Detour to Otherwhen ©

by K Pelle

Chapter 1

For what it's worth, my name is Joe McIntyre.  I'm not sure why I'm writing this journal, other than the fact that it gives me something to do during the dull dreary days of winter.  The main reason I feel pessimistic is because it has become fundamentally doubtful if anyone outside of my family and friends will ever read what I've written.  Before becoming involved in the present situation I worked as a machinist for the physics labs at the University of Victoria.  At one point I was the chief machinist in the Physics Department's machine shop, but those days are long gone.  My job seemed to surprise some people, since I am a Métis and for some reason many people thought native people weren't mechanically inclined, but I felt I came by my mechanical aptitude naturally.

You see, I come from a long line of people who built things.  One of my distant grandfathers was a carpenter who came from Scotland in the 1770's.  He's listed in the records of the Hudsons Bay Company as one of the men who helped to build Cumberland House, a trading post on the Saskatchewan River, in 1774.  While he was there, he married a woman of the Cree nation, who bore him several children.  Two of his sons built Red River carts and another son built canoes, so the need to work with our hands is common in my family, in fact our talents seem to grow and adapt with the passing of time.  My paternal grandfather was a blacksmith, but when the Model T Ford came along, he read the writing on the wall and became a mechanic.  My father followed in his footsteps, becoming a mechanic, then the owner of a service station and eventually the owner of a car dealership with a service center.  As a result I feel becoming a machinist was a natural progression for the talents of the men of my family.  Since I love working with metal, machining and mechanics became my life's work, but even then one of my avocations was always writing.  As you can see I'm still finding time to write, although now I'm keeping a journal instead of writing fiction.

Writing wasn't my only hobby though.  I loved to hunt, and every fall I used to take a short holiday to go into the high country of the Alberta foothills.  I'd usually bring back a deer or an elk that I'd butcher and share amongst my friends.  Some years I used my rifle, but in later years I got involved with bow hunting, and since I had to be closer, the stalk was tougher with a bow, so I loved that even more.  I suppose that was my native heritage coming to the fore, but I'm not about to spend much time belabouring that point, other than the fact that my hobbies and interests had an influence on my present situation.

I remember what happened to bring on the situation we are involved in, but I'm still not really certain how it happened.  Perhaps it will become clear to me as I write the story, but if not, perhaps if someone else ever reads this journal, they will find a way to understand.  I hope so, I truly do, because I feel that what has happened to us is monumental and certainly worthy of being researched, and if it is, perhaps one day it will be understood.

Unfortunately, I'm already getting ahead of myself.  I should at least record the happenings that led us to be living in this place, and at this time.  Perhaps the best thing to do is to introduce a key character to my story, the love of my life, Anna Schmidt.


When I first met Anna, I was relaxing with my friend, Sam Williams after a very frustrating week.  I should mention that Sam was not just my friend, he was also my boss.  We were down at the faculty club, bemoaning the fact that one of the physics professors had changed his mind and his requirements an excessive number times during the construction of one small project.  The dork had supposedly finalized his plans before the project began.  Unfortunately he was actually lost and stumbling in the dark, insisting on small changes at least three or four times a day for a whole week.  When he'd waltzed into the machine shop on Friday afternoon with a major modification to his demands, I lost my cool.  The portion of the design which he wanted me to change would mean that I would have to throw out everything which had already been done and restart the project from scratch.  He had wasted a whole week of my time and then insulted me by calling me 'a fucking ignorant half breed' and to top it off, the idiot called me that in front of witnesses.  I was so annoyed that I'd ordered him out of the shop, then called Sam, telling him that from now on that particular professor would have to make any further requests through Sam and the office.  When Sam heard how the idiot had acted, he agreed with me and offered to back me if I wanted to charge the fool with discrimination.  Not only that, but he met with the professor and the professor's boss to give them both a chewing out, then invited me out to the faculty club that evening for dinner and a few drinks.

The two of us already eaten and were playing a quiet game of eightball when I first met Anna.  Well actually, I had just made a shot and stepped back from the pool table, accidentally backing into her and spilling the drink she was holding. Luckily I didn't spill it all over her or anyone else.  Of course I apologised and bought her a replacement, but that little task didn't hurt my feelings in any way.  My first impression was that she was extremely attractive and buying her a drink gave me an excuse to talk to her.  She was quite friendly, so when Sam looked at his watch and said he had to get home to his wife and family, I shrugged and told him that I didn't need a ride, but would walk home.  After all, I was enjoying the lady's company and I didn't have to walk far to get home.

Of course the fact that I lived close enough to walk home from the faculty club intrigued Anna.  I think it surprised her that I owned a home within walking distance of campus, since prices in the area were quite high, so I had to tell her how and why that had come about.  I explained that when my parents had been killed in a car accident, I'd inherited my father's business as well as my parents' little house, but I had no interest in keeping either one.  Instead, I had sold them both, then had enough money to buy a pair of old houses which sat side by side and had enough funds left after the purchase to have both houses renovated.  The fact that the two houses were on a quiet street within walking distance of the university was a matter of serendipity, but was essential to my plans for the future.

When Anna asked me why I had two houses, I told her all the details.  After all it was no secret around campus that I'd rebuilt the second house as a boarding house, in fact it had become known as 'Joe's Joint.'  My boarding house was considered a prime residence by many students, but for me it was an investment in my future.  You see, I'd had a hard time adjusting to being away from home when I was studying to become a machinist and wouldn't have made it through the course except that I had taken a room in a boarding house.  I and the other students who lived there lucked out, because the couple who owned the boarding house actually treated the students who boarded there as if we were family.  Oh, they didn't try to rule our lives, but they did make time to listen to any problems we had and they did insist that we took responsibility for things like cleaning our rooms and making our beds.  On top of that, they fed us well and treated us fairly, which was exactly the system I'd tried to copy when I had the chance.  I think the concept of providing support while developing the students independence impressed her even more, so I went on to explain what I'd done to the two houses.

I'd refurbished the main and second floor of one of the houses to include eight bedrooms, four bathrooms, a quiet room for studies and a small parlour for guests.  Then down in the basement I'd put in a several storage lockers, a game room, an exercise room and a fifth bathroom.  I'd insisted that the whole basement had to have sound deadening materials on both the walls and ceilings.  That way the students who were upstairs wouldn't be disturbed by the noise of those who were relaxing and fooling around in the basement.  As the residence was being renovated, I'd been firm with the contractors, insisting that everything had to be utilitarian, but also easily cleaned and maintained, in other words everything was built to institutional standards.  Once that project was completed, I had begun to rent out rooms to students.

There were no kitchen facilities in that first house, but I'd simultaneously had a second crew working on the other house.  That crew had built a covered walkway that led next door and I had converted the second house into an up and down duplex.  The main floor had been rebuilt to include a huge kitchen and pantry as well as a large dining room on the main floor, but the rest of that floor was set up as residence for two middle-aged widows, Helen and Vera.  I'd hired the two of them to provide meals for the students as well as making them responsible for cleaning the common areas and bathrooms of both houses.  Originally, I bankrolled my two housekeepers, setting them up to be able to recover some profit on the meals, but I also paid them a wage to cover their additional cleaning duties.

I was always careful to explain to new renters that meals were a separate charge and not part of the rental of their rooms.  Instead, the students prepaid the cooks for any meals they ate during the month.  Of course some students didn't eat there often, but most did, since the meals were always good, as well as quite inexpensive.  I knew from the start that the women I'd hired as cooks weren't the type to gouge 'their kids,' instead they were both the motherly sort.  I also insisted that the students either kept their own rooms relatively clean or they could have the housekeepers do it, but the cost of housecleaning was charged against their food bill, so few students used it.

I kept an overall eye on things and did ongoing maintenance on both places while charging enough rent to make a small profit, but kept my overall charges as low as possible.  Actually, maintaining those houses wasn't onerous and I enjoyed it, because on top of everything else I felt I was doing my bit toward the education of several students.  Not surprisingly, I had a waiting list for any open room, and had very little trouble with tenants; those students who lived there knew they had a great deal and I understand they bragged about it.  Actually most of my tenants proudly referred to 'Joe's Joint' as their second home, which caused Anna to laugh at my explanation.  It seems she'd overheard two students discussing a desire to get into 'Joe's Joint' and had assumed it was a popular local pub.

I just grinned at that, then went on to explain that the duplex next door to the student residence was divided into three areas.  The two widows had complete control of the main floor, which included their living space, a food storage area, a large kitchen for food preparation and an even larger dining room where the students ate.  I reserved the basement of the duplex for myself, utilizing that space for storage for my camping, hunting and archery gear, as well as any other hobby stuff that took up space.  I even had a workshop down there where I repaired any of the furniture that the students had accidentally damaged or any other projects I felt like tackling.

The second floor of the duplex was my home and over a period of several years I had completely renovated that whole level, doing the work myself.  When I was finished, I had a kitchen, living room, office, and two bedrooms, as well as two small bathrooms.  All those rooms were set up to be convenient for me and as handy as I could make them.  I was quite proud that everything in both houses had been built to my exacting standards, so when Anna expressed an interest in seeing the place, I invited her over.

Since the next day was Saturday, she came for lunch and had a full tour of both houses, then she surprised me by accepting my invitation to come over for Sunday dinner.  She explained that since she was living in a single-bedroom basement suite at the time and she found my place to be bright and roomy, she enjoyed visiting.  Of course I took the hint and invited her to visit as often as she liked.

She astounded me by taking me up on my invitation and soon she was coming to visit several times a week, even dropping by to see me at work.  It wasn't long before others began to refer to Anna as my girlfriend and one Friday evening, when someone did that in front of Anna, she just smiled.  That surprised me and I suppose I looked at her questioningly, but she just smiled back at me.

"Do you consider yourself to be my girlfriend?" I asked her bluntly.

"Yes, of course I do," she grinned and winked.

Now that flummoxed me because I'd never had a real girlfriend and I didn't know what to say or do at the time.  Oh, I'd gone out with several other women for a date or two at one time or other, but I'd never really gotten involved with any of them for any length of time.  Since I didn't know what to say or do, I kept my mouth shut for once, but everyone else who was at the club began to celebrate my loss of bachelor status.  I suppose that's why I got carried away and drank too much that night, at least that's what I blame for my stupidity.  I do remember that I had drunk too much to drive, so once again I announced that I was walking home.  Although I remember walking home with Anna, I was astonished to wake up and have her serve me a cup of coffee and two aspirins while I was still in bed.  The fact that I was my own bed and she was wearing one of my shirts as a robe suggested that she'd spent the night.  However before I could even ask her, she advised me that she'd found my spare bed to be quite comfortable.

After that weekend, things developed very quickly between us.  Anna officially moved into my second bedroom inside of a month and I was astounded by the fact that living with her hardly disturbed the pattern of my life.  Our lives just seemed to fit well with each other and each of us found that our life was enhanced by the other's.  Oh, there were minor challenges and changes in both of our lives, but none of them were insurmountable.  In fact some of the changes were very pleasant, such as the fact that inside of a very short time the second bedroom again reverted to guest bedroom status.  In other words, we'd given up the charade of sleeping alone and even admitted to a few others that we'd begun to share the master bedroom and my king-size bed.

That was a major change in my life, because I'd never lived with a lover before, but then, neither had Anna.  Somehow sharing that bed made a huge difference though.  Suddenly there was someone else in each other's space, which was both good and bad.  When either of us was having a bad day, there was a sympathetic ear to listen, a sympathetic shoulder to cry on, or even a handy target to growl at.  Unfortunately there was another side to that coin.  We found points where we disagreed, areas of our lives that caused arguments, even shouting matches, but following those we found that both had the strength to forgive and the will to try to forget.  Besides, make-up sex was wonderful.

For myself, it took a while for me to accept many of the little oddities and idiosyncrasies Anna had developed over the years.  Just as an example of what I mean, some of her grocery buying habits drove me up the wall.  She was no rabid vegetarian, but she was an avid believer in organic foods, so she would often pass up bargains at the grocery store if they weren't labelled as organic foods.  Then for a brief time she got caught up in the idea of buying only items that were grown within a hundred miles of where we lived.  Since Victoria is on a rocky island and largely covered by forest, there simply aren't enough farms and orchards within a hundred miles of town to provide food for the local population.  That idea alone was the centre of one of our worst arguments.

That was one of the times when we came close to breaking up, but we didn't, instead we learned to work around our individual foibles and to like each other more than ever before.  That's right like, love came slowly, but since we already liked each other, love was a bonus to our relationship.  After we had grown much closer, fights diminished and we each had a strong supporter, as well as a friend and lover who backed up the other partner on any decision.  I think that has been the real bonus to our relationship and our ongoing love affair.

Of course as time went on, I found that some of her ideas on various subjects were what I'd consider could be best described as being quite different from normal.  For instance she didn't really believe in monogamy as such - in her mind all women set out to find the strongest, most virile men as a mate, so her progeny would have the best genetic material around.  As a corollary to that, she expected a strong man to be able to protect and care for more than one woman, so if he wanted a mistress or two, as well as a wife, more power to him.  She felt that sort of thing was fine - just as long as he protected and cared for all his mates and all of their children.  Since I had been raised to believe in strictly monogamous relationships, I considered her theory to be either 'a bedtime tease,' meant to get me aroused, or a personal theory that was just a bit 'out there.'  I simply sloughed it off as fantasy, since I was certain that it would never affect me personally anyway.

Of course after our discussion the idea of playing around a bit did cross my mind a time or two, but I never met another woman who really tempted me.  Anna just seemed as close to perfection as I could imagine, so I couldn't see any reason in the world why I would ever want to be involved with second best.  Every other woman I met simply seemed a pale copy when compared to Anna and I told her so.  I'm not certain she believed me, teasing me and saying that one day she'd introduce me to a woman who was worthy of consideration, then laughing gaily when I'd shake my head at her silliness.

After living together for nearly a year, I arranged a gift that I think did the most to cement our relationship of anything I could have done.  I gave her a dog for Christmas, a purebred Chocolate Lab, not one of the standard Black Labs, but rather a short haired, deep brown bitch who took only minutes to become an integral part of our lives.  Although her hair might have been short, it was long enough that when she got wet it became a mass of tiny curls, and she dearly loved to play in the water, so it seemed natural to name her, Curly.  Curly knew she was Anna's dog, after all she slept on the floor on Anna's side of the bed, but she'd abandon Anna if I was doing anything that might interest her more.  In fact Anna often said Curly was a fickle little bitch, but since she always said it while smiling, neither Curly nor I worried about it much.  Actually, I was almost always the person who took Curly for her evening walk, since after dinner Anna often had papers to correct, or exams to grade.  Once we were back home from our walk though, Curly insisted on being in Anna's company as much as possible, at least for an hour or two.  I think heaven came for Curly on those evenings when Anna joined us as Curly trotted out to visit the neighbours and friends she'd made on her walks.  Soon that dog became another part of the glue that held Anna and me together as a couple.

The dog wasn't the only thing we had in common though.  For instance both of us are putative Métis.  Actually I know I am a Métis, because my ancestry is proven and my status as a Métis is even registered with the National Métis Council and the Canadian government.  I can trace my lineage back to an early Scottish fur trader and a Cree woman, but as well, I have several other branches of native and European ethnicity amongst my ancestors.  Anna knows that she is part Ojibwa, part Algonquin, part Scots and part German, but unlike me, she can't tie an ancestor's history to the early fur trade.  On top of a similar ethnically mixed background, both of us are interested in First Nations languages.  For me that study is a hobby, but Anna has a PhD in archaeology and teaches anthropology in the Native Studies department at UVic, so languages are part of her life's work.  In fact, our mutual background and interests are what lead to our present situation.

I first heard of Anna's plan to travel to Southern Alberta to take part in an archaeological dig in January of 2003.  A University of Calgary archaeologist had opened a dig in Alberta's Cypress Hills and had spent two or three summers there just after the turn of the century.  For some reason he'd only worked on it for a few years, but was now considering opening a second dig.  He'd discovered another habitation site and had already unearthed several stone and bone tools, as well as butchered and charred bone scraps.  His various finds included artifacts similar to those of the Besant, Pelican Lake, Oxbow and Bitterroot cultures.  Anna knew from her research that several Indian tribes had often wintered in the Cypress Hills including Cree, Assiniboine, Gros Venture, and Blood, not to forget various Blackfoot tribes.  With that in mind, Anna was extremely enthusiastic that further digging might expose many more artifacts from previous tribes, clans and cultures.  Needless to say, she wanted to be involved.

She contacted the archaeologist in Calgary and offered to donate a few weeks of her time during her summer break. I wasn't the least bit surprised that he responded with some enthusiasm, since her knowledge and background seemed, to me at least, to be a natural fit.  During the correspondence that ensued, she found that he planned on resuming excavations on June 1st, so she planned on spending at least a month involved in the dig.  Accommodation proved to be something of a problem though, so in the long run she decided that camping onsite was her best option, which is probably when she first got me involved.

Truthfully, I suppose it wasn't a stretch that I became interested in her project for that matter.  After all, I was her lover, lived in the same house and listened to her enthusiastic spiels every day.  I even went as far as reading some of the literature that she found on the subject.  I suspect that Anna 'just happened' to leave a pamphlet lying around, a pamphlet which mentioned there was a Métis rendezvous planned for a nearby area of Saskatchewan early that summer.  But, after finding out about that, it wasn't long before I became much more interested, especially once I found out that there had been a strong Métis presence in the Cypress Hills.

Needless to say, Anna enthusiastically encouraged me to find out more.  Then when I mentioned the passing idea that I might want to take some of my holidays and come along with her for a week or two, she became almost ecstatic.  She even talked to my boss, Sam, so when I mentioned holidays, he pointed out to me that I hadn't used up all my holidays for the past couple of years.  On top of that I had almost nineteen days of overtime banked toward further days off.  In all, I had a backlog of more than seven weeks of holidays due to me and that was without touching the three weeks granted for the current year.  Anna happened to be there when he told me that news, so in order to maintain my connubial bliss I applied for a six-week holiday, not really expecting my request to be granted.  I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise, but my bosses in the Physics Department almost fell over themselves in granting my request.  Since I would be taking my break in the summer and the summer was the machine shop's least busy time, I'd be missed the least then anyway.  I suppose, reducing my backlogged holidays would make the department's secretarial work easier or something, but for whatever reason, I was granted all six weeks as holiday time.

All of that planning happened before the first of March, so since we didn't intend to leave Victoria until sometime near the middle of May, we had oodles of time for preparation.  As far as I was concerned, we needed that time.  Anna had never gone camping before and the archeological dig was in a relatively isolated area. I  felt that to afford the trip, we were going to have to camp out when we got there.  Personally, I wanted to leave in mid May, then camp on our way through the mountains in order to be fully prepared for the month we'd be camping onsite, but first I wanted to have a short holiday.  Since the dig wasn't scheduled to begin until the first week in June, we could still arrive in plenty of time.

When I started talking about camping in a tent though, life definitely became a bit more interesting around our home.  It seemed that while my idea of camping was a tent and sleeping bags, Anna's thoughts ran more toward a huge thirty or forty-foot camper trailer, one which included all the amenities.  Then as we were having a rather heated discussion about that, she dropped the bombshell that we'd be taking along two or three of her students and they'd need a place to sleep as well.  That little gem was almost the straw that broke the camel's back, because amongst other things, the expense of the trip suddenly increased tremendously.  Not only was she expecting to rent a huge camper, but on top of that we'd have to pay for supplies and whatnot for the extra people.

Seconds later she topped her original gem about bringing extra people along though; she told me that she'd always planned to take a pair of young girls and had already invited them.  One was a genius, and only seventeen, while the second was a brilliant twenty-one year old native student who spoke broken English, but was fluent in French.  To make matters even worse, Anna was under the impression that neither of the two had gone camping before.  The third person she was considering was a guy, and while she felt he had probably done considerable camping, she hadn't spoken to him about coming on the trip as yet.  When she mentioned that she had reservations about asking him since he'd recently acted somewhat infatuated with her, I vetoed his coming along immediately.  I insisted that if he was infatuated with her, then the worst possible thing she could do was to encourage him by inviting him along on an extended camping trip.  She could see the sense in that, besides she admitted that the guy and one of the girls didn't get along all that well anyway.

Our discussion had grown rather heated by that time, but when I told her that we simply couldn't afford the added expenses she was piling at our feet, she defused my fears somewhat.  Her idea was to approach her department head at the university and see if she couldn't get the expedition sponsored as a class project.  That way the costs for her and both students would be paid, but while I could travel along with them, I'd have to cover my personal costs.  When I asked what sort of funding the university was considering letting her have, she admitted that she hadn't even spoken to them yet.

I grew adamant at that point, insisting that if this trip was going to happen at all, we had to do some firm planning and preparation.  She was going to have to speak to her department head about funding, then depending on the answer she got, she was going to have to speak to the two students she'd already invited.  But, even prior to that, we had to make up a plan, then price out the cost of everything we'd need to take, as well as pricing the extras we'd need to buy along the way.  We were going to have to include our travelling costs, the various expenses we'd incur while travelling and the expenses we'd have while on the site.  As I began to list off the various costs I could envision, I realized that she really didn't have any idea of what was involved in a trip of the magnitude we were planning to undertake.

That's when I explained to her some of my background as a Métis, telling her about travelling and camping with my family many times, including going to more than one Métis rendevous.  I even took her to the garage on the side of the house and showed her the utility trailer that my parents had used to haul all that paraphernalia on their longer camping trips.  My dad had made that trailer from part of the frame of a prewar sedan, the fleet-side box of a pickup truck, and the rear wheels from a more recent front wheel drive car.  Since he'd used a standard sized pickup box, he'd purchased a canopy to fit the trailer.  He'd even devised a woven rope 'hammock' that could be stretched inside the truck box to take the place of the spring for a double bed, but still could be rolled up and stored in a small space.  With the addition of a foam mattress and decent sleeping bags, that rope 'hammock' allowed two people to sleep in relative comfort, no matter what the weather was like.

Then I took her down the basement of the house we lived in and opened up the storage room where I kept the camping gear which I'd inherited when my folks died.  That room held everything from cast iron pots and pans, to the cots and sleeping gear needed for three adults, and even a 16 by 20 army surplus tent that Dad had bought to use on our trips.  It was all packed away in duffle bags, wooden boxes and weatherproof containers, but everything was set up so it could be rigged for horseback packs or for easy packing in the trailer.  Actually Dad had even kept the pack saddles for carrying all the camping gear and we'd often used those on fall hunting trips while he was still alive.  Each time we'd stop in at my cousin's place in the Alberta foothills to borrow a few horses, packing some and riding others, then we'd ride off into the hills for a week or two.

"Mom and Dad's stuff is great for extended camping or long hunting trips, but there's too darn much of it and it's far too heavy for one person going out alone," I smiled as we closed up the storage room and turned to my locker.  "So on top of all this, I have a completely different camping set of my own."

"Well, are you going to show me that too?  You might as well show me the difference," she shook her head and sighed.  "I just didn't realize there was so much to know about supplies and equipment, just to go camping.  That big camper trailer I was talking about is looking better all the time."

"Well, except for cost, it might be better for you, but you and I could go camping with just what I have in my locker," I laughed and showed her my minimalist version of camping gear.

I still enjoyed going with several people using my folks old gear, but now  my trips weren't limited to using either horses or the trailer.  Instead I often went backpacking on foot, so my newer gear was impressive due to its light weight and compactness.  I could carry one backpack and easily manage enough gear for two people to survive for an overnight camping trip if the other person carried a sleeping bag.  If the second person carried a second small backpack of essential freeze-dried foods and other necessary supplies, the trip could be extended to several days.

When we went back upstairs to my office and went online to check the costs of the camping gear I already had, comparing everything to modern prices, Anna was completely flabbergasted.  That's when I clicked to a site that rented campers and trailers and showed her the costs involved in renting one of them.  I noticed her astonishment at the prices quoted, so I suppose she had never bothered checking how expensive they really were, either to buy or to rent.  All I could do was hope that reality would set in and we wouldn't find ourselves committed to spending more than we could afford.

Over the next two months we made tremendous progress, even though everything didn't go our way.  Neither life nor the bureaucracy of the university allowed our ideas to remain simple, so plans and actualities changed.  Not long after Anna and I had our discussion about how we were going to travel and camp, the bureaucrats at the university decided Anna had to consider the idea of taking along more students.  In fact they suggested that since they were supplying funding and that I was going along, she should take at least six students on the trip.

As soon as I heard that they were placing some of the responsibility for the students on my shoulders, I went ballistic and Anna agreed with me.  We demanded a joint meeting with Anna's bosses, my bosses and a union representative, then laid down some facts.  Number one, I was a machinist, not an instructor.  So number two, I was not taking on the responsibility for students without being paid for that work.  Which meant that number three, since I was expected to supervise students, I wanted a pay increase while I was doing that.  Number four, if I was supervising students, then I was working, so the time spent on the trip was not part of my holiday allotment.  Lastly, as number five, because I would be working, I expected the university to honour my contract with them and pay me at my going wage rate, with a bonus for instruction duties.

My union representative jumped in then.  He explained that if I wasn't volunteering, the union would expect the university to pay all costs, including travel time, as well as both Anna's and my wages, including any overtime and unanticipated expenses.

When he stopped speaking, the room went completely silent for a moment, then it exploded.  Both Anna and I remained silent, but everyone else in the room broke into intense arguments.  It took most of an eight-hour day before we got the whole thing settled.

The first point they decided on was that I was not to have any actual responsibility for any of the students.  The university did agree to provide some funding, but nowhere near the amount we required and certainly not enough for Anna to rent the monstrous camper she had dreamed of taking.  They did insist that Anna had to consider taking two or three students along though.  Not only had she hidden the fact that she'd already decided to do that, but as well she insisted that since I was going to be on the trip I had to have some say in who she would take with us.  Of course her department heads kicked up a fuss at that, arguing that I was nothing but a fifth wheel. That's when she hit them with the fact that she had never gone camping before, while I had a great amount of experience in all sorts of weather conditions.  Not only that, but I already owned the thousands of dollars in camping gear which would be necessary for the university to rent, lease or buy if I didn't go along with her.  Then she told them that she would also need transportation, as well as a part time guide to guarantee her safety, but that if I was going along with her, the guide function was covered.

In the long run the Native Studies department caved in and Anna got her wish.  So she invited the two young women over to the house to meet me and have me to consider them.  At first I was somewhat apprehensive, but after spending some time with them, I was pleasantly surprised by both Ellen and Mimi; both of them were very attractive and they seemed eager to learn.  Another thing which surprised me was that Anna had mentioned Mimi spoke broken English, but I could understand her English easily even though she spoke with a distinct French Canadian accent.

I soon found that both physically and emotionally, Anna's two students were very different.  They were almost mirror images of one another, complete opposites, so I had reservations about them living in close proximity with each other for an extended period.  The younger one was tall, thin and very good looking, while the other was much shorter and quite heavily muscled, but at the same time so cute and sexy that she seemed to throw off sparks.

Ellen, the younger student, had a very dark complexion and was almost as tall as me, but meeting her was puzzling because I was almost certain that I'd met her before.  After we had talked for a moment or two, I realized that I'd met her parents previously when I'd been landscaping my houses.  Her family owned a garden centre and Ellen reminded me of her mother.  Right then, I assumed she had never been camping, since her parents were quite wealthy.  Of course I was wrong.  When we decided to try a practice run by going camping one weekend, she proved it to me.  Ellen had been camping many times and knew what, where, when, why and how, but on that first camping trip her hands and her brain seemed to be in a constant dispute.  She wasn't awkward, but instead seemed uncoordinated.  Perhaps that was due to the fact that she'd grown four inches in the prior six months, and on top of that her family was well off, so she'd never had to do simple tasks by hand before.  She simply didn't seem to have any talent at any of the menial tasks that camping required.  She had the theory down pat, but the practical application of that theory was beyond her.  It must have been very frustrating for her, but she didn't let it get her down, instead she would stubbornly work at a task until she either mastered it or someone showed her a better method.  I was impressed that she never displayed any annoyance or temper.

Mimi was virtually the opposite of Ellen, shorter than the rest of us, a little rounder, yet pound for pound I think she proved to be the strongest of us all.  She probably developed her muscular shape when she was younger since she'd been a gymnast and her training showed in the way she carried herself.  You must have seen the body type; head up, shoulders back, chest forward, butt jutting out prominently, and every step seemingly ready to challenge the world.  Since her mother was a Cree and since Mimi even used many words of the language, I assumed that she'd been camping many times.  Instead, she'd been raised in the city of Montreal and couldn't remember ever having gone camping, nothing longer than day trips when she had gone hunting with her stepfather.  She made up for that lack of experience though by being extremely intelligent and showing exceptional adaptability.  However, she grew frustrated easily.  Luckily she was stubborn enough to work through her frustrations and seemed to be delighted when she did accomplish any task that had first frustrated her.

Mimi was a small dynamo, our cheerleader, happily praising one and all when things were going well, but also showing determined strength and character if there was a problem.  She did her best to be a rock, sharing any and everyone's hassles, then helping conquer them.  Unfortunately if things went badly, she also showed a rather volatile temper, but even in that she wasn't aggressive toward anyone.

Over that one weekend camping trip both young women succeeded in impressing me that they could become decent campers, even if they weren't extremely knowledgeable right then.  They were willing to learn, not just from me, but from each other as well.  By the second day of the weekend, the combination of Ellen's knowledge and Mimi's raw physical ability made them a workable team as camping partners.

After that camping trip all of us were involved in the matter of making and modifying lists, buying or borrowing equipment, as well as picking up material and supplies we'd need.  But that wasn't all we did.  We also modified several normal pieces of equipment to make our lives easier while we were living out in the boondocks.  The first order of business, as far as I was concerned, was readying our transportation and camping gear.  Anna actually thought about renting that big camper and paying for that cost herself, at least until she added in the additional cost of fuel for that beast when travelling in the mountains.  Instead she arranged to borrow a diesel powered pickup truck fitted with an extended camper from a friend.  Since I planned on using my old Jeep Grand Cherokee, while pulling the covered utility trailer for our camping gear and supplies, I felt we'd be in great shape.

Now I should mention that old Jeep for a moment because it was far from a standard Jeep Cherokee.  When Dad had bought it new in 1987, it had been powered by a six-cylinder engine with an automatic transmission.  It was a gas guzzler, but other than that I really liked it, so when I'd inherited it after Mom and Dad died, I'd torn it down and rebuilt it from scratch.  When I happened to run across an almost new Isuzu pickup with a diesel engine that had been in a rollover, then found I could buy the wreck cheaply, I jumped at the chance.  It took almost six months of evenings, but I swapped out the old six-cylinder gas engine and automatic transmission, replacing it with the four cylinder diesel and a five-speed standard.  At the same time, I decided to add a few frills just for camping and longer trips. I added a second battery, then bought a pair of camp lights and a couple of flashlights, but ensured that all of them could be recharged with the twelve volt system of the Jeep.  Just in case I had problems and I needed hand tools, I built some fitted tool boxes which mounted above and behind the rear wheel wells, of course that meant I'd had to mount the spare tire on the rear tailgate.

For Anna's trip I wanted to be certain that everything on the old beast was well fitted out and in top condition.  I was so busy that I didn't have a lot of time to work on it though, so I took the Jeep and my utility trailer down to a friend's body shop.  The old canopy that Dad had used on the trailer was no longer weatherproof, so Dave was going to modify and mount the upper part of an old van on the trailer's body.  That would allow us to haul supplies and equipment in something that was both weather proof and vandal resistant.  I'd bought a twenty-gallon copper water tank, then since he was modifying the trailer anyway, I had him mount it horizontally across the empty portion of the trailer's front hitch to provide an extra water supply.  I also had him add a folding dolly wheel from a boat trailer, which would make hooking up or unhooking the trailer much simpler. It not only had the dolly wheel which made swinging the hitch easier, but it had a crank to raise and lower the hitch as well.  Dave added two twelve-volt deep discharge batteries in front of one of the wheel-wells of the trailer.  Next he added a small insulated box with a solid state cooler and an outside access just ahead of the other wheel-well.  Then in order to keep the batteries in the trailer charged, he added four small solar powered, battery charger panels on the inside of the windows of the new trailer canopy.

I thought those solar panels were such a good idea that I bought four more of them and mounted two of them in the Jeep, utilizing the rear section of the side windows.  That way, even if the engine wasn't running, the sunlight would maintain the charge in the batteries and I still had two spare panels if one of the originals crapped out.  While the Jeep was in the body shop, I had a mechanic drop by to give it a complete tune-up and a minor overhaul.  I even had him check over the electrical braking system that Dad had installed on the trailer, years before, and had him install a better control unit on the Jeep.  Meanwhile, I modified the rear bumper, extending the trailer hitch and mounting a folding bracket to hold my spare tire so  accessing the rear compartment would be easier.  Then I bought a pair of roof racks, a short one that fit on the rear section of the Jeep's roof and a longer one that fit the roof of the trailer, just in case we needed the extra haulage space.  I even had Dave install a CB radio although I had no great faith that the darn thing would be very useful since that year was an iffy year for skip and radio interference.

Meanwhile, Anna had arranged to borrow a huge diesel-powered pickup truck from one of her friends.  That thing not only had an extended cab, but it was fitted with an extended camper which even had a toilet, a shower and of course, a holding tank.  Not only that, but it had an extra fuel tank and a fairly large water tank installed permanently in the box.  The camper had the normal camper style upper berth, while the table and bench seats could be converted into a double bed.  Theoretically, that meant there was room for everyone to sleep inside the camper if the weather was really bad, but I knew it would be quite a squeeze.

When my friend was finished modifying the utility trailer and I was finished with the Jeep, I was a happy camper.  I was satisfied that by using it and my trailer, as well as the storage space in the pickup and camper, we'd have ample room for all the equipment and supplies we were going to need.  So when I finally drove back home with the old Jeep I was quite certain that we'd have no transportation problems on our trip.  Since we were taking two vehicles, we could travel with two people in each vehicle, yet I'd still be able to pack the rear portion of the Jeep full of equipment and supplies.  I even considered removing the back seat to make more room, but after some thought on the subject, I decided against that idea.  I felt there might be times when we were camping that the four of us would want to travel as a group, but leave the second vehicle parked.

Then life decided to throw us a little twist.  The first clue I had that anything was wrong came about a week and a half before we were supposed to leave.  Anna came home in a terrible mood, so furious that she was ready to chew nails and spit rust.  Someone at the University of Calgary had managed to put so much pressure on the head of the excavation team that he'd been forced to withdraw our invitation to participate in the dig.

So, with virtually no warning of any kind, the university had let Anna know that our trip was cancelled.

Chapter 2