In our outfitting days a small black bundle of energy named Pepper came with us on most of the guided trips.  She even came with her own tent – a manufacturer’s model dome tent – and she insisted that it be first up at the campsite.

Over the years we have had Razzle, a Shepard and Jake, a loose-jointed husky cross that presented us with six squirming black bundles of joy shortly after she arrived at our doorstep.  We lost Razzle to a pack of wolves in her third winter with us and Jake after a particularly busy morning of fending off her lively youngsters, went walkabout and left us to deal with her just-weaned offspring.

Perhaps our most memorable pair of dogs were two waifs that I picked up at a downtown Whitehorse.  The folks there simply had too many to deal with at one time and were glad to let me pick one from the litter of eight youngsters.  I am prone to female dogs for various reasons but as I was leaving the place, a little light coloured male pup stood up against the side of the pen and gave me the most woeful look as if to say: “take me, take me please!”  Of course I couldn’t resist the little newborn and took him along with his sister to their new home at the lake.

Now you’re probably wondering what a dog named “John” has to do with all this?  Well, each of the four-legged creatures mentioned above, except for Peg, loved fresh fish – cooked mind you.  When we went out on a camping river trip it was totally unnecessary to bring any kind of special dog food.  They lived off the land.

John is a sibling of mine that, like Peg, would sooner starve than eat fresh fish.  I’ve taken him fishing and he’s caught his share but will not eat the catch if it in any way smells like fish – think a can of Tuna or a Macdonald’s Filet-O-Fish.  Go figure!  Naturally, when Peg’s peculiar hang-up came to light, it immediately triggered thoughts of brother John.

Peg, like John loves getting involved in the action of catching the fish.  She enthusiastically barks and launches herself into the river each time a lure is cast and wades in to help you retrieve the catch.  She’ll play with the fish as it flops around on the beach, lick it a time or two.  In the bottom of the boat she’ll sit beside it, play with it and subdue it if it shows any kind of life, but when it comes to dinnertime, Uh..Uh!

She’s a challenge.  The next trip I plan to give her no choice in the matter and by taking along a companion dog that I know is partial to fish hopefully her peculiar dietary aversion will become a thing of the past.

“Tonight we’re camped 100 miles from everywhere,” I announce.

“What do you mean?” asks one.

“Well,” I reply. “If we continue north from here we would have to travel at least a hundred and forty miles to reach any sign of civilization. If we head south it would be well over one hundred miles before we’re back in Whitehorse. Towards the east or west the wilderness distance is almost immeasurable. We’ve reached a point of no return.”

Things turn quiet as each of them ponders the significance of this tidbit of information. Individually they gaze into the dancing flames and glowing coals of the fire. The crackling campfire, the rolling river and the surrounding wilderness provide a wonderful venue for private thoughts and reflection.

“No phones,” begins one.

“No TV,” remarks another.

“No cars, no traffic and no noise,” says a third.

A soft female voice begins a well-known song and within moments a number of voices join in.

“A hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, you can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.”

One of the boys picks up a guitar and gently strokes the strings in accompaniment.

Lord, I’m one, Lord, I’m two, Lord, I’m three, Lord, I’m four, Lord, I’m five hundred miles away from home.

From the top of a large spruce tree, a raven suddenly ads its guttural, rasping voice to the song and draws a laugh but the tune lingers on and a few soft voices now plaintively sing the last verse.

Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name. Lord, I can’t go back home this-a way. This-a way, this-a way, this-a way, this-a way, Lord, I can’t go back home this-a way.

The melody comes to an end and the group falls quiet. Even the raven does not again interrupt. Each of us remains still and deep in thought of what exactly this place and this distance means and the magical minutes carry on for a time.

“Oh good!” someone finally ventures. “That means we’ll be out here for at least another three days. I don’t really want to go home just yet.”

The evening lingers but the magic of the one hundred miles is gone. Soon the campfire is down to a few red-ribbed embers. The magic of that evening will stay with us forever.

At home my favourite “Company” dinner involves an ancient cast-iron Dutch oven, which may contain any number of meaty ingredients such as sausages, thick-cut pork chops, round steak or just plain stew meat but whatever it may be, the pot always contains lots of satisfying, full-bodied gravy. Generally, the contents have been gently simmered on the back of the stove for an hour or two and all the wonderful food flavours have come together to form a superb tasting broth. The rest of the meal is totally secondary to the contents of the main pot that is transferred directly from stove to table. It is in itself a conversation piece.

On a river camping trip a good portion of the menu entails the same type of cookery except that a much lighter pot is substituted for the heavy Dutch oven used at home. Gravy is also the subject of the following story.

In the mid-nineties I took a couple in their early sixties on a five-day powerboat trip from Whitehorse to Dawson City. It was to be a semi-wilderness trip if I may describe it as such. The trip called for a mere two days of outdoor camping with the rest of the nights split between genuine log cabin accommodation and hotel rooms.

When I prep a trip such as this, I pre-cook some of the dinner items and freeze them well in advance so that refrigeration isn’t a problem. This was an easy trip from a cook’s point of view as, aside from the breakfast and midday snacks it called for only two camp-cooked dinners. For one of them I chose my favourite “Bangers & Mash.” This combines pre-cooked beef sausages, onions and mushrooms in a gravy with a mashed mixture of fresh boiled spuds, cabbage, carrots & onions. Gravy, once frozen does not heat up very well so I leave the thickening until the time I use the meal.

On the fourth evening we were camped in a wonderful sheltered spot just below Fort Selkirk. After exploring the historic town site we came back to camp and sat for a time watching the waning sunlight bounce off the black basalt bluffs on the opposite shore. When dinnertime rolled around I emptied the container of “Bangers” into a deep frying pan. All it needed was heating up and the addition of a gravy thickener. In a second pot I peeled, cut and sliced the remainder of the ingredients.

I was using a single-burner naphtha stove. This requires the constant juggling of the two pots. You can bring one to a boil, set it aside and heat up the second one as the first one continues to cook – you get the idea.  I thickened the gravy a bit too soon so that I got out of sync and had to periodically add more moisture to the frying pan to prevent the gravy from boiling away or burning. Rather than add cold water, I simply tipped the pot that the rest of the meal was cooking in and used the already hot water to thin down the contents of the frying pan. My clients were enjoying an extended cocktail hour so I repeated this exercise a number of times before dinner was served.

The meal and particularly the gravy was a rousing success. The accidentally enhanced gravy had acquired an aroma and a taste to die for and make-up of its ingredients became the main topic of conversation for the remainder of the trip. When parting in Whitehorse several days later the last conversation I had with them involved the gravy.

“Don’t forget to send me the recipe,” she implored.

Now how was that again? You get a single burner-naphtha stove and two pots………  I never did get to writing it down beyond what I’ve just told you.

I stop the wood splitting process to watch a formation of six trumpeter swans pass overhead gracefully gliding the short distance to the south end of the lake, a spot that is a regular pit stop on their annual fall migration route. Up higher and just under the heavy overcast, a large wedge of geese follows close behind. You can tell the geese have been flying for a while and are tired.  The formation appears in disarray and the thirty or so birds that make up the V are constantly changing positions from side to side, a manoeuvre that takes the strain off the inside wing.  As they come down, the wedge weaves from side to side in order to avoid some low hanging clouds and finally they circle to come down on the water for the night. It’s like watching my very own air show and well worth dropping the drudgery of the woodpile for a time.

“The old grey mare, She kicked on the whiffle tree”, repeats as I turn back to splitting wood.  During the afternoon, a break for tea, another flock of birds and a ball game with the dog interrupt the flow of wood going into the woodbin but I do manage to lay up another cord or so.  I have four more to go and am far from finished.

“Must be getting old”, I mutter to myself as I walk back in the house at the end of the afternoon.

There is a list on the kitchen counter – there is always a list – it has twelve items on it. Two are crossed off, the easy ones that deal with the annual delivery of oil for our backup heat source and the delivery of propane that fuels the kitchen stove.  The lack of progress with the rest of the list confirms what Irene has been trying to tell me over the last few weeks.

“You’re not getting any younger you know.  You really should get some help with the hard and heavy stuff.”

“Nah! I’ll get it done,” say I. “Just might take a little longer that’s all.”

The firewood job gets scratched off the list nine days later, the arthritis in my hands eases off three days after that. Four days later we get our first snow.

Reluctantly I concede that perhaps I had better solicit some help with the heavy part of the list.

“When did this start?” I ask myself.  All the yesterdays seem to have crept up and suddenly and here it is, old age.  I find it hard to accept the fact that I can’t do the heavy stuff by myself anymore.  The sleights, props and shortcuts that I developed over the years, aren’t enough to clean up the list by myself one more time.

Perhaps it began when I was told I needed a hearing aid or when the doctor told me to report in on a more regular basis.  Reluctantly I sit down at the kitchen table and begin a second list, a list of young people that I might be able to call on to come and give me a hand.

One fall the itinerary involved five days on the river, a pickup by aircraft at a predetermined location and a flight into a remote lodge for a week of hunting, fishing and general relaxation.

We had five great days on the river and got ready for the pickup on the morning of the sixth day. The splashdown on the water was routine but because of the high bank bordering our campsite, we had to take some special precautions to prevent damage to the aircraft wing.

Irene had the job of hanging on to the wing to hold it in place a proper distance from the shore. I loaded our gear by throwing it down to the pilot who was standing on the starboard float catching the stuff and loading it into the back of the aircraft. In the ongoing process, my timing was a bit off as I threw a small empty cooler down when he was not quite ready for it. He did manage to catch it but the lid flipped open in the process and smacked him on the lip. There was no blood but I imagine it hurt and you can use your own imagination on the colorful language that followed.

When all was said and done and we were finally ready to depart, Irene and the pilot settled themselves in the aircraft and this time it was my job to hold the wing until the engine was started. I would then push off, climb on the wing and down into the cabin via the wing strut and float as the aircraft stood off from shore.

This is where the pilot got his revenge for the split lip. I pushed off, clambered onto the wing but instead of idling and opening the door for me he immediately picked up speed and began a mock taxi and take-off run. I had no alternative but to stretch out flat with my hands frantically grasping the leading edge of the wing in an effort to keep from sliding off into the river.

“The hell with it,” I thought out loud. “I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream, I’m just going to hang on for the ride until he realizes he’s just wasting gas.”

Between the noise and turbulence coming off the prop and the spray coming off the floats, it was quite a refreshing ride. It gave me a much better insight and appreciation of the aerial acrobatics that are often staged during an air show.

Irene, of course, was inside pounding the pilot about the shoulders until he finally relented and slowed down enough for me to slide off the wing, onto the float and into the co-pilot seat.

“Nice ride,” I said nonchalantly as I strapped myself in.

I am tying a new lure on the end of my fishing line. I am an impatient fisherman and if a particular spoon, plug or lure does not entice a fish within fifteen minutes or so; I haul it in and change to one of a different color or one that has a different wriggle. This time I’m changing from the familiar yellow five-of-diamonds to a deep-diving fluorescent plug with a silvery tail that looks like an escapee from some exotic tropical aquarium. There’s enough hooks hanging off it to make me very cautious in the process of hooking it into the steel leader at the end of my line.

After completing the hookup I am reluctant to restart the outboard, as the noise will disturb the peaceful tranquility of the afternoon. Like the dogs, I relax and lean back and can’t help but recall another involuntary drifting incident that happened some years ago.

In that case I had contracted to haul some construction equipment into the river at the north end of the lake. To make room for as much gear as possible, I removed everything but the bare essentials from the boat. The trip into the river was slow because of the heavy load and I did not land at the construction site until the early evening. When I revved up to land against the fast river current, I could feel something in the lower gearbox give way but the motor kept running albeit in forward gear only.

I kept the motor idling against the while the crew unloaded the boat and despite the mechanical problem I started on the return trip reasoning that I would only need forward gear to get back. That reasoning held until I was about half way into the return trip when the drive shaft snapped and all I could get out of the motor was a neutral idle.

The bare essentials that I had kept on board were all contained in my small backpack and such heavy things as oars, spare kicker and the emergency kit had been jettisoned before I left the campground with the heavy load.

I wasn’t worried about eventually making it home. The job foreman back at the river camp was coming in the following morning and we had agreed between us that he would be on the lookout for my drifting boat.

I resigned myself to a night of drifting about at the whim of the elements. The contents of my backpack were few but they included my raingear, one chocolate bar, a harmonica, a jackknife and a silver hipflask of rye whiskey.

Sometime during the night, black clouds, thunder and lightning erupted around me but I felt fairly snug under the small foredeck and the boat was large enough to handle the waves that flowed around me. During the night the boat drifted ten miles south in the direction of home only to have the wind change and reverse the course of my drift back to the north again. I awoke just before sunup when the boat grounded on a gravelly shelf on the east of the lake. During the course of the adventurous night I had eaten the chocolate bar, drank the whiskey and exhausted my repertoire of musical selections.

Near dawn an amphibious aircraft flew by but the only thing I had with me that might attract the pilot’s attention was my bright yellow raingear. I did not get the jacket off in time to do so and the aircraft disappeared.

About nine-o’clock I saw the foreman’s boat crossing the lake and by waving the bright yellow raingear back and forth I was able to draw his attention to my location.

All is well that ends well but you can imagine that forever more there has been an emergency kit in the boat with me. This includes a number of flares and signaling devices.

At that point of my reveries I sat up, started the outboard, threw the exotic plug overboard and resumed trolling for our dinner.

It had no door, there was never any easy access and it’s location stayed remote and hard to find. There was never a bartender, it had no license of any sort and you had to travel about one hundred miles into the raw bush to find it. Just the same it was a comfortable place to just sit, have a friendly cocktail hour and reflect on the wilderness that surrounded it.

The bar had its beginning during a time, some years ago, when a number of us were on the river and stopped at a likely place to build a semi-permanent wilderness camp. The camp had a roofed shelter, some outhouses and a few wall tents – the kind that has a permanent floor, some short walls, bunks and a door that is then covered with a canvas top.

Sometime during the sawing and the hammering the idea of a bar came about. Not a full structure mind, but simply a place to sit and socialize in the evening after the work was done.  We limbed a few trees that were spaced just right, stretched some planks for a seat between them and attached a top made from a cut-off piece of plywood we had left over.  As I recall, the top had six sides but the term hexagon could only loosely be applied as none of sides were of an equal length.

I was told that there had been a trap line cabin at the site in years past and although there were some signs of a previous occupation it wasn’t until we found old leather boot that this fable became believable.  We only found the one, half buried in the moss and it was in bad shape.  A rounded toe, some rubber sole and some strips of leather in which six steel eyelets had been inserted was all that remained of the old boot.  There wasn’t enough left to identify its size or maker.

We had not properly named our watering hole. With little forethought I grabbed a hammer and some nails and mounted the remains of the boot on the trunk one of the trees that supported the plywood bar top by driving a couple of nails through the metal eyelets. After the hanging, we properly christened the place “The Old Boot Bar.”  The relic footwear hung there at eye level and immediately became a conversation piece.

“Maybe the guy only had one foot,” someone started.

“Right or left?” asked another.

“It was a one-legged woman wearing a man’s boot,” said a third.

And so it went.

Over the years we had many a friendly visit with people from all over the world at the Old Boot Bar. The international variety of fantasies that were forwarded by the various patrons kept us all entertained. I haven’t visited the old bar for some years but if you happen across the place and the old boot is still there, hoist a glass and let your fantasies roam.

“Never have,” I reply.  “I don’t think I’ll ever get to the point where I feel I need one.”

“They do come in handy sometimes you know. I can lend you one,” he volunteers.

“Naw, I think I’ll be just fine. Thanks anyway.”

Ironically, several days later I make an involuntary landfall on a narrow strip of rocky beach on the east shore of Lake Laberge. I have three adults and our two dogs with me. We’re completely out in the wilderness with the nearest help on the opposite shore no less than eight kilometers away. It might as well be a hundred kilometers! After some futile attempts to re-start the outboard, I give up and the crew and I unload the large freighter canoe and turn it over on the beach. To make matters worse, a gusty south wind is strengthening and becoming a real concern.

Irene and I sit down and discuss the options. They’re not good. Even if I manage to fix the outboard, it is now too windy to launch the canoe for a test run. All the while of course, in the back of my mind, I remember my friend’s suggestion that I bring a satellite phone — it doesn’t make me feel any better.  Our only option at this point is to wait for other traffic and hope, that whoever it is, has some means of passing a message to someone who is in a position to assist us.

I keep busy by setting up the tents and moving our stuff about to bring some order to our campsite when someone shouts:

“There’s a kayak coming.”

Lo and behold, from around a rocky promontory to the south of camp, a tandem kayak is battling the waves towards us.  It is a young oriental couple on the first day of a trip to Dawson City some six hundred kilometers and two weeks away. Their English is quite good and they have no problem understanding our predicament. The girl pulls a cell phone out of her pack but I know this is not going to work – this is the Yukon and we’re lucky to have these gadgets work around some of the communities.

I know there is a party of canoes ahead of us that is probably carrying a satellite phone. Thinking that they might catch up with this group, Irene writes out a note for them that includes some Whitehorse phone numbers and our location on Laberge.  As they continue their northern journey and we watch the kayak disappear around the next bend we can only hope for the best.

In the early evening, several hours later, we’re sitting around the campfire when we spot a southbound open aluminum boat coming down the shore towards us. The bow of the vessel is at times totally hidden in white froth and spray as the sole occupant slowly beats his way towards our strip of beach. Despite the driving wind and the wild water, he manages to run the bow onto the beach just yards away from our camp.

“Got a message that you were in trouble,” he says.

He explains that the young couple in the kayak handed off our message to him, probably feeling that it would be more expedient than attempting to catch up with someone that “might” have a means of communication.

The boat driver is a Native that lives at the southwest end of the lake and he has every intention of making home that evening despite the adverse weather conditions.  Irene repeats the phone numbers and asks him to contact our friend — the one with the satellite phone — so that he can undertake a rescue mission the next day.

The wind and waves are holding his boat pinned to the beach and it takes four of us to push him back into water deep enough to start the motor.  He heads home and after he disappears around the bend, my thoughts stay with him because I know it is not going to be an easy trip.

During the night there is no respite from the wind. Instead of lessening, it rages on and the continual pounding of the waves against the rocky shore keeps us all semi-awake till dawn.

I am up early and re-kindle last night’s campfire. I am sitting there, a fresh coffee in hand, when I see a large white boat appears on the horizon. I recognize the vessel, whose owner — a local outfitter — seems to be steering in our direction. To make sure that he is aware of our presence, I send up a red flare to get his attention.

He waves and now there is little doubt that he is heading our way but the running waves will make for a difficult landing.  As he gets close he points towards a strip of beach about one hundred yards north of our camp where a landfall will be a little easier.  I make my way to the site to meet him.

“I have a motor here for you,” he says. “Your friend dropped it off at my place last night. I was coming out with my clients anyway so it was no problem taking it along.”

It turns out that when our Native boatman got home, he telephoned my friend on his cell phone that was answered in a local restaurant. Upon hearing of our plight he in turn phoned the outfitter and found that he was heading out on a fishing trip the very next morning.  He then phoned his son and asked him to drop the outboard off at the outfitter’s place on the lake that same evening so that he could take the motor along and drop it off when he found us.

Obviously fate took a hand and it’s great when everything works isn’t it?

Each year there are a number of mice that feel my truck is a safe place for their winter stash. It is also a great source of nesting material in the form of discarded paper towel or tissues that I tend to discard behind the seat. The soft paper can be fluffed up to make a very comfortable nest.

Towards the end of September I start trapping the little buggers. Each evening I set two traps, with a bit of strong smelling cheese or bacon rind for bait, inside the truck. Most mornings I find two of the critters stretched, belly up, wearing the spring-loaded metal bar around their neck.  During the first few days of the short trapping season the undercarriage of my truck is probably marked with an identifiable trail that leads all and sundry to the most convenient penetration point and consequently the execution continues until I’ve eliminated the most gullible of the local rodent population or until the clan gets the idea that perhaps the truck is an unhealthy place to visit.

Enter “Punkin” our Siamese cat and hunter extraordinaire.  In the early stages of the game, she too sniffed out the trail that the varmints were using and put herself in charge of decimating the would be scroungers, one at a time. The little critters jump up into the truck frame to get away from her and hide within the framework or on top of the muffler until her vigilance and interest wanes sufficiently to allow a quick jump down and a race for the shelter of the long grass.

Enter “Meg” our mid-sized black Shepherd dog.  She’s also a hunter and a scrounger, is always hungry and looking for a free meal. She positions herself at the other end of the truck to the cat and the game begins. Rather than climb into the safety of the framework or engine compartment, the little critter drops to the ground and runs back and forth, side to front, back to side, until it’s exhausted. Both the cat and the dog are now under the truck, crouched on all fours and moving in. The cat stands up and gropes the undercarriage where the mouse has finally taken refuge and forces the mouse to drop down onto the ground smack onto the paws of the waiting dog.  There’s a gulp, a crunch and a swallow and the critter is history.

I was sitting on the deck railing watching this performance, intrigued by the teamwork. The dog and cat are tolerant of one another but aren’t the best of friends. In this case the excitement of the chase made them interesting hunting partners.