So, where’s that dinner? I’m waiting, but my patience is wearing thin here …

(He should try the publishing industry, eh? )

This beauty had a light golden coat on his shoulders and back, and was totally oblivious to my passing by — looks like that time of year again, when the only thing the bruins are worried about is obsessively chowing their way up to hibernation weight.

For those who have asked how close these wild animals are to passers by, I walked around the trail from where I shot the above photo, and tried to take another shot (shown below) for perspective.  See the guy riding by on his bike? He didn’t notice the bear at all. Neither did the golfers putting away on the green to the left of the biker. I shot the above pic a little further ahead and to the right of that cyclist — and the bear is the brown blot hidden behind greenery in the depression to the right. Make sense?

And just to see how often we walk past these foraging beasts, perhaps not even noticing they are there –  if you look real close at the pic below, you can see the ear and part of the back of the head of a fairly large black bear munching berries in a patch about two arms lengths off the trail …. can you spot him? Makes one think twice before scrambling through the brambles search of berries, eh?

In this last pic (below), you can just see the very black, rounded tip of his ear.

Is that a .22 in your hand, KJ, or are you just happy to be researching?

To me, one of the best things about being a writer is that it gives you license to be interested in just about anything. And more often than not, people are happy to help … to share the little idiosyncracies of their professions or fields of interest.

Another good thing about the Writing Life? Friends. Fellow writers who ‘get’ you like no one else can. Like KJ Howe above. Who else but a fellow writer of suspense would drop everything and fly out west to muck around in the B.C. bush and play with guns and knives? And who better to rehash the rather interesting trip with?

Thanks Kim, for slumming it with me. Shan’t forget this one

“So, this is a compass, ladies … and this is how you use it not to get lost  …”

Honestly, I’m not sure I’m any the wiser. Navigation is a complex art. But at least I will now know how to mantrack my prints back to where I started

And I did learn how to use sticks and the sun to find north.

A young Harris Hawk named Duck, made us … well, duck, during a falconry demonstration on our ‘research’ weekend at the ‘Becoming an Outdoorswoman’ camp at Lake Cowichan, Vancouver Island.

I’m going to have to write Duck’s handler into a romance novel one day — she’s pure heroine inspiration — beautiful, vivacious, handles a crowd with charm, wit and ease, and has a fierce passion for her birds. She also clearly marches to her own drum. And in that bag strapped around her hips are handfuls of soft, fluffy day-old chicks — the reason young Duck keeps swooping back on demand. He’d eaten about three at this point.

Duck, however, still has trouble hunting rabbit. Below, we are shown how he is trained. By a fake lure dragged over the grass. He swooped down out the evening sky, and … stopped just short. A little afraid, still. In no time, he’ll apparently be chasing down hare on his own.

Guess everyone has to start somewhere …

And below is me doing a spot of manhunting myself, along the shores of Lake Cowichan with my tracking partner.

Using tracking poles that we marked with small bands to indicate footprint length, and stride — once we’d established it — we managed to track 3-hour old sign that our instructor had left on a windblown (freezing cold) pebbly beach that was already contaminated with hundreds of other tracks.

Inch by inch we moved along the sand, identifying the sign left by his Vibram soles, and flagging the prints with bits of tape (you can see the lime green pieces under my pole) as we went. It felt like CSI wild style.

We managed to track our quarry over that beach, up to the forest fringe, and into the woods, making our way through fern and grass and loam and other forest detritus, reading the story a man left as he went. I don’t think I’ll ever look at my surroundings in the same way now. I have learned to see the message in the slight weep from broken grass, the damp ‘cat’s eyes’ from freshly-broken twigs, the scrape of bark from a branch. And beyond research, I’d like to learn a lot more about this art. There is something almost mystical in being able to read the wilderness in this way, to find someone lost.

We had an awesome instructor, too, who brought the trace to life for us. In addition to being a Sign Cutter and Search and Rescue volunteer, Mike Neeland (of the Vibram soles) is a teacher for Universal Tracking Services which provides provide sign cutting (tracking) education for Law Enforcement, Search and Rescue, Military, Industrial Security and other governmental and ‘lawful organizations’ across North America. He was aided by local Search and Rescue tracker, Tanya (Sorry Tanya, I never caught your last name).

I learned a ton getting that ‘dirt time’ on hands and knees, and I will find a way to get back for more. This I like. A lot.

The firearms safety course was held the first night. BOW volunteers Richard and Bob showed us a range of rifles and shotguns, from break action, to bolt action, to pump, lever and semi-automatic. We practiced handling, ensuring the weapons were safe, and loading with blank ammo. Bob and Richard are pretty rugged no-nonsense backcountry-style dudes — and at that point I felt as though Kim and I had signed up with some renegade merc army

Once we got to the range the next day, Richard put ol’ Ma Baker here through her paces, showing me how to snug up to that 12-gauge real tight, and hit a flying target. When I finally got the hang of it and started shattering my clay pigeons, it was on a total high. Awesome feeling. That’s a shooting vest I’m wearing, with pockets for the shells in front, except I had to wear it inside out so that the padded shoulder bit was on my left. I have new respect for the idiosyncrasies faced by left-handed folk.

This was fabulous experience for me because Silver, my heroine in MANHUNTER (coming November from SRS) carries both hunting rifle and 12-gauge shotgun. She’s also a mantracker, and mantracking was one of the courses we did.

I’ll post more pics tomorrow ….

RCMP officer and volunteer BOW instructor, Darren, coaches me with the .303. Among the things I learned — it makes a MUCH bigger bang than the .22.

I also discovered for the first time that I am “cross dominant”, meaning my left eye is the dominant — or master — eye, while I am right handed. And that meant learning to shoot with my left hand. Something to get my head around, and easier with the rifle than the shotgun and a moving target. But I am back from ‘Becoming an Outdoors Woman’, and now playing catchup. More later ….