DARN GOOD PEOPLE

Recently I spent a couple of hours in a senior’s residence. It was an enlightening experience. ‘Enlightening’ may be an odd word to describe a place where people are waiting out the last of their days but there was a presence of life that surprised me. Here and there seniors were engaged in lively bits of conversation. Laughter perked up now and then. And drama unfolded between the residents; situations of caring, personal bonds being developed, and even the games and whims between boyfriends and girlfriends. For those whose minds were deep in thought I wondered what those thoughts might be. Obviously, as we get older, we have a lifetime of thoughts to mull over. And getting lost in our thoughts does not just happen overnight. Most of us already practice the habit daily, more so as we get older.
These seniors were the same age as many trail riders that I have known, 70-year-old plus riders who still take long trail tides today. I deeply respect these people. People who have ridden the storms of life, who have been there and done that, and still have adventure in their bones. Here, truly, is the salt of the earth. These are people who have been ‘hands on’ with animals for a generation. People whose feet have more often touched the soil than concrete over the past sixty years. People who have become humble yet strong, understanding and realistic about life. They are beyond the reach of the soft, fearful, and money conscious trends that run through modern society. In my estimation they share qualities that make trail riders some of the best darn people on our earth.
It is easy to feel strongly about people when they affect your life in positive and meaningful ways. I could recall dozens of situations and stories about riders on the trail that reveal character and fortitude beyond normal expectations. Like Louis La’Amour, the western story writer said, these are people to ride the river with. But most important is the simple fact that we are not immune to those around us but affected by them, and so, if we profess to care, then we have a responsibility towards goodness in how we treat others. Not because of who they are, but because of who we are.
Sometimes the smallest act of kindness can have far-reaching implications. That is the gist of this article, a story that happened back in 1982, during a horse expedition that was loaded with drama and the acts of good people. Of all of the past deeds of people that I have known, this small act, by someone that, to this day, I do not even know, affected my life in a big way, and thousands of others, mostly those interested in horses and the wilderness, in a small way, or more.
Bill MacDonald, Brain Wolfe, and I had this crazy idea. We were going to ride horses several hundred mountain wilderness miles from the plains to the Pacific Ocean. The Yellowhead school district that I was working for not only allowed time off but provided a modest sum of money for a professional movie camera and film stock so that the journey may be recorded, and hopefully, provide some entertainment worthwhile for school children. Well, after a series of fortunate and less fortunate events, after the hard work and goodness of many people in the woods, filmmakers, and the national film board, not only was the film realized but it won awards, was shared with over two hundred live audiences through schools and theaters, and been televised around the globe, several times in Canada. Not to mention the book that has been enjoyed by over ten thousand Canadians. And who was ultimately responsible for this story, who was the fork in the road that opened the path to allow this story to happen at all? None of the fine people mentioned above. It was some kid, working the Friday morning shift at McBain Camera on Seventh Ave. in Edmonton, Alberta.
Our horse outfit, on the other hand, was a world and a lifetime away.
We were stuck between a rock and a deep place, literally. The entire mountain side was burned forest, like countless mountains before it. We had survived the deep, dark, rugged Upper Muskwa country with its flooded rivers. We had struggled day after day putting few miles behind, and falling punch drunk with fatigue into our sleeping bags at the end of each day, so that the days themselves became a nightmarish blur. And now the burned forest met the five-mile-long lake in a series of fifty-meter precipice cliffs.
But there was the film. As the mindless days went by it gave me a reason for hope, at least something to live for. And then, one more dip in a deep-water hole, but this time the camera broke loose and plunged into the muddy river, with me after it. And now it was damaged beyond repair. We were a sorry group, and hope had become a scarce commodity.
This morning the campfire heat was especially welcome as cold mists lifted off of the lake and swirled dancing ghosts into the trees. The camp slept and I stirred the flames searching for a belly full of heat. The lake was glass calm. A minnow dimpled the surface and then another. Longed legged skeeters raced over the water slipping between clogs of mud, shore sticks and green scud. A night hawk shot out from the forest behind and skimmed a streak low across the lake; gone, there, gone, there, through spirals of mist and fog. I grabbed the bucket and walked down to the lake to get water. When I returned to the fire Bill and Brian were bent over warming themselves.
“Stan,” Brian said.

“Yeah?”
“I guess I have to get the horses seeing as you got breakfast.”
“Ya,” Bill chuckled, “Wish I had some rum to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?” I asked.
“You’re up first this morning. You feeling alright?”
“Yeah, I guess I should go back to sleep for awhile.” They looked at me to see if I was serious. I smiled. “Actually, I got up early so you wouldn’t see me put the poison in your porridge.”
“Jeez,” Brian said, “wouldn’t know the difference; tastes like poison every morning.”
It was an early start. Bill mounted and led along the east side of the lake, heading for the south end. We had only ridden a hundred meters when Bill held up.
“This swamp is worse than it looks.” Bill said. Actually, it was not a swamp but a beaver dam just before the lake that had created this watery mess.
“Hiya!” Bill yelled as he forced his horse onto the soft grass below the three-foot-high beaver dam.
“Hiya,” Brian and I echoed. We slugged through the soft grass then watch as it quickly gave way to bog and mire. We jumped off then fumbled knee deep through muck to the shoreline and more solid ground.
“Good start this morning,” Bill said as we all bent down to wash our mud-spattered hands and faces.”
Brian stood up looking into the sky, then I heard it too. “Sounds like a plane, I wonder if it’s the same white one we saw up the Muskwa?”
“That’s no plane!” Bill said excitedly. We stood speechless. A small skiff sped our way from directly across the lake in the early morning mist. It could have been a mirage, but it wasn’t. The skiff motored up to us then jammed up on the grassy shore.
“Looks like you're having some problems,” a stout man said. He climbed up on the small bow then jumped onto the grass, which was really muck, and he sank past his ankles. “Crap,” he said, “this end of the lake is crap. My name is Greg, Greg Cranston.” We stuck out our hands, still too shocked to say much.
After some conversation I asked a desperate question, did they have a radio phone? They did, but it did not work. Maybe if they heated the battery on the stove for awhile? An hour later, after some desperate begging, I found myself on the receiver of that phone.
It cackled, loud, then faint, then loud again. A female voice floated through the cackle. “Go ahead YX4642.” Her voice grew faint. I was patched up with an operator from Fort Nelson, BC.
“Can you connect me with McBain Camera, Edmonton, 7th Ave?!!” The phone cackled and I barked out the directions again.
“Roger YX4642.”
Cackles and sounds washed in and out then, on a Saturday morning, a faint voice said, “McBain Camera.”
I pleaded in desperation, my voice on the verge of screams, and then I lost him, forever. What I wanted, desperately needed, I had told him, yelled at him. This kid, interested in cameras, putting in his shift, getting a call from some lunatic, maybe in the middle of nowhere? Did he even hear the phone number to confirm what I needed, and where I was. Did he get any of it? Some of it? None of it?
Two desperate weeks later I gathered my broken self at the very remote native village of Fort Ware, a rare, road-less, mountain community in the heart of B.C. wilderness. A plane came in. The community gathered to witness the event, and I made my way to the pilot, who was engaged in conversation with the chief.
“Have you seen anything like a camera?” I asked. He shrugged and continued his conversation. I hid my disappointment. It was foolish to be hopeful.
“What is that?” A friendly gal pointed off to the side of the hill of gear. There sat a black box. I walked to the box. The sticker said….. Stan Walchuk, Fort Ware…. Carefully I carried the case through the crowd then ran to the privacy of some trees. I opened the box. A Canon Scopic 16mm stared up at me. I stifled a scream. I did not want the band to send the crazy white man into isolation across the river.
Imagine what this camera store kid did. From a desperate, broken phone call he had the sense, the gumption and the goodness, to pursue the situation. Most kids, or adults, would have simply passed off the phone call as some nonsense and gone on with their day. So, without the goodness of this kid the Cordillera Expedition story would not have reached the many thousands of viewers worldwide.
Thank you kid, you changed my life, affected hundreds, thousands, of others.
Ask yourself this question. ‘When I am eighty years old will I regret even a single horse adventure or trail ride that I took? Was my life richer knowing my trail companions?’
Well, what are you waiting for? You and I will be mulling over this next trip, the trip that we now take, or do not take, in some rocking chair sooner than we think!
I am blessed. Through Blue Creek Outfitting I have come to know many hundreds of trail riders. Trail riders who head into the wilderness for weeks at a time are truly special people and have, again and again, made my life worth living. This is my chance to say THANK YOU!
Three photos below of Pierre and Christine, Dave, and Eric, who rode the trails with Blue Creek horses often, and into their 80’s!
I love you!