THE DEER STARVED
anonymous

Back in the early thirtys Fraser's Company had a couple of lumber camps back on the Bartibogue River. Two brothers, Lyman and Wilfred Dolan, were the people operating the camps. Those boys were originally from over in Nowlandville. They were about five miles from the railroad line. It
was a very isolated spot. If you didn't go in by train you had to travel more than twenty miles over wood roads to get there Anyway, this winter was pretty much like the one we are having right now. There was a lot of snow and a big rain came and made a really thick crust. The deer had been yarded up and as a result picked clean all the food in their general area. They welcomed the chance to get up on the crust and wander away from the yards to find more to eat. This was great for the deer and over a period of time they spread out. However, once they got separated from the main herds a thaw came and the crust softened. And to make matters worse another big snowfall came right after the thaw. The deer were trapped! They were all alone and they couldn't get back to the deer yards. The snow was just too deep and the softer crust, now buried, cut their legs when they did try. There was no way they could travel. At the time there was a lot of teams of horses out there. The teamsters were hauling pulp wood out to the railway and they felt sorry for the animals. Sometimes the men would cut down cedar trees, throw them on the sleds and drop them off along the woods roads. The deer would scent the cedar of course and those that were able to flounder out to the road ate the leaves and bark off those trees right down to the bare wood. They were so hungry they ate the bark and everything. Sometimes the deer would stay on the hauling roads because they couldn't get up over the high banks and even if they did they just ended up in the deep snow again. They were so weak they would just stand there and the teams and men would come right up and drive past them. They were too far gone to even be afraid and run. It
was terrible to see such beautiful animals starving right before your eyes. George Dolan told me he was one of the teamsters there at the time. The men always had an old rug or blanket to put under their backsides when they sat on a load of lumber. One time George said he took his blanket over and threw it on a deer that was standing beside the road in the deep snow. When he came back in the morning the deer was stone cold dead. It was so weak from hunger it's body couldn't fight the cold and the poor thing froze to death. That was a big loss that winter. The deer suffered terribly.