Please, God don’t let my dad die
The year was 1980 in the Purcell mountains of southern British Columbia. A gorgeous and remote mountain range with very little human population, despite its southern location in milder weather. An outdoorsman‘s paradise where you can hunt or view, grizzly bear, mountain goat, elk, mule deer, black bear, coyotes, wolves, lynxs, bobcat, cougar, and even Caribou. yes believe it or not mountain caribou live at high elevation, which is similar to the tundra of the north. Very interesting but that’s a story for another time.
Well in 1980 I was 11 years old hunting with my dad Harvey, who would have been 38. This is Harvey’s hunting story told from my perspective.
At 11 years old, my brain was a sponge, and I had the hugest desire to learn everything my dad knew. I was getting bigger, stronger, more capable and hadn’t hit those teenage years yet. You know those strange years when you think you know everything? My uncle used to call them the bonehead years a statement I thought ridiculous until my own son’s turned that age, how accurate he was. You know how it is when you get to be around 16 or 17 and think that your generation has personally discovered sex, alcohol and being cool, and your parents know nothing of these things.
But I wasn’t there yet, I was 11 years old and I looked up to my dad as everything I wanted to be. Someday I’d be big and strong and drive a truck around in the bush anywhere I wanted but for now, I was by my dad’s side.
We left our house early in the morning, thermoses filled with coffee and hot chocolate as well as lunch kits with sandwiches and cookies prepared the night before by my mom. It would be over 1 Hour drive from our home into the mountains where we wanted to glass (look) for goats. looking for mountain goats and grizzly bears was my dad‘s favourite pastime. It brought him into the gorgeous high Alpine country, where his love for Flora and Fana expanded. As we walked the roads and trails in those mountains, he would tell me of track and sign. He would talk about weather, time, daylight hours and precautions we should take. He taught me the ability to have a keen eye and the patience to wait. We would talk about edible or useful plants and how to build an emergency shelter or even a cabin. Those were great times. I especially loved hunting goats as usually they were so far away that I could talk as much and as loudly as I wanted. Exuberantly learning from my mentor and hero.
Slowly, we drove up the old logging road that was in surprisingly good shape, although very narrow and steep. Harvey was an experienced mountain driver, and could easily navigate that road while listening to my stories, answering my many questions, drinking a tea and saying “oh, really, wow!” as I talked on and on. Time spent in that truck with Dad as my dad captive audience are some of my fondest memories. Eventually, we reached a place where the valley narrowed, and the mountain on the other side of the valley was less than 1000 m away. That side of the mountain was steep it was about 80% sheer rock with about 20% clumps of vegetation clinging here and there. Perfect mountain goat country. No cougar, Wolf or bear would risk its life to try and catch its next meal up there. We stopped and decided to look around.
“Well, look at that” my dad said leaning over the hood of the truck, binoculars pressed to his eyes. “What is it?” I said throwing a stick down and leaving my imaginary sword fight. “Well, I’ll be darned. If that ain’t a big Billy goat straight across the valley from us,” said Dad, pondering his next move. He gave me a chance to look through the binoculars and sure enough, this large goat with big curved horns, and a bushy goatee beard was staring straight back at me… quite unconcerned. He was all by himself, which is another clue as to whether the goat is male or female. You see mountain goats, both Billy and Nanny have horns, yes, horns not antlers, meaning, they never shed them, but keep them year-round, Horn is made of the protein keratin, the same material that makes fingernails, claws, hooves and hair. The horn is an outer layer with a core of bone. In any case, identifying a male from a female can be difficult, and there are many clues that you have to find before a correct identification can be made. We had all the time in the world to stare at this lonesome Billygoat and we’re certain it was a Billy, not a Nanny.
“Hum.” My dad pondered. “How in the world will I get close enough to get a shot at that goat that is staring straight at us?” Goats have amazing eyesight and there is absolutely no way you can sneak up on one if he already sees you or if there is a line of sight towards where you are. A goat has eyes like a hawk, and he was probably seeing us as clearly as we were using our binoculars. In any case, there was no sneaking up on this big old boy. Normally we would hike down to the valley bottom cross the raging glacier Creek climb way around where we couldn’t be seen and move above the goat and try to sneak down to where we could see him. This plan and assault wasn’t going to work this time, too much open country, too far to walk around. “How far do you think it is from here to that goat straight across this valley” my dad asked. You see, back in those days, 1981, we didn’t have rangefinders. Normally what you would do when trying to find range is look at a distance that you could judge accurately, for example, from here to that tree is 100 yards and then I can tell that that animal is three times that distance making my estimation to be 300 yards. That’s the way we did it back in those days. There were also no fancy scopes that adjusted for bullet drop, nor were we aware of any ballistics. We only knew from trial and error, how much bullet drop there was at different ranges, for the calibre you shot. Anyway, this is all to say that long-distance shooting was not a thing back then.
“I don’t know, looks like a heck of a long way to me” I said, wondering if he was thinking about shooting that far? With absolutely nothing in between us and the goat to help gauge distance, it was hard to estimate. “Well, that looks like 600 yards if it was an inch” my dad said… “could be farther” he mentioned bringing the binoculars back to his eyes. About 10 more minutes passed when my dad looked at me and said, “I think I got a plan. I’m gonna take a rest on the box of this truck and aim about 3 feet high. I want you to take these binoculars, and watch that goat. Concentrate on keeping your eyes open. Put these earplugs in so you won’t flinch when the shot rings out. With your eyes wide open you should be able to see where the bullet hits the snow above or below the goat. Then tell me and I’ll adjust my follow-up shot.” “OK Dad” I couldn’t believe my good luck in being an active part of this hunt. My dad put his jacket down on the hood of the truck laying his rifle on that for about as steady and perfect rest as he could get. He knew his rifle well, a 7 MM magnum, sited for 200 yards and he had made shots as far as 400 before, knowing that was a bullet drop of almost 2 feet. But how far was this goat? Was it 600 yards or was it 700 yards? The bullet drop between those two distances would be great. “I’m gonna shoot 3 feet high.” Dad said which was just an estimation because it’s hard to tell exactly what 3 feet is way out there when looking through a scope. Oh well, maybe this idea of me watching was going to help. I put the binoculars to my eyes With my earplugs in I heard Dad say get ready and I strained with all I could to hold my eyes open… boom the shot rang out. I didn’t flinch and I saw a small explosion in the snow above his back. The goat seemed concerned about what just smacked the snow above him, but so confident in his position and safety, that he did not even move an inch. I yelled “maybe 1 foot high” I said. Boom the second shot rang out and again I saw the impact of the bullet in the snow this time just inches above his back. “Just a little lower” I hollered at my dad. “That was maybe 2 inches high.” I said quickly getting a few blinks before I tried with all my might to keep my eyes open. I heard my dad let out a soft breath and Boom, the 7 MM barked again. “Perfect shot.” I cried out as I honestly saw the bullet hit the goat and spray red in the snow behind him. “You got him Dad, you got him” I celebrated hardly believing my eyes. Was there nothing my dad couldn’t do? But this was just the beginning. The fun part was over and now the scary part was about to begin. The goat walked maybe three steps ahead, collapsed and started sliding down the cliff. Just below him was a very small outcropping with a little bit of grass and a small pathetic tree with its roots wrapped around the rock. Well, I’ll be darned if that goat didn’t fall right onto that tree and die right there.
Well, Dad was smiling from ear to ear, and I was jumping around excitedly, proclaiming his accuracy and precision. “good shot Dad!”
“Well, now I’ve got to go get that goat” Harvey said, and there was only one way to do that. That was to descend this incredibly steep brushed-in slide shoot 2000 feet to the valley bottom. These mountains are so steep and narrow that the valley bottom was all of, 100 feet wide and completely taken up by a raging glacial creek. “I’ll leave you here with the binoculars.” My dad said. “Don’t leave the truck and keep an eye on me.” He commented as he approached the precipice. Down he went, and I quickly lost sight of him as he disappeared into that horrid slide alder brush that makes travel, almost impossible. It wasn’t long until I saw him at the bottom. I peered through the binoculars and could see he was getting ready to cross the creek. With pants, boots, socks, and a rifle above his head, he ploughed into the frigid and fast-moving water. I don’t know if I can even explain to you how cold, fast-moving glacial water is. I’m certain it’s only half a degree above freezing and that coldness causes actual pain in your legs as you wade through. A brief stop on the other side to get dressed and my dad was then scaling the rock cliff of the other side.
This is when I started to get nervous, looking through those binoculars, I could tell he was pressed up against the rock, climbing with all hands and feet and the rifle on his back. Scaling that cliff like some crazy free climber. I watched as the terrain got continually steeper and worse. He kept slowly moving up, up, up he rose, as did my anxiety for his danger. He’s going to slip, he’s going to fall and die, I couldn’t help my fears. I felt teary-eyed and shaky as I watched through the binoculars. I felt so helpless as nothing but an observer. Why did he do this? It’s not worth his life. What can I do? I was starting to panic. Well, my dad had talked a lot to me about God and prayer and it was all coming back to me now. There’s no way God would want my dad to die I thought I’ll reach out for his help. All I could do now was pray, and pray I did.
I put those binoculars down, and got down on my knees in the dirt with hands together, looking skyward I pleaded to God to please save my dad and bring him back to me safely. I continued praying, believing that if I could somehow show God how earnest I was perhaps he would help. Losing track of where Dad was. I jumped up and grabbed the binoculars. He wasn’t there! No wait, go a little higher, right to where the goat is, haha there is! He made it, he did it. Was there nothing that man couldn’t do?
Wait a minute, if it was that hard climbing up there how is he going to pack that goat down? Well, Dad must’ve been pondering that question at that time as well, for as I was watching him in the binoculars, I saw him simply boot that goat over the edge and down, thump, bang, bang, then flying through the air to hit the few trees at the bottom. Ha ha good one Dad I thought to myself, and even let out a few loud whoops and hollers of joy and excitement. He heard me from all away across the valley, and through the binoculars I could see him waving. “Thank you, God, thank you God” I shouted not forgetting my answered prayer.
Well, it was a few hours more till Dad got back. I entertained myself by eating and drinking everything I had left and resuming my imaginary sword fight against the legions of evil ninjas that existed in my mind. Dad made it down that mountainside skinned out that goat, that was thankfully undammaged from the fall, field dressed it and packed it all the way up that horrid slide Alder shoot. Was there anything that man could not do?
Well folks, that’s a story about Harvey (Remple) my dad may he rest in peace. He was an amazing Mountain man, Hunter, logger, Trapper, business, owner, husband, and father. Many were the hours he spent in the forest and mountains of Southern British Columbia and it was my pleasure to learn from him. Folks if you’ve got a son, a daughter or even just know a young person who wants to go hunting and learn about the outdoors, take them, and teach them. You’re forming lifelong memories and skills that will never be forgotten and always be appreciated.
Well, that’s my story, but I’d like to tell yours. Folks you can send in your story either written or in voice memo to info@themoosewhisperer.com. Let me tell your story to the world. Thanks for watching folks more stories to come
