It started with a conversation over lunch a couple of weeks back with Monique and Ferdinand, friends of Keli. As part of my continuing attempts to understand the strange Canadians I bump into everyday I thought I would tackle the subject of hunting. I mean hunting? Canadians are nice to the point of extinction, probably the most inoffensive nation on earth? But over lunch I discovered that Monique’s family are hunters, and that both her and Ferdinand use their own guns to hunt deer, elk and moose during the fall. This I had to see.

We arrive at the Klein’s workshop to find Mrs Klein, aged 73, chiselling Elk blood and flesh off the table of an industrial bandsaw that could have cut a Mini Metro in two straight down the middle. Dressed in a 1950s pink blouse and trouser combo. Hair curled and set to perfection. Green sparkling eye shadow, dark eye-liner extending to the side, blusher on her cheeks.  She takes one look at Keli and grabs her in a big hug, chisel in one hand, bleach rag in the other.

Pelts hang all around the workshop, some killed by the Klein’s and others by customers waiting for Mr Klein to turn them into a fur coat or a handbag. Mr Klein explodes through the door, a giant of a man with hands like shovels and a belly built with meat he stalked, killed, butchered himself. A man of a previous age, with a touch of a bully or slave driver in him. Thoroughly Austrian, with a think accent, he bellowed at Mrs Klein and slapped me around the workshop encouraging me to laugh at his jokes. They were both wonderful.

We spent an hour with them, and after a few minutes talking in the workshop Monique led us upstairs to the trophy room where Mr Klein hangs his personal collection of heads and full bodies, and where he sells pelts and stuffed animals to the public. I was amazed. All four walls of the room were lined with mounted heads. The old pool table was buried in layers of bear, wolf, coyote, elk, and deer pelts. A stuffed cat in a basket sat on a sofa, awaiting collection by a loving owner who couldn’t let go. One wall section held the results of Africa on a hunting trip in the 70s: hippo, zebra, antelope heads, and a chess table held up by an elephant foot. The elephant had died of natural causes, and Mr Klein had purchased the foot.

Bears are only considered a problem in Canada when they’ve learned how to enter your house and open your fridge to get at the goodies. Until then they’re easy to live alongside. A bear on your sofa, drinking a warm beer and watching a movie is cool. If the beer is cool however, the bear is not. Mr Klein conversed passionately about Parks and Wildlife in BC, who kill the offending bears to protect the population, but then just dump the carcass in landfill. These were people who have survived a war, and understood what is was to live on very little. Meat is precious, and meat killed, butchered, and cooked by your own hand is optimum.

I love Canada. I’m so at home in its wild terrain and expansive landscapes. The seasons here are so potent, from long warm Okanagan summers to cold crisp Whistler winters. As I listened to the Kleins talk about how they used every part of the animals, and that they had 6 chest freezers full of meat that they had butchered themselves I got so excited about hunting and the prospect of sustaining myself without relying on Tescos.

Hunting for sport without an appreciation or need for the meat, or hunting species that are endangered, I have a problem with. But spending a long weekend tracking moose in northern BC. Learning about the habits of the animal, learning how to kill the animal with minimal suffering, carrying the carcass out to your truck with your own hands. It’s the disconnection from the reality of meat eating that I find offensive, not the reality of killing animals.

We headed up to Monique and Ferdinand’s for a long evening of wine, laughter and beautiful moose steaks. I felt so privileged to have met the Kleins and be welcomed into their very special home. One more step along the journey of my Canadian education, and other lesson on sustainable living that convinces me that turning our attention to growing our own food, and reconnecting with the reality of a diet that includes meat is essential if we plan to continue living on this planet for more than a decade or two more.

Next time it’s fitness and exercise, that thought is coming together. I’m gutted I didn’t have a camera to show you some of the incredible sights in the trophy room. I’m hatching a plan to return for a visit and take some shots of me wrestling grizzly bears!

A view from the canoe

Wow. On Monday we got back from our 8 day canoe trip on the Bowron Lakes a chain of lakes, rivers and over land portages in a provincial park 600 km north of Vancouver. It was exceptional.

Prior to the trip my only experience of the wilder side of Canada was from Dennis and Pat’s boat, and I was really excited to get out of the city and experience what is actually the majority of Canada – vast, unspolied landscapes with diverse wildlife and stunning views.

We were invited to do the trip by a childhood friend of Keli’s, Niki, and her husband Pat. In addition to the four of us there was Niki’s dad Wayne, her sister Heidi and partner Adrian, Niki’s brother Davy and partner Lyndsey, Pat’s mum Cathy, and two of Pat’s friends Nancy and Toni. 12 in all, a big enough group really for such a venture, and Kel and I were both excited by the opportunity and aware of the potential for group dynamic drama!

We drove up to Quesnel, a rural town an hour outside Bowron Provincial Park on Saturday evening and checked into a motel, roadtrip-style, before meeting as a group for a short orientation and then straight to bed for a final good night’s kip. The journey up was a beautiful drive through Whistler, Pemberton, and Lillouet on a road that wound it’s way through glacial mountains beside perfect rivers and lakes. Completely other-worldly to me.

Making a quick sandwich before our first portage

On Sunday morning we collected our rental canoes and equipment from a local company and headed to the lake for our safety briefing and registration. What followed was a hilarious insight into the differences between UK and Canadian attitudes to health and safety. The park staff member was very well meaning, but clearly in another orbit. The bear safety chat included gems such as ‘I’ve nicknamed the bear that lives on sites 2-7 George, he just seems to live there and isn’t dangerous as he doesn’t associate humans with food, yet. If he does show up just chase him away.’ The river safety was even better, our guide couldn’t remember the exact location of the dangerous rapids and waterfall, and always missed the signs when she was on the river, but we needn’t worry as she was sure it would make sense when we got there.

And actually on balance I think they’ve got something really right. The bears kept themselves to themselves for the whole week as campers use the steel storage bins provided at each campsite to keep food and scented products like soap and toiletries out of their way; and it was actually easy to make judgement calls about the rapids when we got to them. This was a relatively dangerous week long excursion in a remote area made available to anyone who fancied it and was prepared to use common sense. Simple really.

60 lbs, plus a little

Following our briefing we headed out to our canoes to begin our first overland portage to the first lake. We were weighed prior to departure and only allowed to carry 60 pounds of weigth (about 27 kg) in the canoe while portaging on dirt trails using small wheels that strapped to the bottom of the boat. Keli and I aren’t light packers, as evidenced by our 600 quid excess baggage charges on the now defunct Flyzoom on the way over – perhaps our fuel bill contributed to their demise? But the general rule was that you carried all your additional weight on your back until you got round the first bend, and then bucked it all into the boat for the rest of the week – that’s more like it.

As a provincial park the lakes and surrounding woodlands are very well preserved, and it was lovely to spend the week travelling around the park without running into plastic bags in hedges and left over sweet wrappers in the campsites. Canadians are known for their bend-over-backwards-to-not-offend-anyone style, and I really appreciate their care of the environment, at least in BC, if not in redneck Alberta.

All Canadians appear to be natural born outdoors adventurers, but this little Holywood boy was a slow starter! My kayaking lessons in Templemore Baths at age 10 did give me a good start at this one, although I don’t remember returning to class the week after it was discovered that I was responsible for the plop at the bottom of the pool that was beginning to disintegrate and flot to the top of the pool – I was anal-retentive in my earlier years and didn’t much trust foreign toilets.

Kel and I swapped ends of the canoe a few times before settling on me at the back doing the steering, and Keli up front providing the power. We made good progress, and by the third day were really confortable paddling on lakes, and looking forward to the challenge of rapids and chutes in the river later in the week. The sense of peace and deep quiet when paddling on the lakes was arresting. 46 people are allowed on the lakes every day of the season, and yet in the first four days we didn’t meet anyone apart from our group of 12. This meant that it was often just Keli and I paddling on our own as we set off from camp some morning a few minutes apart from the others.

Canoes are confined spaces, and some of our reflections on the trip as we drove home were actually that it had been an interesting experiment pre-sailing on how we do in confined spaces. It’s funny how quickly we resort to inflexible positions that create conflict, when actually there are always more possibilities to solve the problems we have arrived at. One person sitting at the back of the boat being responsible for steering, while another is at the front with better visibility created a few tense moments that we laughted about afterwards.

Preparing for a trip to the wilderness is a little different to preparing for a trip to Donegal for a week. We borrowed Dennis and Pat’s tent, and some sleeping bags from Keli’s cousins. We already had our camping stove and pots, thermorets, and long johns. I had checked the forecast for the week and saw all these nice high’s of 12, 14 and 16 degrees – lovely. What I hadn’t noticed however was that the lows were all 1, 2 and 3! Keli and I totally froze on the first night and didn’t really sleep at all, it was horrible. The next day we scavanged some extra warm clothes, an extra groundsheet and a foil emergency blanket and things got much better from there. The only other hitch was the all night downpour that essentially destroyed Dennis’ copy of Bill Bryson’s Tales from a Big Country… and I was actually enjoying that book too!

For future reference my top 10 things I must bring in future are:

1. Warm clothes for cold nights
2. Quick-dry trousers that zip off to become long shorts
3. My Arc’teryx shell jacket
4. Rope to tie things into the boat and make clothes lines in the campsite
5. Proper sandals for getting wet and not falling off (like my Birks did, never to be seen again)
6. Washing up bowl
7. Chopping board
8. Sub-zero rated sleeping bags (like these camping sleeping bag)
9. Water filtration pump to clean up the river water for drinking and cooking
10. Hot chocolate and hot apple cider sashets – warms you to the core!

Group dynamics are always tricky things on these type of adventures, and we had a few tense moments during the course of the week, which is totally normal. On the whole though it was really lovely to meet and be accepted by an established group of people, and be allowed into their lives. Each member of the group found a fun role that allowed them to be themselves and have their moments, Kel took to massages by the campfire, and I shamelessly played up to some Irish stereotypes, particularly scarcasm and comedy potty-mouth. We all went out for dinner in Quesnel when we got back on dry land and it was really nice to have a way of closing the week that cemented friendships.

One of the enjoyable and exciting parts of the week was Keli and my trip through a chute and rapids section on the Issac river. Much of the water was very still and easy to navigate, but the Issac river provided some excitment mid journey, and both Kel and I really got a taste for whitewater travel.

Keli and I are extremely grateful for the opportunity to get into the wilderness like we did. Niki and Pat did a great job putting the trip together, and it was another really unique way to see Canada. Hopefully just the beginning of adventures in BC, and beyond. I’ll leave you with my favourite image of the trip…

Looking north from the south end of Issac lake onto still waters and a blue sky