Fear and Foolishness - Part 3

Those fears are the type that had build slowly and I had time to think and wonder about the situation I’d gotten myself into. Other times things happened so fast that I didn’t have time to think about them. I just reacted. Instinct took over, hormones flowed, my heart rate and blood pressure went sky high, and I didn’t know whether to fight or run. Something like that happened to me in the summer of 1965 while I was in Canada on a fishing trip.

I drove up into northern Manitoba by myself and spent six weeks, first at Reed Lake on Canadian Highway 39, and then further north over a newly finished gravel road (Canadian Highway 6) that ended in the mining town of Thompson. Some years later the road was extended even further toward Hudson Bay. I camped 35 miles west of Thompson on a cleared area that had been used by the crew while they were constructing the road. A new bridge spanned the rapids that cascaded from Setting Lake into another big lake. The rapids were named Pisew Falls. The site was beautiful with lakes on both sides of the road., I spent two weeks there, seldom seeing another human being. I had no boat so I fished off the shore, and would catch a Walleye each morning to have for dinner that night.

Pisew Falls, Setting Lake, Manitoba

 One day I went to explore along the lake. Much of the shore was edged by giant boulders jetting out into the water, and it was easy walking, with open views for the first half mile. I came to a place where I had to cut inland to move around a small cove with steep walls. I went through a thicket of brush, turned back toward the lake, and was swinging my leg over a fallen log when I heard a loud screech off to my right. What happened next could not have spanned more than two or three seconds, but time expands for these events because too much happens to adequately fit into a normal time-space continuum.

I saw a wildcat crossing the ground out of the corner of my eye. It was closing fast. In an instant I had backed over the log, picked up a sizable stick, and was still backing up when I got a better look at my assailant. It wasn’t a wildcat after all, but an big owl. I remember a thought flicking through my mind - that the ground was an odd place to find an owl, but it was screeching bloody murder and still coming at me so I continued my retreat.


I raised my weapon ready for defense. I was also contemplating the possibility of abandoning the field of battle and plunging into the lake when I got my first real look at my adversary. It was a chicken…a damn chicken. I knew there was nothing to fear, and now realize that it was probably a ptarmigan, but at that particular time I was not much into bird identification. I was a sweating bag of nerves, and the bird seemed prepared to fight to the death. It was now circling, crouched close to the ground with its wings held out, making it look bigger and more menacing. I still had the stick in my hand and half heartedly through it in the direction of the bird, and then withdrew. I climbed a small knoll behind and sat on top in the cool breeze. I could hear the bird below screeching and thrashing about in victory for several more minutes. Sometimes experience doesn’t help.
THE END