Back at the Ranch

I never know what to expect when I return to the lodge after a winter in Europe. Last year a grizzly bear had dug up the pipes around the septic tank with predictably scatalogical results.

Another time a ruffed grouse had offed himself against a cabin, shattering the large front window.

And just once, many years ago, a neighbour’s kids had ransacked the place, smashing the front door, rifling through drawers and cupboards, and making off with choice booty that included a flat-screen television.

The teenagers left behind champagne and fancy Scotch, but trousered cans of cheap lager, bowls of coins and some unusually colourful underwear I had bought on a stopover in Dubai.

When they returned to work the place over a second time they were collared by a local cop.

The gumshoe - unlike many of his 21st century co-workers - held to the principles of grit, determination and fairness that had once made the Royal Canadian Mounted Police a force to be feared by ne’er-do-wells out here in the mountain West.  

He charged the kids, damages were paid, and my knickers restored to me. (More on the sordid details of the break-in and the ensuing saga another time.)

Early this month, then, after a flight from London and an overnight in Vancouver with friends, I held my proverbial breath as Kim and I motored up the gravel road that is the final approach to the lodge.

I allowed my memory to mine other disasters now half-submerged in the sediment of time.

There had been the burst shower that had flooded a bathroom, the roof of a treasured vehicle that caved in under the weight of the snow, and the mice that had immobilised our fancy Land Cruiser by chewing through important electronics in the engine.

In the early years entire structures had given up the ghost: once a woodshed, once a stable, and once our four-car garage.

Luckily for the cars the garage, when it gave up the ghost, buckled but did not entirely collapse. Nevertheless it had to be given a coup-de-grace with sledgehammers and then rebuilt from scratch.

I learned over the years - sometimes slowly – and each time a cog in the machinery of wilderness living failed I endeavoured to replace it with something stronger and better.

After a four-foot-thick wedge of icy snow slid off the roof of the main house and unhorsed our sundeck I had metal snow stops installed on the roof. After the various building collapses each new structure was given extra bracing.

Still, there had never yet been a winter that I could remember – and this was my eighteenth – that something had not gone wrong. Was this to be the first?

As we got out of the car and stretched our sore backs, everything seemed to be in exceptional order.

I turned on the water pump…. and the taps flowed. I flicked on the power… and the lights came on. I inspected the cabins… everything was just as we had left it.

“This has never happened before,” I said with a sense of wonder bordering on suspicion.

A woman of (almost) eternally sunny and optimistic disposition, Kim gave me a look that said: I knew everything would be fine. What were you making all the fuss about?

And so, slightly reluctantly, I resigned myself to victory.

We sparked up a fire in the wood stove, unpacked a few edibles, and cooed over the beauty of emergent spring.

Then we stoked up the sauna, and took a favourite walk across the valley with Katya the dog.

I even flew to town and bought us a little luxury - an electrical toaster - something we have never had before.  

Toaster being prepared for take-off

And then, on day five, just as life seemed irresistibly smooth, I noticed the flicker holes. They were spread across the entire west side of the house.

The holes were smallish and egg-shaped and each had a set of scratch marks where the offender had hung on while she – definitely a she as this was nesting behaviour - carried out her mischief.

The Northern Flicker, colaptes auratus, one of our loveliest woodpeckers. Separated by the last ice-age into red-shafted and yellow-shafted and now reunited.

The flipping flicker f*cker.

We had had a run in with a flicker last year. Back then she had made just a few holes in the side of the house.

“Can’t shoot her,” my friend Jakob, a biologist, had said, as if reading my mind. “They are protected by law.”

I wondered if glitzy wind-activated twirlers might work. But, after a little research on the internet, I decided the chances were slim.

And so finally, instead of chasing and tormenting the bird, I drew up plans for a flicker box.

Jakob send me a design. Hans, who does all the serious woodwork here – in a pinch I am a plumber and mechanic but carpenter I am not - constructed a beautiful new box. After much faffing about the flicker finally moved in.

And so, this year, that rather than leap into combat I decided to play the waiting game.

And sure enough, when Hans had sealed off the alternates with small pieces of metal sheeting, the flicker quietly moved back into her box.

And, as I sit here tapping away, I can hear her doing exactly the same.

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NEWS & LINKS

+ The statistics from our wildlife trail cameras last year are in and an interested thing has happened. After a decade when autumn bear sightings got later and later they are now earlier again. Our peak viewing time last year was Oct 19th compared to Nov 1st in 2022. As luck would have it we still have one spot left arriving Oct 16th for four nights, and three spots arriving Oct 20th, when the viewing should be excellent. Click here for more information. If you have booked later than that, don’t worry, we pretty much always have bears around into early November.

+ If you fancy something different, come for a a three-night holiday in September that offers a little of everything: sub-alpine hiking with a chance to watch mountain grizzlies, walks in old-growth rainforests, and a great river rafting trip. Because it is not peak grizzly viewing season it is also less expensive than October. Click here for more. You can check out our website or drop me a line on julius@wildbearlodge.ca