Tally ho!

I have just returned from an exciting and rather informative trip into the remote regions of Canada (Northern Canada, that is, not Vancouver). Although we had our share of trials and tribulations, my two sons and I have returned home safely to our glorious homestead just outside of Canberra. My darling wife Anita was in tears when we arrived and had I been a lesser man, the force of her embrace would have bowled me over. My daughter was also pleased to see us, but I managed to dodge her hug. Anita was eager to hear stories from our trip, but my sons and I had to politely refuse to tell her. During the trip, William tried convincing me to write my memoirs, but on top of my work at the University of Canberra it would be too much, and I would not have time for my other hobbies. Jonathan suggested that I start a weblog on the Internet, in which I could quite easily inform not only my many friends and family, but also total strangers of my adventures and my findings, providing you all with valuable and educational insight into the life of one of the world’s top intellectuals. I shall start with an explanation of the aims of our journey into the Canadian wilderness, and then give a fairly detailed account of our experiences.

Aims:

1. To capture several specimens of beaver, 3 male and 3 female.

2. To hunt down and kill a bear of any species.

3. To construct a large log cabin to be used as a base for any future adventures.

Experiences:

We arrived at the Toronto International Airport on the 2nd of December, 2007 at 6pm local time. My sons requested that we spend a night in Toronto after 49 hours of continuous air travel, but I refused. I announced that we would press on, a decision they would thank me for later. We boarded an extremely small plane and flew north, landing several hours later at an airstrip in the middle of nowhere. A helicopter then took us further north over the forests until we reached the point I had marked on our adventure map. At this point it must have been nearing midnight, but time cannot stop a Samisota, and my sons and I jumped out of the helicopter almost 1 kilometre above the ground. Our luggage was thrown out after us, and the timed parachutes we’d had installed on them activated perfectly as the helicopter was flying away. My sons and I, however, decided to free-fall for a while, and I tell you, there is nothing more exhilarating than falling head first towards an Arctic forest on a cold winter night; it’s fantastic.

At some point, I can’t exactly say when, it became apparent that we were going to land in the forest. Jonathan and I released our parachutes. William, for some reason, did not. Luckily, due to an onset of nerves and crying, he had not leapt out of the helicopter at the same time as Jonathan and myself, and we were able to catch him as he fell past, otherwise he would surely have fallen to his death. I quickly became frustrated, having to hold my unconscious son and it was making us fall faster, so Jonathan released William’s parachute and we let him drift away from us.

The next thing I knew, it was broad daylight. I was suspended some distance off the ground, as my parachute was tangled in the treetops. As I glanced around, I noticed that our luggage was also suspended from various branches. I managed to account for all my bags then began looking around for my sons. William was fairly close-by, still sleeping like a baby. His parachute had slipped through the treetops, somehow, but had been stopped by several branches lower down on the rather impressive trees of this forest. It appeared as though Jonathan, being an exceptionally brave lad, had attempted to cut himself loose from his tangled parachute and as a result was lying in the snow with what looked to be a broken leg and possibly the odd bit of frostbite on his nose.

We hung there for several hours before I heard a noise. At first I thought it was a bird, or possibly a sick animal on it’s way to die. However, it was neither of these things. It was, in fact, the speech of a native savage who had miraculously stumbled upon us in his quest for food. He was calling to the other members of his tribe, and at first they crowded around Jonathan until I yelled at them. There was some commotion amongst them, and eventually one little runt shimmied up a tree and set to work on my ropes. I yelled at him to stop (as I did not wish to fall) but he kept sawing them. Eventually, one of the ropes from my parachute gave way and I swung across to a tree, slamming into it. He cut the rest of my ropes, allowing me to climb down the tree, whereupon I gave him the back of my hand for not heeding my warnings. As the runt went to work on getting William down from the tree, I introduced myself to someone who appeared to be the tribe leader. I couldn’t understand a word of the gibberish he spouted, and he couldn’t understand English, no matter how loudly and slowly I spoke. After several minutes of confusion I managed to figure out that the people were Aztecs, the native inhabitants of Northern Canada, Alaska and other Arctic regions. We spent several hours retrieving the luggage, then returned to the Aztec village, where Jonathan was treated for his minor ailments.

We spent almost two weeks in the village doing almost nothing. The Aztecs seemed to think we were Gods of some sort, judging by the way they avoided our hut and refused to look at us, or talk to us. I perused the local establishments, where I was again treated with great respect; they refused to charge me for anything. Jonathan was still quite sick, but William was a nervous wreck for no apparent reason. I figured rightly that the perfect thing to cheer him up would be a hunting trip with his dear old Pa. I visited the local weapons dealer, took two sturdy-looking rifles and a large assortment of blades, then led William off into the forest. We spent several days tramping through the snow, spending the nights in hammocks suspended from trees. On the 12th day of the hunting trip, we came across a bear cave. After staking out the surrounds for several days we managed to fathom that inside the cave was a female bear and two cubs. The best strategy in this situation is, of course, to kill the cubs first so that you may aggravate the mother into pursuing you so that you may more easily trap and kill her.

On the 18th day of the hunting trip, the mother left the cave to find food, whereupon William and I quickly snuck in and killed the two cubs with our blades, which we did not clean. While this generally would’ve been enough to lead the mother bear to us, I wanted to make sure, so we covered ourself in the blood of the two cubs, then dragged their corpses out of the cave to the nearest river, where we loaded our rifles and lay in wait for the mother bear, keeping the surging torrents of the rapids at our back. It was not long before we heard the mighty roar of the enraged Grizzly as she entered her cave to find her cubs missing, and a trail of blood leading outside.

When the bear reached us, we took aim and fired at her neck (although I suspect William’s aim was a bit off). Our rifles, however, did absolutely nothing, and it appeared as though the Aztecs had sold us lemons. Pulling out my hunting knife I yelled to William, “We will prevail, son, we will prevail!” At this point the bear lunged at him, for he had the cubs behind him. He screamed and jumped backwards into the river, the current whisked him downstream and no doubt he sustained injury from the jagged rocks, but I did not know whether the red waves I saw in the corner of my eye was his blood, or the beast rising within me, giving me the power to tackle this mighty foe. I lunged forward, and dug my knife into the bear’s side, who in turn gave me a whack on the side for my trouble. I was sent flying, yet I landed safely on the other side of the river. I pulled out the Aztec machete that I had found in the village and prepared for another confrontation. My coat was lying on the other bank, ripped apart by the bear’s mighty claws; all that stood between me and this fearsome beast was the coat of thick black hair on my chest. The bear leapt across the river towards me, but then its neck exploded. I looked round in astonishment to see the runt from the Aztec village holding my rifle in his hands. I looked at the bear, which had been pinned to the ground by a spear that the boy had shot through the animal’s neck.

We returned to the village (on the runt’s snowmobile) to find a shaken William who, despite some minor cuts scattered about his body, was fine. It was at this point that he suggested I write my memoirs, the tone in his voice was confusing, but he meant well all the same. Jonathan was up and about, and greeted us enthusiastically, pointing out that his nose now added to the “beaten adventurer” image he was trying to cultivate. The Aztec chief approached and spouted some nonsense at us, but we all ignored him and instead revelled in our victory (I had bought back one of the dead cubs).

That night, upon returning to our cabin, we found all our belonging outside and the door locked. Mystified, we ventured a few hundred metres into the nearby forest, figuring that now was as good a time as any to start working on Objective Number 3: the base. We spent the night felling trees, and my morning we had 3 cut down. We had just started to work on removing the bark when a familiar sound appeared in the sky above us: a helicopter was flying over the treetops. I ran back to the village, leaving Jonathan and William with our trees, and found the Aztec chief talking to a man in a ridiculous outfit. Upon spotting me, this man strode over and introduced himself (in English!) as a ranger. It turned out that the Aztecs had ratted us in for hunting without a “permit”, how they did so I don’t know, as it is impossible to understand their language. However, to make a long story short, we were to leave with the ranger. I protested of course, but he insisted, and it’s very un-Samisotian to turn down an offer of hospitality so I fetched the boys, packed the luggage and off we went.

When we reached the ranger’s base, we were incarcerated and I was told that until I paid the total fine of $25,000 (apparently those particular bears were protected, poppycock in my opinion, and if so, why isn’t the runt the one being fined?). I held out on them for a total of 19 days before giving in to the man’s ridiculous demands. There was no way, of course, that Anita could raise such money to pay a ransom, and she does not have access to my bank account, so we would have been trapped in there forever unless, by some miracle, the sadistic ranger had repented. I handed over a check for $25,000 (a mere fraction of my fortune, I assure you) and we were sent on our way to Toronto along with a 104 week ban from hunting in Canada.

And that, my friends, brings me to the end of my log for tonight. There may have been details that I missed in this post that I shall inform you of, but if not, I bid you adieu till next time, when we shall (no doubt) discuss something equally scintillating, educational and, of course, Samisotian.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that we failed (not through lack of effort) to achieve our first Objective on this trip. There were simply no beavers to be found, it was quite infuriating.