Evan Saugstad: Stories from my life – a telephone pole, a grouse, a deer and a cigarette (part 2 of 2)

Like the “Telephone Pole” and the “Grouse” stories, these two also occur at Belarko, my grandfather’s farm on the Atnarko River in Bella Coola valley portion of Tweedsmuir Park.  My Brother Greg and I are now about 14 and 15 years old, the year being 1969.

The Deer – a year or two after the grouse escaped, Greg had shot a deer and someone else that was staying at Belarko had also got another.  We had both hides and the head of a doe, so we decided we would make a fake deer and see what happens.  It was doe season, so we didn’t need horns to make it legal for someone to shoot.

This time we went further up the road (still gravel and mostly one lane) and away from the house until we reached the east end of the field, as we didn’t want anyone shooting high power rifles near the house.  There was an old logging road going into the bush near the field’s end, so we planned our setup about 100 yards off the highway.  Made a couple of tripods from sticks to hold up the hides and then placed the does head upon a stick up its windpipe, making it look pretty much like a real deer.

Once done, back out to the road and go sit and hide on the hill opposite the logging road so no one would be shooting in our direction.  We knew we would have to be well hidden for this one.

The highway was still gravel but fairly straight at this point so the vehicles would be going fast enough that once they saw the der, they would not be able to get stopped before going past the logging road junction. The logging road was almost at right angles to the highway and quite narrow and brushy along its sides so as one drove by, they would only get a brief glance down the road and not able to get a good look before their need to shoot something, kicked in.

It didn’t take long for the first vehicle to come by, and by chance, it was our next-door neighbor in Hagensborg, Boone Santerno, riding along with one of his friends. As they drove past, Boone glanced down the logging road, seeing the deer, yells stop and true to plans, their truck is past the road before getting stopped. Out gets Boone, loads his gun and sneaks back down the highway, and upon spotting the deer, takes aim and fires.

Nothin happens, so he shoots again, still nothing, deer doesn’t move, so once again and still nothing. Now he begins thinking, gets his binoculars out for a better look and sees it is a fake.  Laughing at himself and knowing full well that Greg and I would be behind this, walks back to the truck with his hunting buddy almost pissing himself laughing, jumps back in and drives away.  He had to tell Mom and Dad the story before we even got back home tell them ourselves.

In the course of a couple hours, 21 shots are taken at the deer.

One hunter hit it in the end of its nose, causing the head to spin in a circle around the stick holding it up, but it doesn’t fall down. He also gets laughed at by his buddies.  Finally, the last shooters are a group of four from Quesnel.  Same story as the others.  On about their 3^rd shot, they hit the deer in the front shoulders, striking the tripod and the whole thing collapses to the ground. As they walked up to see their trophy, his hunting buddies began laughing so hard that we thought they were going to pee themselves.  A few months later we were told that when they reached Baxter’s Café in Anahim Lake for brunch, about an hour away, they were sill laughing and telling the story of how their buddy was fooled by a fake deer. 

By this time the deer was so full of holes that we dragged it off into the brush and went back to the house for lunch.

The Cigarette – it’s near Halloween, and once again Greg and I are at Belarko, sometime in about the same age bracket as the deer escapade.   Grandpa has a friend from Bella Coola, Harold Carter visiting.  Harold is about the same age as Grandpa (late 60’s) and likes his drink.  They have been drinking wine for two or three days straight. Get up in the morning, have a drink, begin telling stories and keep it up until they go to bed at night.   We are getting tired of this as we are having to cook for ourselves, and we have got no one to take us for a drive looking for deer.  No end in sight has Harold as brought lots of wine, with the favorite being Calona Royal Red in the one-gallon jugs.

Harold was a smoker, Grandpa was not.  Harold rolled his own and was almost a chain smoker. Greg and I got a bright idea on how to liven up their party, so offered to roll Harold some cigarettes. Although we didn’t smoke, we knew how, as sometimes we would roll Dad’s cigarettes as he also smoked roll-your-own.  With that, we took his papers and tobacco and went into the other room to roll, not wishing him to see the surprise we had for him.

Being close to Halloween, we had a bunch of firecrackers including Tiny Tim’s (very small). Into that cigarette we rolled a Tiny Tim and took it back to Harold.

At first, he puts it in his mouth backwards, with the fuse towards his mouth.  “No, no we say”, it is rolled to be smoked the other way…. “whaaaat”, he replies,” ishhhh there a firecracker in there” he laughs, but takes it out and puts it back in the other direction to humor us.

Strikes a match, takes a puff to light the smoke and takes a big inhale to get it going. “BANG” and thar she blew.  

Now Harold, being Norwegian has the typical bushy eyebrows and they are now full of smoldering tobacco. Some of the remains of the cigarette paper still stuck to his lips, paper peeled back so it looks like the end of Elmer Fudd’s blunderbuss gun after Bugs Bunny stuck a carrot down its end causing it to blow up.  Harold, stunned for a moment, gives Greg and I time to escape and head out the door and hide, not knowing just how he responds.  Go back to Uncle Carl’s cabin and stay out of sight for the rest of the day.  The next morning Grandpa gets up and tells Harold it’s time to go home, that the party is over, and we can all go back to doing what we are there for, the most important things in our lives, hunting and fishing.

Never stuffed another animal or made another fake, but Greg did, years later, outside of Prince George when he was living and working there.  He cut a life-sized moose out of plywood, painted it, put on a small set of horns and wired an old cast iron frying pan behind its front shoulder so when one shot it, it would ring.  He packed it out across a swamp off a logging road a few hundred yards so any hunter would have to leave the road and wade through a swamp to get close enough to shoot at it.  It was shot several times and eventually someone went out and took it down.  He didn’t stick around to see the results as he didn’t have the time to stay and watch, and thought some may be upset that they got all wet wading through the swamp only to find a fake.

Still enjoy a good joke or two, not so sure I would block highways or do the firecracker one over again as it could have ended up with a bit more serious consequence (kids, as always, do as we say, not as we do??).

Evan, and yes, life was much simpler as a kid in the “olden” days.