Donald Wharton

One evening when we were hunting at West Canada Lake one of the guys mentioned that he would like to revisit the site of an old lumber camp at Twin Lakes where he had spent a few days back in the 1930s.
He had actually shot a couple of bucks over there, one from the camp and one across the lake that he had somehow dragged across the lake on thin ice. Twin Lakes lies about 2 miles north of West Canada Lake.

The hunters were up and out of their camps early that morning on the West Canada Creek. Several of the men took the dogs into the mountains around the Stillwater and the others followed the shore or took boats to get into good positions around the Stillwater. French Louie picked out a choice spot at the head of the Swanson.
A couple hours later the hunters heard the dogs baying as they chased deer towards the water.

It was a warm day in the mountains, so rather than hunting I decided to do a few chores around camp, including splitting a little kindling.
As I was working on that a fellow suddenly came huffing and puffing up the brook in front of camp. He looked to be about 60 or so and a few years older than me. It was also obvious he didn’t know where he was. He also probably knew the forecast was for temperatures in the teens that night.