Chapter 1

Willmore Wilderness Park, 400 kilometers straight west of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada could not be named more appropriately. It consists of more than 1800 square miles (almost 5000 sq km) of pristine forest, mountains and streams. There are no roads other than a few service roads here and there, but there are numerous trails for both horses and hikers. There are campsites, and actually a few cabins built years ago by strangers and maintained today by the people that use them. Some folks have been known to spend most of a summer in one cabin taking day trips from it as their own private base camp. Many years ago, spending much time in a wilderness area of this intensity was a marginally risking activity. Some trails are so remote that, even today, a person may not see another human being for days. Before cell phones, before GPS devices, before walkie-talkies, breaking a leg meant enduring pain, makeshift treatment, usually by the victim, and a serious delay in seeking proper medical care. Today, the possibility of medical emergencies still exists, but rescue and treatment are much more readily available.

Today's visitors to this park are much more in tune with ecology. The idea of "Leave no trace" is a popular one and is followed by almost all visitors. In the higher elevations, the streams afford fishermen a dreamlike opportunity. Because of the remoteness of the area, it is physically impossible to carry tackle, gear, food and very many fish. Unlike the lakes of the flat-lands, over-fished by greedy selfish individuals unconcerned about limits, fishing in Willmore is superb. One can catch and release as many fish as the fisherman is talented. Catching to eat realistically means a few fish each day but certainly not enough to make a dent in the population. The result is the streams and pools of water are full of very catchable fish, and that fact has made this park a favorite for fishermen who enjoy "roughing it."

Clarke Hauser is a twenty three year old avid fisherman, rugged in appearance with coal black, wavy hair and the bluest eyes since Paul Newman. At six feet two inches and one hundred eighty pounds, he was in prime physical condition. It didn't hurt that girls thought he was the most handsome in his fraternity, either. And he was a terrific fisherman. Clarke had been spending two to three weeks every year in this park, camping along various streams and on occasion, near the pools in the flats. He preferred the streams because the sites suitable for pitching a tent were more sheltered from the occasional storms that came over the mountains without notice. He traveled with minimal gear; a sleeping bag, small tent an assortment of clothing for warm and cool weather, eating utensils and food, prepacked for campers, sufficient for three weeks. Over the many years that he had been coming to the park, first as a boy with his father, and then on his own, he had discovered a location at which he could camp and reach, within an hour's hike, three different streams, each containing several species of trout and, a little further away, a stillwater pond holding an abundance of a species not known for this region, but popular in other parts of Canada and the northern United States. This location allowed Clarke to vary his menu every day, if he so chose, without having to tear up his campsite and waste time resetting it later in the day. What is really unique about this location is that Clarke had never seen another person at any time while at any of his fishing spots, or at his campsite, never in all the years since he had discovered it.

The streams that Clarke had discovered were, for the most part, truly streams. They were not rivers, nor were they creeks as one might find flowing through a farm field in the flat-lands. They may be at the edge of an outcropping of rock, running along the base of the rock and the adjoining grassland. They may be a simple three foot wide path of water flowing across knee high grass, curving down, around, and down some more to a lower level. Sometimes Mother Nature provided a barrier and a wider area, and a natural pool formed. These pools, varying from five to twenty five feet across many times were quite deep. He continually was amazed at what fish he might catch from such a pool.

Emma Falsey, blond, seventeen, five feet seven, slender, shapely, and a high school track medium distance runner, was spending her first summer in the mountains, alone. Her parents were extremely reluctant to allow her to go to the park by herself, but she could not find anyone else interested in this style of camping, and she was determined to do this, if only this once. In her mind, she had envisioned pitching her tent at or near a stream, cooking simple means which she brought along with her, and spending the days running up and down the pathways and terrain. She had read in a magazine for runners that repeated short to mid length terrain running would be the most beneficial training activity for a person in her race category. Emma told herself that she would look for a sloping location near a stream. She could tent at the base, then run up the slope for some distance and use the return walking as her cool down. If she repeated this multiple times throughout the day, by the end of the week, her endurance should be vastly improved. Her teammates thought she was brave, her best friend considered that she was possibly crazy. Her parents were afraid, and Emma was determined. She included in her gear a GPS system with built in locater signal, a can of aerosol mace and at the absolute insistence of her father, a horrific, two fingered ring with four sharpened spear like points in lieu of a stone, the purpose of which was to provide a scratching, disfiguring weapon for Emma to use in case of physical assault. At her father's insistence, Emma promised that she would not remove it from her hand until she returned to their home. There was no question that drawing this ring across any soft skin area, face, neck, wherever, of an individual assaulting the wearer would cause deep, disfiguring cuts, gouges, scars and possibly heavy bleeding, over and above the pain of such cuts on sensitive skin. Emma said she understood its value and promised, once again, that she would not remove it.

Emma had done her homework. She had contacted a trail and guide service, explained her plan and asked for their guidance in selecting an entry point, a trail and potential camp and workout sites. They were extremely helpful and gave her several choices for each criterion. She reviewed them with her parents and narrowed down the sites to a few. They agreed that she would choose between one of those once she arrived, and only those, so that she could easily be located in case something happened. They did everything except give her camping experience, and teach her what poison ivy looks like. Off she went to the live in the wilderness for up to two weeks, gear, food, plans and clothing in her back pack and enthusiasm in her heart.

Emma's first option for park entry had so many vehicles at the carpark that she discarded it as an option immediately. She nearly missed her second entry point because it was so isolated, but she back tracked, parked her car and headed off for the mountain. After hiking up the trail for nearly the entire morning, she came to the clearing that the guide had suggested. She verified the location on her GPS and immediately set about setting up her campsite. The site itself was a meadow-like plain with a stand of trees on the east side, the stream near the west bordered on its west bank for much of the length that she could see by a gnarly looking rock wall. Sloping upwards from her locale was a greenway rising at angles varying from five to twenty degrees and then a more sharply pitched rockway continuing beyond her sight-line. Emma selected a relatively level area of the meadow to pitch her tent and then moved thirty steps away to build her fire pit. She carefully picked all the vegetation in the vicinity around the fire pit, even though most of it was green and she was confident that it didn't represent a fire hazard. When all of the housekeeping chores were complete, she began exploring the area. She found that the stream, at least at this location, was between six and twelve inches deep and that its bed consisted of small rocks and gravel with occasional very large rocks which she could easily see. She spent an hour walking in the stream deciding if it would be safe to run in as a part of her workout. After climbing upwards at least a thousand feet, she left the stream and walked down the greenway returning to her campsite. This was the plan, then. She would run up the greenway to a certain point and then walk back down. She would rest fifteen minutes and then run up the stream to the selected stopping point, then leave the stream and walk back down the greenway again. If she could do at least two repetitions of these runs each morning and afternoon, she would improve her stamina immensely.

For two days, Emma did her runs, resting in between, hiking up and down the trails around her campsite, but always staying in close proximity to it. The weather was unusually warm and she dressed only in shorts and a loose top. On the second day, she had noticed some red spots on her legs which began to itch after running, but she dismissed them as a heat rash. When they itched, she scratched them with her hands. By the third day, they were spreading to cover more of her legs, and they itched terribly, even when she wasn't running. Some of them had become blistery and at times throughout the day wept, making her legs damp. She applied hand and body lotion hoping to ease the discomfort, and it worked for a while, but the itching returned as soon as the lotion was absorbed. It was not unbearable and she was strong, so she told herself she could endure this rash, whatever it was.

Canada is known for its beautiful lands, gorgeous lakes, rivers and streams, and in certain times of the summer, tiny little pests called Black flies. They are attracted to moisture and sweat and their bites sting worse than a bee's. Traveling in swarms, they can swirl around a person, landing and stinging in multiple spots at once. Most popular bug sprays will repel them so that they are but a nuisance flying around a person, without landing. Emma brought a can of bug repellent with her, thinking it would last the entire outing, but she had used it heavily the first day to rid her campsite of any number of harmless flying and crawling insects. By day three, her bug spray was nearly gone and she decided to ration what remained for the evenings, hoping that her daylight activities would keep the Black flies away.

The morning of the fourth day she could feel the increase in humidity as she crawled out of her sleeping bag. She dressed quickly, relieved herself in the woods, and prepared breakfast over her small campfire. As a treat, she prepared a single portion of pancakes, opting for the high carbs to give her added energy for the morning run. In a moment of hazy thinking, she decided to do her runs before cleaning her dishes, leaving the remnants of her breakfast sitting on the stump by her tent. On her first run up the stream she encountered an unusually large swarm of Black flies. She tried to outrun them, but they were much too quick. Attracted to her perspiration, they swarmed her head and legs, flew into her ears, nose and mouth and bit her wherever her skin was damp. Her only alternative was to seek the shelter of her tent, and she immediately ran back down the slope for safety. Running at nearly full speed to try to escape the flies, she ran onto her campsite before she realized the danger that awaited her. There at the stump by her tent, was a bear cub enjoying the leftover pancakes and syrup which she had failed to clean up. Before she could stop, she nearly ran into the cub, causing it to squeal for its mother who was just on the other side of the tent looking for berries. Sensing the danger, the mother immediately turned to protect its cub, growled once as the cub ran to her, and then looked at Emma who was frozen in place.

The Black flies immediately attacked Emma wherever she was wet, especially her legs. She began waving her arms wildly to swat the flies away, but the mother bear interpreted that as further danger and growled angrily as she began to move towards Emma. Finally, her adrenal gland began to flood her system with adrenalin, and Emma recognized the true danger she was in. Quickly she ran to the stream and headed down hill, putting distance between her and the life threatening mother bear. But the Black flies continued their assault on her as she ran. She could hear the bear growling behind her and she ran as fast as she could, futilely waving at the flies, screaming, until she could feel them fly into her mouth too. With her eyes barely open, she ran down the stream, one foot after the other, in her desperate bid to escape.

Clarke was fishing in a pool formed by a waterfall. The pool itself was deep, twenty or so feet he thought, and was one of the largest pools in this his favorite fishing area. The waterfall itself wasn't much to look at, barely ten feet of fall off a sharp ledge. He had fished this pool many times throughout the years and had always succeeded in catching several large trout from it. He had been fishing about an hour when he was quite surprised to hear what sounded like a girl screaming in the distance. Because he was below the ledge, the sounds reverberated and masked the direction of origin, and he had no idea, really, how close or far away the sound had carried. Startled is not an adequate word to describe his reaction, shocked, amazed, astonished possibly, to the sight of a girl falling over the waterfall from above and landing in the pool of water where he was about to cast.

"What the hell?" He dropped his rod to the ground and ran to the edge of the pool as the girl's head reappeared in the water. "What the hell are you doing? Are you hurt?"

"Please help me. A bear is after me."

Clarke looked up at the ledge from which the girl had fallen but saw no sign of a bear.

"Are you hurt? Can you swim to the edge here?"

"No, I don't think I'm hurt." She began to slowly move to the edge of the rocks. As she emerged from the water, Clarke extended his hand to steady her and could see that she was covered with the welts of Black fly stings and what appeared to be a very bad case of poison ivy.

She sat on the rocks for several minutes, not saying anything.

"Where did you come from? What happened to you?"

"I have been camping up the hill. I was on my morning run and I ran into a whole bunch of those flies and they just attacked me all over. I couldn't get away from them, so I ran back to my tent, but there were two bears there, eating my food. One was a little one and I scared it, and I think it was his mother that came after me. I ran down the stream as fast as could but I couldn't get away from the flies. I just kept running. I couldn't see anymore, they were all over my face, and then I fell over the edge and landed here."

I need to get you medical attention. You have fly bites all over your body and it looks like your legs are covered in poison ivy as well. Can you walk?"

"Yes, I think so."

He picked up his fishing gear. "Okay, my campsite is only about a half mile down this path. We can go there and I will get you some medicine for the bites and then we'll deal with the ivy."

Together they walked slowly down the path along the stream and then cut across the meadow to his tent. As they walked, he told her a little about himself, and she explained how it was that she came to be in this wilderness. He had her sit on a homemade camp bench while he retrieved the articles that he needed to treat her ailments. He also brought her a pair of his shorts and a tank top.

"I'm sorry, this is the only spare clothing that I have that has not been worn so far. You need to get out of those clothes and into some dry ones. The wind is beginning to pick up and you won't want to get chilled. I don't have any women's underwear handy, sorry. Why don't you go into my tent and shed the wet stuff. There's a towel laying there to use, and then we'll hang your wet clothes up to dry.

She emerged in his clothing, bringing her wet things with her, including her bra and panties.

The shorts were loose, but she was able to keep them up. The tank top did little to cover her, really. The arm holes extended well below the height of her breasts and when she moved her arms, her breasts were clearly visible through the arm holes. She had a dejected appearance and Clarke assumed that she was greatly discomforted by the stings and the poison ivy.