LIFE OF A SHEEP GUIDE-PART 4

 

 

Chris in Levi’s about 1977.

  How has the life of a sheep guide changed over the past four decades? Wow….then and now! Here is what a typical spike camp accommodation looked like in the 1070′s. Camp shelter consisted of an open air, plastic tarp stretched low to the ground to keep out weather. Today we use roomy mountain tents with two vestibules and zippered mosquito mesh doors. I slept on fragrant Balsam Fir branches instead of a Thermarest mattress stuffed with feathers. Cooking was done over a smoky campfire, with pots hung on small green spruce sticks. No lightweight stoves or even a campfire grill. Of course we had no chemical fire starter cubes, only dry branches to kindle a fire on a rainy day.

  As you can see from the pictures, Levi’s were standard issue camp clothing. When the jeans got wet (which was pretty much every day), they chafed my legs with each step. Today I wear lightweight, synthetic, fast drying tech pants. Raingear was the old yellow, “school yard” variety, where as today my Sitka Gear is worn from dawn to dusk. Warm synthetic fleece was not even on the market until 1979, so heavy wool sweaters kept the chill away (if it rained when wearing them, they weighed about 15 pounds!). Camp shoes were most likely black canvas, high top sneakers, instead of the Goretex Solomon Trail runners I wear today.

 

Chris with a fully loaded Trapper Nelson pack.

  We carried our hard earned trophies off the mountain with a rigid, Trapper Nelson back pack (sturdy wooden frame with one large canvas bag). Today’s guides favor lightweight internal frame packs, with a multitude of compartments. Optics were usually 7 x 35 power Bushnell or Bausch & Lomb products that would “fog up” with the slightest moisture. This season I will be glassing with very expensive Swarovski 10 x 42′s with a built in rangefinder! Camera’s used to be the large bulky rolled film variety where a successful picture depended on what light setting you manually applied. Modern sheep guides can pack a waterproof, crush proof, ultra lightweight digital camera with HD video capability and then download photo’s to share with friends over satellite internet in seconds.

  Hunters rifles have also undergone dramatic change. Wooden stocks have largely been replaced with tough, scratch proof synthetic. Scopes are entirely waterproof and easy to adjust for distance. Short magnums did not exist when I began my guiding career and hunters certainly did not brag about their 700 yard accuracy prowess!

  Perhaps the biggest change that I have seen over the years is in the communication field. Satellite phones did not arrive in the bush until the mid to late 1990′s. Prior to that, the venerable single side band, SBX 11 radio was our exclusive link to the outside world. Used only in base camp, they were a “party line” to gossip in other outfitting camps, as well as a logistical lifeline to our head office in town. Today every guide & hunter has a satellite phone with instant communication capability. Independent spirit and wild solitude have been replaced by social connectivity and increased safety.

  Change, like death & taxes, is inevitable and the quality of life in sheep camp has improved over the years. However a few things never change; morning frost on our sleeping bags, the anticipation of horse bells near spike camp, drinking water the way it should taste from a high mountain stream, fat sheep ribs slowly roasting over an open fire, a double rainbow after an August shower, and savoring an evening sunset over majestic mountains that wild sheep call their home.

LIFE OF A SHEEP GUIDE- PART 3

      

Outfitter George Dalziel about 1974

Chris Widrig mid 1970′s

My grandfather George Dalziel was a very tough “old school” outfitter. He walked into the north by himself, on foot from Telegraph Creek, around the time of the Great Depression.  He certainly had an interesting life; one of the original bush pilots in the Yukon, a successful trapper in the Nahanni region, owned BC-Yukon Air Service, started one of the first B.C. Outfitting Concessions in the Cassiar mountains, and was a famous sheep hunter in his own right  (taking a Stone sheep measuring 50″,  as well as being one of the first North Americans to hunt Marco Polo sheep). No doubt his personality was shaped by years of solitary life in the bush. Dalziel was not the world’s greatest communicator, but when he spoke, I listened. He was always telling me to “make do”…..meaning be flexible, use what you have on hand, and do not whine about what you cannot control. This was valuable advice for my future guiding and outfitting career.

      Dalziel’s favorite saying was “all you really need in the bush is a 30-06 and salt”. Spike camp food staples in the 1970′s were; sheep meat (if we had success), pilot biscuits (hardtack), King Oscar sardines, flour & sugar for bannock, Nabob loose black tea and coffee, canned milk, Tang orange juice, Tulip Canned bacon and canned butter, Nabob jam, Kraft peanut butter, Dad’s oatmeal cookies, and an occasional egg. Guiding for sheep is similar to mountain climbing in that you require about 6000 calories per day just to maintain body weight. Looking at the old pictures I have posted on this blog series, I can’t help but notice how lean I was. Even today I lose about twenty pounds per season guiding for rams and the food is much more calorie rich.

       The first real trophy ram that I guided for was in 1976, a 39″ flaring beauty that is pictured the first blog. The hunter owned a chain of Pizza Huts and was in excellent shape. We hiked in about four hours from Grave Lake and spent the afternoon watching a group of seven rams, waiting for them to get into better position. We eventually retreated and spent a long, frosty night on the backside of the mountain. The morning sun was just coming up when we tried a desperation 450 yard shot. The bullet went right through the curl of the horn , dropping him instantly. Lucky shot….happy hunter….good guide! He gave me his rifle as a tip, an original Ruger 270, that I still use to this day.

      The next season I finally guided for the “holy grail” of sheep hunting, a 40″ ram. This was a long exhausting hunt on the rugged eastern slope of the Horseranch Range, not far from the Yukon border. Our horses were of little use, as we had to climb almost 4000 feet every day in granite rock looking for the only band of rams in the area. Scouting on my own one morning I spotted two rams in an accessible basin. After days of the mountains running us ragged, the stalk provided a relatively easy forty yard shot from above. A heavy horned, dark caped,  40″ x 13/1/2″ ram was soon ours. The fat sheep ribs cooked on a willow stick over an open fire that evening were delicious, but they did little to fill out my young frame. Sheep hunting really is a natural weight loss clinic!

LIFE OF A SHEEP GUIDE-PART 2

Felix Johnny (left) caping Chris Widrigs (right) first ram, August 1974

Chris Widrig carrying ram & 100 pound pack off mountain, August 2012

 

My formative years in the sheep mountains began and ended with horses. Roundup at my grandfather George Dalziel’s Horseranch Lake camp was intense. Long hours of tracking and chasing horses that had just spent the winter in wild solitude on open range. I am sure the horses thought it was all great fun…..lets run away from the wranglers and get the season off! Somehow we always managed to corral the horses we needed. Often there were new colts and occasionally some older horses went missing (wolves having permanently retired them). Horses from nearby outfitters sometimes ended up in our string on the open range. I remember Frank Stewart riding into our camp looking for his lost horses, dressed in leather chaps and a large Stetson hat. Later I met Earl Boose at Grave lake, after one of his favorite horses joined our bunch. These were pioneer outfitters in northern B.C. and I felt privileged to meet them.

  Wrangling horses requires focus, physical endurance and patience. It is not just a matter of looking for fresh tracks or listening for bells. There are trecherous streams to cross, bears to watch out for, and sometimes miles to walk on foot when old Joker or Trigger decided to lead all thirty hobbled horses back to base camp…without the guides. Each morning I would try to get the horses in early enough for the guide & hunter to have a full day in the field. Soaking wet, dressed in a thin jean jacket, running shoes, and carrying a 30-30, I sure did not look like a cowboy. But before long I was proficient in saddling horses, packing horses, shoeing horses, and swearing at horses!

  Focus, physical endurance, and patience are also necessary traits for a good sheep guide. However, the most important requirement for a decent guide is the ability to spot game. Native guides were the best at this as they possessed a natural, instinctive knowledge of sheep habitat (their forefathers had been hunting this area for generations). I was constantly using my Bushnell binoculars trying to spot sheep before the guides,  usually without success. Stone sheep are notoriously difficult to see when bedded in rock and often we would spend an entire day glassing just one mountain. When a group of rams were spotted too late in the day or too inaccessible for a stalk, a decision was made to try for them the next morning. If there was a big ram in the group, the “patience” part was difficult for us all.

  Although the prime years of record book Stone sheep were gone, 1973 and 1974 produced some exceptional trophies. I was in a spike camp along the Major Hart river when guide Felix Johnny returned with a heavy horned 42 1/2″ ram. Guide John Porter brought in a beautiful 41″ ram that was taken right above base camp at Blue Sheep lake. Myles Bradford and hunter Ed Stedman harvested a tremendous 45″ flaring ram that has since graced the cover of several sheep hunting books. Binoculars, spotting scope and measuring tape were my constant companions. Finally in 1974 my grandfather presented me with my first guides licence and I was as proud as an eighteen year old boy could be.

  My first experience actually guiding a sheep hunter by myself occured at Griffith Ridge, near the Rapid River. I have long forgotten the hunters name, but not the details of the stalk. After several days of hard hunting and seeing few sheep, we located a lone ram, high up on a grassy plateau.  It was a difficult stalk and we soon ran out of cover. The distance was probably much further than my inexperienced estimate. This was well before the invention of range finders. A dozen shots rang out and my hunters forehead was covered in blood from a nasty scope cut. Luckily, I was soon skinning my first Stone ram and enjoying the post kill excitement with a very happy hunter. It was a small full curl ram, but I felt I had just passed a big test. Riding into spike camp that evening, Felix Johnny paid me the ultimate compliment; “You did good son. Sheep better watch out or these mountains will soon be full of bones”.

Life Of A Sheep Guide

Looking for dall sheep in the Mackenzie Mountains.

    Forty years climbing mountains is a long time! The rugged peaks where Dall and Stone sheep roam have changed little. The lines on my face have changed a lot. Every band of rams, the difficult 400 yard shots, the sheep ribs roasting on a willow stick, the tough climbs up unstable shale, the 100 lb packs full of meat, cape & horns, the measuring tape stretched to over 40″, the long hours squinting through ten power binoculars, the exhilarating horse ride back to spike camp after a ram is down, and the stimulating campfire conversation are all etched forever in my psyche. I am a sheep guide and this is a blog about how I became one.

     In the summer of 1972 I was invited by my grandfather, outfitter George (G.C.F.) Dalziel, to come out to his camp in the Cassiar Mountains and wrangle horses……a skinny 16 year old kid who had never seen a mountain, a floatplane, a horse, or a wild sheep! My wage that first year was 5.00 per day (it went up to 10.00 in 1973). The learning curve was steep, but every day was an adventure. Having a keen teenage desire to fit in, I worked hard, walked fast, and got up early in the morning. Flying into Blue Sheep Lake base camp for the first time, I was stunned by the sheer beauty of the mountains. Stone sheep, mountain goat, moose and caribou were everywhere, their trails deeply etched into the landscape.

     Almost all of the guides hired by Dalziel were native, belonging to the Kaska band, from small villages like Lower Post, Good Hope Lake, and Upper Liard. These guys possessed phenomenal hunting instincts, as well as an advanced sense of humor (no small feat when they were only a couple of generations removed from the invasive colonization of residential school and European values). A list of guides that I am proud to have ridden the trails with are; Felix Johnny, Doug Reid, Amos Alick, John Porter, Perry Frank, Harry Dick, Don Edzertza, Amos Dick, Charlie Dick, Michael Johnny, Larson Johnny, and Jack George. They were completely at home in their traditional territory where their ancestors hunted for thousands of years. Felix Johnny did not even need binoculars to spot sheep, his eyesight was exceptional. I learned to pack horses, track horses, hunt sheep, and look after hunters from these guides. They were my mentors.

     My first exposure to sheep hunting was at Little Blue Sheep Lake with legendary guide & pilot Myles Bradford and Dr. Drum an American hunter. They made a perfect stalk to within 100 yards and harvested a fine, old, battered horned Stone ram. I followed at a respectful distance during the stalk and tried to keep out of sight. Someone whistled during the stalk and I froze….turned out to be a Marmot. I had no idea that a small animal could whistle. Sheep guides always rember the minute details of their first stalk!

    

     

Chris at Grave Lake in 1976 with 39″ ram.

      Soon the season was over and I had to fly back to Nova Scotia for school. A lasting memory of that first season was the huge pile of ram horns near the dock ready to be flown out to Watson Lake. Fifty Stone sheep harvested….this was well before sheep quotas were implemented in British Columbia. I could see that sheep hunting was a business and quite possibly a career. I also knew that it was in my blood.