She shot cougars one-handed in the dark. Annie was the big-cat hunter’s queen.
side, glad to be alone on the ocean. I felt like a coastal explorer, with empty beaches, wave-washed cliffs, crash- ing surf and dense forest on one side, and open ocean, the odd sea otter, seals and sea birds on the other. I made camp at one of the many white sand beaches. Wolf, deer, and bear tracks dimpled the sand in lines that disap- peared into piles of bull kelp. I expected to see hand- sized cat-tracks too, here on Annie’s turf. Cougar hunters were held in high regard amongst the pioneers of old, and Annie was the big-cat hunter’s queen. The animals were regular visitors to her garden, and she is reputed to have trapped and shot 70 to 80. Sometimes she would bait them with young goats; other times she would find them treed. She even shot them one-handed in the dark. When she heard the traps snap at night she would check them with a lamp in one hand and a gun in the other. Despite failing eyesight, she never missed a shot.
Annie’s cougar hunting was a profitable business— cougars earned bounties until the late ‘70s, plus there was always demand for hides. Annie was never one to miss a chance to make money—she also sold bulbs and plants from her garden and tended a store and post office. The exotic shrubs, bulbs, fruit trees and flowers Annie culti- vated were not adapted to this rainforest climate, yet her plants flourished and found buyers as far away as Manitoba.
T
he next stage of my journey took me around the head- land of Estevan Point into the protected waters of
Hesquiat Harbour and Boat Basin, Cougar Annie’s home. Estevan Point sticks out of Vancouver Island’s western profile like a pimple on a teenager’s face, bearing the brunt of every storm. It also bore the brunt of the only military attack on Canadian soil in recent history. One day during World War II, Annie spotted a submarine in Boat Basin. That night it opened fire on the Estevan Point Lighthouse. Shells were found all over the area for 30 years. Canadian military officials played down the attack, but everyone assumed it was a Japanese submarine. Puzzling to many was, and is, why the Japanese would sail across the Pacific to attack a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere. Conspiracy theorists argued that it was actually an American submarine, that the States bombed their ally to keep Canada’s resolve firmly in the war.
I woke with a nervous anticipation usually reserved for first dates and tore up the four knots to Cougar Annie’s.
Luckily I had calm conditions for paddling around
this proboscis-shaped war zone into Hesquiat Harbour. Boat Basin lies at the harbour’s far end. I camped on a long, curving stretch of sand scooped out of the backside of Estevan Point, one hour’s paddle from the garden. I fell asleep that night trying to picture the garden and imagine what I would find the following day. I woke early with a nervous anticipation usually reserved for
Scenes from a century before: a homestead’s many layers.
ADVENTUREkayakmag.com 29
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