivisecting these majestic creatures.

The current adventure had a number of working titles; all popping into my head as I braved the bush in the mighty Yukon.   Sans Mousse;  Qompression Spinale;  Yuk-off;  Never Trust a Knutsen and my second favorite,  Canadien Cruelty, eh?.  I decided on “Yukon Adventure” so as not to give anything away too early.

This all started at the 2012 Safari Club convention when my wife Twinkel and I met Tom and Sal (Knutsen) at that gala event.  Sal, or Allison for those who mistake “Sal and Tom” for a couple recently allowed to marry in this State, is my sister from the same mother.  That is not to disparage my father, but I do hope and pray I am not too genetically close to most of my siblings.  Hmmm, that didn’t come out too good;  I’ll edit it out later.  Anyway, Allison mumbled something to me about “signed you up for a Moose hunt…” and mentioned that it was a bit expensive but she had paid the down-payment.  When I heard the number, I puckered a bit at the price, but decided it would be fun and might as well go for it.  Then I learned that the number Allison had whispered was the DOWN-PAYMENT not the full price and I went into apoplectic shock.  How on earth could I hide this from my wife given that she controls the checkbook?  I could not of course.  To this day, the cost of the hunt comes up about every 37 minutes.

Anyway, the Trip/Hunt was described as a hunter’s dream, with moose literally falling out of trees, world class fishing, and a week of restful bliss after downing a huge trophy on the first or second day.  I pause here to savor those words now that I have returned from the frozen north.  Irony?  Fate? Bald-faced lies?  Perhaps we will never know.

There was never a chance that Twinkle was going to accompany me on this trip.  First, the last hunt (elk) she went on with me and the Knutsens resulted in her spending most of each day in the mobile elk blind (i.e. the truck) while Allison and I walked around finding no elk.  According to her, it took Tom about 7 seconds to fall asleep after us hunters and the guide left the truck, meaning that Twinkle spent the week listening to Tom snore (much more on that later) while partially suffocating in the cab.  Second, that elk hunt (or in Spanish “El Qunt”) actually had a lodge where the women were allowed to use the toilet and shower.  This trip involved the use of a lovely, 3/8  finished outhouse and no bathing/washing facilities whatsoever.  Twinkle is to dirt as Democrats are to truth.  Regardless, her absence allowed me to take along Michael Wood, my sort-of nephew and quite possibly the most excellent 20 year old on the planet.  I’ve known Michael since the day he was born and pretty much think of him as my son, which has no tangible benefits to him but makes me feel pretty darn good.

The other day I was talking to one of my Japanese-American friends and learned a new phrase in Japanese.  As many of you may know, Japanese is closely related to Spanish due to the early colonization of the Japanese Islands by ship-wrecked Spanish sailors in 234 BC after their epic battle with the Ainu.  Anyway, the proper way of asking the name of a Japanese person is to say “Mi nam-ee, Su nam-ee?”  Get it Tsunami?  I just thought of that!  Okay, you try to write one of these stories and see how difficult humor is.

The trip required a few visits to the local Bass Pro Shop to acquire all of the needed gear to sustain life above the 5th parallel.  Michael and I purchased various items such as water purification pumps, water purification ultra-violet pens, raingear, gloves, peanut MM’s, electric underwear, sleeping pads, sleeping bags and headlights (not the kind on cars, dork).  These items totaled about $20,000 which is not that much when you consider I spend about $7500 a week on Hostess Cupcakes.  Luckily, the Knutsens were going to drive to the Yukon, meaning that Michael and I could give them most of our gear for transport and thus avoid lost baggage on the flights.  I do not wish to disparage, but good service is to airlines as good grooming is to the Taliban.

Twinkle was in charge of booking our flights, Michael starting from Oregon where he is going to school and I starting from Stockton, the hub of home foreclosures and gang-related shootings.  Anyway, Lisa’s past experience in grinding away at airline’s rep over the phone to get us upgrades to business class proved her mettle in such things.  To preserve my marriage, I will not mention the fact that the day before the adventure began we discovered she had not booked one leg of Mike’s return flight.  I did not mention that; I love my wife and she is always right.  I seemed to have digressed once again.  If you have an opinion in the forest and your wife does not hear it is it still wrong?

After days of checking and rechecking the stuff I needed, the fateful day arrived and Twinkle and I drove to San Francisco for my flight.  Here I must digress once more, and likely not for the last time.  A couple of years ago my optimistic Optometrist noted I had a “crinkle in one eye” which needed to be monitored.  Apparently, a “crinkle in one eye” is secret code for me having some sort of deteriorating eye condition, very common in extremely smart people.  I made that last part up.  For those of you with access to an online medical dictionary (or a Harry Potter book), my condition is Oculus Non-reparium, or commonly “Macular Pucker.” Anyway, a year later after my new glasses did nothing to improve sight in my right eye, I was told my “crinkle” couldn’t be fixed with new, $845 glasses.  Self help was useless; I tried streaming my eye but the crinkle remained though my lashes are now very lush.  Well, this entailed new visits to an eye “specialist.”  A “specialist” is one who cannot organize or supervise office staff, herds multitudes of non-English speaking persons through cattle shoots (people for whom I am ultimately paying), and gives you 37 seconds every half year at a $700 charge.  I wish I were special.  I believe my “specialist” also runs a puppy mill in the neighboring office space.  Anyone need an emaciated dachshund?

Anyway at the most recent six month visit to Dr. M Kaid Fraud, she determined that my crinkle was getting worse and I needed an operation.  “Duh” to the former.   Dr. Fangtooth then told me about the operation, and I quote:  “First we poke four holes in the white of your eyeball and drain all the fluid out of it …”  Whatever else she said I missed as those words alone welded my sphincter shut and made my wang shrivel.  You can call me chicken; you can ridicule my manhood; you can even try to sabotage my life and my marriage like my brother did, but I am metro-sexual enough to admit draining my eyeball causes me to scream like a little girl.  They want to drain my friggin’ eyeball; DRAIN it.  Are these people (i.e. specialists like Dr. I Gouge) nuts?  Who on earth comes up with this stuff.  If you HAVE to go into someone’s eyeball to scape away a crinkle why not just leave the damn fluid in there?  Use a goddamn light if you have to; don’t drain it for Christ’s sake!  They want to drain my eyeball.  Screw them.

Okay, you get the picture; Christmas presents should focus on a pirate theme like hip looking eyepatches or simple earrings.  Anyway, amazingly, the crinkled eye is of course my right eye, as in right-handed, as in shoot right handed.  Using a scope with my crinkle eye is like yelling loudly at an amoeba to get it to hurry along.

Okay, we arrive at the airport, and after having two United Airline dicks go out of their way to NOT help me check in, I get through the ticketing morass and start towards the security check.  Time and electrical power limitations prevent me from a complete discourse on the TSA and our fabulous country’s security system.  Suffice to say that when they say “take everything out of your pockets” they MEAN EVERYTHING.  Do not leave your wad of cash in your pocket.  If you do it results in them checking you for traces of explosives, hidden knifes, and the threat of potential UFO ET-like probes all because you prevented them from stealing your money.  My favorite part is the plump, myopic screen-scanner who pretends to diligently look over the x-ray of your carryon smacking her gum loudly; seemingly often confused at the shape of socks and combs.  I have no doubt she has better medical insurance than do I.  In their defense, one is amazed at the number of times you have to tell some people to “wait here” or “yes the belt too” or “no you can’t wear the overcoat, take it off.”

Obviously, since the opaque fluid in my 10 oz. plastic bottle is labeled “Mouthwash” it cannot be any chemical used in bomb making.  Time being infinite, I made it past the top-notch security system and proceed to Gate 19.  As I start to worry that Michael might not be there, there he was, nonchalantly leaning against a carpeted wall with ear phones.  He had the earphones not the carpeted wall.  The worry part is the norm as I spend every day worrying about Michael and other family members younger than I.  I have found that worrying keeps one sharp, and prepares you for even the most dire situations even though those situations never arise.

According to my wife, in order for Michael to get from Eugene Oregon to Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, Canada, he had to first fly to San Francisco and meet me and then we would both fly to Vancouver, BC, Canada and then to Whitehorse.  As most of you have now mentally reviewed the geography involved in that itinerary, there appears to be something odd.  My first reaction was to doubt Twinkle’s planning and directional capabilities.  However, when one becomes familiar with airline “hub” theory and the benefits of using the airline for which you have accumulated “miles” the itinerary becomes somewhat understandable.  You have no idea how tempting this particular multi-directional situation was, given my obsession with ridicule and insults, but cooler heads prevailed and I have to at least sound reasonable; AND Twinkle might someday read this.

Anyway, Michael and I greet each other and settle down to the two hour wait for the Vancouver flight.  Michael is now a Junior at Oregon State where either beaver or ducks are admired and it rains most of the time.  Hopefully Michael’s ongoing battle to find roommates is not indicative of the average college student.  It seems that most college students are not actually focused on studying, but rather seem attracted to beer, sports and “doing their own thing.”   At least we can all be assured that at these institutions of higher learning our youth are being instructed in a very non-biased way about Marxism, the evils of western democracy and culture and the importance of Transgender literature during the Viking era.  They are also learning one of the bedrocks of a civil society; DO NOT let anyone with a contrary opinion speak; ever.  At least Michael is perfect and still on the correct side of the political spectrum.

Anyway, off we went on a sleek MIG-31 Fulcrum Air-Superiority fighter on loan from Russia to the Canadian Military.  Well, maybe it was some sort of Boeing jet, who knows; that’s not important now.  The two hourish flight went off without a hitch excepting of course the turd behind me kept kicking the back of my chair; a constant Karma effect from my past lives.  Arriving in Vancouver we do our best to get through customs, which in Canada is organized to make sure very few people get into Canada.  Canada’s tourism bureau’s slogan is “Try Somewhere Else First.”  Anyway, the ol’ Winkle charm did its magic and the surly, unwashed Customs lady let me pass through after 10 minutes even though I was a hunter without a rifle; something still eating at her.  Michael, being younger, better looking, more outgoing, and “hip” got through the line AND had the other Customs Lady’s phone number.  As I recall, her number was 001 307 224-000 eht?  For those of you not paying attention, that is a Canadian talking joke.

While sitting in the airport, which by the way was very clean and lovely, I began sizing up Canadians.  First; bathing is apparently not the norm.  Like the Belgians, they all need a good scrubbing.  Not sure why this is, but perhaps it has something to do with the Treaties they signed with the First Nations.  I am told the indigenous peoples resent anyone who does not smell of campfire smoke or seal blubber.  Maybe the Canads lived up to their treaties unlike us.  It’s easy to distinguish the Americans in the crowd from the Canadians.  Those who are fat and walking around in t-shirts and baggy, long, unpressed shorts are Americans; a race genetically programmed to dress poorly.  Is there some federal law preventing Americans on vacation from using hair combs?  Those with non-Levi jeans, coats and dirty boots are the Canadians; a race genetically programmed to wear last week’s dirty work clothes.

Although there have been very negative responses to my comments on body sizes and shapes, I will continue the practice as I get a warm feeling when ridiculing others.  Canadian men all look like they could care less about anything and like to eat everything.  The women seem to confirm that massive inter-breeding occurred with the indigenous people.  Their legs are one-third the length of a regular person’s and they wear scarves.  It’s like watching a bunch of well-dressed Tatars waddle around trying to get back on their midget horses.  You know, kinda like that Trivago commercial guy with the bowed, skinny Hobbit legs.  I’m not being judgmental, just recoding the facts for future generations.

Whilst in Vancouver (French for “tarp over car”) Michael and I partook of the extraordinary selection of eating establishments crammed into our little gate area.  There were two Chinese food places, one Thai food place, a fish jerky store and a Tim Horton’s.  No one knows who this Tim Horton guy was/is or what he looks like, but it is rumored he was a disgraced Hockey player who turned to drugs and ended up killing his wife by poisoning her.  Recently Burger King was said to be purchasing Tim Horton’s for the purpose of getting even worse writers for their TV ads.  Anyway, Canadians look at Tim Horton’s as a patriotic rebuke to the millions of American eateries and so you have to be careful about what you say.  Tim Horton’s is to fine eating as dead goat entrails are to cheese.

While we sat at Gate eh? watching the humutants saunter by, the PA system regularly asked for “Texas Allen” to come to the courtesy phone or gate or whatever.  Every half hour or so this request went out and eventually everyone there kinda smiled when the announcement came again.  When we got to about 5 minutes before boarding, the announcement this time stated “It is URGENT that Texas Allen come to the gate desk.”  Some guy sitting across from us slowly gets up and goes to the desk.  Mind you this guy had been there the whole time, but waited until the request was “urgent” before responding.  Hmmmm.  We board and lo and behold I am sitting next to ………………… “Texas Allen.”  As I sit down, I make the horrible mistake of stating “hey, aren’t you Texas Allen?”  “Yes I am” he chuckled in response and two and a half hours later the one-sided conversation ended as I deplaned.  Now to be fair, Texas’ stories, life history and insights into Yukon hunting were creative, unique and informative.  He is on his third wife (married I mean; she wasn’t underneath him at that time), is a charter member of the “Women are the Root of All Problems” club, has a ranch, the well drilling history of which I am now fluent in (too many prepositions?), vacationed in Costa Rico where one should never sign-up for the beginners scuba excursion, has traveled the world over and over, and somewhat dislikes our current president.  At the end of the flight I felt I could write his life history.

This part is true.  Texas Allen is/was not his given name.  He was the son of an American nurse in occupied Japan after the war; his father being the only surviving Kamikaze pilot with 13 missions to his credit (okay, maybe that last clause was made up).  His real name was “Tatsuor Agami” and changed it for practical considerations when growing up in the US of A.  He made his fortune as, of all things,  a cardboard box designer.  For about 50 years, he designed virtually every fold up cardboard box.  In case you don’t understand this, most every box in which something is delivered is cut out of one flat piece and that one piece is folded various ways until it makes a box.  The trick is to have a flat shape that folds into a 3D shape.  Some are quite complicated with numerous tabs, slots and weird angles, but they were all designed by this guy until some smart-ass computer programming teen wrote a program to do it, which kinda ended Texas’ career.   If you don’t believe me google him and see.  It was all pretty interesting and I will probably eventually use his name as some hero in a book I write.

For those of you paying attention, Michael and I are now in Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, Canada.  This is very important because when I first notified Twinkle we needed to book our flights, I repeatedly stated “we need to book our flights to Yellowknife.”  Yellowknife, though also in Canada is in the Northwest Territories, which is in close proximity to the Yukon when compared to the size of the universe, but is nowhere near the Yukon for purposes of meeting up with your Moose hunting guide.  After a few panicked interludes, we did indeed end up in the correct Territories.  One might scoff at Whitehorse, thinking it some small bohunk bivouac littered with snow and lazy Canadians.  However it is.   The airport looks just like a real one and the town appears to be a normal slice of western civilization with plenty of surly teenagers, bad music and rude drivers.  We found out over the course of the adventure that the Yukon Territories has (have?) about 35-40,000 inhabitants, with 25-30,000 living in Whitehorse.  Since the Yukon is the size of California, one can imagine just how open, unspoiled and free of illegal immigrants it truly is.

Apparently my directions to Tom and Sal that “we will arrive sometime after 10 pm” was insufficient information.  Although they were there and met us immediately after we got off the plane, they were upset that they had had (not a typo, just the past participle or some such grammatical grouping) to park the truck and walk the 27 yards to the terminal to find us.  Still not sure what that was all about, but I think I owe them four Euros for parking.  I assumed there could only be one inbound flight that night so no possibility of confusion.  Tom said there were hundreds of inbound flights.  I of course must be correct.
Ah, the Knutsens.  What can one say that would be believed?  More specifics later.  They DROVE 2300 miles to get there because Tom cannot endure airplane flights.  As his sister describes it, the air pressure thing makes it feel like ice picks are being driven into their ears when they fly; ergo long drives being the preferred choice.  Sal and Tom’s love is a thing for poets to describe, but getting into a car/truck with them is like something out of Clockwork Orange; having someone tie you in front of multiple screens and directing you to “pay attention.”  It would seem that after listening to 276 books on tape (CD actually) during the drive, they were more than eager to engage other people in conversation.  When Allison reads this she will be hurt and tell me to “cram it.” That is the worst curst in her repertoire.  This is of course very mean and uncaring for me to say, as they had driven an additional 5 hours to pick us up; 5 hours in the wrong direction given the location of the hunting outfitter.  Anyway, we got all caught up to speed as they drove us to the Hotel.  I can’t remember the Hotel’s name but it was something like “Stained Sheets Suites.”  Its claim to fame was that its elevator was made to look like a safe vault.  It in fact moved about as quickly as did a steel vault bolted to the floor.  Some sort of wilderness humor I expect.  Can someone explain to me why maids at every hotel/motel on earth come from Mexico?  Are Canadians as lazy as Americans and too good to clean rooms?  I was a motel maid in San Luis Obispo in 1975 when I needed a job; what’s wrong with the rest of you snobs?  Things to ponder.

Day two starts with breakfast at the Hotel.  I see that this story has become totally uninteresting.  While at breakfast, some lumberjack-looking kinda guy threw an empty beer bottle across the room which hit Allison in the face.  Before he could slur “ssssssorrrry ma’am” Tom’s 17 inch knife with the brass-knuckles grip flew from his hand; a blur of blue steel, imbedding itself in the drunken Canuck’s left eye and pinning him to the Caribou in the Labatt’s beer sign.  Blood spurted everywhere and the now dead drunk’s companions exploded in a rage.  Grasping the decorative gold pan above the doorway, I frisbeed it at the plaid-clad big burly guy with one ear, severing his throat; his blood spurting forth like the spray from an infield sprinkler at Houston School.  Tom picked up two of the others, one in each hand and slammed them together like a school kid in detention knocking the chalk out of the classroom erasers.  The crunching sound they made was reminiscent of the time my dad backed the tractor over the neighbor’s pony.  Michael, not to be outdone, grabbed an 84 ounce Kokanee beer mug like Thor’s hammer and proceeded to turn ear-flapped hat covered heads into gooey messes all the while humming some familiar song from the “Killers.”  Michael likes irony.

Okay, now I got your attention again.  After breakfast we loaded up and took that money saving drive to both Canadian Tire and Walmart for the last few necessities.  Canadian Tire is some sort of combination of Walmart, Cabela’s, Costco, and Suzie’s Adult Gift Shop.  Not sure I remember why we went there, but we did buy bear spray, a slingshot, batteries and Red Vines.  Bear spray is not some new fragrance by Loreal, it is the concentrated aerosol which is meant to drive bears off but actually has no effect on them.  We then went to Walmart (just next door, but we drove the truck) to find something else I cannot remember which wasn’t there which is probably why I can’t remember it.  We then headed off to the south-southeast towards the outfitters luxury Lodge in Watson Lake.  When I say “headed off” I actually mean we went 3 minutes down the road and then stopped so Sal and Tom could show us the 8 foot beaver display at the Beringia museum.  Beringia as at least 23 people know, refers to an area near the landbridge between Siberia and North America which bridge was exposed during the last ice age.  Like the creatures from another dimension invading us in the movie “The Mist” the scientific community tells us that during the time of Beringia huge animals roamed the earth, like giant beaver and cats the size of Hyundais.  One cannot truly appreciate the sheer number of “large beaver” jokes which escaped Tom’s lips; each affecting him as if they were the funniest, and newest jokes ever conceived.  They weren’t, but who can resist commenting on an 8 foot statute of a beaver.  Gandhi perhaps, not us.  After taking many many pictures, including a few next to the wooly mammoths (mastodons?) we THEN set off.  I still confuse the mammoth pictures with the two we took next to the Walmart clerk; that’s as nevermind.
This story is written over time, mostly at lunch here at work.  At this particular moment, I just got back from my normal daily visit to the mini-market at the neighboring gas station/carwash where I buy my 44 oz. Dr. Pepper nearly every day for lunch.  On the way back I noticed a snail trail along the curb, ending of course with a very dried out looking snail.  The sun was just right and I could see the entire glistening track leading to said dead snail; a bunch of wavy slime lines looping back and forth.  When I turned my head to the side, the wavy lines spelled out in perfect cursive “luau.”  I swear this is true though I cannot explain it.  God works in mysterious ways.  I am now debating whether I should go kill a pig or invest in Dole stock.

Where was I?  Off we went on our 5-hour drive to Watson Lake to meet up with the outfitter.  This drive included very odd topics of conversation (e.g the latest members of Tom’s Fortuna posse; Michael’s desire that the next vacation be an Amazon River trip), an occasional munching bison, a pee stop near some lake and a furtive bear in the brush along the road.  For lunch we stopped at some dirty fuel station/eatery named the “Go Home Trading Post.”  Michael ate the humongous Buffalo Burger and we were able to purchase Rice Krispie Treat for the road.  Anyone who knows Sal or me understands the aforementioned purchase.  Eventually we arrive at Watson Lake.  Watson Lake is to urban as a handshake is to orgasm.  Watson Lake’s claim to fame is it having the largest collection of stolen city signs; seriously.  There is a progressing proliferation of these purloined place placards; all having been set up by dishonest, yet funny travelers.  I did not see any Lodi or Wasco signs, but there was one from Acampo!  Did I mention this story includes some outright lies?

That evening we were invited to the outfitter’s home for dinner and pre-trip planning.  As you may have noticed, there is no lodge of course, only the house of the outfitter.  The last thing on earth I want to do is go to someone’s house for dinner as it usually ends up being something like cardboard casserole filled with peas and corn; the kind of things that makes me hurl.  We get inside, are greeted by the outfitters entire family and are ushered into the “dining room” where 15 place settings are on the 8 person table.  You guessed it, dinner is cardboard casserole with peas and corn hidden inside.  As the outfitter’s mother serves me up a huge chunk of the gastro-assailing goo, I smile as if I am a normal person who eats normal food.  I am not.  Michael, sitting next to me and generally aware of my eating habits has difficulty hiding his laughter during the meal.   Very little respect!  I am to fine dining as Nancy Pelosi is to cogent thought.

Pleasant conversation ensured, the outfitters mom (I’ll call her Leah, but since I am not mentioning her name again, the fake name is virtually useless) is the local Justice of the Peace and upon determining I am a lawyer, all sorts of  “lawyer” jokes ensue; all aimed at me.  WOW; boy that was funny; I’ve never heard lawyer jokes before; that sure is amusing.  I get it, people don’t like lawyers, ha, ha, ha.  Being a lawyer is like being color-blind.  EVERY day some idiot just has to ask you “well, what color does it look like?”  “Hey did you hear about the dead lawyer in the middle of the road?”  People.  Anyway, at dinner is/are two other hunters who are also going moose hunting with the very same outfitter company.  They are named Waldon and something-er-other; maybe Pond.   We meet the various guides assigned to us all and I pretend to be a very pleasant guy.  Everybody chows down as if at a Super Bowl party.  I am always amazed at other peoples eating habits.  I eat the amount I want/feel necessary and no more.  I eat bland things and do not like anything I have not already included on my list of “likes.”  Yukon guides are the opposite of me.  If they sit down, anything, in any amount is mandatorily consumed.  How anyone could eat 4 pounds of casserole is beyond me.  And what is with this “cleaning the plate” thing.  When they cleared the plates, mine was the only one with some food left on it (mostly errant peas and corn that somehow became detached from the foul mess) while every other one was licked clean.  HELLO?  The Depression ended 75 years ago!  We always have food for the next meal.  No need to eat like it’s your last ….  I guess it’s just me.

I could here insult the outfitter and his entire family, but there is no reason to as they were all nice, friendly and polite.  Eventually we get back to our motel and we all hit the hay.  The hotel rooms for the record, were nice and semenly clean.  However, they looked like the background for a Starsky and Hutch episode where they break into the hooker’s room before she is killed by the drug dealer.  Not having my trusty black light, I am blissfully unaware of any dried fluids surrounding me.

Next morning, and not much sleep the night before.  My innate fear of bears has troubled my dreams and I keep visualizing the circumstance where I must rush the bear to save Michael.  I would of course do that, but the thought of it is somehow not very comforting.  I recall over and over the first words of every bear attack story; “I never thought they could move that fast …”  Other bits of bear-combat wisdom are recalled like “.. well, I emptied the entire can of bear spray into its face but it only seemed to get madder…” and my favorite, related by a poor gentlemen with only half a face  “they say grizzlies can’t climb trees but this one ran up into the tree and knocked me out of it.”  These are all actual quotes from televised bear attackees.

Anyway, cold, stabbing fear aside, off we go with the Knutsens to the outfitters home.  Sure enough, everything I gave the Knutsens to bring to the cold North was there, except of course the water purification pumps which will become extremely relevant later in the story.  Rather than be driven to the launch-off site by the grossly overpaid outfitter, they ask Tom to drive us hunters in his pickup the 40 minutes; following them.  The outfitter is driving a truck with a trailer with 4-wheelers, and gear all neatly packed like the Clampetts going to Beverly Hills.  In the wild, neatness and attention to detail are unknowns; as we drive along the road we watch the loose, long end of one strap holding one of the 4-wheelers as it snaps back and forth in the wind and drags on the road just waiting to be caught under one of the trailer wheels which would launch the whole thing about a kilometer into the air.  No such luck; as in America, the idea of “ah, it’s okay” prevails.

Finally the starting point!  Amid the beautiful stunted forest growth of the tundra, amongst the paper, plastic and other trash ubiquitous on any dirt road along any highway on earth, the adventure begins.  Hmmpf!  No music in the background, no high-5 ceremony or plea to the Great Architect of the Universe.   Just quiet, “we’re not going to have any fun” sort of preparations.   Is there some reason I view every situation as a potential catastrophe and/or a funny adventure to lie about later?  I wonder what normal people think.  All of our gear is loaded into various small trailers being pulled by the 4-wheelers and some satanic things called Argos.  Here I must digress one more time.  The existence of the Argo was first related to me by the famous Texas Allen who spoke uninteresting volumes about these eight-wheeled vehicles, none of which turned out to be true.  However, the Argo is indeed a fundamental part of this story.
What is an Argo ride?  Picture a pioneer wagon ride; no shocks, no cushions, nothing to hold onto except your wife’s ears.  Now add some more wheels and go over surfaces never imagined by mankind.  That is an Argo ride.  The thing is about 4 feet wide, 6 feet long and about 4 feet high.  It was designed by the grammar school custodian in the tiny Italian village of Esotropia (look up the word) when he was drunk.  This is the worst vehicle on the planet earth, including Yak-travois and kangaroo pouches.  Let’s start with the front seat shall we?  There is a seat, but there are no sides, rails or anything one could lean against.  The floor is a three-stage step, with the bottom-most about 12 inches across.  This mean the driver and the “passenger” can each put their inward-most foot on that surface, but not both feet.  The other foot must be placed on the first stair-step which causes the knee of that leg to be about chin high.  The third stair-step is at the top of the vile vehicle and placing your foot instead on that level would put your foot at chin height.  Unless you choose to “snuggle” up to the guide, your body must be about one foot off center; center being a spot between your feet.  This means the only possible riding position in an Argo is to be leaning to the left, one foot off to the right and the other slightly less off to the right, but elevated to insure you center of gravity is above the Argo’s seat.  Of course, no matter which way the Argo turns or bumps, your body tends to fall left, and outside of the vehicle.  There is a small metal rail in the back that you can just reach with your left hand.  That provides some minuscule level of support, but since it is behind and to the left of your body, grabbing it increases your leftward lean.

The “back” of the Argo is a mini pickup truck bed, where one puts his gear into the standing water in order to make sure it gets completely soaked, even on days it does not rain.  The Einstein who invented this ambling abomination never thought to put a drain plug in the bottom of an open vehicle that traverses the outback in severe weather.  The back has two stair steps of depth, thus allowing a slightly larger cargo wetting area, but has no seat of any kind whatsoever.  For those lucky enough to be relegated to that back cargo area on the 2-4 hour jaunts done twice each day, it like being sealed in a 55 gallon drum and pushed over the lip of the Grand Canyon; repeatedly.  The front seat rides wore my bones down to dust; one can only look in admiration at those like Michael who endured the cargo area ride and did not scream in pain or die a slow death.  Did I mention Michael is pretty darn tough?

Indeed the Argo has 8 wheels, all welded firmly to the body and without any indication that things like springs or shock absorbers have been invented.  The Argo has two gears; stall and cough.  While in cough, it will go over any obstacle, surface or animal, and it even goes through water.  We quickly learned that it “goes through water” best when you are headed downstream in a river.  In a lake, it motors along like a drowning octogenarian with one arm and no legs.  The only person to try to take one of these demons upstream was last seen off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula; frosted but steely eyed and determined.  Finally, Michael quickly notices that printed on the Argo in bold, but small letters it states: Not to be sold or operated in the USA.”  Because …….?

Now of course I did not know all these things about the Argo when I was told to “climb in” and we “zoomed” off into the wilderness.  That first day was mostly smooth dirt roads, besides I of course had been told we were going to hunt from boats; not hunt from the Argo.   I later learned, the word “Argo” is a Pirate colloquialism which means “brake his back.”  Much much later Ben Afflect made a very bland movie using that word.  On this first day of punishment, Michael got to ride one of the 4-wheelers.  He of course is well versed in such things, which was a surprise to the guides.  For those of you who are city-type wimps and do not venture into the wild unknown, all hunting guides believe their occupation makes them not only the best physical specimens on earth, but that having not attneded school past the 7th Grade makes them experts in everything.  People who are guided by guides are assumed to know nothing, have never been outdoors, and should basically be shot after giving the guide all of your money.  I can’t tell you the number of times a 24 year old guide has seen fit to lecture me on international politics, water law, or quantum physics.  To their dismay (and unbelieving surprise) I have actually seen animal prints in the dirt and Michael has actually ridden a 4-wheeler.  When a guide is also a Canadian, it is doubly worse because they ALL have to tell you some story of American corporate greed that destroyed some Canadian store or ruined the plaid suspenders market just before Boxing Day.

Anyway, after about an hour and a half, we arrive at an unusually large pond straddling the trail.  I found out later this was a beaver pond but I myself never smelled fish. [That is a horribly filthy joke; sorry.]   Just this side of the muck is an airboat on a trailer.  My quick mind grasps the situation and I realize this is “our” airboat, from which we are supposed to hunt.  When I say “airboat” I really mean that someone has taken a small barn door, zip-tied a lawnmower engine to the back, lashed a ceiling fan to the engine, and then stapled a naugahyde skirt (I have no idea how to spell naugahyde; do you?) around the bottom edges.  The “airboat” is on a trailer that uncle Squinty built using parts from that wreck on the CalCan highway back in ‘73.  Gazing at this bit of human ingenuity I realize for the first time I will probably never get a moose on this trip and I will likely die.  Anyway the confusion and hurried activities of the guides at this place are aimed at trying to figure out how to get this cutting edge technology across the pond.  Why this seemingly insolvable problem was not addressed before we arrived for our expensive hunt is unclear to me.  Apparently, in order to move this pseudo-boat thing across the water (savor that problem for a minute; how to get a BOAT across WATER) Michael and I had to fly 2,000 miles because they had US pull the tow line across the pond using the 4-wheeler he was riding; not one of the four guides.  Michael and me; they watched.  Anyway, with the tow line secured, an Argo and the winch of a 4-wheeler accomplish the impossible.  The “airboat” (which apparently cannot cross this waterbody itself) is now 23 yards farther down the trail.  We of course now all leave and continue our journey, leaving the “airboat” to rest after its horrible ordeal.  Yes, we left the airboat there.  Naturally, no guide offers any explanation or insight into this secret hunting technique.  Because we are filthy American hunters and they are guides, we are not worthy to know anything that is being done, or why, or what is next.

Another 2 hours or so and we arrive at a river.  I think it was called “Victoriaspee” in tribute to the long serving monarch when she “marked her territory and claimed Canada for the empire.”  Here we find THREE BOATS, a supply dump (Korean War era), lots of trash decorating the wilderness, a place where a bear had recently dug up some grubs and the end of the road.  Let’s see, there are two other hunters, Waldon and what-his name, two other guides, Tom and Sal and their guide, and Michael and me and our guide.  Three boats, four groups.  Wait for it.  We all cooperate to load the other two hunters’ gear into TWO of the boats, and each of them with a guide, motor off downstream, leaving one boat.  Off in the distance a lone wolf howled.  Somewhere at about this time, our guide “Pierre” (I’ll get to him later) informs us in a soft “don’t care if you hear” mumble that the airboat, our boat “probably won’t take all the weight” of me, Michael and him.  Let us savor that for a moment.  The hunters without “ride-alongs” each take a boat, but we leave the hunters with ride-alongs (which makes three potential boat riders if you count the guide) with one boat and a delinquent “airboat” that “will probably not take the weight.”  Why doesn’t one of the hunter-guide twosomes take the airboat rather than one of the hunter, ride-along, guide threesomes?   As you know, Canada has never put a man on the moon, does not supply the world with break-through medicines and has no Nobel Laureates in Physics.  This is because they cannot count and cannot think.  Yes, yes, somewhere in Canada there are people who can count and who can think (but not both) but that doth not a guide make.  Heck, the country’s money is called the “loon.”  Nuff said.

We spend the next hour or two trying to get the third boat’s motor to start and run. The idea was to use this boat to ferry all of us (in 43 trips) a ways upstream to our base camp.  This plan is less likely to succeed when the motor of the “MOTOR BOAT” will not work. 
Well, the “motor boat’ starts working to some extent and it ferries Tom and Sal (transports them; they are not faeries) and their gear upstream.  While we wait, Michael and I get to know our guide Pierre much better.  More correctly, Pierre says absolutely nothing.  He busies himself with moving packages of things from one spot to another, winding up 40year old decomposed rope, and checking the fluids of the now very lonely 4 wheelers and Argos.  Michael and I take in the beautiful surroundings, try not to mention our boat is absent and catch sight of beaver and muskrat braving the current of the mighty but shallow River.
I think Pierre did answer one question about something relating to bath soaps, but other than that he made sure we did not discover any of the secret guide things associated with our expensive hunt.  You know, things like where we were going or what we were going to do.  Pierre is to interpersonal skills as is the surface of Pluto is to toasty warm.

Eventually the “motor boat” comes floating back downstream (not under power) and is able to tie up at our river stop, now named by me “Unplanning Landing.”  No, Tom and Sal have not drowned (purportedly) and their guide “Josh” (as in just kidding) is now looking to take Michael and me on the aluminum “motor boat.”  I then noticed the boat had a name crudely drawn on its bow; the “Pointless.”
After Josh and Pierre work for a while longer on the boat, the engine, the fuel line, the fuel tank and some pesky shoe lace, the “motor” starts.  Our gear is put in the stalwart craft, we pile in and bam; off we go like a Russian immigrant seeing a package store.  Michael and I still have no idea if we are going a yard, a mile or a league, but we pretend like we trust the guide Josh and act nonchalantly.  In my mind I go over all the possible scenarios; how I will get to shore, how I will save Michael if needed, how we will dry out, how we will start a fire, how we will murder the guides; you know, the usual stuff.  The arduous river trip takes us about one mile upstream.  “Really?”  All this for a one mile cruise.  Anyway, we are dumped on the spit of sand where a small creek enters the river.  Josh ties up the boat and off we go inland to our cabin? Camp? Rest area? Final resting place?  Still not one word of what is coming next or what we are doing.  Its like Canadians think we speak Latvian or something and  “its better to just not try to communicate.”

After about 10 yards we approach a broken down half cabin structure with a collapsed roof and a flooded floor.  “Nice” I think and for the 1,000th time and mumble “good thing Twinkle did not come.”  But no, that is not our cabin, ours is another 30 yards.  That is just some “spare unusable” camp site left in a state of deterioration to “blend in.”.  Our camp is an actual cabin from the Grizzly Adams set, complete with trash all over, old antlers hanging askew and fire wood piled up as if by a blind man.  The front porch has some spilt, white material on it which has the distinctive smell of animal urine.  It was never explained to me what the stuff was, why it stank or why it was not swept up and put back in the sack.  Obviously I am too stupid to understand the ways of the wilderness and why nothing can ever be neat, orderly or clean.  Stupid Americans.

Inside the cabin we find that log cabins are an optical illusion; the inside being one-third as large as it appears from the outside.  The inside has a “bench” or shelf running along three sides, which bench is your bed.  Quickly estimating the total length of the bench and trying to figure out how six people will fit results in a “no” six people will not fit.  The center of the cabin is filled by two tables.  When I say “filled” I mean filled; no other real room.  On the non-benched wall there is a wood burning stove and a counter top with a propane burner for cooking.  The place would make someone with OCD hyperventilate.  Nothing is clean or stowed; it looks like a Kaos confusion bomb was recently set off.

I realize this makes me sound like a namby-pamby.  However, I am trying to explain to you the visual of this place so you can appreciate what Twinkle did not have to face.  Whether I am a namby-pamby is irrelevant to the story.

I don’t recall how Pierre got to camp after Josh brought us there.  He either made one last “motor boat” trip before the poor thing died, or more likely, I think he rode a 4 wheeler to the camp taking the alternate route.  That alternate route is about an hour and 45 minute ride, the last part being over quite possibly the most uneven ground ever imagined (meaning we took that route everyday thereafter).  Anyway, we eventually were all at our cabin and the guides finally decided they would sleep in the destroyed cabin and not on top of us; something else which probably should have been decided long before nightfall of the first day.  We unpack our gear, lay out our sleeping bags and eagerly await dinner.  Poor choice of words.  Dinner, served on unclean plates and with damp, food bespeckled forks and spoons is Rice-a-Roni (the San Francisco Tripe) with some sort of sausage.  For the record, I detest all rice (except pork fried rice doused in sweet and sour pork sauce).  Michael knows this and again grins in ridicule, even asking if I want “seconds.”  I eat the meal (again not cleaning my plate like everyone else does).  When all are done, Pierre asks if anyone wants some hot tea.  Now, unknown to me, Pierre eats every meal without any fluids or drink UNTIL he is done and then he has hot tea; EVERY TIME, AFTER EVERY MEAL, NO MATTER WHERE, WHEN OR WHY.  EVERY TIME.  What this means is no one gets any drink, no one is offered any drink and you only get tea for the rest of the week.

Much later we find there is instant hot chocolate, Tang, coffee and likely other normal-person drinks non-Canadians typically like to have with their meals.  Not Pierre.   Hot Tea only; and only AFTER the meal.  This sort of single-mindedness, one way only, my synapses misfire at any change in routine is the guiding force of Pierre’s life.  One might as well yell at the river to flow the other way.  Once done, we watch as Pierre (or Josh) cleans the plates and dinnerware.  This is done by having two pots of hot water; one with soap, one without.  The item is “washed” (some old mechanic’s rag is rubbed once across the item) with the soapy water and then ONE cup only of non-soapy water is poured over the item to “rinse” it.  Then, the not-clean, still soapy item is allowed to dry.  Hmmm, good thing Twinkle did not come along.  After viewing this practice, I tried to get clean dinnerware out of the Ziplock bag which contains the extra utensils not being used.  Oops, the Ziplock bag is wet inside and slowly inflates soon after you seal it back up.  Can you spell b a c t e r i a?  No matter, I am not a namby-pamby.

Now keenly aware of health issues, Michael and I fill our water bottles in the stream and he purifies mine with our ultra-violet pens because Tom lost our expensive water purification pumps.  Michael did the ultra-violet pen work because I could never get mine to work.  Using these pens involves interpreting red, blue and green lights with one macular puckered eye which is half of a pair of color-blind eyes.  Although Michael does periodically make fun of this situation; it is Michael so it is alright.  I note here again for those not paying attention that Tom LOST the two water purification pumps I bought for the trip, thus necessitating the use of the pen which I cannot operate.  I don’t recall what they cost, but it was well over 4 Euros (that is a call-back joke for you who are losing interest).

Before we go to sleep, the guides break Yukon protocol and actually tell us something about the plans next day.  Perhaps they were drunk or just confused by the massive amounts of Rice-a Roni recently consumed.  Yukon guides like Rice-a-Roni as black holes like matter.  Anyway, wake up is at (I forget) some god-awful early hour.

But first let me turn to the pooping facility.  I used to backpack when I was young and could  walk without groaning.  Thus, I have many times squatted against a rock or tree, or used an outhouse.  No big deal although I do prefer cozy porcelain toilets where I can play Candy Crush on my iPhone or cheat at Sudoku on my Nook.  However, to the inexperienced, an outhouse needs explaining.  An outhouse is a wooden box placed over a hole in the ground, which hole is filled with shit (sorry for using that word).  One sits on a plywood “seat” into which a hole has been cut so your poop can gently drop into the underlying community of poop; thus completing the circle of life.  This particular “hole” had a thin piece of foam stapled around it to make the experience somewhat enjoyable (not the right word).  The outhouse had no door and was not fully enclosed, which allowed one to see in all directions, and in fact allowed a beautiful view of the creek as it gurgled by the cabin.  However, someone had cut the poopy hole a bit too far back, which meant that when sitting and doing your business, one had to be on tippy toes as the feet could not completely reach the “floor.”  Of course, if you are a Knutsens, your legs are, shall we say shorter than normal people’s legs.  Thus, when Sal or Tom used the facility they ended up looking like a child plunked onto a giant chair, their legs and feet sticking straight out.  Of course there was no one to watch and laugh, but it does present quite the mental image.

I raise this issue, since it was time for bed and I needed to visit this place.  Being me, I of course mentally planned what I would do and how I would do it when the bear in the bushes rushed forth and tried to kill/eat me.  I am certain there was a bear watching me, but nothing happened and I did not have to hide in a pile of, well you know.

Eventually we all climb in our respective sleeping bags and the uncommunicative guides go off to their hovel.  First the interior cabin food chain; then Tom’s snoring.

As soon as things quiet down, I begin to hear various levels of scurrying sounds.  This does not scare me or worry me as I know mice do not seek to rip out people’s throats (like bears do).  However, the sheer magnitude of the scurrying indicates not just one, but scores of small rodents are beginning their workday.  I can hear them chewing through paper and plastic, and munching on various foodstuffs; foodstuffs which I am certain are for my consumption, not theirs.  When we told the guides this, they feigned surprise and crafted a wilderness mouse trap.  Said trap is a bucket of water with an empty soda can strung across the top by having a wire go through the top and bottom of the can.  The can has peanut butter (the natural diet of mice) on it.  When the mouse reaches out to grab the peanut butter or jumps onto the can, the can spins about the wire, the mouse slips off into the bucket, falls into the water and slowly tires and drowns.

I being a contragenarian, asked, “can’t the mouse climb out of the bucket?” to which the guides gave me one of those “you ignorant fu*k” looks and replied “a mouse can’t climb up the side of a bucket.”  This is of course a false statement, as everyone who has seen Cinderella or who watches the Discovery Channel knows.   A mouse cannot climb up a slick, smooth surface, but it can certainly climb up any surface if there is any small purchase, however slight (the purchase not the mouse).  This factual analysis does not change the “ignorant fu*k” view of the “engineers” who created this complicated  contraption and I refrain from arguing with the guide brain-trust.  The next night I again heard the scurrying and TWICE heard a gentle “splash” indicating the mouse trap was real and not some “let’s play a joke on the Americans” prank.  I also heard continuous “scratching” throughout the night.  AMAZINGLY, in the morning there were NO MICE IN THE BUCKET.  Either they levitated out ala the rare Tibetan Lama Mouse, Michael secretly saved them as the protector of the innocent, OR THEY WERE ABLE TO SCRATCH AND CLIMB THEIR WAY OUT.  You decide.  Before you make any final conclusion, bear in mind my educational records do not suggest I am an ignorant fu*k.

Now it gets really good.  The many nights were always filled with the scurrying; Allison even had one little bastard race across her sleeping bag; likely the result of some teenage mouse daring his slow minded friend.  Once in a while one of us would feel the light spray of some liquid onto his or her face at night for which I have no explanation unless Whamo makes tiny Super-soakers for the rodent community.  But the piece de resistance is the night we heard activity by things a little higher up the food chain than mice.  One night as I lay unable to sleep because of Tom’s snoring, I heard a loud rustle and then the very clear death scream of a mouse.  Yes, something had tracked, attacked and killed a mouse in the cabin.  Now the death scream of a mouse is not something to worry about, but it does spark interest in what is going on in the dark cabin.  Good thing Twinkle did not come on this trip.  When told about this episode, Pierre without a pause quietly said, “probably a shrew.”  I have no experience in these things, but I surmise it was the first thing that popped into his mind and does not necessarily explain the incident.

Now to Tom’s snoring.  Words cannot adequately convey reality.  Years ago I recall feeling actual compassion and pity for my sister after having heard Tom’s snoring for the first time.  I was visiting at their house and slept in a room across the hall from theirs.  Two doors and a hallway separated them from me, yet Tom’s snoring kept me awake ALL NIGHT.  Anyway, it takes Tom about 7 seconds to fall asleep; really.  Seven.  This means that before you have scratched your chin, blinked twice, or adjusted your non-pillow Tom is snoring loudly.  When I say loudly, I mean it sounds like a fighter jet taxiing next to your ear.  Remarkably, the snoring is not the same all the time or in any way consistent.  One night it is the repulsive gurgling of exhaled air making its way through the various, multi-viscosity  nasal fluids; sorta like a sump pump constantly losing suction.  Other nights it is the straight forward rumble and roar of the big scooper-machines collecting the crowds to make Soylent Green.  Still others are the ethereal but wheezing tones of a horror movie sound track played at the wrong speed.  It is simply inexplicable.  The amount, range and type of noises which escape his half-opened mouth and marginally opened nasal passages defies reason.  He is like some rogue Moog synthesizer that cannot be shut off.  Tom is to snoring as Sean Penn is to wife beating.

Now just to add to the problem, he also has sleep apnea.  “Apnea” means of course “one who is asphyxiating” (I spelled that word correctly the very first time!!!!)  Thus the 140 decibel episodes are briefly interrupted by 15-20 second pauses which cause the surrounding “unable-to-sleepers” to assume he has died (not so quietly).  In order for you and him to survive the night, one is constantly throwing small objects at him to make him roll over or to start breathing again.  Problems without solutions.  I have no idea how Allison survives this, but she herself is quickly in sweet slumber, seemingly oblivious to the auditory carnage surrounding her.  Her snore is more of the gently sporadic purr of the family cat which has lived too long.  To us normal humans like Michael and moi, one can only laugh at the sheer helplessness of the calamity.  To Michael’s credit, he never once cursed or complained.  Further indication the lack of genetic connection between us; sad really.  The week’s nights were of course periodically interrupted with Michael and me laughing at some hitherto unknown sound escaping Tom’s face.  Of course we did sleep amidst the racket, but it felt more like no sleep each morning.

At this point in the telling I have once again returned from the mini mart; but this time with only a 32 oz. Dr. Pepper.  Today, as a treat, lunch is three croissants and milk, with the Dr. as a chaser.  I will not add that a KitKat candy bar is also sitting on my desk.

Speaking of candy bars, one of the small but important parts of the adventure was the huge bag stuffed with candy bars which we could and did take any time we wanted.  The candy bar is a life-saving bit of nourishment which makes guide-prepared sandwiches and horrible evening meals more acceptable.  That is until Michael noted the expiration date on the candy bars was sometime in 2003; meaning the bars were at least a decade old, probably more.  Eh, what could go wrong?

Back to the story …. The first morning after arriving at the cabin, off we go; Michael and I on foot closely following the still silent guide Pierre.  No, we are not going hunting, we are hiking along the river back to where we left the Argos and 4 wheelers.  No, we are not going to use them to hunt, we are going to use them to advance the stranded, not-powerful-enough-airboat a ways further.  Correct: this makes no real sense and of course we are not told what we are doing.  The hike up river to the Argo confirms that the trip is best done on a boat as we did the previous night.  In some parts one can walk along the sand.  In others one must climb the cliff face ala-Spiderman all the while not dropping your rifle with the telescopic sight; which rifle it turned out to be, was superfluous to the entire trip.

Off we go, presumably hunting but not in actuality.  Now when I suggest  we weren’t hunting, that is not quite correct.  Every once in a while Pierre would stop the Argo and get out.  He never said things like “let’s get out here” or “we’ll walk for a ways now” or “I gotta pee so stay put.”  Nothing.  Each time Michael and I would do Rock-Paper-Scissors to decide if we should get out or not.  [More correctly, rock-paper-scissors in Canada is known as “syrup-pancake-fork.”]  Of course under guiding law, whichever we chose was wrong.   Very similar to discussions with a spouse.  I believe at times we were actually moose hunting.  During those times, Pierre would put hands to face, pinch off his nose and let out a long “Hhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyumpffpffppf.  A quick Google search suggests this is an imitation of a female moose with an “itch” if you know what I mean.  Almost every “Hhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyumpfpfpfpfpfpff” was soon followed by a “brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooooppppllatttpptpptppt.” It was only much later in the adventure that Michael and I concluded that the latter was simply a gaseous excretion from a hidden Pierre orifice; that is to say one of his near constant farts.  “No” I did not grow up in the Yukon nor live in the wilderness most of my life, but my vast amount of learning suggests that farting is considered a social “no-no” in virtually every civil setting except Greek fine dining, and apparently on Yukon hunts.  Again, this does not make me a namby-pamby and I was not “grossed out.”  However one should at least TRY to not fart at every opportunity when with someone you just met; really you shouldn’t.  By the way, a fart is not an intentional part of a moose call; of that I am now sure.
Anyway, we pull the “airboat” a few miles and then LEAVE IT.  Apparently airboats are temperamental creatures and you don’t want to unduly bother them by taking to them to where you want them all at once.  They must acclimate.  After this excruciating bit of non-moose hunting Michael and I discovered a new, but predictable practice of Pierre.  Every day between say 11:00 and 1:00 Pierre makes what appears to be one more typical stop, including the female moose “come-hither” and farts.  In this instance, he then sets about peeing, starting a fire and lying down to nap.  As you might have guessed, he never says “okay we’ll stop for lunch here” or “let’s take a break and warm up here during lunch.”  Nope; since he is programmed to do the EXACT same thing every day, the exact same way every day he does it without even the glimmer of a thought that he is with other people.  I here note that when one helps Pierre get wood for the fire you can see the synapses begin to misfire and he is thrown off.  Idiot hunters are not supposed to do this sort of thing, but of course we are supposed to transport un-working boats.  One night I started the fire back at the cabin ALL BY MYSELF and Pierre went into palpitations.  Even by the end of the week he could not figure out how I could have started a fire and I’m sure he concluded a small meteor must have crashed into the wood in order for it to be ignited. 
At some point I must digress and tell you about Martens.  No, not Dean’s family, but the small member of the weasel family that inhabits the taiga in the cold north.  Every 100 yards on every trail, EVERYWHERE, there are wood boxes with one open end and two slots on opposite sides.  Looking at these mystifies a normal person until you are informed that they are marten traps; or the boxes thereto.   The trap is opened/set, placed in the box, and the ends of the trap extend out the slots of the box.  When the inquisitive marten climbs in, the trap slams shut crushing the poor little guy (or girl).  The one-end-open box forces the marten to enter the trap so he is in it when it goes off.  From what we could pry out of Pierre, many times the trap actually kills the marten.  If not, the trap simply horribly injures him and he dies well before the trusty trapper comes back in two months.  Pierre informed us that these new traps were much more humane that the old ones that just clamped down on a leg or arm which resulted in an excruciating and long death.  Those aren’t Pierre’s words; as he described the old traps; “they didn’t kill and the darn thing would wiggle all over pissing and crapping on himself which made a mess.”

At hearing this Michael tilted his head to one side and slowly squinted one eye.  We will never know just what went through his mind but I’m guessing it was something like “I wonder if my uncle will let me kill this dick?”  Hearing this casual description of animal cruelty, I calmly asked Pierre “it seems like a lot of work maintaining these long trap lines, if I may ask, is it lucrative; do you make good money doing it?”  Pierre paused, obviously for the very first time considering why he did this; “naw” he replied, “I guess it’s just sorta a way of life.”  I know I was comforted in knowing that the systematic torture and slaughter of small creatures was being done for no other reason than “well, we’ve just always done it.”  Sorta like asking MIT professor Jonathon Gruber why he lied to promote Obamamcare; “well I just had to.”  What was that ‘60’s song?  “Let me in oh tender woman, cried the snake …” 

Anyway, when we get back to camp after a day of airboat nudging and some actual moose hunting/farting we find that some unknown creature has ripped into almost every loaf of bread; bread that was our supply for the week.  “How did they do that?” I inquired rhetorically.  The ever talkative Pierre informed us that the bread was all outside in a cardboard box and a “marten” must have gotten into it.  Hmmmm, remember earlier when I noted Canadians had never put a man on the moon, well, it may be worse than that.  They may still think the moon is made of Tillamook cheese.  They left the cardboard box of bread OUTSIDE the cabin (for the record the cardboard box wasn’t even closed or sealed) and were surprised that something got to the bread.  Let’s see, if I leave a slice of bread in my back yard (IN A CITY) for the day a myriad of birds, mice, insects etc. would at least attempt to eat it.  Leaving loaves of bread outside in the Yukon in all likelihood increases the chances of something non-human trying to eat the bread.   Michael and I exchange some quiet words, mostly dealing with how we will get back to the highway after we have to kill the guides.

Much of the “now damaged bread” has been discarded into the fire pit and is beyond help.  However I see a number of slices seem to be perfectly okay and we hunters eat a few pieces; Tom because it is food, I because it is one of the foods I actually like, and Michael because he is always very polite.  After a few hours Pierre informs us the bread he put in the fire was “damp’ and probably had Marten pee on it.  This is like some sort of horror movie where no matter what choice you make, some booby-trap axe will slice off your arm anyway.

Well, the day ends, everyone gets some rest, we eat a hearty meal and my extremely acidic system destroys every last ounce of Marten pee I have consumed.  Fortunately for us, the northern lights are out and performing.  It is truly a wondrous sight to see the bands of shimmering lights dance across the sky.  I was informed that there were numerous shades and colors, but all I saw were some mono-chromic whitish stuff; pretty nonetheless!  Did I mention no moose yet?  No, no one got sight of a moose.

On the second day off we go again on an airboat rescue mission!  Unfortunately, no stupid, heavily antlered mooses have collapsed on the road between the cabin and the airboat.  But wait, it is only a feint! We are actually going almost all the way back to the highway to get the replacement outboard motor for the boat Sal and Tom are/will be using to hunt.  This makes perfect sense to Yukon guides.  Rather than the two who have a non-working boat go get the new motor for their boat, the two with no boat must drive four hours to get the boat so someone else can hunt as promised.  We give up our hunting time so the boat hunters can hunt in an Argo until they can hunt on their boat.  I know this sounds like someone trying to explain the last hour of Interstellar.   “You see,  Matthew McConaughey goes through a black hole where he can affect the bookshelf in his daughter’s room in the past; then he transmits to her Morse code through a watch which allows her to finish a calculation not yet started so she can save humanity.”  As nonsensical as that movie is/was, Michael and I  getting a new outboard motor for someone else is logically worse.  Canadians are to sane thought as martens are to peaceful cohabitation with humans.  I think the deliverer of the outboard also brought us some more bread but I really don’t remember.  I guess I should mention that the guides have a satellite phone for relaying such things as why we need stuff to interfere with John’s moose hunt.  I too rented a satellite phone for safety purposes, but that is not very interesting or funny.  It did allow for Michael and me to assure his mom that her son was safe.  I was also able to get a hold of Twinkle but I the connection was bad and all I could hear was what sounded like partying and some husky-voiced grunting.

Off we go to bring the outboard back AND now to also get the airboat FOR THE THIRD TIME.  Not really what you would consider moose hunting, but we do stop periodically to make a female moose call and to fart.  Michael thought he caught the faint hint of Rice-a-Roni wafting behind Pierre; with a dash of rotten eggs lightly mixed in.  Well, the third time is a charm, and we get the air boat to the end of the road at the river (another 3 hours of expensive moose hunting missed).  It is at this time that Pierre notices that “the skirt has a rip in it” and “there is no way I can fix it.”  Hmmmmmmmm.  The damaged airboat cannot be fixed but we still haul it another 10 miles so it can remained damaged farther from any potential repair spot.  I thought I caught a glimpse of dark, geometrical patterns on Pierre’s face; a clear indication of some escapee from the Bizarro Universe.

Notwithstanding the fact that we now believe (i) the airboat probably cannot take all three of us anyway, and (ii) the skirt is ripped and so it can’t operate anyway, Pierre decides to launch the airboat anyway.  That is a lot of anyways. Two wrongs do not make a right, but three anyways make an idiot.  Just to make me worry, Pierre invites/orders Michael to come with him as he gives it a try.  Contrary to sane thinking, Pierre revs up the motor and heads downstream

That way if anything happens he will float helplessly in the wrong direction, or eventually run into Waldon’s camp.  The airboat gets going and Pierre “hits the gas.”  This increase in horsepower greatly increases the noise level, but (i) has no effect on the speed at which the craft goes down river, and (ii) quite possibly scares away every moose within 30 miles.  The latter is only speculation but the evidence does support the hypothesis.  The noisy, slow, nearly uncontrollable airboat slowly disappears around the bend in the river, alternatively sliding sideways to the right and then left like a lost child checking every tree in the vain hopes one hides a friendly face.

I sit there alone, mooseless, sans bread and in desperate need of a Dr. Pepper.  Being me, I also start thinking of the grizzly bear that must be lurking about, hungry for some namby-pamby flesh seasoned with prunes (Dr. Pepper joke).  I practice raising my rifle to shoot left handed as I have done in preparation for this trip, well aware that it probably will not work when needed.  Somewhere way up there God did grin, enjoying his many tests of ol’ Buell.

As fate would have it, I eventually hear the obnoxious airboat as it returns.  Michael is safe and sound which means Pierre is allowed to live another day.  The test run has however confirmed Pierre’s initial evaluations.  Airboat; no good.  Ipso useless; Ergo moose.  No boating hunting for John and Michael.  You know, the boating hunting which we were told we would be doing; you know, LIKE EVERY OTHER HUNTING PARTY THE GUIDE CONDUCTED THAT YEAR.  *Sigh*  Could it be Twinkle was right?  Nah.

Pierre must have lost his sundial because we returned to camp before Sal and Tom and Josh returned.  As they pull up in their Argo, Allison looks a bit tired (no small thing given her near superhuman stamina and tolerance for pain).  Tom however looks like he wants to tear everyone’s arms from their bodies.  Recall my description of the Argo and riding in it?  Apparently when the rider is “No Legs” Knutsen, the experience is a few times worse.  Watching Tom trying to get his two foot long legs out of the Argo is like watching a baby turtle trying to get to the surf before the seagulls get him.  He gives it a good try, gets partway, but has little hope of success.  When he is eventually out and standing in front of the cabin, Michael and I mention that he looks like some Russian general in his camo and ear-flap hat.  Although filled with anger at his painful day, being Tom he grins and laughs with us.  Allison on the other hand thinks we are all idiots.  She doesn’t look Russian, she just looks like some miniature camping display at Cabelos.

Mustering a WHOLE lot of restraint, Tom makes it clear to Josh he is not interested in any more Argo rides.  Tom has clout; I do not.  Tom gets a boat henceforth, I get an Argo.  You know, my grandmother always thought I would be Governor someday … sad really how things turned out.

Many days of the hunt are a bit of a blur as I reflect back and  write this masterpiece.  I do recall seemingly endless jaunts in the Argo, periodic long hikes along marshy ponds, being shown “new moose” hoof prints on the trails and the never-ending struggle of how to carry your rifle over six layers of clothing without pointing it at Pierre’s head or getting it stuck in low tree limbs.  Just so you know, guides MUST always point out tracks in the dirt.  It is some sort of validation exercise, so that they are confident that they are still better than you.  Of course, no one ever follows the tracks, no one ever examines them for size, and no one ever explains “fresh” from “the same ones we saw yesterday in this exact same place.”  It’s kinda like a bad magician saying “you did NOT see my other hand move!”  At one point Michael drew his own “moose print” in the dirt to see if that would be noticed by Pierre.  When Pierre noticed it he paused and said, “very fresh; I think I just heard him over there.”

Well, one morning we are told at the last minute that “we are going to another cabin so pack your gear.”  After about 20 minutes we finally get it out of Pierre that we are going to hunt in a far off area, which will require us staying the night (one night) at an old cabin.  Apparently this non-populated expanse is littered with “old cabins” that I assume were built by Hernan Cortez before he brought peace, religion and extermination to the Aztecs.  No wait, I may have confused that with Josh’s lecturing me about how America owes Mexicans California and Texas.  Anyway, we needed a sleeping bag and our day-packs.  With my toilet paper, toothbrush and bag of Metamucil, off we went.

Now on this particular day no rain was threatening.  We had and would continue to be fortunate that the weather was pretty mild with only periodic drizzles.  Because it was a sunny day, I decided to not wear my rain gear.  Into the Argo and off we go taking the 45 minute route to the river rather than the 23 second route.  With aplomb, we motor into the river and begin bobbing downstream like the stick Josh cruelly threw at the muskrat the other day.  This, like every other Argo-water event, entails Pierre directing Michael to “stand and lean to the right” because the Argo’s natural tendency in water is to capsize to the left.  Michael of course figured this out the very first time, but Pierre could not fathom that a lowly paying customer who lived in the US could remember anything.  Pierre deftly maneuvered the Argo, using sharp, precise movements of the controls allowing us to drift aimlessly down river, regularly having any and every side of the Argo pointing downstream as if on purpose.  Incredibly, we actually reached the other side of the river and zipped off like a halibut flopping around on the deck of an expensive fishing lodge boat.

After about 3-4 miles (the trip that day was about 473 miles, or 23 kilometers) the “road” ends.  Using secret Druid practices, Pierre is able to follow an “old trail” which has all the appearance of a dense forest without trails.  There ensues about 4 hours of constant effort to stop each of the billions of branches from slapping me or Michael in the face.  As you might guess, even missing just a small percentage of billions means thousands of the branches did indeed slap either me, Michael or both of us.  Now each of the billion branches had a very small amount of dew covering each leaf and stem.  Again, using simple mathematics, a very tiny amount of moisture multiplied by a billion yields about 700 acre feet of water; which water was gently splashed onto my un-rain-geared body.  So, on the sunniest day of the hunt, I was soaked through and through.  Nice.  Contrary to my beliefs in the navigational abilities of my “guide” we do indeed end up at some “old cabin” just as if he knew where he was going.  Again, to address the namby-pamby issue, I was alive and well after the trip, but I wish I could adequately convey the impacts from a long, wet Argo ride.  I felt like someone who had done that “forehead on baseball bat end spin around til you run off sideways and fall over for the next 30 minutes” trick.

Ah, how to describe THIS cabin?  Picture the shanty town in the movie District 9.  Of course there were no large, insect-like aliens running around, but the insides of the cabin looked like they had recently been there.  The place was a mess, with (purportedly) porcupine poo poo all over.  Some creatures had ripped their way in and pretty much tossed everything about, stopping periodically to relieve themselves.  The wood stove in the corner had fallen through the floor in obvious violation of fire code and OSHA regulations.  Oddly, the smell of last winters’ porcupine poo was reminiscent of the rhubarb plant behind the pump house (where I used to pee) at the Winkle family ranch, and so seemed very familiar.  There were two “beds” (shelves along the wall) each with a large foam pad.  Michael, being the observant young man he is, immediately noticed that one of the bed pads had the clear outline of huge claw marks indicating where some large ursa horriblis had taken offense at the spongy substance.

Well, an hour or so later, the place had been “cleaned” repaired and straightened up.  Even the stove was now upright; supported by some old cardboard that I’m sure was flame resistant.  Ah, but this is the Yukon, there is no rest for the weary as the weary are unworthy.  Off we go in the Argo ONCE AGAIN to pretend to moose hunt.  With the unerring precision of a drunken sorority girl, we zoom into the forest like a named Rumplestilskin! [Is there a difference between mixing metaphors and stringing a couple together?]

After a much much shorter travel time than the morning’s journey, we arrive at a small lake.  On one side of the lake are seven large crate-looking structures; each holding about a thousand core samples.  After threatening Pierre’s life he decides to tell us just what that stuff was all about.  Apparently, there was at one time a mining operation on the nearby hill.  The miners drilled a series of cores to sample the rock to find the gold.  Each drilling produced the cores stored in the giant crates; all neatly in order and labeled.  When we asked why the cores remained her, Pierre gave us another “dumb as a rock look” and informed us they were too heavy to move.  I don’t know if I am an idiot for not guessing this, but I really don’t care.  Anyway, the lake was beautiful with beaver paddling along their merry ways; assuming beaver can be merry.  I thought I saw a muskrat, but it might have been a musk ox; I always get those two confused.

A few unanswered moose calls and farts later we head off on a walk to try to spook a moose out of a tree.  Most people do not know that moose climb tress to sleep at night so they are out of reach of most predators.  The walk is of course along the same path as we just drove in on the Argo.  My steel trap mind quickly concludes we will be traveling this stretch four times (drive in, one;  walk back, two;  walk in, three; and drive back, four).  This leaves two possibilities; the first is that by covering the same ground multiple times we insure that any moose in the immediate area will be located, or two, we are wasting our time covering the same ground over and over.  The reader is invited to make a wild guess at which is correct.

It was at this time we discovered Pierre was mostly deaf.  Twice, Michael and I heard some sounds off across the marshy area, one may have even been a moose sound!  Pierre heard neither of these.  I subsequently learned that the word “guide” is from the Ingalut words “gee-oh” and de-heh” which mean to wander aimlessly.  Hmmm, a deaf, OCD, singleminded, uncommunicative, non planning guide.  What could go wrong?  Well for starters, about $25,000 of going wrong.

After establishing that there remained no moose in the Yukon, we hiked back to the Argo and then drove back to our secondary home, the Porcupine Pee Hut.  Hmmmf!  Is there not a chain of restaurants in Canada named that?  Doesn’t matter.  As Michael and I get settled and await dinner, we observe the Pierre fire ritual; again.  In Boy Scouts we learned that one can make a “feather stick” to help start a fire.  A feather stick is a stick you almost whittle with your knife, but each scrape is halted so the little piece of wood the knife is slicing off remains on the stick and does not come off.  Doing this a number of times yields a stick with many little “feathers” of wood still attached.  This makes a nice piece for getting a fire started as the stick now has a very large surface area of thin wood which will easily catch.

Although there is nothing wrong with using a feather stick, when you have plenty of kindling and other small sticks and paper a feather stick is mostly wasted effort.  Not for Pierre; each time a fire was required he laboriously feathered two to four sticks; taking about 30 minutes of work.  This is the only way a fire can be started in Pierre’s mind; THE ONLY WAY.  It’s like watching the poor dog whose owner has put a treat on its nose and will not let the dog eat it.  GET ON WITH IT FOR CRIMMINEY SAKES!  This explains why Pierre was mystified that I started the camp fire back at the main cabin.  He must have concluded that as a worthless American I could not possibly know of, or how to make a feather stick and without a feather stick no fire could be made.  Anyway, the fire is started and he boils water in some PAN THAT WAS ALREADY IN THE CABIN.  Those last few words are in capitals to remind you the cabin was recently used as a latrine for porcupines and perhaps bears.  Myself, I would have chosen some sort of marginally clean container to heat the water, but I am an ignorant American.

At some point here Pierre mumbles “I forgot the meat.”  This elicits a wry smile from both Michael and me.  Now for $5, try to guess what dinner was?  No, not mashed potatoes without steak.  No, not fries without burgers.  No not even potatoes awful grattan without a rack of lamb.  Yep, Rice-a-Roni without sausage.  Savor that for a moment; Rice-a-Roni solitaire as the French would put it.  John got a huge serving of Rice-a-Roni; uummmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  Did I mention the cost of this trip?  However, to make things a tad better, we were offered some hot tea well after the meal was done.  Dessert was a scrumptious dry candy bar.

As you might have guessed, there isn’t a lot of talk around the cabin late at night with Pierre.  He began to read a book he found at the cabin and that was about it for socialization.  Michael and I did talk and periodically asked Pierre some Yukon related questions, but these only evoked one of those “how long do I have to stay on this planet” kinda looks.  Pierre is to gregarious as hummingbirds are to lazy. We were able to get an explanation for the one set of things in the cabin that were surprisingly clean and neat.  There was a nice stack of long wood slats, kinda like long tongue depressors.  These it turned out were used to stretch the pelt of any recently tortured/just killed marten.  Pierre was obliged to tell us that after it was stretched one way for 10 minutes, the pelt MUST be turned inside-out and stretched the other was for an hour.  Handy information for plying the streets of civilization back home.

We finally go to bed.  At some time in the middle of the night I awake and notice a marked lack of oxygen in the room.  I can hardly breathe and can hear Michael and Pierre gasping as they try to get oxygen to their starved lungs.  You see, when Pierre cleaned up and “fixed” the cabin for our use, he sealed the two window with some plastic tarp, thus making the cabin near air tight.  I estimate that in another hour, we would have all died quietly dreaming of mooseless expanses.  This is not a joke, Pierre almost killed us.  I’m only speculating, but if this sort of event has occurred during Pierre’s past guiding excursions it might explain the number of operative brain cells between his Canuck ears.  That may sound harsh, but science is cruel sometimes.
I am able to slice open the plastic covering the window above me and immediately a strong breeze starts entering the room, thus saving the lives of us inhabitants.  Oh, how easy it would have been to sneak over to the nearly asphyxiated Pierre and end our troubles with one quick slice.  Of course that would be wrong and so I would never do it.  Contrary to my brother, I do not believe that just because I do it, it must be right!  However it was touch and go there for a moment.  You see I had previously set my handy little pocket GPS thingy, and so had the direction and distance back to our home base cabin, so with Pierre meeting an unfortunate demise, Michael and I could have made it back safely.  But, after imagining all the paperwork at the border trying to explain how my guide had been murdered in his sleep I again let my strong moral upbringing take over and ignored my inner, dark passenger.

Well, the next morning we had a scrumptious breakfast of???????  You guessed it; reheated Rice-a Roni.  Might as well have been dry raccoon turds; I used the ubiquitous outhouse, and off we went on a REAL moosehunt.  Well, not really.  Into the Argo and off in the same direction we went yesterday.  Again arriving at the small lake, we dismount and walked ten meters (some sort of foreign measuring system).  Pierre gives the nose-clamped shut moose call and instantly we hear a reply bellow.  YES, it is a male moose who wants to have sex with Pierre!  Pierre quickly points out the massive monster now making a bee-line for us.  My rifle flies from my shoulder and I awkwardly fumble to figure out how to hold it now that I am supposed to shoot left handed.  I now realize why the army does not accept recruits with macular pucker; by the time I remembered how to hold the gun backwards, 100 Taliban would have overrun my position.  Sad really, because before I went all one-eyed blurry, the free world would have wanted me on the front lines with my SKS.  Bam bam bam bam … and the dry, arid wasteland would be covered in thin, red-splotched sheets flapping in the wind.  No way there would be enough virgins up there in stupid-false-no soap heaven for all the “martyrs” created by my excellent Russian made weapon.  I have digressed once again.

After Pierre’s second come-hither moosette call and another testosterone reply Pierre casually tells us “naw, not big enough.”  Given that my last moose hunt ended up with me shooting a calf while it was suckling its mother, I am a little skeptical about this “not big enough” conclusion.  I look at Pierre and he gives me one of those subtle shakes of the head which means “no asshole” and so I decide to abide by his command.  In hindsight I should have shot the poor dumb creature; and the moose too.

Now a moose running is a sight to behold.  They don’t so much run as trot very quickly.  A normal flatlander like me would imagine they have trouble getting through the thick brush with their big antlers.  Nope.  Moose you see are like the alpha males in the elephant seal world.  They go where they want when they want and everything else either gets out of the way or is crushed.  Do not stand in front of a moose.  As you might notice, I am in fact standing in front of a moose trotting with a passionate purpose.  Hmmm, I start to wonder if I need to chamber a round and be ready to shoot this “too small” beast anyway.  Pierre acts like nothing is wrong, and upholds his sworn Canadian guide duty to not tell a hunter anything useful or reassuring.  Luckily, the moose angles up onto to the road instead of over me.  It stops about 15 yards from us.  It gives us the once over, and seeing we looked nothing like anything he wanted to boink, trots back the way he came.  Well, heck; that was pretty cool!  We were right there almost next to a real moose and did not die!  This hunting thing is EASY!  Except for the part about actually shooting an animal.

Well enough actual almost moose hunting, let’s get back into the Argo.  I’m sure the clanky,  whining, obnoxious sound of the trusty Argo does not scare off any moose or other creatures; heck, Pierre told us that the louder the better; moose even come to the sound of a chainsaw.  Yes, and China is actually a free society and should be our friend.

Now we embark upon what must be described as the illest-conceived Argo trip ever.  Into the lake, across the lake, up the wooded, uneven hill to the next lake, across that lake, up the wooded, uneven hill to the third lake and then partially across the third lake.  It was like being shot back and forth when attached to the rubber bands in Thundedome without the cool shoulder pads or Mel Gibson’s poofadore.  Our spines were snapped back and forth like someone .... well, like someone  stuck in an Argo on a long trip.  Pierre was unflappable, like some half-wit guide with no nerve endings or bones.  Regardless of the ultimate decision on the namby-pamby thing, it was most unpleasant.  Most.  The one common thread in every Argo ride is the complete lack of moose.  Perhaps the soft sound of vertebrae cracking is anathema to them; it is to me.  Anyway, at the final lake (at least Michael and I hoped it was the final lake) Pierre guides the Argo sideways to one shore and ties it up like a jet ski.  He gets out and of course says nothing to us.  Michael and I repeat the frustrating pancake-syrup-fork ritual (I never knew what beat fork) and eventually decide this stop is an actual stop.  We too climb out as Pierre makes a fire; 30 minutes of feather stick and all.  Pierre breaks out his lunch, eats, farts, falls asleep, and farts some more.  At some point during this uncommunicative stage of events, Michael and I sit down to relax and eat our lunch also.  Between the farts and snores, we enjoy the beautiful view.  Now that the Argo is not polluting the area with noise various small creatures come out.  A beaver slaps the lake surface to warn us off; a muskrat quietly paddles up to us and into his den over which we are apparently relaxing; and some weird bird flits back and forth in the trees making some sort of clucking sounds similar to a Zombie munching on your arm.
Well, Pierre eventually wakes up, finds no moose next to him and begins to get back in the Argo and leave.  We will never know if he would have left us there rather than say “okay, let’s go back” but I’m pretty sure that his mind doesn’t grasp the fact that just because he thinks something,  it is not necessarily being verbalized.

Just so it remains very difficult to follow this story line, I again just got back from getting lunch.  Today, I went to McDonald’s and ordered the very same Quarter Pounder with cheese and large Dr. Pepper as I have done for at least the last 34 years (not everyday, but each time I go to McD’s).  Some people think I am stuck in a rut; other think I refuse to try anything new or different.  I laugh at both groups; I am the only one who knows they are both right!  Since I was coming back to the office in my truck after buying toys for Shriner Hospital children (that is actually true, not just smarminess) I pulled into the Drive-thru of the McDonald’s.  As is typical, a weather-beaten, dirty 40-ish “veteran” of the Vietnam War (the reader is invited to do the math on how someone in their 40’s could have served in Vietnam) is perched under the security camera and begging for money between the ordering microphone and the “pay” window.  When it’s my turn to uncomfortably be next to him, I roll down my window and offer him a pre-printed card I have which contains the number of the homeless shelter, food bank address and the number of a local farm labor contractor.  He looks at the card and spits at me; most of it hitting the car door, but some splattering onto my face. The feint, but strong odor of beer and urine invades my nostrils.   I throw  the door open which slams him against the stucco wall of McDonald’s.  His weathered, dirt-caked hands drop the  torn cardboard sign that makes the impossible claim of Vietnam veteranship but still has time to kick at me with his newly Carhartt- booted foot.  Sidestepping the kick, I respond with my own short kick, snapping his knee and making it bend backwards.  Before I can deliver the killing blow to the throat, a falsetto- scream of pain issues from an alcohol-infused esophagus, and his perspicacious, but pee-stained posse promptly piles on!  What a melee ensued!  Grimy hands constantly clutching at my clothes amid pungent odors reminiscent some sort of human holding pen in the original Planet of the Apes.  Each time I snapped an unwashed limb another would take its place; for each gouged-out eye, two more squinty,  bleary ones would seem to appear.  After a few tense minutes, I had killed all 7 of the scum-brigade, but needed some industrial strength decontamination before re-entering society.  The cops got there soon thereafter and looking the situation over asked me “what happened?”  I calmly informed them that after offering one of them a dollar, there had been a mad rush by the other poor unfortunates to grab the bill causing a human pile up.  Since their desperate conditions were the result of the evils of capitalism and the unfair accumulation of wealth by white-privileged elitists like me, the desperate “me-first” programming forced upon them by an unjust society had resulted in a struggle to obtain the illegal panhandling profit.  The cops looked at me, looked at the pile of dead bums, looked at me again and replied “well, everything seems to be in order here, have a nice day good citizen.”

Back to the story; which story contains absolutely only actual, hard, facts.  I swear.  I actually swear quite a lot!

Two hours later, after five near capsizing events on the lakes, after seven near Argo flips on the rough terrain between lakes, we finally exit the last lake of doom.  Of course we stop and are allowed to enjoy one last long female moose call with accompanying fart before heading off down the moose hunting road we have now traveled one billion times.  But wait!  Since this is only a one-night satellite hunt, we now pack up and head off back to the main cabin; down the non-road.  Though the brush and trees are much less wet than on the entry ride, I have donned my rain gear and do not get quite as soaked as before.  Even an amoeba learns!  Well, mostly, we still get slapped in the face a few thousand times making Michael and me look as if we are battered spouses “who deserved” what we got.  [That one may have crossed a line or two so it might not make the final version.]  At one point I actually thought Pierre was trying to steer so that the greater percentage of limb-slapping would be on his side, but it must have been “bush-fever” and I later laughed at myself.

Eventually we are back at the main cabin.  Michael is young and tough whereas I am old and toughless.  I have run out of words to describe how my body felt after a long Argo ride, but of course I will try.  Picture the sheepherder unfairly accused of installing a barbwire fence on the range in some B-Movie western; dragged for miles behind the horse of the evil, trail boss of the cattle baron trying to kill all such squatters.  Now, take that guy and make him Han’s main baddie in Enter the Dragon just after Bruce Lee jumps in the air and lands on his chest.  Now take him and make him the large creature with the mace-on-a-chain hand  Hellboy fights and who ends up going through the trash-masher machine which turns him into a gooey pulp.  Now multiply that by about 100 and that is how I felt.  Moose 1; John Zero.

On returning we are surprisingly informed that Sal and Tom have also not kilt a moose.  Perhaps moose don’t like plaid.  That is a stupid joke but I liked it.  Apparently at their one-night-satellite-cabin trip they too found an unlivable cabin but did see a good moose.  “Good” in the sense that from one side it was shootable, but when it turned it revealed that it had only one antler; the other side being a tiny, deformed appendage.  That last expression cannot be used to describe ANY part of my anatomy; NONE.  It is not small, you should see it under water.  [At this very moment Allison is yelling “get new material!”]  Proving that everything is relative, we now feel “safe” and  “home” being back at the cabin with the strange smelling porch with pee-soaked bread.  It was at this time I noticed that notwithstanding having brought way too many clothes I still have only used one pair of Spiderman underwear and two t-shirts; one being my Captain America Shield shirt.  Now that I think about it, that must be some insight into my psyche; or maybe I’m just special.  You know, I WAS born with one of those veils over the head called a “caul.”  According to Aelius Lampridius, the boy emperor Diadumenian was born with a rolled up caul on his head which resembled a diadem.  In medieval times, the appearance of a caul was a sign of good luck.  It was construed as an omen that the child was destined for greatness.   Does being a mediocre high school hurdler constitute “greatness?”  How about catching things in mid-fall before they hit the ground?”  Rats;  so much for omenology.

But I digress.  Sal and Tom and Michael and I exchange our various observations and adventures dealing with our satellite trips.  Theirs was much more moose hunting-like in that they apparently DID see a moose or two, mostly cows, which we are not allowed to shoot.   Female cows do not respond to female moose calls/farts unless they are loosbians; and nobody wants to shoot a moose wearing plaid and Birkenstocks.  The highlight of returning to the landfill, er cabin is the daily ritual of standing by the open fire and getting warm.  It is at these gatherings that camaraderie prevails, the aches of the day disappear and Tom relates his most recent land deal/scheme.  Not to be outdone, Allison will sometimes relate the most intricate details of our genealogy and tell us of some distant relative who owned a hammer and abandoned his family.  Also not to be outdone, I would sometimes relate subtle nuances of California water law and how all exporters are liars and cheats.  I’m sure all of this history and wisdom greatly impressed Michael who was once actually able to squeeze a word in edgewise.  Poor Michael; his moose adventure was devolving into an old fogies gathering as interesting as an Argo’s instruction manual.

On one cursed night, Tom talked the group into playing his new fancy, the game of Farkle.  Of all the billions of potential card or dice games to pick from, Tom is now focused on Farkle.  “Farkle” is French for “inane.”  As best as I can figure, you roll dice and when pairs, triples etc come up you get to mark a line on a piece of paper.  When Tom tells you he has won, the game is over.  At each roll of the dice, various, previously unannounced options open up to the roller, the choice of any of which  results in you losing points and Tom gaining points.  At some point I think I got a “Grand Slam” but it turned out to mean that Allison got the last piece of brownie someone had been withholding from the group.  The previously aforementioned Josh played a game or two, but as I recall, Pierre thought the dice were bad juju and refused to play.  In one game, Michael jumped out to an insurmountable lead, but of course the “normal” rules applied and Tom eventually lied and won.  Farkle is to fun as toe jam is to the four basic sauces.

The days dragged on, each a repetition of the last; long unproductive Argo rides, totally uncooperative guides who hated your presence, meals of menacing mendacity, and the slow deterioration of the “worn-too-long” underwear.  Eventually, I accepted the fact that the Yukon contained no moose and that I had taken my retirement money and funded some mental institute for blank-faced Canadians.  I finally got the courage up to tell Pierre “I think we will take tomorrow off and just fish.”  The sound of misfiring synapses was audible for several yards.  Pierre could just not fathom that we would NOT hunt.  I also think he couldn’t recognize the word “fathom.”  He kept saying things like “okay, we will drive back towards the road and see if there are any moose there and then fish at lunch time.”  I would respond, “no, we want to just relax and Michael and I will fish in THIS river.”  “Okay, after we hunt tomorrow you can fish in the river.”  “NO, we are going to just relax here, take the day off and fish.”  “Okay, after we drive around looking for moose we can stop and ….”  “NO I want to just relax and not go anywhere.”  Like the robot “Hymie” from Get Smart short circuiting after Siefried sabotaged him, Pierre wandered off in a confused daze, smoke billowing out of his ears.

The next morning Pierre has interpreted “taking the day off” to mean we get up 3 minutes later than normal.  He informs us he is going to drive us to fish for pike.  Against my better judgment, I acquiesce.  3 hours of Argo ride later, sporadically interrupted by moose calls and farts, we arrive at a lake (a very short distance from the highway).  To access the lake one must ride an Argo in the vertical position down the “hill of broken limbs.”  Tada!  There is a picturesque cabin and lake.  Just leaving the cabin are some sort of friends or other guides or Quigar terrorists who HAVE JUST KILLED A MOOSE.  Just so you fully appreciate this situation, the only people who shot a moose in the area controlled by our very expensive guides were non-paying “friends” who were out for a spin.  In “Guide-Speak” this is known as “screw the Americans, we got their money already.”  So, on the day off I craved we are slapped in the face with the reality that the guide let some dead-beat kill the one moose within a hundred miles. 

Pierre breaks into the cabin by the lake because it used to be his, but he traded it to someone else when they swapped marten lines.  These sort of inexplicable Canadian things are hard to follow much less understand or relate.    Michael and I sit down to relax and get warm(er) and begin to get our nifty fishing gear ready.  Pierre immediately tells us that gear is too small and won’t work on lake pike.  Being someone who does not suffer false criticism lightly, I point out that these are the size of rod and reel and line THEY recommended we use AFTER I SPECIFICALLY ASKED THEM BY EMAIL.  Pierre, being unable to convert sounds that enter his ears into understandable concepts or language, ignores my correction.  He does set about ransacking the cabin to find heavier line and a larger rod and reel.  Amazingly he is successful and Michael and I go down to the lake to fish, with Pierre shadowing us like a bum outside of McDonald’s.

Michael and I take turns with the rod; dumbfounding Pierre by being able to cast without his input.  Each time a large pike takes the lure, he fights for one second and then slips off.  This confuses me until Pierre informs us that the hook he placed on the lure is one of those round, barbless hooks.  Using these is like trying to grab a greased pig with your elbows only; it don’t work.  Armed with this knowledge, and a somewhat sparse but working knowledge of fishing, I do land a pike by keeping tension on the line the WHOLE TIME.  A beaut!  Big, fat and sassy.  Pierre of course removes the non-hook from its mouth and throws it back in the water.  My murderous look has no effect on him and he explains that “he” puts them back as they are “not the best eating.”  Even with a round, barbless hook I could have gouged out his eye.  Michael’s catch was almost kept for eating, but when we dropped it, Pierre acted as if we had killed the last of the Tsar’s children.  “I don’t know if can be eaten now” he whined, “its probably ruined and will now die.”  Of course this is the talk of a lunatic; a dropped fish does not becomes rancid nor will it die when back in the water, but the suddenly animally-empathic Pierre releases this fish back into the lake also.  This fishing effort ends with Pierre getting back into the Argo with us following like extremely stupid sheep.  We spend the next hour or so bobbing around on the lake, fishing (i.e. trying to catch something you cannot keep) and looking for moose spoor, or was it poor mooses.  When the long useless ride ends, we inform Pierre that we ARE going back now so we can rest.  Pierre nearly died of heart palpitations, but for some reason complied.  Three hours of Argo later we get back to the cabin and can rest and fish during the remaining hour or so of daylight.  While Pierre sets about making a spoon out of toe-nail clippings or something of the like, Michael and I go off to the river to fish with our horribly inadequate gear.

Finally, some rest and quality time with Michael. Did I mention he is the best young man on earth.  One cannot list all of his good qualities, but suffice it to say I think the world of him.    Anyway, enough mooshiness.  Obviously the river is about as barren of life as Obama is barren of patriotism.  However, Michael, being no slouch at fishing takes full advantage of the riffles and rocks and lands two fine graylings.  A grayling is some made-up name to confuse foreigners who have paid real money to be duped by socialist Canadians.  It is some sort of trout-like fish, which when cooked on filthy pans in the Yukon tastes excellent!  The trout addition to our meal was a welcome bit of flavor.  We did find out later in the trip that there was an ice chest with all sorts of meats in it; meats apparently being saved for customers who actually see a moose.  As you can imagine, the list of complaints was constantly building, but I restrained myself from biting comments.

Well, we are now in the last couple of days of our expensive moose hunt.  I don’t know what process the “guides” went through but they cleverly came up with the idea that on the last day of hunting Michael and I would take the motor boat and Tom and Sal would take the Argo; AND we would switch guides.  To summarize, our teams of two would each go with a different guide who also had found no moose for over a week.  This sort of deck re-shuffling is supposed to change one’s luck I suppose, but all it meant was that we found out that Tom and Sal’s guide actually talked once in a while unlike the ever stoic Pierre.  The guides also recommended we wear our hats backwards to change our luck but we declined.

Well, veni vidi Versace; I came, I saw, I smelled as the saying goes.  Off we go in the early morning half life, motoring away in the 7 foot aluminum boat with the new motor that deprived me of three days of hunting.  Josh, now our guide if you are paying attention, stands in the boat while maneuvering it through the exposed rocks of the minimum flow river.  The first thing you notice is that no matter what the temperature, zipping along in the boat and exposed to the air feels like skinny-dipping in Greenland.  Whoooooie that’s cold.  Thankfully I had learned that lesson from our previous caribou hunt, the story of which I never finished.  Anyway, I had one of those neck gaiter things called a south Moloccan or baklava or balaclava or something-er-other.  We had also brought goggles and so we were able to withstand the intense piercing cold for the 120 seconds of each hop.

After going about a mile or so, Josh pulls over and actually instructs us to “get out” as if he has been kicked out of the Yukon Guide Guild.  I stumble out of the boat and the three of us set off.  Just so you do not think Josh is anything like nice or friendly, he starts going straight up the cliff which borders the river.  I am old, but not yet dead and so I am able to huff and puff my way to the top with only a few minor stumbles and one or two serious falls.  Michael helps his feeble uncle when needed and is not winded by the climb.  We of course get to the top and Josh pretends to look around as if this is the break room at Moose High.  After about 13 seconds and one slightly different moose call (sans farting) we go straight back down the cliff and get in the boat.  I’ve been around the block enough times to know when I am being had.  At the next stop (no cliff) I casually ask Josh “so, that climb was just to screw with me, huh?”  Josh flushes and looks like a kid caught shaving the cat and tries to mumble a lie.  Before he can, I say “nice,” and he says “well kinda.”  This is the sort of guide humor you will find wherever you go.  Rather than provide quality service to the person who has spent huge sums of money, the guides are actually miffed that they have to be with you and so try to do all sorts of little things to make its as miserable as possible.  It’s pretty funny, especially when you get no moose.  NO: what’s that word like “funny?”  Oh yeah “assholiness.”   Guides are dicks.

Anyway, now that I have embarrassed the emperor by noticing he has no clothes (Josh wasn’t naked that is some sort of metaphor or analogy) Josh turns into a semi-reasonable guide.  Of course he doesn’t find even the glimmer of a moose, but he becomes talkative and friendly.  At one stop he takes us on a short hike into the forest to a truly unique and beautiful spot.  In a small glen, there were a series of terraces going up a small hill, each terrace with a pool of water trapped behind it.  At the top of the hill was a hot spring (slight misnomer). As the warm water flow out and down the hill, the minerals in the water had formed the rings of rock which held each pool.  It was very cool and something I had never seen before.  Josh had some story about only 7 people on the earth having been there in the last 100 years which of course was a lie, but it was nonetheless a neat place.  Once we took too many pictures, off we went back to the boat; me falling down only once as Josh lead us over a slippery log across a creek.  This route was of course meant to cause me to fall, as Josh’s momentary embarrassment at being caught at shitty guide treatment had passed.

At this point I talked Josh into going back to camp, accepting the fact that there would be no moose.  Although he did not want to lose the rest of the day messing with me, he agreed and back we went.  As we got into the boat, Michael offered  me a drink from his water bottle.  Mine was stuffed away in the daypack.  Now before the adventure began and we were being fed cardboard casserole, the head guide warned us about drinking unpurified water.  He recommended we all purify our water but noted that the guides would not be doing so.  Whether true or not, he said the guides did NOT purify the water as they were immune to, or had a tolerance for the giardia given their constant exposure.  Since Michael regularly drank from various streams around Lake Tahoe (his hometown) he concluded he would not purify his water.  I of course knew all this, but decided I would drink from his bottle anyway.  It was just one sip; what could go wrong?   Just wait until the end of the story.  While getting ready to head back to camp, we heard two shots in the distance and were eager to conclude Allison had kilt a moose.

We get back to the cabin and for once in 8 days, actually have some time off and can relax.  The next day is our scheduled departure back to Watson Lake so we spend a little time packing up  the things we have spread all over the cabin.  As I take some paper trash out to burn at the campfire, I hear a deep “harrrrumpf” and the unmistakable sound of a bear snapping its jaws.  My blood went cold and I slowly turned around to see a huge grizzly bear between me and the outhouse.  His head is swinging back and forth as he snaps his jaws, the classic pre-attack behavior I have seen so many times on theDiscovery Channel.  I immediately hissed to Michael to close the door to the cabin, but this set off the bear and he bolted towards me.  Everything turned to slo-motion as my genetic ‘fight or flight’ programming took over.

I saw the bear as its body alternately coiled and extended in each leap of its run.  The ripples of shock waves flowed over his thick coat as the unmatchable muscles propelled him at me his quarry.  I caught a glimpse of Michael moving to exit the cabin and his surprise at seeing the bear.

My mind, working at inhuman speed analyzed the situation and gathered every bit a data as it tried to determine a course of action.  Using only split-second eye contact I motioned to Michael the location of the chopping axe used for kindling.  At the same time, and just before the bear took its last leap at me I feinted as if I was going to jump up which made the bear aim its leap higher.  In the next instance I dropped down and grabbed one of the many marten traps lying about.  Michael was already running towards me and beginning a mighty leap.  As I rolled my body over I opened the marten trap and raised it up just as the bear flew over me as a result of its poorly aimed leap.  With the smell of bear musk strong in my nostrils and my view now only of reddish-brown grizzly pelt,  I pushed the marten trap up to the large furry testicles of the bear and let it snap shut. Instantly the bear’s body twitched in convulsions and it crashed into the fire pit like a deflated Nancy Pelosi after the Republicans won back the House.  During all this, Michael, in one smooth motion grabbed the handle of the axe  and swung it around and behind his head like an angry Viking Ragnar  as he sprang up into the air in a high arc.  Crossing over me, he fell back to earth, and the axe, now gripped by his two hands came forward in a blur of deadly intent.  Before his feet hit the ground, the axe clave the mighty beast’s head asunder.

Time returned to normal speed but we were both amped up on pure adrenaline and fought to catch our breaths.  No one will ever know if either of the acts alone would have accomplished the horrid purpose, but combined had bested the most feared denizen of the Yukon.  The huge now-dead bulk twitched a few times, perhaps as the ghost-spirit slipped its earthly bounds and winged it flight to the unknown world.  The silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken; the pitcher is broken at the fountain and the wheel is broken at the cistern.  The dust would soon return to the earth as it was.  Nya nya nya nya nya Mr. Bear!
Hey, did I ever mention the really cool Pygmy bow and arrows I bought at Safari Club once?   No?  Oh, back to the story.

Much later than usual Tom and Sal returned to camp, Michael and I assuming that Sally had got a moose since we had heard the shots earlier that day.  Our expert substitute guide Josh also concluded this, noting that since they were late, they must be cutting up the moose carcass.  I tried to picture how a 2,000 pound moose with large set of antlers would fit in the Argo with the guide, Tom and Sal.  None of my mental pictures seemed to answer the underlying question.
Eventually (seems like I’ve used that word a lot in this long, boring story); “some time later” up pulls the Argo with its usual load of unhappy hunters.  See above for Tom’s deft departure from the wondrous craft.  It is clear to all there is no moose carcass or even a partial moose  carcass.  HOWEVER, there was one dead thing in it (other than Pierre).  It seems that Pierre had taken Tom and Sal to the very same lake with fish you cannot keep as part of “hunting for moose.”  Since someone else shot a moose the day before, Pierre reasoned there would be another moose there today.  Instead of a moose, there was a black bear which had arrived to eat the innerds of the previously mentioned/previously shot moose.  Since we had the “go-ahead” to shoot bears (and the tags) Sally shot the poor dumb bastard.  Well it gets even worse.  The bear you see did not have a right front paw.  Where the paw should have been, there was a very traumatic injury (paw cut off) with one of the arm bones sticking out of the now-open-to-the-elements forearm.  So, as Michael so succinctly put it, just as an injured, hobbling bear found food and was rejoicing that it just might yet survive the upcoming cold Yukon winter, Allison serendipitously blew its brains out, well, just because she could.  Interestingly, I believe that is very similar to how the 30-Years War began.   Because I am an ass, I will note it took her TWO shots, the first apparently a complete miss (from 100 yards).

There was much rejoicing at the cabin because for $50,000 + we should be able to get something more than two dead graylings; you know, like a starving, handicapped bearling.  Currently the bear skin is being cut up and sewn into little house booties for Allison’s grand children.   The forearm bone is being carved into a knitting needle and donated to PETA for a fundraiser.

As I recall, the final dinner at the cabin was pork chops and mashed potatoes.  It was just before this meal was cooked that Tom discovered the earlier mentioned ice chest containing vast quantities of meat that we COULD have been eating all week instead of the WWII era K-ration-like food we actually ate.  All I can guess is that if the guides bring back food after the season is over, they get some sort of bonus, or perhaps they sell it on the Canadian black market, or they use it for marten bait.  All I know is that we could have had delicious meals all week but did not.  You see, since we are “roughing it” in the Yukon Bush (coincidentally the stage name of a well known Canadian Burlesque dancer in the 1950's) it is against the law to try to make such roughing it pleasurable.  
That night around the campfire we get toasty warm and lie about how much we will miss being in the bosom of Mother Nature.  Josh enters the conversation and tells us how he is normally successful on these hunts, but that the sale of Tim Horton’s to Burger King must be the reason we got bupkis.  Pierre passes by once in a while but does not join in the conversation as he is ashamed that we found out there was actual food we could have eaten during the past week.  Anticipation is high with Michael and me to be so close to leaving this primitive paradise where moose fear to tread.

The next morning we pack up, climb into the Argo’s and four wheelers and leave camp.  Let me tell you, there were quite a few moist eyes as we left; but that was due to Pierre forgetting to open the flue of the stove and the smoke blinding us.  On the four to five hour trip out, the guides actually stop once or twice and make the moose call.  I have concluded they confused a moose call with a Blue Whale song, thus explaining why no moose were present and why we saw the Orca pack struggling up the river earlier in the week.  I must say that upon finally reaching the highway and Tom’s still intact truck, I felt pretty good; no injuries, no lost hunters, and plenty of memories.  On the other hand, there was no moose and Pierre was still alive, so everything evens out I guess.
Because Tom had planned ahead (he is normally about three steps ahead of everyone else) I was able to enjoy a two week old, completely flat Dr. Pepper he had sequestered in the door pocket.  Not too bad really.  The acid and sugar were quickly absorbed into my system and once again I could see and do things other mortals could not.  Interestingly, Michael put in his earphones and listened to his music on his iPhone during the car ride back to Watson Lake.  How on earth he still had battery life after that much time and use I will never know.  When I use the map function on mine the battery drains in about 1 hour.

[The following passage has helpful clues in parentheses for those of you unfamiliar with very bad punning.] The other night I said to Twinkle “Honey let’s start a bee hive business.”  She gave me a few whacks (wax) in response, but I persisted.  “I can comb the pages of the phone book to find the materials, and we can run it at the compound I (compound eye) built in the hills.”  She warmed to the idea and said “maybe cousin Paul’n (pollen) and Aunt Edna (antenna) could help us, they have nothing to do and are good workers.” The conversation droned on for a while and we figured we might have to keep some stuff in Arther’s POD (arthropod) storage bin.  At that moment we heard on the natural science program on TV some Irish anthropologist say “the ape; ‘e ‘airy (apiary) beast” which of course is not relevant here. 

The first stop of course in returning to proto-Canadian civilization is to go to the guides home.  They of course invite us to DINNER, which I make sure is politely declined.  Everyone has various explanations about why THIS WEEK ONLY, NO MOOSE WERE KILLED (ignoring the one their “friends” killed), but of course there was no apology, much less any sort of REFUND.  Yes, I know its “hunting” and not killing; meaning nothing is guaranteed, but one would think there might be at least some minimal effort to discount or return some funds.  Nope, the consensus among the guides, the head guide, the head guide’s mother and the neighbor’s one-eyed cat was that because the Knutsens and us wanted to be together, the guides were simply not able to have enough elbow room to do a proper hunt.  Let us examine that theory, shall we?

For every hunt, we tell the guides we want to hunt together.  Yes, a larger group is more noisy and less likely to get something, but we enjoy the time together and actually want to be a group.  Every guide guarantees we will hunt together when we pay them money, but once we get to the outback, suddenly its “no, you must go in two groups, not one” thus negating the specific terms of the agreement reached immediately before money changed hands.  Now in this case, the head guide told us HE wanted us to stay at different camps all week, not stay at the same cabin.  Tom clarified to him that was not the deal the day before we left, and so we all stayed together, BUT DID NOT HUNT TOGETHER.  Now, staying in the same cabin can have no effect on the success of two groups of hunters when the two groups go in opposite directions each day and do not cover the same ground as the other group.  Even more interestingly, staying together in all likelihood has no effect on there being an unworkable, underpowered, damaged, not-quite-present airboat.  However, the head guides “plan” was for Tom and Sal to stay at the cabin with their boat and Michael and I stay somewhere else nearby with the airboat.  You can now see that the excuses for finding no moose (i.e. the hunters screwing up the plan of attack) falls apart on close examination.  As I stated above, Canada has no Nobel Laureates and the reason for the lack of moose has nothing to do with the hunters wanting to stay together.  Guides’ coming up with excuses is like socialists innovating.

Amazingly, I have the unbelievably stupid idea that I will ask the head guide what is the normal tipping protocol.  After I explain the meaning of the word “protocol” he informs me that “10% is the normal amount.”  Time slowed again to a near stop; I could hear the soft flaps of a butterfly wing outside as it drifted on the wind; a golden yellow leaf separated from its twig and began its erratic journey to the ground below, somewhere in the cosmos an ancient rock speeding along was gently pulled into a collision course with a burning sun.  Ten percent.  Ten percent of $20,000.  Ten percent for three days of boat hauling, Rice-a-Roni eating, Argo riding Pierre farting and near suffocation.  Ten percent.  For those cheap bastards among you, the ten percent is a gratuity meant to express gratification and reward for a service provided.  I will not admit to what I did or did not pay as reward for services provided, let’s just say as a whole, my records may now actually indicate I AM and ignorant f*ck.  Sorry about the language.  Hey, I forgot to mention we did get a free shirt.  No, it was not spun from fine gold.

That evening we have a good meal at a restaurant and tip the waitress for good service.  Naturally, the weather report is for a snow storm the next day; during the time we must drive from Watson Lake to Whitehorse to catch our flight.  Since Tom can’t reach the pedals of his truck I drive his truck with he, Michael and me.  Allison remained because the guide offered to take her out one more time to pretend to hunt moose.  Anyway, we make it to Whitehorse with plenty of time to spare and without me driving us off the road to our deaths.  Michael and I make our flight to Vancouver, where he waits for his flight to Eugene Oregon and I for my flight to San Francisco.  I arrive in S.F.  at something like 11 at night, Michael arrives at something like 1 am.  Keep in mind that day was a five hour car drive, then two plane flights each to our destinations arriving late at night.  Travel sucks.  I am going to put some real effort into that transporter machine I’ve been thinking about.

I know everyone has been eagerly awaiting the end of this story, and of course there is one very important aspect to relate.  Four of five days after returning home, I begin to have odd stomach pain, mild headaches and, how to put it, a condition that includes regular visits to the porcelain throne.  I quickly google “giardia” and discover it has a normal gestation period of 6-7 days.  Hmmmmm, five days after the trip and seven days after drinking from Michael’s water bottle equals I am an idiot.  I call my doctor who cannot see me for two weeks, but I do get in to see some other Dr. asap because of the smooth functioning of HealthCare.org. The doctor’s name was not “asap” I got into to see her very quickly.  This time it is a female doctor, just so I can be completely humiliated and not partially.  I explain to her my condition (hoping beyond hope no probing is necessary) and give her my hypothesis of the cause.  She give me one of those Yukon guide “you ignorant f*ck” looks and says, “well, its unlikely you have giardia, but I’ll have some tests done.”  She assumes I am simply and old fart with the runs, but in order to fund the shiny new building we are in and her bi-monthly trips to Bora Bora, she orders the tests.  Pretending to be polite, I hobble off to the “lab” and check in.  Urine samples and blood samples are done “on-site” though not with the same vial.  However, stool samples are done in the privacy of your own home, I guess to avoid clean up problems at the shiny clean medical center.  I tried to use my joke about leaving my underwear for the stool, urine and semen samples but the nurse acted as if I am not a funny person.

Now for the good part; they no longer ask you to fish out a portion of your poopy out of the toilet bowl; now they have a little plastic tray that you put under the seat  on the bowl so that when you, you know; your poopy collects in the tray for easier access.  Let me tell you, it may be more efficient and prevent contamination, but pooping in a tray and then scooping pout a sample to put in TWO vials is just plain disgusting.  We should never be that close to our own waste unless someone has cut the outhouse hole too large.

Two days later the tests results confirm I am patient zero for giardia, and some arsenic-laced drug is prescribed.  After getting the prescription,  I look up on Google  the drug “zocalloosenstool and see that the side effects include, nausea, headaches, loose stools, dislocated shoulders, chronic sprained ankles and death.  Thank God we test these things before charging $800 for five pills!  As luck would have it, my congenitally acidic system (that has nothing to do with my private parts) has by now already destroyed the little vermin in my system and the pills are just sorta the icing on the poop, so to speak.
That’s the end of the story.  Michael is still at school trying to figure out how to dis-invite me from the Amazon trip; Tom and Sal are still carving their empire out of the Redwoods, and I am back to listening to UC Davis “professors” who have decided to solve the lack of water problem by applying ocean water to alfalfa.  Merry Christmas.

                                         THE END