The Cougar Scare

The old man was six that spring. Where was my home? I may well have wondered for I had literally been on the move since conception. First, still in the womb, by Model T from Kansas to Washington. Then as a baby I was moved by train to Ohio and several farm places there. At age one, it was back in the car, a 1924 Studebaker then, by slow trek and various stops and north to the Canadian border and the newly settled Yarrow Village. That was the new Mennonite Brethren land of promise where recently arrived Russian Mennonite refugees could re-create there sect’s old country order in the New World.

Little or nothing of my age one and two experiences stayed with me but by the time we were flooded out at the rented Duncan farm east of the Vedder dyke, I was four years old. Our next move was from the flood plain to the Vedder promontory called Majuba Hill. We moved our mixed farming efforts to the old Chadsey place on the hill above Yarrow Village. 1933 was my third summer there. It had become my special place. There I experienced my first independent consciousness of the world around me with its adventures and difficulties, creating memories or exaggerations of them that stayed with me ever after.

Early spring that year provided one such adventure. The walk from our rented clearing along Majuba Hill Road to the post office and BC Electric Railway station, then south on Wilson Road to Central and west again to Derksen’s General Store was 3 miles or more. Still, one Saturday, Mom decided she needed some things to prepare her spring garden, so she took her two youngest kids with her to the store. About a mile down the road we took the short cut into the village. It was just a narrow footpath down a steep cliff down to railway level, across the tracks through heavy bush and tall firs and cedars to the foot of Eckert Road. From there it was only a short walk to Central Road and the store.

Our loyal dog, Sirdo, ( the above image shows Sirdo on the raft at the Duncan farm with my brother Henry, then age 17, during the 1931 flood) who had been with us at the Duncan farm, trailed along as he usually did to keep us company. Mom bought her few supplies, likely on credit, perhaps visited briefly with her older sister who lived on the Eckert and Central Road intersection and headed home by the same short cut. Days were still short and dusk approached as we headed into the narrow footpath to the rail tracks.

Going into the dense bush and large trees, our brave Sirdo acted strangely. He stopped repeatedly. When told to “heel” he slunk along reluctantly with tail between his legs. He suddenly stopped again as we neared the tracks, stiffened, and the hair on his neck stood straight up. He barked and ran back toward Eckert Road time and again. We backed up.

The previous winter we had experienced a late night cougar raid at Mom’s goose pond just a few yards from our kitchen add-on to the back of the Chadsey house. The hungry cats were known to roam the forest above our clearing and we kids were told frightening stories about the dangers, just to keep us from wandering up the many trails into the Vedder Mountain bush. The raid left the lone cat still hungry because Sirdo’s barking frightened it off and brought Dad out of the house with a ready lantern to see the big cat take off with one of Mom’s valuable geese in his teeth. Next morning the dead goose, well bled, was stuck in a deadfall not far from the house. There was an unexpected goose dinner, and Mom added some fresh feathers to her supply.

Back at the foot of the shortcut, Mom considered our position. She knew from experience of Sirdo’s courage that our dog was trying to protect his charges. She could insist on taking the shortcut where a cougar or wildcat might jump out of the branches of a large tree to attack the kids, or drag two tired kids, supplies from the store, and her own nearly two hundred pounds at the time, back around the extra three miles. We walked home the long way.

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