Everyone has that one story; the story they pull out when there’s a lull at a party or when a friend needs a good laugh. We keep them on retainer, just waiting for the opportune moment.
And on March 4, that moment came for a number of Jasperites, as they took the stage at the fifth annual Midget Grizzlies storytelling night.
To celebrate the event’s five successful years, a few storytellers shared stories from past years, while others came out with brand new tales.
As with previous years, the event was a huge success, raising nearly $2,300. Typically those funds would go to the girls hockey team, but this year—because the team is already in solid financial shape—it’s being donated to the Jasper Sustainability Club For Youth to put toward the SEED project.
The evening started with Gilbert Wall, described by Moria McKinnon, the evening’s emcee and organizer, as “town councillor by day and a standup comedian by night.”
Wall shared a story of how he reluctantly became a horseman. He had just bought Tonquin Valley Adventures, along with a few other businessmen in town, and at the time he thought he could get by avoiding horses all together.
“I decided that we could run this business if I walked the whole time,” he said with a laugh.
It wasn’t until Wall had a propane heater and five kilogram box of sausages on his back that he realized he’d made a mistake.
“That’s what I’m walking down the trail with, this heater and this sausage, and it was heavy,” he recalled with a grin.
“I realized my first few steps uphill that I’d made a serious error. So I just struggled my way up the hill and I thought, well if they’re going to find me there’s going to be a bear and there’s going to be sausages and this heater.”
But, despite all odds, he made it up that hill and to the warden cabin, where he finally resigned himself to the fact that he needed a horse.
So, his friend Sean Elliot left him with a horse named King, before carrying on with the rest of the horses down the trail.
“King was tied to the hitching rail as the entire rest of the herd left and he started to make noise, he made a lot of noise, calling to his buddies, and it went on for three hours while I put the camp away and then without even thinking there was going to be a problem, I untied King.”
And off he went, galloping at full speed in search of his pals. It wasn’t the most leisurely of rides for a brand new horseman, but Wall held on for dear life and after numerous near misses and a run-in with a mud pit, caught up to the rest of the horses.
“King, that bastard, he skidded right up behind these horses and then does what a trail horse does, walks as if nothing has happened. And Sean turns around and I am an absolute sight and I don’t know what to do with myself and I said, ‘I don’t’ know what the hell went on with the horse, it’s been trying to kill me.’
“And Sean’s reaction to this was, ‘you could ruin a horse like that.’ And I had a big lower lip and I went, ‘but what about me?’”
Wall’s story was a hit, generating roars of laughter from the full house at the Jasper Legion, and the laughs only carried on from there, as storytellers like Niki Wilson, Steve Blake, Christopher Read, Murray Ostrander and others took to the stage, regaling tales of epic rescues off Athabasca Falls and Mount Robson and canoe trips gone bad—it turns out there’s nothing like monster mosquitoes and sand storms to ruin a weekend on the water.
And then there was Alex Rideout’s tale of his travelling rock.
Rideout retired from the military after three decades of service in 2013. In 1996, he was posted in Victoria, B.C., a long way from his home province of Newfoundland, and he was feeling a bit homesick. So, when one of his colleagues went home to Newfoundland, Rideout tasked him with visiting his hometown and bringing back a rock from the beach.
That rock later became Rideout’s pride and joy, taking a prominent spot on his desk. He even drew a map of Newfoundland on it, as well as some hearts.
Then word got out about his beloved rock and suddenly it went missing, and ransom notes started to appear. Later, Polaroid photos of the rock were delivered to his office, depicting his rock in all kinds of interesting places.
“I was getting a picture a week,” he recalled. “Then it went from that, to the navy got it. They took my rock to San Diego, down to Mexico and to a brothel—it looked quite happy, actually.
“So the story started to spread throughout the base like a cancer.”
It was even picked up by the local newspaper.
It wasn’t until Rideout retired in 2013 that he got that rock back. He was at his retirement party and one of his colleagues got up on stage and started reading a story about his time in B.C. and about his special rock.
“So then, 17 years later, I get this little bamboo box,” said Rideout, taking it out of a bag on stage, and inside that box was a rock. “It’s shaped like a heart, with a little drawn map of Newfoundland and the year 1996.”
He couldn’t have asked for a better retirement gift.
Nicole Veerman
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