Next week, my oldest son and I are headed off to the north woods to go fly-fishing. We have organized something like this every couple of years, ever since he was 12 . That was the year my next door neighbour talked us into a trip west to hunt ducks. Oscar had been bugging me for years to join him on his annual foray to the slough country on the Saskatchewan-Alberta border for the great fall waterfowl migration. So I turned the computer off, hauled the lad out of school and caught a cheap flight to Edmonton.
Oscar’s been chasing birds around Leftovers, Alberta for so long that the owners of the Big Sky Motor Inn have a room named after him. On our first morning out scouting, we drove into the farmstead of Ollie and Ellie Nordstrom, a spruce-lined laneway with a large angry sign on the gate that read “Mad Cowboy Lives Here.” Big dogs eyed us suspiciously but allowed us onto the veranda. A woman lifted her head from the kitchen sink and scowled at the guys in camo gear. She snatched up a dishtowel, mopped her hands dry and elbowed the storm door open a crack. Then she saw Oscar and her face softened into a smile.
“Well, I’ll be dipped and battered,” she said. “Come on in. Who are your friends, Oscar?”
For every hour we sat in the blind waiting for birds that week, we spent at least five sitting at kitchen tables and leaning on truck boxes, visiting. The weather was damp and the harvest was late. Combines sat in fence corners, poised to move whenever the moisture test gave the green light. The farmers were fussing with augers and grain bins in a futile attempt to take their minds off the steady countdown toward the inevitable snowstorm that would spoil everything. You could tell there was a lot of nail-biting and it seemed inappropriate to interrupt with a request to go hunting. But everywhere we met ready smiles and warmth.
We found Ollie in one of his grain bins sweeping. He grabbed Oscar in a bear hug and an hour later, the subject finally steered around to geese. They decided the biggest flock had gathered three miles south on a field of peas that Ollie had just harvested.
“What do you think?” said Oscar.
Ollie thought for a moment. “Well, why not?” he said and set the broom up against the wall. The next morning, the four of us sat in the blind in the dark, my son holding onto Oscar’s black lab, Skeet, who had no control over his emotions when wings rustled overhead. Honks announced the first flight coming in and Skeet ripped away from us, tore through the blind and went woofing out into the decoys with camo netting trailing behind him.
That’s it for hunting, I thought, and stood up. The sky was dark with geese and ducks. Canadas, snows, white-fronts and speckle-bellies, pin-tails, mallards, teal. They criss-crossed in front of us in the thousands. It was like Africa. My son stood beside me watching in amazement.
“That’s a lot of birds, Dad,” he said reverently. A whole new flock approached from the north. Behind it was another, and another, stretching in a line that went all the way back to the horizon.
“Sit down you guys,” said Ollie. “We may get another chance.”
In the end, the ecological footprint we left on the prairies was quite small. Between the ructions of the dog and our inability to hit anything beyond 30 feet, few birds perished. But there was another harvest just as important. We attended potluck suppers and turkey shoots, were asked to sign petitions complaining about deplorable telephone service and Internet access, we looked at photo albums of trips abroad and weddings, we listened to new business ventures and viewed properties that had changed hands. And we had a drink or two, I will confess.
My son fretted about getting behind on his math, until Ollie pointed out that 20 years from now he wouldn’t remember a single thing about grade nine, but he would always remember his first western duck hunt.
As we cruised the gravel roads looking for Hungarian partridge and likely pea fields, I glanced back from time to time to check that he wasn’t getting bored. He and the dog had their heads stuck out the same window gulping the fresh air. The next time I looked, the two of them were fast asleep in each other’s arms.
I have a picture on my desk of a boy and his dog standing on a pea field in the golden morning light, proudly holding up a mallard drake. Ollie was right. I don’t remember a thing about the deadlines I missed that week. But I will always remember the duck hunt.
And next week we will go fishing.
- Dan Needles