Rat tales (of a Caper)

While still a teenager, I was sentenced to several months in isolation at the Cape Saint James weather station in the Queen Charlotte Islands. At a time when my friends were unraveling the wonders of university beer gardens, I was being plunked down on a saddle-shaped, grass clumped islet - one that looked like it had been dropped in the Pacific as an afterthought.

Soon after realizing that I wasn’t in a bad dream, I accepted my fate and went about exploring the dark recesses of the office building during a night shift. The stairs to the basement were a gateway to an archive. On my first reconnaissance I contemplated some classic Canadian snowshoes and their dubious role in my future survival. Nearby, I came upon a strange pile of contraptions; I had stumbled upon the collective inventions of my predecessors; the James Island rat -traps.

I’m not sure when the rats first appeared (one rumour had them arriving on supply ships during the Second World War) but one could probably guess a Caper’s era by their rat tales.

RAT TALES

I remember the day when I went from pretending I didn’t coexist with rats, to complete indignation at their presence.

The Cape was famous for receiving mixed up food orders. One mistake, made before ‘my time,’ resulted in our duplex basement being a showcase for the variety that DAD’S COOKIES could produce. I had been fond of DAD’S COOKIES ever since touring the factory on a school fieldtrip. My counterpart, Robert Fulford, and I, would sometimes go for a 7 am switchover tour of our dwelling; that wouldn’t take too long except to decide which biscuit flavour we’d like to sample that day. We’d performed this rite on several occasions, working our way down from the top of our favourite flavour’s packages.

You can only try to imagine the importance of the last rows of one’s preferred cookies, when you live in isolation. You can’t imagine the revulsion upon discovering the rats had cleaned out the bottom layers before you!

<’ ~’ <’~’ <’~’ <’~’ <’~’ <’~’ <’~’ <’~’ <’~’ <’~’ <’~’

When I arrived at the Cape, rats were used to having dinner delivered to their doorstep – garbage bags being hucked over the cliff into a jungle of salal. Being at the advent of an eco-conscious generation, we decided to end this practice and battle the bureaucracy for an incinerator. Unwittingly we’d invited the rat pack to come up and visit.

It was only a matter of time before the rats figured out where all the goodies were going. Eventually the incinerator improved their quality of life, serving the dual purpose of being a larder and a nesting place for their kittens. That meant it was a good idea to knock first before depositing any garbage in the incinerator door. By the time you counted to ten, the scurrying was down to a dull roar and instead of a face to snout confrontation, you had only a ring of tails to regard atop the burnt rubbish. Meanwhile, the babies nestled in an insulated blanket in the lower quarters - the ash clean out.

In my life, I’ve been more or less a pacifist; but this was a different world.

We had two 22 calibre rifles, one with a hair-trigger and one with a scope. Since the government was willing to foot the bill, we’d order a bunch of bullets each month. There was a spotlight that shone from the back porch of the office building onto the cart railway that brought supplies to the top of the island. We would brace in the dark with our rifles, waiting. After their trek up the cliffs, the rats would inevitably pause atop the rail before the saunter to the incinerator. Take your bow. BLAMMO!

We weren’t the only ones to uncover the rats’ new routine. In a ghostly spectacle, short-eared owls arrived to pick off the rats in the spotlighted dark. Alas, one of the owls hung around too long in the dawn’s early light and had a fatal encounter with our resident red-tailed hawk. I have a photograph of that, as well as another one of the red-tail flying off with a rat dangling from his talons.

But that doesn’t mean that rat-bird interaction was a one-way street.

“Barfbirds” was the appellation applied to the seabirds lured to the light- house on foggy nights. Included in this group were Cassin’s and Rhino auklets, but the true barfbirds were the petrels. These tubenosed fliers had a less than endearing habit of releasing a fishy stew upon collision with inanimate objects and weather observers. When the visibility was low, they were part of a ghostly carousel, circling the light until daybreak. The anemometer mast was located next to the light and its concrete base was recessed several feet into the ground. This was the scene of humanitarian missions (and a bit of sport) at twilight. The night’s cache of stranded birds were retrieved and hurled over the cliff, angling toward the sea; about two out of every three birds would make it, fluttering their way downward. The remainder ended up on the rat’s breakfast table after all!

One thing you learned never to do was show up late and take a boo into the well, as you would be witness to a seething pit of horror –the grisly scene of the rats eating the birds alive.

<’~’ <’~’ <’~’ <’~’ <’~’ <’~’

My own worst encounter with rats began in that most personal of places. The duplex bathroom was at the top of the stairs and just before my bedroom. It was one of my favourite spots, mainly because of the view it afforded – much better than the orange weathered newspaper that sufficed for my bedroom window.

One morning, after a night shift and just before bed, I stood poised over the toilet. If I hadn’t already been relieving myself, I soon would have been, because my actions scared out the largest rat I’d ever seen. The beast did several frightened circuits about me as I continued - hoping it wouldn’t lunge for my neck. I managed to lean over to pry the door open wide enough for the rat to scamper out and give me a temporary reprieve. But I had left my bedroom door ajar and fearing the worst, I called in reinforcements. My officer-in-charge arrived armed with a flashlight and a rattrap.

With more than a little trepidation I peeked under my bed and into the dark recesses of my crowded cupboard. Tired from my night shift, I quickly gave up the search and collapsed into bed hoping that “BEN” had gone back to wherever rats go. The trap was armed just in case.

I felt uneasy about fading into sleep, but my room was very dark and I started feeling safe. I was just entering the sound phase of initial sleep when the spring of the trap sounded. The noise of claws scraping and the trap dragging soon had me awake and back in the realm of pure fear.

When I finally had enough nerve to turn on the light, I could see the now empty trap and a bloody trail leading out of my doorway and down the hall. The ugly smear (and a life as well) ended just inside the next bedroom.

<’,~,’ <’,~,’ <’,~,’ <’,~,’

Years after I was out of ‘the Cape’ I read about how it had been figured out that rats had caused incredible damage to the nesting populations at Langara Island and that a rat eradication program was being planned.

I cheered for the birds….BIG TIME!