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

Fear and Foulishness - Part 2

There are times when people are injured or killed because they aren’t experienced enough to know they are in danger. There are other times when a person becomes paralyzed with fear while another, in the same situation, may recognize there is no real danger. I’ve been in both situations.

A friend, Dan Wilson, and I were near the top of a mountain once and started across a boulder scree. Most of the rocks were small, only eight or ten inches on a side, stacked on top of each other, and the scree ran down the mountain several hundred feet. The rocks weren’t big enough to give solid footing and some would shift under foot and slide a bit. The scree was maybe a hundred feet across, and we were on a fairly steep incline. Under the circumstances, it was a bit scary to look down that steep slope. I started to wonder if we had made a mistake. Would one of the next steps result in a slippage and cause a cascading slide? Most of it seemed solid and we were, by then, over half way across - the point-of-no-return - so there was no sense in turning back. I picked every step carefully, testing each rock, and happily made it to the other side, but I still don’t know how perilous the situation was.

Another time I was on a snow machine heading up a river north of Eureka. Wilson was following on his machine, and I began passing open water near the shores. The river was wide and we were running right down the middle, but those open holes started to bother me. I could see water rushing in them and knew if I stopped my machine and turned off the engine I would hear the water flowing. I wasn’t about to stop. A moving snowmobile can pass over thin ice and be gone, but stopping is not a good idea.

I was following another snowmobile track so I felt somewhat secure as long as it did not abruptly end in a hole, but then the track suddenly made a tight 180 degree turn and went back the way we were coming. I was now riding point and entering uncharted territory. I got spooked. I went no more than another quarter mile and pulled onto a small island in the middle of the river. I told Dan I wasn’t going any further. He seemed to be a bit peeved, but did not offer to take the lead, so I guess he was no more sure of the ice than I was. Again, I don’t know if we were in any danger. Maybe someone familiar with the river might not have thought anything about it, but again, maybe those tracks that turned around had been made by a more experienced traveler or maybe the spook got them too.
GO TO: Part 3

Fear and Foolishness

In my youth I was neither fearless nor cowardly, but would describe myself as cautious. I remember Mom was deathly scared of snakes and swimming. I did not much care for snakes myself. I found something revolting about the thought of handling them because I always thought they were slimy until I touched a big Boa in a college class and found its skin to be cool and dry. I learned to swim when I was six or seven. I liked to climb trees and never feared heights.

There was, however, one specific thing that terrorized me. It was a dream. When I was five or six I had a nightmare from which I woke distressed and crying. I had the dream several times and always woke up terrified. They asked me what it was about, but I was never able to describe it. The rhythm and beat of that dream is still with me, but there was little then or now that I could tell you about it. There was no form, no monster, no scene. There was a sense of something expanding and contracting - pulsating. Some sound that rose, than sank in intensity; a menace that was near but could not be seen. If I were superstitious or a believer in the supernatural, I would think that a door briefly opened, and for short time I looked upon pure evil. I had other nightmares after that, but they paled in comparison.

Every time I went to a monster movie, I would swear that I would never go to another, but the next time one came into town, I would find myself sitting with my brother and several other neighborhood kids watching the latest offering. Most of the movies featured either, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi or Lon Chaney. I probably saw every horror film made during the 1940’s and 50’s : Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Werewolf, Dracula. I spent much of each show with my hands covering my eyes, peeking through splayed fingers.

I know of only one other dream I had and it ended with me waking up laughing. I dreamed that I walked into my bedroom. The closet was just to the left as you entered the room. In the dream the closet door had a window in the top half, and I saw Frankenstein sitting in the closet with his back to me. I ran away so fast that a cloud of dust, leaves, other debris rose in my place obscuring everything. I had injected that dust cloud into my dream after having seen a similar scene in a ghost movie in which Jack Benny and Rochester starred. It seemed very funny.

GO TO: Part 2