MY FIRST DEER
When I think of all the places I ever hunted I don't think I enjoyed any place as much as Bartibogue Station. I took my first trip out there I suppose when I was sixteen years old. I borrowed a rifle from Walter MacKenzie. He gave me his old 38-55. It was what they called a saddle gun. He said it was in good shape and he loaned it to me. Walter was a carpenter at Burchill's. He was an awful nice man. I had no hunting license either hut Jimmy MacFarlane from Chatham Head loaned me his. He had a license that was good for two deer but he had only shot the one. He wasn't going to hunt any more so he gave out his license for loan. So with a borrowed gun, a borrowed license and fifty cents in my pocket I set off for Bartibogue Station on my first hunting trip. I stopped off at Joe Napke's and bought three cartridges. They cost me thirty nine cents. Then I marched up to the Newcastle station and asked how far the train would take me for eleven cents. It took me as far as the Big Arch. A Clarence MacFarlane was going up hunting too and he said he would get off with me. He showed me an old trapper's cave there. It was just a hole in the ground with a small funnel stove in it. You had to crawl into it and there was no room to stand up. You could only sit on the floor. The old trapper used to sleep there all curled up around the little stove. Later on Clarence and I walked up to the Bartibogue Station to spend the night. I remember it was pitch dark and snowing awful hard. The walking was terrible. When we got to the station we found about twenty other hunters there ahead of us. Every bench was full and those that didn't have a bench slept on the floor. You didn't have to lull me off to sleep that night. I was awful tired. I got up before dark the next morning and lit out across the tracks down past Father Benny Murdoek's place just to discover I left my three bullets back at the station! I bad to turn around and meet all the other bunters coming out. Talk about feeling foolish! Anyway, I got the bullets and started out again. After following the trail the others had taken for a while I decided to cut off down by a brook. Whenever I got tired of wading in the deep snow I would just sit down to rest for a spell. Once when I was resting I spotted a movement in the alders. It was a deer! Boys I up and fired and down she went! It was a big doe! My first deer! Was I ever excited! I dressed the deer out with an old knife made from a planer blade and
started to drag it out. It was too heavy for me but some fellers came along and give me a hand. We drug it out to the station. My next problem was to figure out how to get the deer and myself to Newcastle. My money was all gone so I couldn't buy a ticket for myself or ship the deer in baggage.
When the next train stopped another chap I knew tried to help me put the deer on top of a coal car. The deer was too heavy for us to lift that high.
So what we did was throw the deer carcass across the coupling between two boxcars and climbed on with it. We had no rope so we had to make sure it didn't fall off. The two of us rode the train into town perched on the coupling hanging onto that deer. That deer was important! It was a cold and scary trip but boys we made 'er. That was my first deer and I haven't forgotten it in all these years.