A friend told me this story one night in hunting camp.

Quite a few years ago, when Bob was a young man, he went down to the meadows to check on the horses that they kept there during the winter. When he gets there, he finds that one of the horses has been seriously injured by wolves. Bob has to put the horse down, which he does. Bob figures," I'll fix them f'n wolves" and he stabs the horse all over with a knife and then puts stricknine(spelling?)tablets in the holes. Bob left the horse in the meadow so that the wolves could come back and feed.
Back in town, Bob tells his father, that he had to put a horse down that the wolves had injured. He does not say anything about the poison he laced the horse with.
Bob says about a week goes by and he runs into his father. While they were bullshit'n with each other Bob father says to him, " I gave old Roy, the dog musher, that horse you put down so he could feed it to his dogs." Bob say's he nearly shit himself. bob said, even though old Roy (not real name) was an asshole, the shit Bob would be in if Old Roy feeds that horse to the dogs. Poison had been outlawed and was not the popular thing to do anymore. Old Roy lived in a different community and Bob wasted no time in getting there. Bob tracks down Old Roy and askes him where and what did you do with the horse meat that my father gave to you. Old Roy say's,"I didn't feed it to my dogs, I sold it to some indians as moose meat!" Bob says he had a fit. If things couldn't have gotten any worse. Anyways, Bob finds out who Roy sold the horse meat to and tracks them down. Luckily, the people hadn't touched the meat yet and the hind quarters were still hanging. Bob said he had a hell of a time getting the poisoned meat back. He had to buy it back. Obviously he could not tell them it was poisoned. When shit happens, it can really happen.

This story is not intended to be racist. Nor do I support or agree with poisoning. It is just a story relayed to me about some of the stuff that went on in the 'old days'. It could have been tragic, but fortunately it wasn't. None the less, I found it interesting. Mabe some of you will.

Sometimes, what seemed like a good idea at the time can really backfire on you!

Frans

You got that right, Frans

It was the last time Bob did anything like that. He was young at the time. He was also very gratefull that all ended well.

From what I have heard, poisoning wolves was common practice and accepted. Loui Brown, a pionering Outfitter, trapper, etc. came in from being out in the bush for some time. He had 80 or 90 wolf pelts with him that he brought in to sell. The way I heard the story was that while Louis was out on the land, the gov't banned poisoning. Apparently, Louis not knowing this, brought in his pelts, which he got from poisoning bait. His pelts were confiscated and he was fined a sum for each wolf hide. The gov't f'd him.


Daryl