Erina's Story: Part 1

Banff National Park
The Rocky Mountains
North-West of Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Tonight

The monochrome sky had a horror movie look to it. There was a moon up there somewhere, but it was buried behind restless furls of grey cloud and mist. The resulting silvery glow saturated her world, turning the conifers and the distant peaks of shale into shapes of hard black. The light was enough to see by, but not enough to pick the forms of individual logs and boulders from the fluid shadow. With the lack of visual stimuli, her imagination was left to fill in the gaps. She conjured up images of animal forms, crouching beneath the fir trees, watching her. Images of werewolves pervaded her mind. She thumbed the Nokia open again, only to activate the warm blue back-light. The same black text poked out at her from the screen; NO SERVICE. Erina shivered, even under the heavy woollen collar of her jacket. If she was going to be stuck out here all night, maybe it would be better to conserve the battery.
Her eyes and ears were tired from straining at every rustle, every flicker of movement in the underbrush. There were no such things as werewolves. But this was back-country, a long way from the lights and hotels of Banff. The land here was ruled by grizzlies, black bears, cougars, wolves… In that moment Erina felt very small, very cold, and very alone. She felt a deep-seated, urgent need for some form of human contact. Since she had no means of making fire, common sense told her that the best way to deter predators would be to stomp around, making lots of noise, rather than to stand there shivering in silence. But after a couple of weak yells, directed at the tree line, she resigned herself to merely snapping the twigs underfoot with her shoes. A hundred dire scenarios raced through Erina’s mind.
It wasn’t meant to be this way.

Erina Kelly had never been to the mountains before today. On the rare summer holiday spent with her Aunt in Calgary, she had viewed them from a distance; a frowning, forbidding presence beyond the city limits. The way they seemed to draw black clouds to their peaks, while the rest of the sky remained pristine blue, inspired wonder in her. The towering peaks conjured up thoughts of the edge of the world, of crossing into the unknown. So different to the lights and noise pollution of Toronto where she had grown up.
As soon as the move to Calgary had shifted from long term plan into impending reality, Erina had begun thinking about her first trip into the wilderness. Even after the two day drive across Canada and the northern United States, the thought was foremost in her mind. She had arrived at her new apartment in Calgary a day ahead of her furniture, which was caught up on the highways somewhere between there and her parents’ house in Toronto. She hadn’t been tired at all, and the thought of spending a day alone in the empty apartment seemed like a waste, especially considering the rigours and demands of university that were soon to dominate her life. The hood of her mustang was still warm when she walked outside on a clear autumn morning. With only a small backpack and a map, she set off at once towards the mountains. At a fuel stop in Banff, she struck up a conversation with a group of American tourists who were staying at one of the flashy hotels. They were preparing for a one-day hike through the back-country, and they had seemed happy enough to have her along.
Erina followed the Americans up a back road that curved beneath giant bluffs and past glassy green lakes. She finally saw the leading car crunch onto the gravel shoulder, and she pulled over. While they unpacked, Erina quietly revelled in the majesty of her environment. She was drawn to a fairytale arch created by the lower branches of two spruce trees, leading into the dark space beneath the forest canopy. Looking inside, she saw a pebbly trail with yellow wildflowers growing through. There was something instantly captivating about it. A doorway into mystery. She could hardly wait to find out where the trail led. The Americans, for their part, seemed oblivious to the spectacle of nature in evidence all around them. As they entered the forest they chatted idly to one another, even thumbing ipods as they marched along. The rocky mountains were clearly a check-list item for them, something to be ticked off rather than caught up in and admired. At least they were making plenty of noise, though. There was no chance a bear or cougar would lumber across the path and be startled without first hearing the noisy expedition. After a while, Erina let her feet linger in the underbrush while she soaked up all the earthy smells of the montane forest. The Americans clambered on ahead. Their chattering voices diminished as they hurried toward some unspecified goal. She remembered seeing the last of the backpacks vanish over the top of a hill covered in pine needles. She wasn’t worried, because their voices still carried to her. But then the voices had stopped, seemingly all at once. Erina hurried over the crest and into the next gully, which was crammed with a maze of boulders and pine trees. There was no sign of the Americans. Mystified, but still calm, she clambered back to the crest and walked along its length. At the far end, the land collapsed into a steep sided ravine with multiple channels. This didn’t look like the way she had come. Suspecting some sort of prank, she called out. No one popped out from behind a tree and yelled ‘gotcha.‘ No one even answered. The day took on a dream-like quality. She felt as if she were walking through a warm fog. Every time she doubled back along the ridge, she seemed to end up facing a completely different valley. There was no sign at all of the pebbly trail she had walked in by. After another hour spent scrambling through the underbrush, Erina was hopelessly lost in a maze of gullies and ditches. She decided to stop and review her situation. She found a sunny boulder to sit on, and chewed anxiously on half of the single sandwich she had packed. She had water and first aid supplies, but no matches and no compass. She tried to text each of the Americans, whose numbers she had stored in her phone. But of course it didn’t work. There were no relay towers in these mountains. Panic touched her on the shoulder, but she shrugged it away. Think, Erina. You can’t just stay here and wait. You have to find your own way.

She felt a pang in her stomach and thought of her rugged, capable Dad. What would he do in this situation? He wouldn’t panic or waste time, she decided. He would make for the highest ground. That way he could get a good look at where he was, and at the same time try to get some cell phone reception. Erina hoisted her pack onto her shoulders. The light above the forest canopy gradually changed from white to yellow as she climbed. By late afternoon, the trees had halted in a stark line, and she found herself on a steep hillside covered in dense, gently moving grass. Before her was a panorama of wrinkled grey land; a deep gorge, bordered by thick scrub. On the far side, imposing peaks that stood like a line of frowning old men. The land she now faced appeared impassable. This was avalanche country. Her hopes plummeted. The clouds above the mountain peaks were wispy dragon shapes, turned to fire by the setting sun. Shivering now, Erina took the heavy jacket from her pack and pulled it around her shoulders and over her nose. She could go no further tonight.

Her situation seemed grim. Erina had taken the precaution of registering her trip with the park warden’s office, but they wouldn’t start searching for her until morning.
And how would they find her? She hadn’t planned the hike properly, and no one, apart from the Americans, had any idea where she was. Would they even bother to report her disappearance?
Take one hurdle at a time, she told herself. Just stay warm, don’t panic, and wait for sunrise.
NO SERVICE.

After dark, the land gave up its heat quickly. Erina withdrew her hands up into the sleeves of her jacket. She was worried about her backpack, now. The food wasn’t sealed in an airtight container, just an old plastic lunchbox. Would a wild animal be able to smell it? She wondered if she should throw it away, just to be safe. She made a compromise by setting it several metres away, under the nearest of the pines. She kneeled in the grass until the legs of her jeans were soaked through. She hugged herself and shuddered.

At 12.11 in the morning, a noise separated itself from the rustles and creaks of the forest and slowly built in her awareness; deep, laboured breathing. Her cheeks and forehead flashed through with a hot prickle of panic. She shrunk further into her jacket and tried not to breathe. In a fleeting patch of moonlight, she saw the grass in front of her move against the wind. Her whole body tightened. Her eyes and ears strained in the dark…
Another gap in the clouds formed, and spilled a pale wash of moonlight onto the hillside. She saw a hump of shoulder, covered in frazzled grey fur. A thick neck was directed downward, a broad snout scouring the ground in a methodical zigzag pattern. A grizzly bear.
Erina anchored herself to the ground. It was only looking for her food. In a moment it would lock onto the scent and move toward her bag, and she would be able to slink away.
A narrator’s line from an old nature documentary shot through her mind:

An old boar grizzly, who has been struggling to gain enough weight for the coming winter. This type of bear poses a serious threat to humans. His desperation means that he will attack any targets of opportunity…

Erina inhaled sharply as the bear’s snout swung close to her knee. It must have heard her, because it made a ‘harumph’ noise and started. It’s mouth stretched open, revealing the terrifying canine teeth. It was so close that she felt the moisture of its breath condense on her skin.
Erina, don’t run. Play dead. Get on your stomach, interlace your fingers behind your head. Don’t run. Protect yourself as best you can. Don’t run, don’t run, don’t run, don’t…
It rocked back onto its hind legs, a towering silhouette against the grey sky, and bellowed.
Her hair slapped her face as she ran. The air seared her lungs, face and hands. A tear dropped onto her cheek and cooled. The slope became dangerously steep, the grass slipping under her boots. She knew that grizzly bears were fast. Her only hope was another snatch of information from that old documentary:

The humps of muscle on his shoulders, although providing him with great speed on level ground or uphill, mean that the grizzly cannot run very fast on a downward slope…

She heard the guttural grunts and the thumping impacts as it careened down the hill after her. Erina’s breathing degenerated into random, panicked gasps.
“Uh… uh…”
The grass dissolved into a treacherous bank of sliding pebbles.
The rumble of fast flowing water was folded back at her from the surrounding rock. She felt her ankle twist underneath her, and she screamed. The bear’s hot breath enveloped her. It grunted, and prickly fur brushed against her cheek. But the fall saved her from its lunging embrace. Her side hit the ground, and she was rolling, tumbling, flailing towards that distant roar.
She flew into empty space with an avalanche of loose rocks. Sky, ground and river merged in a sickening sphere of colour and motion. She saw boulders looming from the depths of the gorge. Seconds later a bell tolled inside her skull, she heard a crunch, and her vision was bisected by a stinging white line.

She felt her skin burn, but the sensation didn’t last long. Worse was the horrific pressure on her head and chest. Her senses retreated up her arms, spine and optic nerves. The only thing left of Erina was a tiny, compressed ball. Cold and pressure from the outside were squeezing that ball. For a second, it felt like there was nothing left at all…

Erina gasped in pain and shock as she broke above the water’s skin. Her whole body was numb. She thrashed her arms and legs in a panic. Water was entering her mouth and nose faster than she could expel it. The deafening roar was reflected back in double from the canyon walls. Her heart thundered in a wild, arrhythmic beat.
“Ah…Uh…”
She spun against a submerged rock. There was no pain; all of her senses were dulled.
She could see grey froth. The black flicker of tree-shapes on the near bank. A spectral blue glow, low to the horizon.
She went under.
For a few moments the world was devoid of light, and filled with a sound that reminded her of potatoes boiling over on her stove. The weight of her wool-lined clothes was killing her. When she burst into open air again she had shed the jacket, but there was nothing she could do to remove her leaden boots. A turn in the river swept her close to the bank. She was carried beneath a downed tree that hung over the water. Her hand scratched at the slimy bark, and closed around a small branch. But she didn’t have enough strength to hold on, and the relentless current tore her away. She was mashed against a boulder. And another. Powerful suction from below took her under again. She was too exhausted to claw back to the surface. She tumbled along the stony bottom, her fingers outstretched in a frozen bid for life. Her heart faltered, then boomed. Erina convulsed as silt-laden water forced the air out of her lungs. Her heart made one last, gigantic beat, and the echo rang in her head.
Sensation drained away. Erina searched for something inside herself to cling to, and found a single bright sliver of memory: a little house in the suburbs, a kitchen window. Her parents were inside. She couldn’t see their faces anymore, but she could tell from the way they moved that they were smiling. “I’m sorry I won‘t be home for christmas,” Erina said, within herself.
“It wasn’t meant to be this way.”

© Andrew Proverbs 2009

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Tags:

canada, grizzly, mountains, night and rockies