eyed the harvested landscape on both sides of the road, sizing up the sloping terrain, homing in on the areas that appeared most desirable.
I was on a roll. I was determined to crack a grand—one thousand planted trees—by the end of that day. By 2:30 that afternoon, I was fifty trees away from that important milestone, and while loading up for my final run of the day, Barrett pulled up alongside me riding a big beautiful trike.3 He was looking for a progress report.
Barrett had all of a sudden taken a keen interest in my progress. When I informed him that I was on the verge of cracking a grand, and then some, his face lit up like he had just flopped a full house.
A nineteen-year-old rookie who outgrows his training crew and manages to crack a grand in only a few short days is considered an extremely valuable asset to a treeplanting contractor. When I informed Barrett that a tally of thirteen hundred trees was a distinct possibility if I was given an extra hour or two at the end of the day, he asked if I knew how to operate the trike. Excited, I answered back, “Of course I can ride that thing.” I lied.
I had been riding dirt bikes since I was twelve years old but I had no idea if that skill set would transfer over to the strange-looking three-wheeler. Barrett then made me an offer I simply could not refuse: I could stay on the block as late as I wanted as long as I was willing to ride the trike back to camp—if I was certain that I knew my way back home. I promised him that I had paid close attention to all of the major intersections on the road leading in, that finding my way back to camp would be a piece of cake. I wonder if I actually believed that at the time.
That day ended at 4:30 p.m. for everyone—almost everyone. Debbie paid me a little visit at my cache before packing up her gear and jumping in the truck. She was still panting, having just finished her last run of the day. Her shirt was soaked with perspiration, and there was a fair volume of mud smeared across her forehead, presumably from repeatedly wiping away the sweat from her brow with her dirty work glove. She was also incredulous that I was bagging-up at the end of the day, thinking I had lost track of time.4 “You do realize it’s quitting time, don’t you?” she scolded, wiping her brow with her soiled glove, confirming my theory of moments earlier. When I told her my plan to stay late and ride the trike back home, she objected. She listed a number of reasons why it was an extremely bad idea, chief among them the number of bears that had been spotted around camp in recent days. Bears had just emerged from hibernation, she said, and were desperate in their pursuit of a meal—any meal. I dismissed her concerns and told her not to worry. I explained that there was a backup plan: Barrett would come looking for me in the event I wasn’t back by a certain hour. I also boasted of my expertise in operating three-wheeled ATVs. These were barefaced lies, but they helped put her mind at ease.
It’s quite an experience looking out over a large clearcut, spotting dozens of people spread out over a hundred acres of rolling terrain one minute, then being the only person left standing in the middle of all of that wilderness the next. I watched in awe as the taillights from the last truck disappeared below the road, leaving only a thin column of dust in its wake.
No more voices calling out in the distance. No more whistles, no more shouting, no more singing or spontaneous bursts of laughter. No more dogs barking or truck engines straining. Silence. The only interruption: the pounding inside my chest and the occasional ruffle from a stray breeze. Scanning the wide-open landscape heightened the senses. The air became heavier, the temperature cooler. It felt as if the sun had suddenly drawn blinds down on itself—light seemed denser. I don’t believe I had ever felt so isolated, so exposed, so alone.
With my head down and 250 seedlings weighing heavy on my hips, I continued to work my land. By 5:30 the forest that bordered the top of the cutblock had cast a dark shadow over the upper third of my area. It was getting late in the day. I was beginning to feel more anxious. There were times when I thought I detected movement along the treeline, or within the shadow it cast below—a shadow that continued to creep down the slope toward me as the sun continued its inexorable retreat.
The setting was ripe for the overactive imagination. My nerves were on a hair-trigger. Though it was necessary to maintain a hurried pace, I paused periodically to scan the terrain above me, surveying the landscape for anything out of the ordinary, anything that might present a threat. I was a little more than halfway through my final run by 6:00 p.m. I calculated that I could bag-out by 7:00 p.m., but I needed to stay focused.
I bagged-out at 7:00 p.m. on the dot. Excited, I raced back to my cache and packed up my gear, preparing for the long trike ride back to camp. There was roughly one hour of sunlight remaining in my day. Barrett had estimated that the ride home would take ninety minutes.
The trike was a fairly simple ATV. It had no clutch and only four gears. It was a pull-start machine, though, and I knew from experience they could be moody. I took a couple of pulls on the starter cord, played with the choke, took another half-dozen pulls. Nothing. I stopped and examined it from top to bottom to make sure that I hadn’t missed a step. The key was turned to the on position, it had plenty of fuel, the fuel line was open. I took a few more pulls. Nothing. A dozen more pulls yielded the same damn result. After fifteen minutes of increasingly frantic pulling, I succeeded only in tearing the callouses off the palm of my hand. I was exhausted. My hand was bloody. After catching my breath, I took another half-dozen desperate pulls. Nothing. It was nearly 7:30 and I was losing daylight. Fast. With my heart pounding, I weighed my options. It didn’t take long to conclude that my only real play was to begin hiking the thirty-five kilometres back to camp.
I couldn’t spend the night on the block. Temperatures were still dipping well below zero in the wee hours after nightfall. My one hope was that, at some point, someone in camp would discover that I hadn’t made it back and would send a truck out after me. Then, I was struck at once by several realizations:
One: I had been keeping a fairly low profile in camp in the evenings by heading to bed early. My absence in this case wouldn’t have been deemed out of the ordinary.
Two: I had instructed Barrett not to fuss. I hated people fussing over me. Rejecting his offer to set aside my supper, I had told him that I’d simply raid the kitchen for leftovers once I arrived back in camp. That was a monumental error on my part. Someone at some point would have noticed an untouched plate of food. It would have set off alarm bells.
Three: I had convinced Debbie not to fuss on my account as well, knowing that she had worked her ass off that day and was thoroughly exhausted. I’d insisted that she not wait up for me.
Four: The camp took on a carnival-like atmosphere at night. I knew that my presence wouldn’t be missed.
Taking inventory, I discovered one severely bruised Granny Smith apple at the bottom of my pack that had been taking abuse since day one. I also had a one-litre bottle of water—meager provisions, but better than nothing. For protection, I had my long-handled staff shovel with a heavy steel blade at the end. I also had a six-inch lock-blade knife. In the event of a hostile grizzly encounter, I figured I could escape the situation by using the knife to slit my wrists. Shaken but not deterred, I began my long trek home.
Separating reality from the forces one perceives to be threatening is no easy task, especially when one is physically and mentally exhausted. I was also famished, not to mention scared shitless. The reality: I had planted trees for over eleven hours, I was in the heart of bear country, I was defenceless, I had less than thirty minutes of daylight left and I faced a challenging five- to six-hour hike back to camp. The forces that I perceived to be threatening: whatever hungry or territorial carnivore that was already aware of my predicament, and whatever menacing element loomed, concealed in the shadows around the next bend in the road.
The road leading out of the cutblock rose to the top of a ridge before dropping back down into a long continuous series of older clearcuts. My view from the crest of the ridge was expansive, and it
