I got a phone call from Ho Lee, an old friend, a while back and he asked how deer hunting was going. I told him that we had harvested a couple so far this season but that firearms season opens this Saturday and I was hoping to harvest a decent sized buck. The conversation eventually turned to our hunting days back in Minnesota and how he and his wife along with myself and the Pickle Queen had always applied for a moose license every year but were never lucky enough to have our application drawn. He went on to tell me that another friend of his and he have been going up to Canada moose hunting every year. I asked how that went.
Mr. Chit, as his students at school called him, said, “Let me tell you how our trip went last year.” He explained that every year they went up there, they were flown out to the marshland in a small cloth-covered bush plane. Ho Lee continued,”After we landed at our hunting site, the pilot told us, ‘I’ll be back in three days to pick you up. You can only return with yourselves, your gear and one moose.’ We said our goodbyes and he was off.”
I told him that I had once flown in such a plane in northern Minnesota and still remembered that experience. I said, “Tell me more.”
Ho Lee went on, “Three days later the pilot returned to pick us up. We were standing there ready with our gear and two moose.
“I told you only one moose,” Ho Lee said the pilot yelled at them. “It’s impossible to fly out of here with two moose.”
Ho Lee said his buddy told the pilot, “But last year the pilot took us out with two moose, so we thought you could too.”
Ho Lee continued, “The pilot must have been up for the challenge because he said, ‘If he could do it, I can too.'”
Ho Lee explained that after they had stowed their gear, tied the sacks of moose meat and heads to be mounted under the wings, they climbed in and prepared for take off. He said that the pilot pulled the throttle back as far as it would go. They started to ascend but soon crashed into a tree at the end of the runway. He told me how the moose meat, heads, gear, the pilot, his buddy and himself went in all directions.
Ho Lee continued, “We were lying on the ground and my buddy, who had some blood flowing from a gash in his head, looked over at me and mumbled, “Mr. Chit, where are we?”
“I’m not positive,” Ho Lee said he told him, “but I’m guessing it’s about a hundred yards farther that we made it last year.”
I knew there was a good reason why the Good Lord didn’t want me to go moose hunting with Ho Lee Chit.
Keep your fork
Life on the Massanutten 