Hunt at Beaver Pond, a day that changed my life

By Brian Kemp

BARELY MOVING, the mid-afternoon fog hung low on the St. John River, obscuring all things made by man. The water was still except where the river touched the rocks. All city sounds were smothered by the dense mist.

Taking shallow breaths, not wanting to disturb what was before me, I stood with my Siberian husky on a flat area metres from the rocky shoreline. She is an active animal, but perhaps sensing my feelings, or struck by the scene herself, she stood quietly by my side, her nose twitching. Together, we peered out over the water, our backs to civilization, our minds focused.

How many ancient eyes have gazed upon this river? I allowed myself a deep breath. This was a sacred place owned by no person, I decided. My companion moved her head slightly. There was a movement on the water. A duck had surfaced some 30 metres from the shoreline. I saw and heard the water drop from its dark feathers and could see one of its bright eyes. We watched as it arched its body, dove and came up again. Ripples spread outward and toward us. Within me, the good feeling, the contentment, spread, warming my body. But it didn't last.

In my mind, I saw myself deliberately raise a gun to shoot the duck.

Whap! Whap! A leathery sound of impact echoed in my mind. I shook my head.

In the distance a car horn blared and my moment was gone. I felt the great sadness return.

Looking at my dog, I thought about what I had seen, what I had felt, what I had remembered. In the midst of harmony, the terrible killing image had again crept into my thoughts. Why did the memory persist? I hadn't killed an animal in more than 20 years.

I sighed. It was a tired question about a complex issue which I have pondered since my teens.

On the river, the duck raised itself from the water and with firm movements of its wings pushed itself into the air. It disappeared into the mist. Minutes later, the wind appeared, lifting the fog, moving it along.

I walked, my thoughts drifting. I thought of poachers who are killing off tigers in India.

I considered the hunters among us, some of them my friends, proudly standing over downed deer and moose.

My thoughts turned to my own past.

With my pellet gun, and other weapons, I had killed and wounded robins, blue jays, squirrels, rabbits and other small creatures. Hundreds of them.

Twenty years ago, If given the chance, I would have killed a wolf or a tiger or an elephant. In fact, I would have shot anything that moved - because the life of an animal meant nothing to me.

I had been no better than a poacher. There were no moral boundaries between us. We stood together.

"But I have changed," I whispered to my dog.

Later, as I stood in my home watching a pair of blue jays gobble seed at one of our feeders, I contemplated that question: Is there hope for us? Will we ever treat animals with the respect they deserve? Eventually.

I did it.

MY GREAT TRANSFORMATION began one day late in my youth at a place kids in the Millidgeville area of Saint John go called Beaver Pond.

It had been a crisp, early summer day. I met up with a friend and we decided to get our high-powered pellet guns and walk up to the pond. We would shoot some animals or lots of animals - one never knew what the day would bring.

We were veteran, small-game hunters. Hundreds of animals had died at our hands over the years. After we shot an animal, we would pick the bloody body up, look at it proudly, smile, and then toss it aside. "A juicer," we would call it, if it had been a good kill.

I would kill a bird and then calmly turn around and kill another one squawking nearby, which, I realize now, might have been its mate. They were all the same when they were dead.

I would, sometimes, on a slow day when the woods were quiet, kill birds as they ate seed at a feeder in someone's backyard. If an upset man or woman came out yelling at me, I would laugh at them and then disappear into the woods.

My friend and I weren't the only ones who hunted small game. Many of the youths I knew in the area killed animals. Most used pellet guns, but the older ones had more advanced weapons. It was normal to kill. The adults talked about it, bragging about their kills, telling us in excited voices how they had killed their first deer or bear.

So the hunt at the Beaver Pond would be like any other I expected, as we walked the paths connecting the sections of woods leading to the pond.

The trees around the Pond were quiet when we arrived. We carefully made our way down a steep path which led to the water, not speaking, listening for sounds of life.

We did not see the duck and her ducklings right away. The family was swimming in the middle of the pond, not paying attention to us. There were six or seven of them all together, I think.

When we saw them, we looked at one another. No, we would not shoot.

But we did.

I don't remember who shot first. I think it was me. I was a good shot and hit a duckling in the head at a range of 25 metres or so.

Whap! The duckling made an awful noise and slumped into the water.

The mother duck looked back at her youngster. I will carry the image of her face and eyes with me to the grave. I saw something, sadness maybe, pain, certainly.

I don't know.

With her remaining ducklings following in a line, she moved away from us, but it was too late. She did not panic as I had expected. She moved with dignity.

We reloaded. Every time a duckling was hit, the mother duck would look back.

Although I was aware of what I was doing, I could not stop shooting. I would not stop shooting.

When we were done, we looked at one another.

I don't know what my friend felt, but I was sick. I wanted to drop the gun and run away. I wanted to scream or cry. I wanted to wade into the water and retrieve those lifeless bodies. Why I felt that way, I did not know.

My friend and I walked home in silence. I did not tell anybody about what we had done.

In the following days and weeks, I began having nightmares. In some dreams I was the ducklings. In others, I was the mother duck. In most, I was the killer.

Eventually, it dawned on me that I had done something wrong.

Animals feel. They love in their own way. I saw it in that mother duck's eyes. I felt it.

For the next few months, I continued to kill animals. But as the days went by I found myself purposely missing easy kills, shooting above or below my prey.

At night in bed, I would think about that day at the Beaver Pond. Eventually, I stopped going out into the woods with my gun. I did not graduate to deer or moose hunting as many of my buddies did.

Now, I enjoy watching the blue jays and other birds eat at our feeders. I love watching whales. The howl of the wolf is something I want to hear some day.

Because of that day at the pond, I have gathered knowledge about animals, learning that they are complex creatures with intricate life patterns. Some mate for life. Some spend years raising their young, developing bonds which humans can understand and identify with.

With help, these things I have learned along the way.

Why I killed all of those animals, I will never know. Peer pressure. Atavistic memories. A character flaw. All of the above.

Despite the impulses which flash into my mind, I know I will never again kill. The terrible, ancient urge is just that now, an urge, a twitch, a memory, nothing more.

The duck my dog and I watched on the St. John River that foggy day has nothing to fear from me.