Moose, mistakes and other musings
Lance is quite a character and his story will intertwine not only with Amos, but other people around Ministikwan Lake, so it may take several weeks to explore an event or two in which Lance was involved. After 55 years of working the family farm and accumulating more than 11,000 acres of productive land in southern Saskatchewan, Lance decided to semiretire, selling his share of the machinery to his business partner and brother Larry. Being a Christian man, it was Lance’s desire to commit six months of the year to the Lord’s work wherever that path may lead. For the first while Lance and Karen worked with troubled youth in Calgary, then on to a bible camp north of Prince Albert, from there they were enticed to Ministikwan Lake and our neighbours Southridge Bible Camp, where they hung their hat for several years until their volunteer position was eliminated. It was during their stint at Southridge that we came to know Lance. Apparently on our first meeting Lance had expressed an interest in bear hunting and felt I had brushed him off stating we had all the help we needed. So, it wasn’t until the following fall when we got together and he came to work with us on the deer hunt, although he would only come if it didn’t interrupt his annual moose hunt over by Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan. This was fine with us and the schedule was set, he would be back after a week of moose hunting. While Lance was away, Amos came on his hunt and was yet to meet Lance. If I recall correctly it was a Wednesday, Amos and I were moving hunting locations when Lance stopped us on the road. Of course I am very curious to know why he is back so early and all he can say is he made a mistake. Understand when Lance tells you something he inevitably will just let out a tidbit of information expecting you to gather up the rest for yourself, after you have known him for a while you become aware of his antics. So I said “what did you do, shoot a cow?” Low and behold that was the truth – he had shot a cow moose in a bull only season. At that point I was trying to find the humour in the situation and I can only wonder what Amos was thinking. So Lance started into this long winded story about the moose standing behind some willow bushes and he saw the head moving up and down. The key thing being that he could see the white of the ear which as Lance would tell you is a trait of the male moose and the reason he shot it dead. Following the error he did the right thing, he put his tail between his legs and reported the incident to the local game warden, who subsequently charged him with the offence. This is where Lance lost all of his sense of humour, but was willing to go before a judge to plead his case. Having said all that we now knew why he was back so soon, off he went to check one of our hunting locations. A couple of hours later Lance just about runs us off the road trying to stop us, he flies out of the truck coming over to Amos’ side window and literally starts talking so fast he cannot formulate the words fast enough to get them out of his mouth. He is almost frothing at the mouth, fi nally he gets it out, he had just seen a bull moose and it had a white inner ear which in his mind confi rmed what he had thought all along. Normally you would never hear a foul word come from Lance’s mouth, but during this session he let a few choice words fly and wasn’t he going to show the game wardens which way was up, he said “those _ _ _ _ game wardens their ass is grass and Lance is the mower.” Finally, Lance gets it all out and leaves us to go on our way. Amos looks at me and says, “I am going to write a song about that guy, I can’t believe what just happened.” To date the song has yet to be written, but is reported to be a work in progress. As for Lance he pled his case and won, returning rather sheepishly after his victory. |
