I'm back, but very tired.  I'm not sure how much jet lag you encounter going
from the Pacific to Eastern Time Zones, but we got home at 1:30 this
morning.  Unfortunately, there was a message waiting from my boss begging me
to be here at 7:00 this morning for a press conference briefing.  It's now
1:15 and I'm still waiting on the news crew to show up!  Grrr! :-(

British Columbia was incredible!  We took a digital camera, so I'll post
some pix as soon as I get rested up a bit (and figure out how to dump them
off the camera! LOL).

It was a pretty stressful holiday, all in all.  I think our expectations
were a little high for the kids.  We thought they'd be stunned by the
scenery, as we were, but they'd have been just as happy playing Nintendo
back at the room.

There was a charge for everything except the view!  We broke down and gave
each of the two kids a "day" to do what they wanted:  Anna went "mountain
biking" on a real mountain--after signing dozens of releases that we
wouldn't't sue the resort or the Canadian Government if she got hurt.  Alex
went to the "kids' club" and did four year-old type stuff for the day.

I was kind of disappointed in the "feel" of the place.  I guess I was
expecting something like the Rocky Mountain West cowboy thang.  This was
more "French Alps" in flavor.  That was brought home pretty strongly one
afternoon when a few European ladies who had been biking down a mountain
adjacent to a lake I was fishing decided to go for a swim.

I hooked up with another 'merican (from Seattle) and his 11 year-old son.
Dad was trying to teach the boy how to fly-fish, but he was pretty clueless
himself in the casting dept., so I was helping the boy with the rudiments of
fly-casting.  The ladies, all in their mid-20's, must've been very glad to
see the cool waters of the lake, because they were running down the length
of the dock, shedding clothes as they ran.  By the time they got to our end
of the deck, they were naked as jaybirds and flew off the wood into the
water.

A mile away, you could have heard the sound of my jaw hitting the wood dock.

Being the "technical" fisher that I am, I always carry a stream thermometer
with me.  Had they bothered to ask, I could have told them that the water
temp in this particular alpine "cirque" was a crisp 52 F.  I suspect from
all the screaming that they figured the temperature thing out pretty quickly
on their own.  There were also...er...uhm..."other" indicators, shall we
say, that the water was on the cold side.

No sooner had the three of us (the Seattle gent, his son and myself)
recovered our composure and eyeballs (they had popped out of their sockets,
of course), when the same number of male mountain-bikers proceeded to hit
the dock with the same refreshing dip in mind.

Imagine my wonderment as I gazed upon a half dozen young naked men and
women, howling in pain and surprise from the frigid waters, and discovered
that not only were they from different parties, they didn't even speak the
same language!  I do believe the ladies were from Belgium/France and the
young men were probably from points further east, as they spoke/screamed in
a Slavic tongue.

This alone would be the makings of a great story for the grandkids, but as
the guy on the TV commercial sez, "But, wait!  There's more!"

This part of Canada is chock full of black bears.  Along toward the end of
summer they tend to lose a bit of their shyness as their circadian clocks
tell them that summer is ending and it will soon be time to consider
hibernation.  With that in mind, the bears are ravenous for calories to tide
them over until springtime.  Late August/early September is when the salmon
run, the fruits, nuts and berries reach maturity and everything is just
pretty much ready to eat.

The bears near town, however, while having the same sort of caloric need,
find it's just as easy, if not easier to start snooping through garbage cans
and what-not in search of high-calorie, high-fat food.  It's the time of
year when most bear/man encounters occur.  Unfortunately, on this particular
afternoon, at this particular time, one of the "town" bears was really
intrigued by all the noise down at the dock, so he figured he'd best
investigate. (yes, "he" got close enough to tell!).

In the meantime, I went through a few emotions in a very short period of
time: shock at what I'd seen, to anger at the folks in the water for not
caring that they were in full view of a child, to amusement.  Then it became
evident that the water was so cold that these folks' muscles were cramping
up so badly that they were in danger of drowning.

I had a collapsible walking staff/cane clipped to my fishing vest, so I
extended it full length, lay down on the dock and allowed the closest girl
in the water to grab hold.  I motioned for her to grab the hand of the
person closest to her, with everyone finally figuring out that we needed to
make a human chain.

After half of the folks had been retrieved, I heard the guy from Seattle
yell, "Sh*t, Stephan!  Get behind me!"  I turn around to see the bear
ambling down the dock toward us, about a hundred feet away!  The man said he
had a "bear banger" and for me to keep hauling in the swimmers.

A bear banger is like a big bottle rocket that you shoot at a bear.  It
flies as far as you set the propellant charge, and then explodes with a very
bright flash and loud noise.  It's not supposed to hurt the bear, even if
you score a direct hit.  Personally, I wouldn't have cared at that moment if
it blew a big hole in him!

Anyway, everyone got back on the dock and turned to see what the bear was
going to do.  He grabbed one of the guys' backpacks, ripped it open like it
was a paper bag and sat down on his haunches to help himself to the guy's
granola bars.  We all started yelling and throwing pieces of wood (from a
busted dock section) at him, but he was too interested in getting more food.

That's when the guy from Seattle set off the bear banger.  It was as bright
as a lightning flash, and so loud I felt the concussion as much as I heard
it.  Stupid bear didn't even blink.

After about another minute, with all of us screaming at him from the other
end of the dock, he turned around and waddled off like nothing had ever
happened!

We were all so relieved to see the bear go, I forgot to scold the ladies for
stripping down in front of the boy!

Other than that, it was a fairly uneventful vacation. ;-)

-Kyle

-----Original Message-----
From: Barber, Kenneth L. [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, August 26, 2002 10:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: kyles back


Hey guys!   Kyle is back so we can't gossip about him anymore. He's getting
copies again.