Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trotlining and just general country living.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented
Speaker 1: by Case Knives from the Store More Studio on Meat
Speaker 1: Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the
Speaker 1: airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair
Speaker 1: or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.
Speaker 1: Air Canada and the Lost Baggage Blues. We need an
Speaker 1: introduction to this episode about like I need an excuse
Speaker 1: to cook fish. I don't need it. I am bear
Speaker 1: hunting in one of my most favoritest places on earth.
Speaker 1: So join me at the fire. Let's get started. My boss,
Speaker 1: Garrett Long called me after the first of the year
Speaker 1: and said, be thinking about what projects you want to
Speaker 1: do this year. And by projects he meant what we
Speaker 1: call long form films like the Manitoba moose Hunting my
Speaker 1: good friend, the cinematographer Dave Gardner, and I shot last
Speaker 1: October where the northern lights danced above our heads for
Speaker 1: a week. That's a big question and one that I
Speaker 1: didn't take lightly. My mind raised around the globe was
Speaker 1: I thought about places I wanted to go and the
Speaker 1: animals I wanted to chase. The working at Meat Eater
Speaker 1: is not a free ticket to hunt wherever and whatever
Speaker 1: you want. We're in the storytelling business and that weighs
Speaker 1: heavily on the decisions that we make about the content
Speaker 1: that we produce. It's not just closing your eyes and
Speaker 1: chunking a dart at a map to see where you're going. Oh,
Speaker 1: there are emails and meetings upon meetings about getting the
Speaker 1: storylines approved, as in what the Hunt is really going
Speaker 1: to be about? What story are we telling? Then we
Speaker 1: have meetings to get the budget approved. Following that hurdle,
Speaker 1: licenses and permissions not just a hunt, but for filming
Speaker 1: the hunt and moving people plus their equipment to remote
Speaker 1: areas is tackled by the producer and associate producer, whose
Speaker 1: job it is to ensure that all the eyes are
Speaker 1: dotted and all the t's are crossed. Traveling to another
Speaker 1: country to work, even a neighboring one, comes with a
Speaker 1: lot of paperwork and documentation. By producer Jason Rarig and
Speaker 1: associate producer Omar Lopez worked their hind ends off to
Speaker 1: ensure that Dave and I had everything that we needed.
Speaker 1: Now I call them mine, but I don't want to
Speaker 1: infer that they work for me, or better yet, infer
Speaker 1: that they answer to me. They work for me, all right,
Speaker 1: but in the sense of coordinating all the moving parts
Speaker 1: of a big production that takes a focused attention to
Speaker 1: detail to be successful. One unsigned document, one negated fee
Speaker 1: or permission, and the folks at customs will look at
Speaker 1: you like they finally caught the dude that was breaking
Speaker 1: wind at the supper table. They will turn you around
Speaker 1: and send you home and will have forgotten you even
Speaker 1: existed before you can get out of the airport. And
Speaker 1: when you see Jason and Omar's names at the end
Speaker 1: of the Schauffeur less than a second in the credits,
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to look over their participation. But you shouldn't.
Speaker 1: They made it easy for me and Dave to get
Speaker 1: ourselves in all our gear from different locations in the
Speaker 1: good old US of A, across the border at two
Speaker 1: separate crossings, only to link up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I
Speaker 1: would be in three different airports before I went wheels
Speaker 1: down in the fourth at Saskatoon. But the hiccup came
Speaker 1: in the third when I checked in through customs in Toronto.
Speaker 1: With my passporting hand and hope in my heart, I
Speaker 1: made my way through the maze of rope lines to
Speaker 1: be met by a Canadian border agent who flagged my
Speaker 1: boarding pass with a purple highlighter. When I answered her
Speaker 1: question of had I brought a weapon with me? And
Speaker 1: I said yes, ma'am, she looked at me all over
Speaker 1: and said as if she was looking for it, and
Speaker 1: I told her that I didn't have it with me.
Speaker 1: It was urchier equipment, and that it was locked in
Speaker 1: a case and it had been checked in my baggage
Speaker 1: when I left Little Rock three flights ago. She held
Speaker 1: her hand in front of my face and said, wait
Speaker 1: here now. I looked at my watch. My next flight
Speaker 1: would start boarding in an hour. Hopefully this wouldn't take long.
Speaker 1: Upon her return, she said, take this paper and go
Speaker 1: downstairs to the customs office to declare your weapon. Have
Speaker 1: taken it off the aircraft? All right, Well, this shouldn't
Speaker 1: be a problem. Just follow the painted line on the
Speaker 1: floor down past the other border edge and hit the
Speaker 1: stairs at the lower level. How long could it take
Speaker 1: to check a bowl in a half a dozen arrows.
Speaker 1: When I got to the top of the escalator, the
Speaker 1: den of noise from the lower level grew more intense
Speaker 1: as I descended into the depths of that airport. Halfway
Speaker 1: down the wall, petition to my right disappeared, and I
Speaker 1: saw a sea of people and baggage carousels. It was
Speaker 1: utter chaos, and I assumed that this would be the
Speaker 1: place where I died. No Jason or Omar to help
Speaker 1: me get through this one. I was all on my own,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't a soul in this Canadian fire drill
Speaker 1: that was taking place before me. They gave two hoots
Speaker 1: in hades whether or not I made my next flight
Speaker 1: much less. Eventually jobbed to hole in one of their bears.
Speaker 1: I was absolutely lost the agent id who made it
Speaker 1: seem that there was someone waiting for me at the
Speaker 1: lower level. But when I stepped off that escalator, the
Speaker 1: only folks I saw were travelers like me, most of
Speaker 1: them that were speaking languages that didn't remotely sound like English.
Speaker 1: At first, I wondered what language they were gibber jabbering
Speaker 1: back and forth in that congestion of humanity. Then I
Speaker 1: remembered how I almost felled Miss Glenetta Burk's Seventh Great
Speaker 1: English Class, a language I'd have been speaking for over
Speaker 1: a dozen years to that point. Didn't matter, but they
Speaker 1: were speaking. The only thing that mattered was me finding
Speaker 1: someone who would say, Brent, you're all checked in, not
Speaker 1: gonna get on that airplane and get ready to poke
Speaker 1: a hole in the old black Bear. But I did
Speaker 1: not see that person. I thought about going back upstairs,
Speaker 1: but those clever canoocks had already thought of that. That
Speaker 1: escalator was a narrow one way street and set at
Speaker 1: a speed that I don't think Carl Lewis could have
Speaker 1: been fast enough to get back up. No, sir, I
Speaker 1: was at the mercy of my wits and navigating worked
Speaker 1: this problem. I started to sweat. I hung a right
Speaker 1: and walked toward an open area with fewer people, to
Speaker 1: the only empty baggage carousel, numbered eleven out of thirteen.
Speaker 1: I went back and forth like a metal man in
Speaker 1: a shooting galler until I heard the voice of an
Speaker 1: angel say, Sir, can I help you? In an accent
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize or care to desire. All I knew
Speaker 1: was that I had just drafted my first confidant to
Speaker 1: Tim reeves. Out of eight point three billion people on
Speaker 1: this planet, I had somehow managed to find one of them,
Speaker 1: taking an interest in my obvious look of confusion and
Speaker 1: my old panic. I didn't know what kind of uniform
Speaker 1: she had on, but I think she worked for an
Speaker 1: airline that I wasn't even flying. But she had a
Speaker 1: radio and she wasn't scared to use it. She asked
Speaker 1: me how I got there. I explained as best I could,
Speaker 1: how I started out up in Southeast Arkansas at nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six and just hit the highlights until I got
Speaker 1: to the park. About meeting her here today, And after
Speaker 1: she came to she asked form, I checked back receipts
Speaker 1: and told me to wait right there, and she hurried off,
Speaker 1: out of sight in a mass of people moving in
Speaker 1: every conceivable direction. I looked at my watch forty minutes
Speaker 1: until my next flight started boarding, and she told me
Speaker 1: to wait right there. And I promise you had that
Speaker 1: airport caught on fire while she was gone. The pile
Speaker 1: of charcoal with a Southern accent beside carousel number eleven
Speaker 1: would have been yours. Truly, I wasn't moving. I checked
Speaker 1: my watch, and with thirty minutes left until the Air
Speaker 1: Canada flight eleven twenty five started boarding out of Gate
Speaker 1: thirty four. I saw my most favorite person in Toronto
Speaker 1: making her way back to me like an Olympic downhill skier,
Speaker 1: bobbing and weaving like she'd done this many times before.
Speaker 1: She walked right up to me, handing my baggage claims
Speaker 1: and said, you're good to go, mister Reeves. Your luggage
Speaker 1: wasn't even removed from the plane. Okay, nice, So it'll
Speaker 1: be in Saskatoon when I get there, right sir, it's
Speaker 1: already loaded on the plane. Thank you, ma'am. I appreciate
Speaker 1: it so much. Now, how do I get the gate
Speaker 1: thirty four from here? Well, unfortunately, you have to go
Speaker 1: back through security. Go back the way you came until
Speaker 1: you see the customs agents just outside of carousel nine.
Speaker 1: Go through that checkpoint, then up the stairs and you'll
Speaker 1: see the security that you've already been through and the
Speaker 1: signs for the gate that you're looking for. Well, I
Speaker 1: thank her, and I took off like I knew where
Speaker 1: I was going. I did not. The customers agents beside
Speaker 1: carousel number nine snatched me out of line. I was
Speaker 1: still holding that paper slip but the purple highlighter marks
Speaker 1: on it, and he saw it immediately. Can I help you, sir, No, sir,
Speaker 1: I got all my questions answered, just trying to get
Speaker 1: Tom the gate my flight boards in twenty five minutes.
Speaker 1: Well you have to take that form you got there
Speaker 1: with you. Down to declared weapon, sir, Go to the
Speaker 1: see the customs agent down the hallway. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: have a weapon to declare, sir. It's archie equipment and
Speaker 1: it's already on the plane that leaves in twenty four minutes.
Speaker 1: You have to go see the duty officer, sir. After that,
Speaker 1: I was not about to argue with anyone who could
Speaker 1: make me doing about face, and told my person back
Speaker 1: to the other side of the border. I think back
Speaker 1: to the untold hordes of folks over my thirty two
Speaker 1: year career as being a police officer who could have
Speaker 1: stayed out of jail by practicing the same thought process.
Speaker 1: I hot footed it down the hall and stepped up
Speaker 1: to a row of desk where three customs officers stood
Speaker 1: shooting the breeze. I showed one of them the paper
Speaker 1: and he said, you're already cleared. Go down this hallway,
Speaker 1: up the stairs and back into the security. Apparently they
Speaker 1: didn't even offload your luggage, so it's on the plane
Speaker 1: that leads from Gate thirty four in twenty minutes. Already
Speaker 1: there pal good deal. Back through security, I went, we're
Speaker 1: regardless of if you're pre checked or not. Your shoes
Speaker 1: are coming off your feet. I did all of that
Speaker 1: again and made it to my gate with five minutes
Speaker 1: to spare. A fellow traveler stood nearby as I collected
Speaker 1: my wind and began to calm down from the near
Speaker 1: calamity that I thought they wrecked my trip before it
Speaker 1: even got started. Good you an American, Yes, sir, I
Speaker 1: am having a little issue with Airic Canada. Well I
Speaker 1: don't think so, just a little confusion going through customs
Speaker 1: with a bow and arrow. But it's all good now.
Speaker 1: They assured me my luggage is on the plane. He
Speaker 1: smiled at me, and he leaned in as if taking
Speaker 1: me into his confidence. He said, I've been flying Airic
Speaker 1: Canada for years. You know their motto is We're not
Speaker 1: happy unless you're not happy. Well that was funny, and
Speaker 1: then it brought some levity to what had been a
Speaker 1: stressful fifty five minutes of trying to get myself positions
Speaker 1: for the last three hour flight of the day. It
Speaker 1: had been a long time since three point thirty that morning,
Speaker 1: and I had been zigzagging back and forth through time
Speaker 1: zones like a man possessed all over North America. The
Speaker 1: route from Little Rock to Saskatoon had been anything but direct. Now,
Speaker 1: with one last hurdle before me, I could rest. Once
Speaker 1: I got the Saskatoon, gathered my bowcase and duffel bag,
Speaker 1: and met Dave at the Saskatoon in for a late
Speaker 1: supper before our five thirty departure the next morning. Once
Speaker 1: on the plane, I found my seat, and I filled
Speaker 1: my ears full of electronics and dozed on and off
Speaker 1: as a movie played on my phone while fourteen hundred
Speaker 1: miles clicked off below me. From thirty six thousand feet,
Speaker 1: I could finally relax. The whole custom thing was but
Speaker 1: a mere anecdote in this story that had really only
Speaker 1: just begun. That flight went faster than I expected. I'd
Speaker 1: been snoozing through the most of it, so when the
Speaker 1: pilot came on and said we better get all our
Speaker 1: plunder in order so he could land and caught me
Speaker 1: by surprise. I checked my watch, but I really had
Speaker 1: no idea what time it was. I'd lost track of
Speaker 1: which time zone I was currently in, but it didn't matter,
Speaker 1: and I didn't really care. I was about to see
Speaker 1: my buddy Dave and get some supper. I hadn't had
Speaker 1: anything to eat all day, and I was hungry as
Speaker 1: a hostage and ready to relax. Twenty minutes had gone
Speaker 1: by since we went wheels down in Saskatoon. We all
Speaker 1: deplaned and gathered at the baggage carousel like expected ranchers,
Speaker 1: waiting for that stainless steel animal to start pushing out
Speaker 1: luggage babies for all of us to pick over and
Speaker 1: take home. We waited and waited. Finally, that creature buzzed
Speaker 1: loudly as the yellow strobe light flashed, announcing to the
Speaker 1: world that the last activity of the day had begun.
Speaker 1: I watched the deformed portion of that belt make lap
Speaker 1: after lap through that curved track as one by one
Speaker 1: passengers claimed their property had made their way outside with
Speaker 1: their possessions. Stared at the deformed panelwin When the belt
Speaker 1: stopped moving and the light stopped flashing, I looked at
Speaker 1: my boarding passing corroborated again what I already knew. Air
Speaker 1: counted a flight eleven twenty five to run through the
Speaker 1: Saskatoon baggage area one. There was no more luggage. My
Speaker 1: bowcase and duffleback had definitely not been on the same
Speaker 1: plane as me, as I had been assured by no
Speaker 1: less than three people in uniform. Well, Eric Canada should
Speaker 1: be happy now, because I wasn't. As I stood there alone,
Speaker 1: staring at the empty baggage collection point, knowing that in
Speaker 1: less than eight hours I was supposed to be back
Speaker 1: in that airport on another flight with those two bags,
Speaker 1: one of which contained my bowl, Joscelyn said, having trouble.
Speaker 1: Ah why I knew her name to be Joscelyn, because
Speaker 1: that's what her Airic Canada name tag displayed. Yes, ma'am,
Speaker 1: I'm missing two bags. Then I briefed Joscelyn on everything
Speaker 1: she needed to know, plus something that got us to
Speaker 1: the point where she found me sadly sending alone like
Speaker 1: I'd been stood up at the altar waiting for the
Speaker 1: bride who wasn't coming. Joscelyn took my baggage receipts and
Speaker 1: walked to the opposite end of the airport, where she
Speaker 1: took her position at a computer terminal and began machine
Speaker 1: gunning that keyboard like her life depended on it. I
Speaker 1: suddenly felt relaxed, and with Joscelyn handling the issue, she
Speaker 1: turned a stressful moment of panic into a solvable problem,
Speaker 1: assuring me that she was going to ride the storm
Speaker 1: out with me. Mister Reeves, I found your bags. They're
Speaker 1: coming in on the next flight, which gets here at
Speaker 1: one am. We will have the courier bring them to
Speaker 1: your hotel. Now we fly out in the morning at
Speaker 1: five thirty. No worries, mister Reeves. Your bags will be
Speaker 1: at your hotel when you get up in the morning.
Speaker 1: They told me in Toronto they'd been saskintooned when I
Speaker 1: got here. Well, sir, that was them, not me. I
Speaker 1: like you, Joscelyn. I also believe you. I'm going to
Speaker 1: eat supper and go to bed, so your bags will
Speaker 1: be waiting for you at the front desk. So that's
Speaker 1: what I did. I walked out of that airport with
Speaker 1: my full faith and confidence in Joscelyn, a lady I
Speaker 1: had only just met, but that had taken an interest
Speaker 1: in helping someone she didn't know in as professional and
Speaker 1: personal manner as I could have hoped for. By the
Speaker 1: time Davi and I met up, had a short visit,
Speaker 1: and gone back to our rooms and finally laid down.
Speaker 1: It was after midnight. I stepped off the elevator and
Speaker 1: into the lobby the next morning at four point fifteen,
Speaker 1: and their stack, securely behind the front desk were my
Speaker 1: two missing bags. When Jocelyn tells you something, you can
Speaker 1: believe it. That morning, David and I did the whole
Speaker 1: routine again, shuttled to the airport, baggage, checked security, waiting
Speaker 1: at the gate. Then everything but moving like the cattle
Speaker 1: we were simulating as we moved and heard form from
Speaker 1: one point to the next. At the direction of our
Speaker 1: handlers from Saskatoon, we shed our earthly bonds tracked almost
Speaker 1: due north for five hundred miles. We stopped off in Faudelat,
Speaker 1: a community formed one hundred and fifty years ago by
Speaker 1: the Dunessa Lein or Dnay First Nations people, some of
Speaker 1: whom still lived the subsistence life and fishing there. First
Speaker 1: Nations man who introduced himself as Floyd and sat down
Speaker 1: behind me and Dave on the long pull mort from Saskatoon.
Speaker 1: He was a fishing guide in a trade and had
Speaker 1: recognized us back at the airport. Now, having someone like
Speaker 1: Floyd tell you he enjoys watching what you do on
Speaker 1: YouTube was quite a pleasant surprise. We had a great visit,
Speaker 1: and once he and the rest of his family deplaned
Speaker 1: in Fond of Locke, the fifty mile hop over the
Speaker 1: Stony Rapids was a quipment Stony Rapids would be our
Speaker 1: jumping off spot. Situated fifty one miles south of the
Speaker 1: border of the Northwest Territories. Stony Rapid sits on the
Speaker 1: south side of the Fond of Locke River, the river
Speaker 1: that our last flight would leave from, a floatplane flight
Speaker 1: of a little over half an hour in Assessina. Caravan
Speaker 1: would be the final time for a week that we
Speaker 1: had to load ourselves in gear and to an air
Speaker 1: worthy conveyance. Nick Goffs met us at the airport. Airstrip
Speaker 1: I'm not sure which one better describes that particular area
Speaker 1: where aircraft come and go. But don't get the idea.
Speaker 1: I mean that disrespectfully. On the contrary, in a world
Speaker 1: where long driveable roads only appear when water freezes, the
Speaker 1: aircraft is king and the quickest way to get from
Speaker 1: one spot to the next. Those two paved and well
Speaker 1: kept airstrips and fond of lock and stony rapids were
Speaker 1: the literal hub for everything coming in out of those communities.
Speaker 1: Nick got a squared away and we loaded our gear
Speaker 1: for the short drive over to the floatplane base, where
Speaker 1: we packed it and ourselves on an aircraft piloted by Wayne.
Speaker 1: Wayne is a local legend with a million hours of
Speaker 1: experience flying in the Canadian North in all kinds of weather,
Speaker 1: and just the guy you want driving you on the
Speaker 1: most treacherous portion of the trip. Its takeoff was buttery smooth,
Speaker 1: and at thirty six hundred feet ten times less than
Speaker 1: what I'd been cruising at from Little Rock to Toronto.
Speaker 1: The world didn't look any smaller, but it did look
Speaker 1: more remote. I was reminded of eight months earlier, when
Speaker 1: Dave and I were sitting on a similar aircraft in
Speaker 1: the neighboring province of Manitoba, surveying the vastness of what
Speaker 1: appeared to be an endless patchwork of water and rocks,
Speaker 1: separated by undeveloped tracts of jackpine, willa, aspen, birch, and
Speaker 1: spruce trees. This would be our home for the next
Speaker 1: nine days. For nine days, we would be traveling by
Speaker 1: boat in search of Ursus americata, the American BlackBerry, a
Speaker 1: monikered beast whose name would lead you to believe it
Speaker 1: referenced the United States, when in reality it identifies its
Speaker 1: vast and growing distribution over North America, which keyed to
Speaker 1: a stop at the floating dock at Camp less than
Speaker 1: two hundred yards away. In the center of that camp
Speaker 1: set a log cabin built in the nineteen sixties by
Speaker 1: our fur trapper and floatplane pile, a man that lived
Speaker 1: the kind of life I dreamed of living while growing
Speaker 1: up in Arkansas. Over eighteen hundred miles southeast of where
Speaker 1: I currently stood. This was bear Country and we were
Speaker 1: just getting started. However, y'all that have been watching the
Speaker 1: clock new we weren't going to be doing this all
Speaker 1: in one episode. I only know one way to tell
Speaker 1: a story, and that's to tell it all and the
Speaker 1: rest will have to wait until next week. Brent, that
Speaker 1: is a terrible thing to do. You did that the
Speaker 1: last time you went to Canada with Dave Gardner Hunt
Speaker 1: moose Well. Blame it on Dave. Regardless, we're in Barry
Speaker 1: Camp now and next week the action starts pretty quickly. Now, oh,
Speaker 1: you would be world champion. Squirrel chefs out there, You've
Speaker 1: got an opportunity coming up on September the twelfth to
Speaker 1: be the world champion. Get on Facebook or Google World
Speaker 1: Championship Squirrel Cookoff. Fill out the forms, get your team together,
Speaker 1: get your recipe together, and join me and some other
Speaker 1: folks that you know and love at the JB. And
Speaker 1: John L. Hunt Ozark Highlands Nature Center in Springdale, Arkansas,
Speaker 1: September the twelfth. Get your recipe, get your folks together,
Speaker 1: get your permits filled out and your fees paid so
Speaker 1: you can come have a great time with dolls until
Speaker 1: next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off. All be
Speaker 1: careful