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LIFE ALONG THE TRENCH My RCMP partner and I were only two days into a six day late fall patrol along a big chunk of the Rocky Mountain Trench in north-central BC, and we already had a couple of briefcases worth of paperwork to look after. He and I usually did a couple of these trips a year together. Between a conservation officer and a Mountie, there weren’t too many situations we could run across that one of us didn’t have the authority or experience to deal with. We used my truck equipped with a camper to cover as much ground as possible, and most trips were a couple of thousand kilometres long – all on gravel roads. These patrols were a lot about contacting the residents who lived along the trench. They were mostly loggers, trappers and guides. Hunters were still about for the last of the moose season as well. A handful of small settlements were scattered along the trench, and stopping in to check on the general mood of things before winter set in was always a good idea. We never knew what we would run into, but we did know we could count on something happening. Law and order was absent from this part of the world; it just wasn’t too frequent a visitor. We were only a few hours from town when we ran into our first dust-up between a landlord and tenant. The dispute had boiled over into a big row over unpaid rent. The landlord ended it by putting a fine point on his argument by pointing a rifle at the tenant and then storming off in his pickup headed for the local trading post. We went there and found that he had stocked up on food and whiskey and headed for his cabin a half-day’s drive further up the Trench. There was only one road in or out, and we figured to catch up with him at some point on the trip as we headed further up the Trench. We stopped at a logging camp for supper and the first-aid man told us about a trapper’s wife who had cut off the tip of her finger with an axe. Her husband wasn’t going to take her to town because he was busy preparing for the coming trapping season and didn’t want to lose the two days the round trip would take. We couldn’t make the trapper’s cabin that day so we camped with the loggers and spent the night checking in with the foreman of the camp on the comings and goings about the camp and in the local area. The further away from town we went, keeping up on the gossip was half the task of maintaining a handle on things. The next morning found us at the trapper’s door before breakfast. His wife answered with a dish towel wrapped around her injured hand. Her husband had left the day before to work on his trails and wouldn’t be back until later that day. We looked at her wound and saw that she had cut the tip off one finger and badly gashed another. She was in obvious pain, but refused to leave the cabin without her husband. I knew him from past dealings. He was a tough task master who relished the demanding lifestyle of a full time trapper in the northern bush. He expected the same enthusiasm from his wife. We gave her all the aspirin we had and promised to stop in to talk to her husband on the way back. Both of us were convinced that she needed medical attention, even if we had to drive her to the hospital ourselves! The weather turned on us and we were soon driving in the first snowstorm of the season as we headed towards the lake where the rifle-packing landlord’s cabin was located. As we pulled up, the front door opened and he stepped out onto the porch. He wasn’t surprised too see me, but the Mountie uniform made him take a second look. We called him over to the truck and checked him for guns and knives. It was obvious that he had been working on the whiskey he bought at the trading post. He told us a long tale of trouble he’d had with his renters, however, the Mountie still wasn’t impressed enough to forgive him for using a rifle to help make his point. We left with all his guns and he got a court date a few months down the road. We headed back towards the trapper’s cabin, worried about his wife’s hand becoming infected from the axe wound. We got to the cabin and were greeted by the trapper as we pulled into his yard. From the look on his face we could tell he was not happy to see us. Without any sort of greeting he told us to leave and not to meddle in his family business. His wife was standing on the porch of the cabin, her hand still wrapped in the dish towel. Her face was grey with pain. We tried to reason with him about taking his wife to town, but he would have no part of it. Finally, the Mountie stepped onto the porch and told the woman to pack a bag and come with us. I stood beside the trapper who was getting madder by the minute. I wondered out loud how it was going to look once it got around to all the other trappers, and especially their wives, that he wouldn’t take care of his injured wife. When he saw his wife with her bag packed being helped to our truck by the Mountie, he had a sudden change of heart. He promised to get her to town immediately. I know we had some influence on his decision, but I think he came to realize what kind of grief that the other trappers’ wives in the area would rain down upon him if he didn’t take care of his wife. The remainder of the trip continued from one situation to the next. We found some poachers with a whole bull moose tied headfirst, six feet off the ground up in spruce tree; got ourselves into a marksmanship contest with a native elder, his wife and his prized .444 Marlin. We ended the trip helping rescue three starving horses; but those are stories in themselves and best told at a later date. The trips with the Mountie were always interesting and, like I said, something always happened. Steve
Wasylik
is
a
Senior
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