Picture this.
A nice cool day in July, sitting on the gravel along the shore of an untouched river in the far north, using a shoulder height boulder as a backrest.
It’s lunch time, and my wife, Maxine, and four of our children and I are all on the shore of a river in northern Canada.
Our guide has just prepared a delicious shore lunch of sweet and sour lake trout, a foil wrap of oriental vegetables and an onion bomb. And to top it off, he’d spread out an array of homemade cookies that the camp’s chef had made earlier in the morning before breakfast. We also had fresh oranges, apples and bananas from the cooler.
The sun was glistening off the river, and we could see where piles of snow were still melting further up the river in the shadows of the undergrowth, where the snow some years never totally disappears.
Everyone had helped themselves to the food, and I for one am about to dig in. I’m starved after a morning of hard fishing. I’m tired, my back hurts, and — no exaggeration — my arms ache from fighting monstrous fish.
I load up my fork, and the guide yells, “Bill, don’t move!”
“What?”
“Just don’t move!”
“Are you kidding me?”
My daughter, Polly, stands up, “Dad, he’s right. Don’t move.”
Now, here I am in God’s country, several thousand miles from home, ready to enjoy my lunch, and the guide, and now my daughter, are telling me to sit still and not to eat my lunch. Are they out of their minds?
By now, everyone is in the act, Maxine is begging me to please sit still. My kids are all pleading with me. So I stop moving.
As calmly as I can muster, I ask, “Is it a bear?”
“No.”
The guide says, “Listen to me carefully. Pick up your plate off your lap. Move it very slowly away from your body. Then without moving your head or your back away from the rock, dump your food as far off to your left side as you can reach. Don’t move quickly and don’t move your head, your back or your position.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Yes, I am. If you want to enjoy the rest of your fishing trip, you will do exactly as I just said.”
“OK.”
I moved my plate very slowly with my left hand. I moved it as far away from my body as I could. I then turned over the plate, and all of my lunch landed on the gravel.
It was then that I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, near my left ear.
The guide ordered, “Don’t move.”
The kids were saying, “Please, Dad, stay still.”
Soon thereafter a white animal, about the size of a small rat, jumped from the rock behind me to my shoulder and from there to my lap, then to the gravel and from there to the food I had just dumped on the ground.
Although startled, I did what I’d been told and didn’t move. The animal grabbed a piece of the fish that had been on the plate and dragged it across the gravel to some rocks and disappeared among them for a few seconds. It came back out of the rocks, ran back to my food and grabbed another piece of fish and took it back to the rocks. It ignored all of us and concentrated on moving the fish until it was gone.
By then I was on my feet and being calmed down by the guide.
He told me that this was a weasel. It was white because it lived here in the frozen north. It is also one of the most vicious animals for its size. It has been known to attack large animals, including humans, with its strong jaws and fierce bite.
Apparently the weasel was looking for food for its kits, and we stumbled into its hunting grounds. Fortunately, it would seem that the weasel had not previously seen a human before and wasn’t frightened of us. It just wanted to eat, not fight.
That made two of us. All I wanted to do was eat and not fight as well.
So we caught another fish from shore. The guide cheerfully cleaned the fish and prepared it. This time, however, I stayed away from the weasel’s den. And, this time, we gave the weasel and her young a filet of fish as well as what remained of the fish after it was cleaned.
Just like in our everyday lives, had I been aggressive with the weasel and assumed it had intentions of hurting me, I wouldn’t have walked away without experiencing a very dangerous encounter, when all the weasel wanted was to feed her young.
Once I understood, it turned out well, and I feel like a much better person for having shared my lunch.
Bill Gindlesperger is a central Pennsylvanian, Dickinson College graduate, Pennsylvania System Of Higher Education (PASSHE) Governor, Shippensburg University Trustee, and Chairman of eLynxx Solutions. eLynxx software coordinates and drives communication, specifying, approval, procurement or production, reporting and activities necessary to obtaining direct mail, marketing materials, promo and all other printing. He is a board member, campaign advisor, successful entrepreneur, published author and commentator. He can be reached at [email protected].
