Janet Miller of Kamloops and Virginia Laveau of Barriere received the first-ever Dr. Robert and Elma Schemenauer Writing Awards at the Interior Authors Group summer social held at Chartwell Ridgepointe on 9 July, 2016.
Miller won in the category Writing with a Kamloops (& Area) Theme. Her poem "Kamloops" captures the essence of our beautiful city in 100 words that strongly appeal to readers' senses and emotions. The poem is written in the "1-10, 10-1" form she learned while attending a Downtown Kamloops Library workshop led by its creator, author Richard Wagamese.
Laveau won in the category Writing with a Nature Theme. Her article "Contemplations of a Mule Deer" movingly depicts the life, forested mountain home, and last days of a mule deer injured while trying to protect her fawns from a cougar.
Both the Kamloops (& Area) Theme and Nature Theme awards consist of a cash prize, a certificate, and a press release issued to local media. Accompanying each award is a cash donation to the IAG to support its growth and educational activities. The yearly deadline for submissions is 21 March. Each award will be issued annually to a member in good standing of the IAG. There is no fee to enter.
For more about the Interior Authors Group, please see https://interiorauthorsgroup.wordpress.com/ .
HERE ARE THE TWO 2016 WINNING SUBMISSIONS
Copyright for the submissions remains with the authors. Permission to reproduce the pieces or to use them in whole or part in any form, printed or electronic, must be obtained from the authors. Janet Miller janetmiller569(at symbol)gmail.com . Virginia Laveau velaveau(at symbol)gmail.com .
Kamloops by Janet Miller
Tk’emlu’ps
Translation, Kamloops
Local Secwepemc Nation
1800’s-European Explorers Arrived
Lakes, Canoes, Fishing and Hunting
Trading Pelts, Beads, Knives and Blankets
Rich in History, Culture and Natural Resources
Where the North and South Thompson Rivers Meet
Hoodoos Formations Surround Kamloops, Located Primarily in the Valley
Fur Traders, Gold Rush, Canadian Pacific Railway and Logging Industries
Hockey, Golfing, Curling, Parks, Galleries, Symphonies, Theatre and Museums
Art in the Park, Ribfest, Bands, Parades, Pow-Wows
Variety of Ethnic Cultures and Religious Groups
Thompson River University, Mills and Agriculture
Pole Carvings and Wall Murals
Tournament Capital of Canada
Grasslands, Sagebrush, Tumbleweeds
Desert Temperatures
Home
CONTEMPLATIONS OF A MULE DEER by Virginia Leveau
The old mother lay on her left side, her front hooves curled up against her chest; her hind hooves pulled forward protecting her belly, one jutting out at an awkward angle, because it was painful. A young poplar grove was at her back. It had been a pretty resting spot while the leaves were young and fresh. It had hidden many a deer from prying eyes approaching from the dirt road winding around the face of the shale cliff rising behind. Now that autumn was here the poplars’ yellow-gold leaves had lost their hold on the slender saplings, littering the ground with a damp, golden carpet.
In front of her Mountain Laurels, snow berry bushes, juvenile choke cherries and service berry bushes, saskatoons, screened her from the paved road that connected to the dirt road that led down to the highway. No one had spotted her little hideaway except for a keen-eyed human female who daily walked the road, attached by a retractable umbilicus to a small, fluffy, four-legged creature. The birch bark colored four footer’s scent was canine, yet not as strong as the odor that emanated from the wolf. Nor did it have the wild cat musk of the cougar. It did not see her, but sniffed where she had walked earlier in the morning and did not proceed any closer to her than the edge of the road. A wolf would have tracked her to her place of safety and attacked. This was definitely no wolf. It was a good thing, because right now she could not run, even if her life was in peril.
The human female uttered sounds, soft, soothing, low, looking her straight in the eye. Her vision was fogged with the pain in her left hip, but she could hear, her long ears flicking back and forth, analyzing. No threat here.
As dusk was falling the day before she had traveled down from high grazing grounds, across the highway, descending to the river below with her daughter of this season, her daughter from a previous season and her daughter’s daughter. The trip down was easy. Returning to the highlands was not. Her energy had been spent on the upward journey and she needed rest before she could go any further. Her elder daughter accepted responsibility of caring for the old mother’s young one. In fact the children had been birthed on the same day and they looked so similar they could be twins. The old mother promised to catch up with them later, after she rested. They went on ahead, disturbing the shale on the cliff above as they proceeded upward to high grazing grounds.
The old mother had been in fine shape at the beginning of the season. She had only seen eight seasons and had delivered of a beautiful, matched set of twin daughters and was capable of birthing for at least two more seasons, until disaster struck. In the high forest the Mule deer found secluded valleys where grazing was lush, but they were not the only ones to find these places. Hungry cougars and wolves, intent on fattening up for the winter, moved down from even higher places, following the families of deer, picking off the young, elderly and sick. And so it was her beautiful daughter became the focus of a slinking cougar.
Catching his scent the old mother raised the alert, standing her ground between the snarling cat and her brood. He charged, his intent to intimidate and scatter, but the old mother refused to budge, until her children were safe. The cougar swooped down upon her, raking her left flank with his vicious claws. She bawled in pain and lashed out at him with her hind legs. One of her twins, spooked by her mother’s cry, panicked and lurched not away from the cat, but right into his waiting paws. He wrapped them tightly about the young animal. The fawn screamed in horror before he tore her throat open with his yellow fangs.
The old mother’s heart ached for her offspring, but she knew she could do nothing to help her daughter now. Though the claw marks bled between the ribbons of skin and shredded muscle and burned like fire she followed her older daughter, her daughter’s child and her surviving twin. She ran and ran, until she could run no more. Sides heaving, blood gushing from her wounds she stopped and thought of her lost child and mourned. Though there was distance between her and the mountain lion she knew she could not pause long, for he would follow the trail of her blood and pick her off because she was slow and injured. That day her daughter led her to the river earlier than usual and while the others grazed she drank deeply before laying her injured flank into the riverside sand. She did not eat, the pain being too great. Her fellow sisters, the herd she belonged to, had also come down to drink. They formed a protective circle about her that night and she slept, her wounds coagulating.
Dawn was delayed by heavy fog descending from the mountains. Nevertheless the deer roused and drank in preparation for the long uphill trek to the high grazing grounds.
The old mother woke, preparing to stand. Her muscles bunched and pain shot through her flank like bolts of lightning. Despite it she rose and limped to the river drinking deep. Water was essential to supplement the blood she had lost overnight. It formed a dark pool in the sand and was attracting flies. She did not shake off the sand for instinct told her it would help with the healing.
The agony of ascent over the rocky embankment leading to the highway was indescribable.
Even more painful was the leap over the cement curbing edging the road. It was when she crossed the highway she made the decision to rest in the triangular shaped ditch between the highway, the short paved road and the dirt road and catch up with her children later. And it was while she rested, glassy-eyed, internalizing the pain, that she first met the human female with a small canine attached to the retractable umbilicus.
She did not make it to the grazing ground in the highlands that day. When her children came back down for water she roused and followed them down to the river. Water. She needed the water more than food.
The next morning was foggy again. The old mother rose gingerly, her leg stiff but not quite as sore as the day before. But once she crossed over the highway she again opted to stay in her little hideaway. She nibbled the grass and bushes immediately around her and in a haze of pain laid down to rest on the damp gold carpet, until she was disturbed by the female human with her canine.
The woman stopped across from her and uttered sounds, soothing, soft and low. The old mother could feel the sympathy radiating from the human and she followed her passage, down to the highway and then back up to the dirt road, with feverish eyes.
The third day was the last of her roadside slumbers. There was no way she could keep up with her children for her strength was waning. So she bade them farewell. As the sun rose high and bright she separated from them and limped into the field below the high hill with a scraggy pine sentinel perched on top. That hill was her destination. She turned and watched her children clattering up the narrow path in the shale encrusted cliff. When they reached the top they paused and gazed at her in final farewell before disappearing over the top. The old mother dropped her gaze and stared off down the valley. It was such a clear, bright day. A good day to be alive. The sun had burned away all traces of fog that had wrapped the hills in the earliest hours and the air was warming as it had in summer. Nibbling the green shoots sprouting at the base of the dried bunch grass she gained strength to accomplish this one last task.
Her meal was interrupted by a strange, sharp birdcall, one she had never in her long life heard before. She raised her head to seek its source. There was the human female with her canine. Again she had spotted the old mother and stopped walking and uttered soothing, comforting sounds. The old mother gazed at her, her ears twitching to catch the changing cadence and tonal quality of the woman’s voice. The woman raised her hand in farewell. It was as if she knew this would be their last meeting. Then she watched the strange pair walk up the dirt road and out of sight behind the cliff face her children had just climbed.
She knew where that woman and her canine lived. Often her small group of four females with their offspring had passed by their nest. It was perched on the hillside overlooking the highway, with the river flowing below and the mountains across the way reaching up to the sky. Those kindly humans had provided a salt lick and never rushed out of their abode to scare them away as humans at other locations did. Her keen sense of hearing caught their excited noises as they crowded up against the transparent substance that kept them inside. How they could exist in confined spaces was beyond her. What was better than roaming the hillside freely and grazing in the best pastures? Who could resist communing with the pinpoints of light in the night sky? What was more refreshing than feeling the sun, wind and rain upon your skin? As she gazed back at them through the aperture her curiosity changed to sorrow that they should exist in such a fashion.
Before she could further ponder the human condition a danger signal had been raised by one of the other mothers on the hill behind the nest. The old mother tasted the wind. Nothing. Her ears twitched searching for sounds of peril. Nothing.
She knew the dangers in all their many forms. It could come from the rush of shale clinking down a rain soaked hillside, threatening to swallow living creatures in a landslide. Cougars or wolves pursuing, hunting deer. Evil humans with their bright colored skins and hand-held booming, smoking sticks seeking to take their lives. Noisy metal monsters speeding down the highway, faster than any deer could outrun, interfering with their pathway to life sustaining water in the river below, crushing and tossing away the inexperienced and aged like the garbage that sometimes flew from open holes in the vehicle’s side. Drought dried up summer streams and parched the grass upon which they fed and fattened up to endure winter’s onslaught. Forest fires, with their smoky exhaust, gobbling dried grass and shrubs, turning tall, stately trees into burning beacons and licking at the heels of fleeing creatures who were gasping for want of air. Mid-winter blizzards socked in the valley and hills, burying grasses and shrubs under deep layers of unforgiving snow. That is when the torture of winter began. She had survived on lichens attached to exposed rocks, bitter twigs and evergreen shoots and pawed deep snow until her hooves bled. Continued survival depended on finely honed skills and knowledge. She passed on all her knowledge by example to her children so they could pass it on to their offspring and with the exception of a few senseless daredevils, that emerged in every generation, it would continue to be passed on for as long as Mule deer occupied the land.
When spring came, glorious bursting spring filled with the scent of green growing things, the newness, the freshness of it sent the blood rushing, filling each living being with vitality, so much so that one could almost forget the harshness of winter.
The old mother had seen changes in the herd. The old stag, her first love, had been bested in battle by a younger stag. This stag fathered many twins, very few males. When males grew their horn buds he chased them off to fend for themselves in the wild. He, like all stags before him, stood guardian over his harem, protecting, defending. He accepted no rivalry from up-and-coming males. She knew one day a younger, stronger stag would come out of the forest and challenge him and best him in heated battle. The victor would take over the harem, insuring the bloodline would be strong and healthy without the weakness of close inbreeding.
After the old mother discerned that the warning had been a false alarm she strolled across the front yard of the human nest and continued away into the tall grass and bushes following the trail leading to the highway crossing. Waiting for a lull in traffic she took a leap of faith and hurried, clip, clop across the hard surface before leaping over the barricade and descending the rocky hillside to the river. Her children followed and obeyed her directive to watch for traffic before proceeding. That was when she was in her prime. Before the cougar attack. She could make the trek no more.
It was time. The old mother turned her attention to her final mission. Picking her way among the burned out snags littering the hillside that had once been hardy fir and pine trees, the only evidence that a thick evergreen forest had carpeted the hillside before a wild fire raged its hatred out upon the countryside. She had survived that conflagration by being fleet of foot, but she was not now. The disease, caused by the poison the cougar injected into her blood through his filthy claws, was taking its toll. Now she only had enough energy left in her to take her uphill and down the other side to where she could find a secluded grove of trees and curl up, releasing her body to its final slumber. With her chin resting upon her front hooves her senses would dull and she would dream. Of the stag, her first love and the children she had born. Of bounding across the hills the breezes caressing her. Grazing upon flower dotted meadows. Drinking from cool refreshing mountain streams. These dreams would be her consolation, easing her pain, harboring her until her breathing stopped and her heart quit circulating the poisoned blood. When brain function ceased she would know nothing of the scavengers that picked off her flesh leaving her bones for the rain and sun to bleach until they, with time, disintegrated. The only thing that would survive her death was the knowledge she passed on to her offspring by example and the human female’s memories of communing with the old mother while she rested in the little poplar alcove by the roadside on three cool fall mornings.
Janet Miller receiving her award from Dr. Schemenauer
Award-winner Virginia Laveau
