The Dangers of Bear Hunting, or How I Got Porcupine Quills in My Head

We don’t have porcupines where I live. We also don’t have many bears, so when the occasional one is spotted, the 6 o’clock news reports about the posse that stalked the poor bruin through a ritzy neighborhood.  So if I want to hunt bears or see porcupines, I go somewhere that seems exotic to me, like coastal British Columbia.

Upon arriving in a B.C. bear camp years ago, I noticed all the guides had porcupine quills in the tops of their caps. Minutes later, as my hunting partner, our guide, and I headed out for the afternoon’s hunt, a porcupine waddled across the road in front of us. Snatching my cap from my head, the guide ran for the porcupine and slapped its back with the crown of the cap. And that’s how they all got quills in their caps and I became one of the guys. Nice.

A few days later, we were on a logging road on the side of a mountain that felt like the top of the world. Although there was leftover snow on the ground, it was a warm, shirt-sleeves day. My hunting partner spotted a large black bear about 300 yards away. It was a shootable distance for him, and he had a gun with enough oomph to do the job from that range, but between us and the bear were a vertical rock cliff, a patch of thick alders loved by grizzlies, a wide creek raging with the waters of the spring thaw, and a large snowbank. Getting the bear back to the logging road looked difficult, if not impossible. He shot it anyway, and we started plotting its retrieval.

The route would be circuitous, through, around, and over the obstacles between us and the bear. Without the aid of GPS units, radios, or any other electronics, we realized just staying on course would be challenging. So the plan was that I would stay on the mountain where I could see both the bear and my fellow hunters and direct them as needed. How did I get so lucky?!

I watched the scene below as the two men navigated their way to the bear, occasionally pointing left or right to get them back on track. Finally, they reached the dead bear, and the guide turned to me with both arms stretched overhead, waving in a criss-cross manner to let me know they had found the bear.  I acknowledged him with the same signal – and suddenly pain seared through my head. I had bumped my hat while waving, and a porcupine quill had nailed my scalp.

“&$%@#*!!!” I yelled, reaching for the brim of my hat to remove it. The cap wouldn’t budge. I tugged a little harder, but the pain was worse by the second. My head hurt, my ears throbbed, every individual tooth in my mouth pounded. I sat in the logging road with hands on each side of my hat, tugging firmly but gently. It was nailed to my head. I reached for the quills and thought I could somehow figure out which ones were pinned to me.  Every one I touched made the pain worse and still didn’t budge.

Finally, there was no choice but to be more aggressive, like ripping a bandage off quickly. With both hands, I pulled my hat as hard as I could. This time it came loose, every little fish hook quill end attached to a chunk of bloody scalp. I later counted 84 bloody quills.

I dropped my head into my hands, my fingers massaging my aching scalp, my eyes clenched. Soon I realized my arms felt strangely warm, and I opened my eyes to find my hands and sleeves soaked in blood. My head was gushing, and I needed to stop the bleeding. I recalled that just down the logging road was a small waterfall, the runoff of the spring thaw. I walked there, blood streaming into my face and over my clothes, and stuck my head in the icy water.  It worked; in a few minutes, the bleeding finally stopped, and I washed the blood from my hair.

I looked down at myself, seeing that my shirt was a bloody, sticky mess. My hunting partners were still at least a couple of hours from returning. I could see for miles, but there was (probably) no one around to see me. So I took off my shirt, washing it in the waterfall, streams of blood running down the roadside. I rinsed it until the water ran clean, then wrung it out. I found a sunny spot and spread it out on a rock to dry.

In the meantime – combless and mirrorless – I arranged and fluffed my hair with my fingers, trying to get it dry. My shirt eventually dried enough to wear, and I got myself dressed and back together. Minutes later, my partners emerged from the ravine, loaded with bear, and there I sat on the big rock where they had left me.

I could only imagine how shocked my hunting partners must be when they returned to find me in such a mess, especially after they had climbed down a rock cliff, crossed thick alders, waded a raging creek, trudged through a snow slide, field-dressed and skinned a bear, and returned through the same hazards with their first load of bear hide and carcass.

But they didn’t say a word! “OK, they’re excited about the bear,” I thought. “Soon they’ll finish telling their story and will notice.” Not a word. Nada. Nobody noticed.

I guess I could easily attribute their negligence of my ordeal to their being men. I could call them inattentive and self-centered. In reality, they didn’t notice because, after a week in bear camp, a waterfall shower and mirrorless grooming didn’t hurt my appearance at all.

See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net