It's seems, that it is this time of year that my mind tends to wander to the years I spent growing up in Princeton B.C.
As summer waned, and the new school year loomed in the next few weeks, we would head up into the near-by mountains, to harvest natures BEST Berry, the Mountain Huckleberry. As the pristine mountain streams were home to runted Rainbows, we always had our flyrods and a selection of Royal Coachman Fly's, strapped to our shoulders were the venerable 35 Remingtons or the 32 Winchester Spl's., short,and quick, easy to manuver in the confines of the dense bush that grew along the stream banks.
We were trespassing on the native population of Black and Grizzly Bears in our quest for the Huckleberries that were so desirable to us, and encounters were not an if or a maybe, but a definite when!
We always managed to survive our encounters, sometimes the Bears didn't.
40 years later, in my mind, I still recall the Blue and Silver lard pails that my Grandfather had made wire handles for, so that we could hang the pail around our necks, and keep both hands free for picking, or shooting if needed. The smells of the high Mountain hillsides are such a strong memory, that I can almost smell them as I sit here in front of my computer, the names of the Berry patches are still etched into my memories, Kelly's Basin, Dombergs both up in behind Coalmont, or Rhoedundrem Flats and the Bluffs up the Hope-Princeton Highway.
Kelly's was my favorite, a huge basin set facing south, it had a Trout laden stream at the base, and Berry bushs that were tall with small Berries at the creeks edge, as you climbed slowly upwards, the bushes became smaller and the Berries became larger until you reached the wind blown summit, there the bushs were only a few inchs high, but the berries were the size of my thumb-nail and they were the sweetest Berry in the whole basin. You could stand on the thin crest and look to the north, you were looking down on snow laden peaks of the Cascades, and a small Glacier lake that looked like it was just at your feet.
It's also the patch that almost cost me and my cousins lives, to a Black Bear Sow with cubs.
It was our first trip by ourselves, nobody to keep their eye on a couple of rank 16 yr. old Mountain kids, NO FEAR, NO BRAINS, No RESPECT for the hazards that surrounded us. It worked out in the end, but I can still hear the Bears jaws popping and the deep throated growl that got our attention to her just before she charged!
Yep 40 years, and NO-ONE but my cousin and I knew of this encounter, we knew that if we had said anything about it at home, that would have been the end of our unsupervised outings. He passed away recently, Liver Cancer, he had moved out East to work for the Govt. back in 1977, only saw him once since then, but one of the first things we reminised about were Berries and Bears!
