I knew I should have listened when Smokey the Bear said, “Only you can prevent forest fires”. My dad (Kenny) and I were invited to go on a bear hunting/fishing trip up in Canada at our friend Don’s cabin. The cabin was located on a very remote lake 1-2 hrs. Away from the nearest paved road and phone. To access the cabin we traveled approximately a mile by boat to it from the end of the road. Anyway, we were new to the bear hunting experience so we received a few pointers starting out and tagged along a few days with our friends as they set up the bear baits. All the stands were located around the lake in the thick forest about a few hundred yards off the shore. First, let me give you a description of our bait. We obtained dozens of old donuts from Dunkin Donuts dumpster, meat scraps from the butcher, dead chickens from chicken farms and gathered smooshed road kill such as groundhogs. Hope you weren’t planning to eat soon. In addition to this bait another technique to attract bear was to take a coffee can with a cut in half soda can on top filled with honey and a sterno canister(a small canister which you burn to produce a flame) placed underneath the coffee can. This burned the honey and produced the scent of honey in the air. We all know how Winnie the Pooh liked honey. My dad and I watched this technique which seemed to be a no brainer. So the next day my dad and I left to rebait the stands while the rest of the camp went fishing. There were a total of five stands we were baiting. After leaving the fourth stand we proceeded to the fifth where we had notice a possible bear had visited the day before. This was great we thought as we jumped back in our 14’ flat bottom 6 horsepower motor boat. As we headed back across the lake I looked up in the sky and saw a cloud of smoke coming from the forest. It didn’t take long to realize this was the location of the fourth stand we had setup. With a few words @#$% coming from my dad he quickly revved up the little motor and sped over there as fast as we could. It seemed like forever as we thought to ourselves and out loud “we are in deep shit”! Finally he runs ashore and I grab two buckets that had bear bait in previously. I scooped up some water and started to run up the hill. The hill was initially steep then leveled off which the stand was located on. Two 5 gallon buckets full of water was a pain to carry as most of it was splashing out anyway, so I dropped one and continue to head up. My dad was tying off the boat and preparing to grab some water also. As I reached the leveled off area where the stand was located my heart sank. As I looked I saw flames on the ground in the tree tops just everywhere. There was already about a ½ acre on fire and here I stood with a little bucket of water I threw at some of the fire and realized, we were in trouble. With distraught I yelled down “Dad it’s to big”! As he approach he realize I was totally correct and we were in deep crap. There wasn’t much we could do. We were out in nowhere without a phone and a couple hour drive to find one, so decided to find our friends that were out fishing. We left the area and pulled up on shore where there was a couple mile trail to another lake that we thought they were at. First we took our gun and shot in the air three times as a help signal. I then left and started to run, I ran faster than I had ever through a mosquito and black fly infested swampland forest. I finally reached the lake and guess what they weren’t there. I was exhausted. So I ran back or at least tried, falling off the little foot bridges a few times into the swamp. When I finally arrived back my dad had said a small plane had flew overhead and seemed to spot the fire. This was good. My dad then suggested we go put out all the other sterno canisters to make sure nothing else happened. So we went around to the stands and extinguished then. As we did this we started to see huge planes fly over and dump water onto our barbecue. We finally got the last sterno extinguish and notice a helicopter hovering over the water at one end of the fire. Then out comes a rope and two firefighters repel down with a bunch of gear. They pull out chainsaws and shovels and started to fight the fire. By now my dad and I thought we may possibly get in some trouble for this and decided to try to rid the area of any evidence. So as the Canadian firefighters fought the fire at one end, luckily the wind had blown it in one direction away from the stand, we slipped in from the other side. We first took down the tree stand and gathered up the honey burning setup. We brought two buckets up to gather the bait up with, it was initially four buckets worth of bait. By this time the meat, chickens and road kill were pretty rotten. The bait pile was moving and actually looked like a living creature due to all the maggots and flies squirming around in it, but since we were determined to get rid of the evidence we started picking up the mess and stuffing it in the buckets. As my dad gagged I tried to hold my sleeve over my nose as we stuffed the bait into the bucket. Of course two buckets were not going to hold four buckets worth of bait. So we start chucking donuts and meat around the forest and stomping them into the dirt. Next we got out of there and headed back to the cabin where we met up with few of our camp buddies. We told them what had happened, they then went to help with the fire, but encouraged us not to go so they wouldn’t ask us any questions. After a few hours and a dozen or so planes dropping water on the fire it seemed to be under control. When our two guys returned to the camp they said the Canadian firefighters had asked them for their names and addresses. Reluctant to give them that information they asked why. The Canadian responded “We would have had to probably bring in a few more people to fight the fire and since you all help us out we would like to pay you”. Our guys politely denied compensation, while thinking to themselves, they are trying to pay us for a fighting a fire that our camp started.

I estimated about 3-4 acres of woods was burnt. This was good though it provided a nice open area which would be great for a stand next year to hunt from. The rest of the week turned out ok I got my little bear from that fifth stand.

My dad still recalls every time he watches the news report about a wildfire that burnt another 2,000 or 10,000 acres somewhere that could have been us that did that.