FIRST PERSON | I lost my dad to cancer 3 years ago. A Yukon hunting trip this fall helped me know him better | CBC News

This First Person column is written by Erin Neufeld of Whitehorse. Read more about CBC North First Person columns here.

Growing up in Whitehorse, we would spend the summers exploring the rivers of the Yukon.

And every autumn, my Dad would head out in our wooden freighter canoe on a fall “hunting” trip with a few of his buddies — though I don’t think he was ever on a successful hunt. I often wondered what the purpose of these trips were, if not to provide meat for the freezer.

My Dad, David Neufeld, died three years ago from pancreatic cancer, only seven weeks after we lost Mom, Joy Waters, to ovarian cancer. 

Since then, my husband, kids, and I have moved back to Whitehorse from New Zealand, and into my old family home.  Living here, surrounded by the ephemera of my parents’ lives, has raised mixed emotions in me. One moment I will be laughing at a found photo and the memories it brings up. And the next, I will be sitting on the floor in tears holding a scrap of paper with a note Dad wrote on moving Mom to palliative care. 

Mom had lived with cancer for five years. In that time I had grieved, and her peace and grace made her death that much easier to bear. But Dad’s death was different, and I desperately wanted my relationship with my Dad to not be over.

There were so many more conversations I wanted to have. So many more stories I wanted to hear. 

So, with my new Yukon hunting licence, I decided to honour the tradition of the fall hunt as a way of getting to know him better. Plus, I really wanted to know what he got from these trips, because it was never meat.

After discussing with Colin, one of Dad’s hunting buddies, my brother and I decided on a destination and a date. Colin would bring the gun and we would bring the boat.

As we travelled up the Yukon River, I read out the moments Dad had noted down on his old maps: the wolf pack they had seen, the flock of hundreds of swans that had risen up ahead of them, and the “large bull moose glowing in the low evening sunlight” that got away. 

Colin pointed out the “wolf” pack they had seen was only about 10 minutes from their launch. It was more likely a group of dogs, but they had agreed to say wolves, because it sounded better. 

Dad had always been a dreamer and on the river, a good story was always far more important than the full truth. As we rounded the last bend before the marsh where the missed moose had once stood, I could see just how long the shot had been. Dad had never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

After two days of travelling up and down the river with not a moose in sight, we headed back up toward Lake Laberge. The day was long as we motored upstream in the bright sun and autumn air. By the time we reached the lake, the afternoon wind had picked up and the lake was looking rough. 

We crashed across the top of the big lake to a point that was out of the worst of the wind. Dripping wet, we got out of the boat and Colin admitted his trepidation of open water. So, we waited.

We had three hours until sundown and 30-plus kilometres still to go to reach the launch. I was getting a bit anxious.

Eventually the wind dropped enough to convince everyone we could cross the lake safely.

About half way across, the sun dropped below the horizon and the world began to go dark. We reached the far shore and all I could do was keep the darker black of land to my right and try to imagine where the rocky points were to avoid them.

Making a guess at where the boat launch was, I headed across the last stretch of water. We slowed as the blackness of shore came closer. It started to feel quite tense in the boat. I considered how most accidents happen on the way home.

“There! Just 10 metres that way,” my brother shouted. 

We all laughed and the tension disappeared.

“Yeah, I knew that,” I said, easing the bow up to shore.

“That was very Dad,” my brother said.

“Oh?” I asked, feeling a nice warmth rise up in my chest.

“Yeah. You’re stubborn enough to push past what’s smart and skilled enough to pull it off.” 

Like my Dad after his hunting trips, we didn’t come home with any meat. But I learned that it was never about the meat, it was about the connections — to the land, the water, and the people we were with.

It was also about having some good stories to tell.

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