The One that Got Away

It was May. I looked to the east, idly wondering whether I could see the tiny hamlet of Koosharem, Utah, from our position on Monroe Mountain. My vantage point was elevated that day, as I was not only on a mountain, but atop a mule on a mountain. It had been a long hard day and the animal’s mood was characterized by a desire to return to the trailer.

I was tired as well but I had enjoyed the day. We had left the truck and trailer that morning in search of a female mountain lion who needed her collar changed. This happens when animals grow, as is often the case when bear cubs are collared, or when a collar’s batteries are nearing the end of their expected lifetime. The goal was to catch her, remove the old collar and put on a new one.

Photo by Annette Roug, DWR

Dogs are key to this process. Given the age-old animosity between cats and dogs, lions generally flee and eventually climb a tree when pursued by canines. Properly trained hounds have the discipline and gravitas to keep the cat treed until the panting humans arrive. A sedative-filled dart is shot into the large muscle mass of the cat’s hindquarter. After it succumbs to the drug, one lucky crewmember gets to climb the tree and either carry the lion down or attach a rope in order to lower the cat down to the ground. Sufficient time is given for the cat to relax and slip into unconsciousness, for it would be jarring indeed to climb a tree and meet a half-asleep (and therefore half-awake) mountain lion.

The group that set out to accomplish this goal contained myself, then-Utah State University PhD student Peter Mahoney, the Utah Division of Wildlife's (DWR) veterinarian, Dr. Annette Roug, and one of the DWR’s predator specialists, Clint Mecham. The group was rounded out by several hounds and four mules whose names I’ve since forgotten.

We set off with high hopes. The female lion’s signal — the beeping on a specific frequency emitted by her collar — indicated that she was above us on the mountain. I spent the next two hours trying to conform myself to the shape of the saddle as we labored upwards.

We reached a ridgetop and again broke out the telemetry gear. Clint watched his hounds critically for their input as where this cat might be. We determined that she was on the next ridge over. It seemed tantalizingly close but was in reality separated from us by a deep, heavily wooded drainage.

Photo by Troy Davis, DWR

We headed towards the other ridge (and into the drainage) trying to find the least steep route. It was a good idea in theory but we soon encountered the first wave of what turned out to be an expansive sea of downfall. The steepness of the terrain, combined with the crisscrossed, piled-up tree trunks dictated that we dismount the mules and lead them through the maze.

I learned the value of mules that day. As we climbed over fallen trees, weaved between the creaking, leaning trunks known poetically as widowmakers, and ducked under logs, the mules followed without complaint. Their attitudes about the situation may not have joyous but I was impressed. I suspect that a horse dropped into that mess of fallen timber would have rolled up its eyes and died on the spot.

I myself felt a twinge of hopelessness when looking at the downfall surrounding us on all sides. But I knew from prior experience that following lions is rarely easy in mountainous terrain. And I had the utmost confidence in Clint. He was comfortable in the backcountry after decades of experience and led the way as his hounds snaked back and forth amid the legs of our mules.

Photo by Annette Roug, DWR

Our position in the drainage meant that our telemetry signals were bouncy at best and even the dogs weren’t having much luck. There was nothing to do but get to that next ridgetop. Once there, we could formulate a plan as to how best approach her position.

It took time, and more climbing through the ever-present downfall, but we eventually approached the top of the ridge. We were all ready to be done with fallen trees, as evidenced by the fact that my mule was using his head to push me out of the downfall zone.

We topped the ridge with a palpable sense of relief. Peter slowly rotated around, using the telemetry antenna to seek the strongest signal. I noted with some consternation that when he found the signal, it was coming from the wrong direction. Clint consulted his hounds. The dogs’ noses agreed with the beeping telemetry receiver: the cat was behind us, likely on the very ridge we had left a few hours ago. While we were toiling to reach her location, she was silently gliding past us, determined to keep at least one drainage between herself and this bothersome group of humans, mules and dogs. It was afternoon already and we knew it would take us too long to return to that ridge. Basically, she skunked us.

“Atta girl,” I said quietly into the cool mountain air. My mule’s ears swiveled around. The animal was likely confused by the strange mix of disappointment and respect emanating from his rider. After all, we’d come all this way, ridden and hiked for hours to catch this cat and we’d missed her.

To me, however, that is the essence of working with lions: it’s humbling at times. It’s not supposed to be easy when dealing with one of the most secretive large carnivores on the continent. Mountain lions are distributed from Canada to South America and one reason for that success is the ability to be invisible. When conditions are right, cats can cease to be flesh-and-blood animals and become an ethereal, ghosting presence on the land.

That was no small feat in this case: This female lion successfully bested a group with combined 75 years of wildlife experience in addition to dogs, mules and a telemetry receiver. She showed us that no matter how powerful the dogs’ sense of smell, no matter how experienced the tracker, no matter the technology, this was her home ground. With her quiet defiance, she demonstrated unequivocally that we were but temporary interlopers in her realm. We had all the advantages but she won the game that day, fair and square.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Addendum

This was the last time I got to work with Clint. He was a woodsman through and through, an unpretentious expert in the ways of Utah’s wildlife. Clint was one of the best houndsmen and cat handlers in the western US, guiding hunters and academic researchers for decades. The southern Utah landscape, the people of the state and the DWR lost a loyal and steadfast friend when Clint passed after a battle with cancer. He will be missed.

Grabbing Geese from Airboats

Our airboat pilot spied a goose and swerved, accelerating over the water towards the lone bird. As we approached, the goose honked in surprise – or possibly avian outrage – and slipped underwater in an attempt to escape. Leaning over the bow of the airboat, I was able to pluck the bird from the water. He joined his fellow geese in a wooden containment crate strapped to the boat.

Photo courtesy of Utah DWR

In mid-June, Canada geese in Utah are in the process of replacing their flight feathers, leaving them temporarily unable to fly. This makes them available to Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) waterfowl biologists and motivated volunteers. During this time, the DWR captures hundreds of adult and juvenile geese. The birds are fitted with leg bands which identify when, where and at what age they were caught.

Geese are caught in two general ways: in urban settings, such as Lagoon Amusement Park, the birds are herded into corrals of soft mesh netting, or sometimes hand-caught by nimble technicians and volunteers. It sounds like a bit of a rodeo and it can be.

Geese are often unwelcome in such urban locations, where they are free of natural sources of mortality. Canada geese have reached damaging or simply annoying densities in parks, greenbelts, airports and along waterways all over the country. To combat this, the DWR transports urban geese to undeveloped release sites. Juvenile birds are released with wild adults near the Great Salt Lake and adult geese are taken to more distant natural waterfowl habitat. Data from bands indicate most of the birds taken from urban locales and released in this fashion will return to the natural areas the following year, instead of coming back to befoul city lawns and parks.

Photo courtesy of Utah DWR

In less civilized locations, such as the numerous duck clubs north of Salt Lake City or Farmington Bay, geese are captured using airboats. Geese are among the many seasonal visitors to north-central Utah’s expansive wetlands, along with Wilson’s phalaropes, American avocets, green and blue-winged teals, white pelicans, redhead ducks, ruddy ducks, black-necked stilts, white-faced ibises and black-crowned night herons. Because these geese do not pose problems to Utah residents or businesses, they are released on-site after banding.

I could describe the process of catching geese utilizing airboats in technical terms: explaining the massive organizational effort to coordinate multiple government agencies, detailing the required piloting skill to simultaneously maneuver ten airboats through a maze of vegetation chasing agile geese without crashing into each other, describing the chaos of a dozen people sitting in a circle calling out band numbers to a harried scribe as another two dozen people stand waiting with an unbanded goose in each hand, or capture success relative to different models of airboat.

Instead, I’ll simply say that the procedure is a lot of fun – a lot. Much like birdwatching in the wetlands, you can detect a capture operation by attentive observation. A long train of DWR trucks with trailers in tow can be spotted slowly driving along dikes in the wetlands. A number of agency people in waders can be seen applying bug spray as each truck deftly deposits an airboat into the water, then pulls away to provide a few inches of room for another truck on the crowded levy. As some boats are crewed and loaded, a few take off at high speed to push the geese away from areas where they can hide in thick vegetation or otherwise confound capture efforts. Each time an airboat leaves, people can be witnessed trying, unsuccessfully, to avoid the blast from the prop.

Photo courtesy of Utah DWR

Once the operation is underway, crew members take turns laying down on the bow of the boat. The pilot searches from the elevated driver’s seat of the airboat, skimming over the water towards any detected geese. Upon seeing a pursuing airboat festooned with grabby humans, the geese dive under the shallow water to escape. Their underwater ‘flight’ leaves a trail of disturbed soil in their wake, allowing the pilot to follow them. Once close enough, the catcher leans out, plunges their hands into the water, and snatches a wet goose from among the streamers of green algae. Sometimes a goose is caught on the first try, sometimes a particularly wily bird requires more effort.

The captured goose is handed to another crew member who places the goose into a wooden or plastic crate designed to hold the birds until the boat returns to shore. At one point, I found that my crewmate, Heather, had caught three juvenile geese at once – eclipsing my one-adult-at-a-time ability. I was in charge of placing these small geese into the crate, but handling those three without injuring them or letting them wiggle free while not falling out of a swerving boat was quite literally a balancing act. I hugged the juveniles to my chest, putting the heads of two angry geese and the tail feathers of one presumably confused goose in my face. Unlike the more fatalistic adults, these juvenile geese took this opportunity to attack me about the head and shoulders, biting me ineffectually but with great gusto. I suffered their ire, awkwardly clinging to the geese and the boat’s frame, until I could introduce the angry teens to the inside of the containment crate.

When the boats have captured their maximum load of geese – our crates were full and Lynn, our pilot, had two geese in his lap when we finally stopped – the airboats head for a central location where skilled biologists apply the leg bands and record the data.

With all the local geese caught, banded and released, the airboats are loaded onto trailers. If you listen carefully over the roar of their engines, you can hear people comparing their catch numbers as the train of trucks prepares to leave.

Stay Low. Stay Still. Survive.

The mulie bounded across the road in front of us. Powerful leg muscles flexed under her summer coat, propelling her through effortless 20-foot arcs. Five heads swiveled to watch the deer, some of them lurching from reclined positions of slumber.

“I doubt she has a fawn,” I grumbled. I judged that the doe was moving far too fast to have a wobbly newborn in tow. A collective sigh filled the truck. Two people slumped back to sleep and a third resumed texting.

Then again, I thought, she did look a little panicked. Something gnawed at my subconscious, demanding attention. Though I couldn’t have quantified the intuition, I sensed there was something more to the situation than a deer crossing the road.

When the doe had appeared, I was busy working the gears of a Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) Ford F-150, easing us down a narrow, rock-strewn dirt road situated on a ridge of Mormon Peak. Given the risks of driving in steep mountainous terrain, I dismissed the doe and returned my attention to the truck. But there remained a persistent buzzing in the back of my skull.

A few seconds passed and the truck rolled another fifteen feet. Suddenly, I gasped and hit the brakes. We slid to a bumpy stop. I blinked my bleary eyes, forcing them to focus. “Fawn! I see a fawn!”
That was the announcement for which everyone had been waiting since roughly 5 a.m. Faces were pressed against every available window.

“Where?” Nate, the lead research assistant, asked.

“Right there,” I said, pointing over the dashboard.

“Where?” repeated the three volunteer hunters in the back seat.

“In front of us,” I explained.

Nate, an expert deer spotter and fawn wrangler, strained his neck. “Where?”

I turned put the truck in park and turned off the ignition, so I could concentrate on convincing a truck full of people that I was not losing my mind. “It’s right in front of us. On the road.”

Nate raised himself up in the seat, peered down at the road, and smiled. “Yeah!”

We grabbed the capture bag and stepped out slowly. It became readily apparent, though, that the fawn was too young to run away. It was less than two days old, still weak and completely reliant on motionlessness and natural camouflage for protection.

The five people exiting the truck at that moment — myself, Nate and three volunteer hunters — formed the vanguard of a much larger audience anxiously awaiting data from the local mule deer. The ongoing wildlife study on central Utah’s Monroe Mountain, involving not only deer but coyotes and mountain lions as well, involves Utah State University, Brigham Young University, the Utah DWR, and a cadre of professors and graduate students.

Yet while we were prowling the central Utah landscape that morning in search of a big game species, we were in fact most interested in the most diminutive representatives, the littlest players on the big game stage:  newborn fawns. One of the goals of the Monroe Mountain study is to follow the destinies of neonate fawns in order to determine what’s happening to these deer during their first few days and weeks of life.

Photo courtesy of the Utah DWR

In order to understand that short, dangerous period of a mule deer’s existence, we must catch and mark very young fawns — sometimes less than a day old. Fawns rely on cryptic coloration and immobility to protect them from all predators, including researchers, making finding and capturing them a difficult and time-intensive effort.

So, during fawning time, crews of technicians, students, and volunteers scour the sagebrush and oak brush for mulie fawns. They drive endless dusty miles in trucks and ATVs, hunched over spotting scopes in the sunrise chill and evening haze. Binoculars scrutinize every dark shadow or brushy plant capable of screening a dappled fawn from view. Everything is suspect when it comes to finding fawns: does acting vigilant, does standing in one spot too long, does’ gazes lingering in a certain direction, and so on. Normally, a doe on the run was not considered a likely candidate for a new mother, until now.

Nate and I approached the fawn, accompanied by the dedicated hunters. We donned gloves and began to process the little animal, taking its weight and measurements and allowing the hunters to take pictures and help when appropriate. The fawn emitted no distress call, as older fawns often do. The little male did no more than struggle feebly, trying to return his chin to the ground as I held him.
“What’s he doing?” asked the youngest hunter, a boy of 13.

I said that the fawn was trying to hide. That explanation didn’t seem to make much sense to the boy. His confusion was understandable. How could this little deer expect to hide from the five people surrounding him? But the fawn wasn’t thinking logically. He wasn’t formulating a plan of escape. The gangly deer was responding to a supreme evolutionary imperative shared among neonate ungulates across the globe:  Stay low. Stay still. Survive.

To avoid stressing him further, we quickly completed our work. Our last task was to slip on a custom telemetry collar specifically designed for the size and growth patterns of mule deer fawns. The collar featured numerous loops closed with fragile tread. As the fawn’s neck grows, threads break and loops add to the collar’s circumference. Thereby the collar expands, growing with the animal. A weak link in the collar would eventually rot away and drop the device from the adult deer.

I set the fawn down, safely clear of the road, and returned to the truck. I imagined the whole scene: Moments before we’d appeared, the doe had been moving her small, helpless fawn to a new resting site. She expected no disturbance so close to the windy peak of the mountain. She moved slowly, watching the little male struggle along behind her.

Then, suddenly, they heard our truck. The fawn dropped to the ground, blending into the brown background of the dirt road, and froze. The doe moved away so as to avoid altering the big, silver-painted predator to the fawn’s location. When we continued to bear down on the little fawn (completely unaware of his presence) the doe finally made a desperate, flashy attempt to distract our attention away from her offspring. She almost succeeded.

I climbed in and started the ignition, sighing with delayed relief. The fawn had been roughly three yards from the truck when we stopped. Another moment and I’d have driven right over him, crushing the fawn without even knowing it.

It may be hard for some to imagine why an animal wouldn’t move away from such a deadly situation. I, however, understood. For thousands of years, mule deer fawns have been successfully hiding from predators of all kinds. The success of staying low and staying still has resonated through time, protecting them from contemporary dangers, be it the Cave Lion, the North American cheetah, the stone spear point or the .30-06.

Such responses have served mule deer well for many generations. Today’s world, though, is a rapidly changing place. Humanity, for instance, raced from horse-drawn carriages to walking on the moon in fewer than 100 years and sometimes I find myself struggling to keep up. So I can certainly forgive a newborn mule deer buck for being a little confused as to how he should respond to the new-fangled mechanical beasts of Utah’s DWR.

In the end, the tiny fawn survived his encounter with the modern world, giving him the chance to employ those ancient, time-tested instincts as he grows and explores Utah’s wild landscapes.

Bring On the Bats

I looked up at the brilliant night sky of the desert arching over our heads, unpolluted by humanity’s fondness of bright light. I was able to see those stars clearly because I was among several Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) employees standing in the darkness at Nash Wash in southeastern Utah. We were not alone in the desert:  25 hardy members of the public stood under the Milky Way with us. 

Despite the fact that we were closer to Grand Junction, Colorado, than to Salt Lake City, some of the attendees had driven from the Wasatch for the occasion. Utah loves its wildlife, and had this event featured such charismatic species as mule deer, trout or eagles, I wouldn’t have been as surprised by the attendance. But the focus of this nighttime gathering was bats.

Photo by Brent Stettler, Utah DWR

Bats. To biologists, they are an incredibly diverse and fascinating group of mammals, ranging from the tiny Asian ‘bumblebee bat’ measuring only an inch in length, to three-pound tropical fruit bats sporting five-foot wingspans.

Of all the mammals, bats are the only group to fly, taking them into realms otherwise reserved for birds and dreamers. In contrast, many people fear bats. They unfairly characterize bats as ‘flying rats’:  disease carriers, which Hollywood assures us will become tangled in our hair at any opportunity. Remember the ‘giant vampire bats’ in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? They were actually fruit-eating bats; you have nothing to fear from them unless you’re a mango.

Many years ago, I worked for Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas. I learned first-hand as a naïve college student how many people are frightened and misinformed when it comes to bats. It was my job to explain that bats aren’t dangerous, that they consume tons of insects annually (Texas could still use more mosquito-eating species) and that spraying harsh pesticides into bat colonies was unnecessary and illegal.

“Oh, and by the way,” I always tried to mention, “they pollinate sugarcane. Sugar is used by Bacardi. Bats make rum, dude.”

Photo by Brent Stattler, Utah DWR

My experiences with the bat-phobic didn’t prepare me for this DWR bat-viewing event. The number of spaces available to the public was completely filled:  there wasn’t, figuratively speaking, an empty seat in the place.

There were kids, young couples, older folks and one dog. Tony, the southeastern region’s Sensitive Species Biologist, greeted several people whom he recognized from previous bat events. There were a few Subarus with pro-Chiroperta bumper stickers and even one young woman with a bat tattoo. Everyone was eager to not only see these mysterious creatures up close, but to touch and even smell the furry little flyers. Seeing everyone in the dark was difficult, but characterizing the mood of this group was easy:  Bring on the bats!

Before walking down to the small pond, Tony gave the group an introduction to bat biology. He explained that only a small percentage of bats carry diseases dangerous to people. Rabies is in fact less common in bats than in raccoons and dogs. The perception of bats being disease-ridden comes from the fact that, as humans, we don’t interact much with healthy bats; they’re too busy fluttering silently through the dark skies above our heads. It’s the sick bats – those lying on the ground or weak flyers, easily caught by cats and kids – which we often meet, and some of these ill bats can transfer diseases to humans who handle them incorrectly.

People don’t seem to be drawn to ailing raccoons or deer, but they can be counted on to pick up and examine a sickly bat. Proper training, vaccinations and careful handling of sick bats minimize these health risks.

Photo by Brent Stattler, Utah DWR

Tony also described the incredible complexity of bats’ echolocation abilities. Imagine, he said, sending and receiving intricate acoustic signals at the same time, while moving rapidly (sometimes 23 feet per second) through the air, tracking a tiny insect, which is also moving. While they’re processing those signals, bats must make rapid flight adjustments accurately enough to snap a panicked mosquito or moth out of the air.
That doesn’t sound much like an animal likely to clumsily smack into someone’s head and get tangled in their hair.

Finally, even given recent rainy weather, Tony had seen very little standing water in the area. This might, he offered, help increase bat activity around our little water source. We adjourned to the pond, where several mist nets were already set up. It wasn’t long before the bats began to arrive.
The small Western pipistrelle was the first to careen into the nets. They were disentangled and brought to the table for identification and processing, where I suspect each bat must have imagined that they’d somehow become a pop culture celebrity.

Cameras large and small took countless pictures from every conceivable angle, accompanied by “oohs” and “aahs.” Photographers jostled for position and many slowly worked up the courage to reach out and stroke the soft fur of the little bats.

Photo by Brent Stattler, Utah DWR

After so many well-behaved, six-gram bats, the Pallid bats made for an impressive change of pace. The first one, an adult female, emerged from her sample bag reaching forward with her thin wings as if to grab the nearest headlamp. She gaped threateningly, displaying her sharp teeth to the entire group. She was backlit, with her translucent wings and ears creating a ghostly halo around her. The effect lent her a respectably intimidating look for something that weighed a scant 16 grams. The group, as bat loving as they were, collectively kept their distance while taking their photographs.

Photo by Brent Stattler, Utah DWR

We caught many other Pallids that night, some of which were more personable. None, though, were overly pleased with being handled, and they regularly latched on to the fingertips of gloves. Their teeth, Tony explained, serve them well when they catch and consume their preferred prey: hard-bodied scorpions and beetles.

A storm rolled over the mountains around midnight, forcing us to close the nets to prevent wind damage. The trapping thus ended early, but it was entirely worth the time: six species of bats, all in all. Not bad for one night sitting next to a tiny, muddy pond in the middle of nowhere.

The people who chatted under the desert sky that night value bats. Most people, however, don’t know very much about them. Many don’t even see bats often — perhaps only when they roost in a building, becoming an unwelcome inconvenience.

We are determined to prevent that unfamiliarity from breeding indifference. It’s up to those of us who appreciate bats to educate people about their importance as insect predators and pollinators. With continued effort, funding and popular nocturnal gatherings, the DWR can continue to study, understand and cultivate a love for the bats acrobatically working Utah’s night skies.

Did I mention that bats make rum?

A little validation goes a long way

A little before 5am on the morn of my 42^nd birthday, I left the Cataloochee Valley. The Catalooch, as it is locally known, is in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and, moreover, it’s where I currently live. This secluded valley is visited by a tiny minority (~thousands) of the million-strong throngs who explore more well-known sites along the main thoroughfare of the park.

I wanted to honor my tradition of getting high (uh, in terms of elevation, that is) on my birthday, and doing so meant that I would have to venture to those locations more familiar to the tourist crowds. In fact, the high point I sought is one of the most famous places in the Smokies, aside from Dollywood:  Clingman’s Dome.

I had hoped to watch the sunrise from Clingman’s, which explains why l strove to reach the trailhead before 6:45am. Alas, although the 2+ hour drive to Newfound Gap was bathed in morning glow, the Dome was shrouded in fog so thick that I couldn’t see across the parking lot. I drowsed in my truck for an hour waiting for the fog to show some hint of surrender, but it only seemed to grow heavier. The booming, disembodied voices of obnoxious groups of college kids and families pierced the gloom. Touring motorcycles appeared and disappeared, trailing the musical choices of the Harley-mounted dentists and contractors through the mist. Some people appeared to be hiking up the trail to the dome itself, a structure known for both its position on the mountain and its gaudy tackiness. I don’t know what those intrepid day-trippers expected to see; I suspected that the experience of being in the dome would have been akin to being wrapped in wet cotton.

I finally gave up and drove away from the parking area.  As I lost elevation, the dripping fog began to lessen. I stopped briefly at the dedication site, where Franklin D. Roosevelt officially proclaimed the existence of Great Smoky Mountains National Park back in 1941, watching tendrils of fog drift among the green ridges visible all around.  I wound my way ‘down the mountain’, as we say here in the Smokies, stopping at a few short nature trails and spots of interest. I relaxed next to a stream, watched a man back his F-150 into his wife’s minivan while trying to park in a picnic area, honked in panic at inattentive people drifting into my lane over the double yellow line – in other words, I had a typical national park experience.

Having entered the park at the south end of 441, in the casino-funded town of Cherokee, NC, I decided to exit in that most ‘gatewayish’ of the infamous gateway communities, Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I had an ulterior motive in doing so – I could stop in and do some quick shopping while most people were still standing in line at the pancake houses.  One stop was the Nantahala Outdoor Center. Without going into icky details, I had realized that one of my hydration bladders was supporting what threatened to become intelligent life and I planned to pick up a cleaning kit from the NOC.

While in the NOC, I fell into discussion with an older staffer about various gear and gizmos, as we men of the outdoors are prone to do. As we talked about the usefulness of various devices for designed to signal for help, this fellow chanced to mention that he was careful about such things, because he sometimes guided less-than-capable folks into the woods and he had to be conscious of his MS.

I was intrigued by his mention of our shared disease, and we talked more. He was a former attack helo pilot (he flew ‘snakes’, which I suspected meant AH-1 Cobras or variants). His tours in Vietnam and that technology likely put him a little beyond my father’s age; he was also an ‘SF’ medic. That means Special Forces – I presumed Army – in the acronym-filled and often unpretentious parlance of the infantry-based Spec Ops community. In sum, then, this old guy was a badass who had seen and done a great deal but didn’t see the need to brag too much.

I told him that I was in the same boat, medically speaking. We chatted about this confusing, crippling disease for a few minutes. He said that he was a ‘reader’ – he started reading about MS after his diagnosis but almost immediately stopped. I call myself a ‘researcher’ – I too, delved into the research about MS, but quickly quit:  there is, simply put, not a lot of good news out there. Neither of us wanted to read the obligatorily horrible stories of tragedy and disability, and lives destroyed.

His combat medic background allowed him to rationally dismiss the MS theories about milk allergies, plastic exposure, or bee sting cures, just as my EMS training led me to do. He’d been diagnosed more than 30 years ago, and he just kept doing what he wanted to do and hoping for the best.

Jesus, I thought as I stood there leaning on the GPS cabinet, surrounded by wealthy tourists buying over-priced backpacks and bear bells. This man is the only other person I’ve met with this damn disease who’s acting like me.

Two . . ahem . . mature men who’ve spent our lives doing things, sometimes tough things, outside the norm. No picket fences, no IBM or WalMart health plans, no 401k. More than that, we continued this wandering life in the face of the staggering uncertainty that MS uses to crush many people. We each ignored the wacko theories, tried to dismiss the ubiquitous bad MS news, worked to stay in good health, and kept on pushing ourselves. We had a good bit in common, this stranger and I.

We said farewell and I went on my way. I reflected that our 10-minute conversation had taken place amid kayaks, backpacks and compasses, parts of a lifestyle that some people tell me I can’t have any more. Well, they told this man the same thing – decades ago. His plan worked for him into his 70s, and so I take this random, unexpected experience as validation of my hopes that my plan will work for me. I listened to Kasey Chambers on the way home and decided to squeeze some more travel into my future.

It was nearing the end of April, and my first day of driving across the isle of Newfoundland had been uneventful, with sunny – yes, sunny – skies and dry roads, something no one expected. I reached Corner Brook having encountered a minimum of traffic, something which was expected. The ferry website revealed that the nightly crossing had been cancelled due to high winds. I hoped the dawn would bring better weather and retired early in anticipation of driving the remaining 216 km to the marine terminal by 9am the next day.

I was approaching the terminal in Port aux Basques Saturday morning, having driven 200 of those 216 km, when an automated message informed me that the morning crossing also had been cancelled. Ahead, a truck had been forced off the road (but not rolled over) by the classic Wreckhouse area winds, so I stopped and bowed to the inevitability of the North Atlantic. I returned to Corner Brook and spent most of the day drowsing in my truck in the WalMart parking lot, and walking around the mall when I needed to step out of the truck (the same harsh, frigid wind which was keeping the ferries docked also made outdoor strolling unpleasant). I finally prevailed upon a fellow LESA (Landscape Ecology and Spatial Analysis) labber, Stacey, and her landlord/roommate, Isabelle, a school chum of Yolanda’s, for a place to stay that evening. Thanks, ladies.

I rose early yet again on Sunday and struck out for the Port aux Basques terminal. The weather front had passed through and the ferries were running. Because of the cancellations over the last few days, my morning crossing was almost empty; even though I was pretty far back in the boarding queue, I parked one row back from the front/unloading door of the ship. The ship’s crew said the evening crossing was scheduled to be full, but there were plenty of empty seats and berths for my cruise.

When the ferry finally lurched into motion, I went out on the deck and watched Newfoundland’s harsh south coastline retreat rapidly into the snowy distance. The Long Range mountains and the south barrens looked rugged and inviting in a challenging sort of way. It is the landscape of Random Passage and The Shipping News and reflects the singularly brutal introductory narrative by which millions of people have come to know Newfoundland. They are taught about the austerity and little else. It would take too long to contrast the stories of lonely, isolated and backward outport life with my academic, multinational, pseudo-cosmopolitan experiences in St. John’s over the last two years. I’ve come to believe that we’ve struggled, all of us who’ve lived and laughed and loved and learned on The Rock, but in very, very different ways.

After a mildly unpleasant sensation experienced while assisting Emily ‘Captain Cod’ Zimmerman in her statistically-driven gadiform-jigging duties, I feared that I might get seasick on the passage, given the whitecaps and swells. After wolfing down a really crappy sandwich, however, the huge ship promptly rocked me to sleep. I snoozed in the viewing lounge facing out over the Cabot Straight, under a sign which explained in four languages that no one was allowed to sleep in the lounge. Over the six-hour ride, almost everyone in the room was asleep at some point. Some slept soundly, snoring, while others, like me, woke and quickly returned to sleep whenever a strong wave hit the hull and sent spray high into the air, splashing against the large observation windows, seven decks above the water.

Within four hours, Cape Breton had replaced the horizon featureless horizon of the North Atlantic on starboard. Two hours later, with little fanfare and considerably less shouting, gesturing, exhaust fumes and general complexity than my last superferry deboarding (February 2010), I set foot on the mainland of North America for the first time in over two years.

For those years, the bulk of the continent had been so near and yet so far, in terms of mail service and politics and shopping and weather, that my sudden transition from the Rock to the Rest of the World seemed a little surreal. Unlike other MUN students, I had not flown home from St. John’s for holidays or concerts; I still have no idea how they afforded all that travel while I went into debt buying groceries and spark plugs. The sensation of arriving in a new world was intensified as I stopped at a small road-side motel and paid $40 for a room. My 6-hour stay in a Corner Brook Holiday Inn cost $150.

I arrived at the international border crossing in the hamlet of Houlton, Maine, armed with itemized lists of my belongings and protracted explanations as to where I’d been for the last two years. Unlike my entry into Canada, the DHS border guard simply asked me where I was born, where I was going, and if I was bringing anything into the country that I didn’t have when I left it. As one might guess, I hadn’t done a lot of shopping for durable goods as a grad student, and the few expensive things I’d bought were all shipped from the US anyway. As I looked at him, broad-chested, buffed, crewcut and wearing military-style BDU clothing and flak gear, I thought about:

(a) joking that 30% of my truck was now comprised of Canadian auto parts; or

(b) explaining that the RNC, the RCMP and the CBSA had been surprisingly effective - for competing federal agencies, I mean - in their conspired efforts to confiscate and destroy my Marlin .22 rifle

but in the end I bowed to expediency and simply said ‘no’. He gave me a perfunctory 'welcome home' and waved me through.

Home? I thought. Personally speaking, that’s a much more complicated concept than it was even just a few years ago. In the name of road-numbed half-consciousness, I shrugged off the pending introspection and prepared myself for the loud, aggressive onslaught of NE US traffic. This preparation neglected the fact that I was still in northern Maine. The roads of Maine where hemmed in by timber on either side – dark forests brimming with moose, and in that way they continued the trend of the roads on which I’d been since I left Regina Place. But as I left the coast, the Maine sun revealed itself in a blue sky and soon the bulk of the northern terminus of the AT and that storied outdoorsperson’s mecha, Katahdin, appeared. I’m no Main-ah, but it was a beautiful area.

The rest of the trip was characterized by linking numerous interstate highways together to take me on my southeasterly course, in the process avoiding New York city, Philly, Washington, D.C and New Jersey entirely. I passed through so many states that I had trouble keeping track of which jurisdiction I was in at any given time. The traffic did get heavy at times, but remained surprisingly well-mannered. I stayed in cheap motels along the way, slowly reminding my body what beds feel like.

After skimming north of the most thickly-populated areas of my homeland, I met my boss at the BP (that’s not a BP station; it is the BP which serves as my main social outlet - Britney, Amanda and that friendly old guy - and main source of last-minute groceries, batteries, morning pastries and gas). Then I proceeded to wind along the narrow mountain road which led to the secluded and historically significant valley simply called Cataloochee. I pulled into the ranger station and introduced myself to my flatmates and neighbors: elk, pileated woodpeckers, two species of mice, a toad or two, quite a few turkeys, and a few bears.

While my arrival in the Cataloochee Valley was not celebrated (the mice may have even complained), it did mark the end of my 2700-mile odyssey, including as it did long hours, complex intersections and signage, variable road conditions, exhaustion, delicate negotiations with all manner of large, fast-moving tractor-trailer rigs, rain, fog and night driving. Naturally, my first assignment for GRSM was to click through a three-hour DOI online training about safe/defensive driving.

Friday: Corner Brook, or as close to the west coast (of Newfoundland) as I can get

Saturday: mainland North America and all points east

I leave the Rock in the same manner in which I arrived - a six to ten hour ferry ride (let's hope for six, shall we?) with my truck and RocketBox loaded to capacity, although I don't seem to own much other than clothes, camping gear, and books. This will be followed by Nova Scotia, then New Brunswick, then into the good 'ol US of A via Houlton, Maine.

Provided CBSA lets me out, and CBP lets me in, I should re-enter the country of my birth on Sunday. This marks the first time in 27 months that I've been in the US or even on the continent proper. I hope there are no firearms issues:  Canada took away my .22 rifle; will the US allow me to enter unarmed?

I leave having defended, but not finished, my thesis. The onus is on me to keep writing each night in hopes of producing a draft to my committee this summer. Being the oddball scientist, writing is easier for me that numbers, so I think I can pull it off. I will be doing that pulling from the Appalachians. I return to the green and gray in the early days of May, joining the ranks of those harassing the elk of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Yes, the thought of finishing my thesis alone is intimidating, but first I have to concentrate on starting my new job. Yes, the thought of starting my new job is intimidating, but first I have to concentrate on driving from Maine to North Carolina. Yes, the thought of driving down the eastern seaboard is intimidating, but first I have to concentrate on getting across the island. Yes, the thought of driving across Newfoundland is intimidating, but first I have to finish packing . . . ah, well, you get the point. Generally, my plans involving avoiding Boston, New York, New Jersey, the Washington, DC, area, trying to minimize sleeping in the driver's seat and encountering no snow.

So, in sum, tomorrow begins another series of days lived entirely on the road (or in the belly of a superferry) with most of my life on my back, much like a turtle or a snail. I hope to make better speed than either of those taxa, but safe and slow(er) has gotten me through snowy Montana mountains and icy Newfoundland roads, and hence it should get me to the southlands.