I spotted a breach in the blackness several hundred metres ahead. I was coming back into the light.
I reached the edge of the timber. The stretch of road that broke through on the other side was drenched in moonlight. The transition between light and dark—the margin separating the two deeply conflicting elements—was astonishing. It was a glorious moment. My panic-stricken charge quickly deteriorated into a series of limps and staggers as my exhaustion triggered yet another severe leg cramp. This last stitch did some damage to the muscle in my right thigh. The pain was excruciating.
As I attempted to settle into a steady, consistent stride, I continued to hear sounds emanating from the dark corridor behind me. This time they were clear—heavy scrapes in the gravel. I was being followed.
Pressing ahead, looking over my shoulder every few seconds, I fixated on the road leading out of the dark wall of trees behind me. After advancing another two hundred metres or so, something caught my eye—a shape began to emerge slowly from the edge of the corridor. At first, I thought it was my imagination—a large rock, a stump perhaps. Then my worst fear materialized as the dark shape began to shift and take form, slowly pulling away and separating from the black wall.
I began shouting obscenities at the top of my lungs, hoping it would back off and blend back into the dark depths from which it emerged. My protests didn’t seem to faze it, though. It advanced, slowly but steadily closing the gap between us. It was a bear—a large bear. An apex predator. Its unwavering swagger suggested that it was fully aware of its position at the very top of the food chain.
After another fifteen minutes of staggering and lurching forward, of constantly looking over my shoulder and attempting to maintain a safe distance between me and my stalker, I saw that the road ahead was in the direct path of yet another dark forest corridor. I began scouring the road berm for a long heavy stick. I was looking for another weapon to augment the shovel I was gripping tightly with my bloody right hand. I also began loading my pockets with sharp flat stones. I had a good throwing arm.
It’s unsettling how different the woods appear at night. Any semblance of familiarity is lost or concealed in the absence of light. Individual trees that appear grand and majestic during daylight hours suddenly become menacing, threatening. I was experiencing a whole new set of negative emotions at this point. I had no idea that fear had so many layers, that it could probe so deep into one’s psyche.
It was now 1:00 a.m. as I approached the edge of the forest. Entering this corridor was like walking through a portal. I was immediately enveloped in darkness. Again. The road, barely visible, twisted and wound for several hundred metres before crossing over a fast-running creek. The surge of rushing water made it impossible to discern any other sound in either direction. I began to panic. Again. Despite my crippled gate, I managed to press ahead in a bizarre combination of skips and hobbles. Finally, I could see moonlight peer through the blackness a few hundred metres ahead. I emerged from the densely wooded corridor, once again stunned by the dramatic contrast. It was another moment of monumental relief—another glorious moment.
As I continued to press forward, I fixated on the forest edge that was now a good two hundred metres behind me. I detected no activity, no shape or form materializing from the edge of the dark corridor. Sensing that the bear had lost interest, I gave up attempting to run and limped forward. I had no idea how far I was from camp, but I hoped and prayed it was within shouting distance.
It was 2:00 a.m. when I arrived at yet another junction, one where both forks in the road cut through a sparse stand of timber. I was on my last legs.
Pausing at the junction, sensing that I was close to camp but unsure if it was left or right, I took a cursory glance behind me as I pondered my two options. Something was wrong. A black shape occupied the left side of the road approximately 150 metres behind me—it shouldn’t have been there. I could have sworn it wasn’t there the last time I scanned the terrain. I studied it for the better part of thirty seconds, and just as I was about to dismiss it as a log or a stump, I detected subtle movement. Then, suddenly, it began slowly advancing toward me.
I hollered at the creature. I screamed until my voice cracked. I whacked the ground with my shovel blade, creating as much noise as I could muster. When it appeared to hesitate, I turned around to further examine the junction in the road. Just then, I spotted a narrow beam of light coming from a dense patch of conifers roughly two hundred metres along the road to the left. It vanished. Then it appeared again, darting across the woods before abruptly trailing off.
Excited, I ignored my limp and advanced as fast as I could in the direction of the light. Then I saw it. A tent! It was a treeplanter’s tent. It belonged to one of those veteran planters on my crew who preferred privacy to convenience, carving out a nook a healthy distance away from the main camp. Pushing forward, while looking over my shoulder for evidence of my stalker, I stumbled and tripped on the road directly in front of the tent, making a horrible racket, provoking a very irritated, “What the fuck!” from within. I didn’t bother answering back. What would I say?
I wasn’t worried about my stalker from that moment on. The main Quonset hut was dead ahead.
Throwing my gear to the ground with a thud, I barged into the Quonset hut and made a beeline for the kitchen. Not bothering to grab a plate or utensils, I plucked a quarter chicken from a large baking tray in the fridge and tore into it, consuming bones, cartilage and all. Another deep tray had what appeared to be perfectly cut squares of lasagna—I fished one out with my free hand and inhaled it within seconds. Feeling only slightly satiated, I plated two additional quarter chickens, two slabs of lasagna and made my way to a table near the wood stove—it was still throwing off heat from a cedar fire that had burned hours earlier. I took my time with this plate of food, glancing at my watch every now and then, replaying the events of my evening over and over in my mind.
It was nearly 3:00 a.m. when I blew the candle out in my tent. I was asleep before my head settled into my pillow.
When I woke up it was 6:45 a.m. and Debbie was frantically unzipping the door to my tent. “What’s the matter with you?” she said. “It’s quarter to seven. The trucks leave in fifteen minutes.” After I gave her a quick summary of what I had endured only hours earlier, she raced back to the Quonset hut, packed a lunch and tossed a heap of scrambled eggs into a plastic bag for me. When I arrived at the staging area where the entire crew was assembled, only a handful of people were aware of my little adventure. Of those, several erupted into spontaneous applause; others simply pointed in my direction and laughed. I spotted Barrett on the sidelines shaking his head. He wasn’t sure what to think.
I later learned that the drumming I heard from the top of the ridge, immediately prior to spotting the distant glow from our camp, was a drum circle that had apparently built up to a climax at around that time—an obnoxious climax no doubt, but one that couldn’t have been better timed. I developed a much greater tolerance for bongos after that episode.
And without the freaked-out treeplanter who probed the woods with his flashlight, unable to make heads or tails out of the horrible racket taking place a short distance his tent—I’m not sure I would have found my way home.
My final tally from the day before: 1,450 trees. My stalker, an enormous male black bear, was spotted along the road outside camp later that day. Denny apparently dealt with it, firing off several warning rounds with his shotgun. That bear was never seen again.
I was a minor celebrity that morning after my story circulated among the three crews. But by mid-morning, by the end of my second run, it became just another day on the slopes.
1. “Tree scores” or “tree totals” are the number of seedlings an individual manages to plant during the course of their
