The statutory holiday is simply utilized by an Indigenous man and a non-Indigenous man to complete the ancient rite of hunting as friends.
Long before dawn, I am roused by instinct more than the alarm. With bleary eyes and fumbling hands, lunch is made, flannel donned, and feet shod. A rifle in a caliber dating back to my ancestors, purchased with the government’s long overdue sponsorship via CERB, is loaded into the back of a comrade's truck. We sip on instant coffee, driving north out of our extractive pioneer outpost masquerading as a liberal city on this newly minted statutory holiday. We are off to hunt elk.
Private land gained by honor and trust is our hunting ground today. As we approach our destination, silence grows inside and outside the vehicle. We park, load rifles, and walk uphill, minding our footfalls on the wet terrain, the morning river mist muting forest textures. I keep to the jagermeister’s four or five o’clock: he is the veteran hunter and I am his apprentice. As we crown the first rise, his hand shoots up, and we both freeze. A potential target has been sighted.
Another hand motion stops us both. My comrade tries one of the many calls hanging around his neck, both self-sounded and human powered. The ungulate had taken a few steps away, but now the sound of his own species stops him - he turns back with broadside showing. It would be a perfect shot, but a whisper from the head of the pseudo-elk acknowledges that too few points are showing. This young male will make a fine prize in a year or two, but not today.
After trying each of the calls, we grew silent and let our quarry resume his vocation as a ghost of the woods, jogging off our path back into the forest. We took up our perches where the stag had stood, hoping for a bigger friend of his to emerge. While we waited, the old stock Canadian opened his pack in order to munch on some bannock while the aboriginal flicked a tin of chewing tobacco - a single annual indulgence by his marital vows - and placed a plug in his lip.