Hunting with Mike

It has been my honor to hunt many different places in my sojourn here, but my Quebec Caribou hunt holds some special memories indeed. August is the “start up” month for a hunt of this nature. Usually by mid-month the various Caribou outfitters are going full tilt with their guiding business. Our outfitter was Delay River out of Shefferville Quebec via Montreal. Upon arriving at Shefferville all the various components (license, gear, aircraft, camp helper, ect.) of the hunt are taken care of. We would be the first hunters to use this particular camp, which was “Delays” northernmost outpost. Andy Cox our 19 year old camp jack-of-all-trades would prove to be a most capable outdoorsman despite his youthful age.

Our camp was newly constructed canvas over 2×4 framing, with a dock for our one boat, flown in earlier. The bunk beds, outhouse, and meat tent had not been completed, so Andy had his work cut out for him right off the bat. We had seven hunters in our group and we were all itching to explore this beautiful pristine landscape. No doubt the inhabitants of this surreal setting had never laid eyes on a man before!

Let me say here that this hunt was a rousing success, and each one of us harvested a quality bull caribou with archery equipment. In fact four of us took our two bull limit,with several Pope and Young animals in the group. Those individual stories, the bear sightings, the huge “brookies” and lake trout, are not the focus of this article. Andy Cox and the miracle on “no-name” lake is!

John West, Steve Sova, Pastor Bob Baltrip, Bill Bondy, Marvin Bays, Jack Peterson, and Myself made up our camp of hunters. The mornings would begin with Andy dropping off guys to the various spots they had chosen around the lake. Guys hunting the north side of the lake, of course, would walk to their destinations. At noon Andy would motor out to pick up hunters for lunch or to check on the mornings success. This particular lake was 10 miles long and about one and a half miles wide, so the boat was one of our most valuable possessions. For the most part the southern shore line was marshy with pockets of tundra and woods-not an easy hike, but many nice bulls had been spotted in this area.

Around noon of the third day Bob and I were already back at camp when we heard the boat coming into the dock. It was Andy, Steve, and Bill. Jack still needed to be picked up and John would come trudging in a few minutes later. Andy had to use the outhouse, and the rest of us were laying down or fixing something to eat. I just happened to exit our cook tent when I saw the boat drifting away from the dock. Some one had committed a cardinal sin and forgot to tie the boat off! I yelled to Andy who responded “do you know how to swim?” I said I did, but then had second thoughts, and continued “but not that well.” Bob and I grabbed our fishing poles and were trying to snag the boat with our heavy lake trout lures. It was to far out of range as our best cast were landing a few feet short. In the mean time Andy had taken his shoes off and gingerly  entered the frigid deep waters. He left his sweat suit on as he started his rescue attempt. About 80 yards from shore Andy turns around and looks at us as if to say goodbye! Only his head is above water, he is not moving, but the boat is! Bob and I immediately start praying-out loud! As we pray Andy turns and make one last valiant effort to reach the boat. He’s only about 20 feet away when he splashes to an arm weary halt, and we realize Andy doesn’t possess the energy to go forward, or come back. The bone chilling water has “zapped” his strength. At that precise time during the height of our intersession the wind picked up and started moving the boat faster away from Andy. This did not look good, but God knew what He was doing! The wind picking up, moving the boat faster, was not a bad thing, as this action made the 30 foot long length of rope come to the surface of the water, and surf right past Andy’s outstretched hand. As we yelled for Andy to grab the rope he frantically took hold and started pulling himself to the boat. Now the problem was getting his “naked ” cold blue body into the boat. What we didn’t know was when Andy stopped the first time his sweats had gone down around his ankles tying his feet up. He wasted precious energy trying to get them off without putting his head under the water. Now his attempts to pull himself into the boat seemed futile. He was drifting out of ear-shot and growing weaker by the moment. We prayed “God he despartly needs your help to get in that boat please give Andy a boast!” On what was probably Andy’s last attempt (7th.) he found a foothold on the motor and pulled himself into the boat to a cheering section of thankful hunters. It took Andy several attempts to get the motor going, and we had a pile of wool blankets waiting for him at the dock. A roaring fire was soon going as we massaged Andy’s limbs back to their normal color. Gods mercy and grace were certainly upon us, and we thanked Him for hearing our cries for help. Andy heard the plan of salvation that day, and asked Jesus into his heart. I’ve only heard from him one time since that trip, but he was doing well guiding hunters in British Columbia or “Gods Country” as he called it. Of course I have learned that “Gods Country (Kingdom)” is not in some distant far away place, but right here- right now. He is “a very present help in time of need.”

Mike

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 10:50 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.