Shawna Brooks | Jan 26, 2012


Photo: Eythel Grant with the deer, he and his daughter Shawna, had rescued moments earlier.

Growing up in the Grant household, you soon found out that our father, Eythel, is an outdoors person. He loves to fish, hunt and trap. This is well known to the people who live in the Denbigh area. We, Eythel’s children, still go out with him to do all of these things. It is our way of spending time with him and seeing him do the things he loves. I’m Eythel’s eldest daughter, and recently, on a day off, I thought I would go with dad to check his traps like I did growing up.

Away we went to check some fisher traps up west of Ashby Lake. We had nothing but sprung traps. Then dad said he wanted to go to a nearby beaver pond to check for signs of beaver. As we got closer to the pond we noticed signs of deer but they were from a few days earlier. We were approaching the pond when I saw a deer out on the pond. I tapped dad on the arm and pointed at the deer. You could see the deer was lying down or in the water, we couldn’t tell from this distance. As we walked closer we saw that the deer had fallen through the ice into the water and couldn’t get out. We were at this point very close to the deer, which was very tired and did not have much movement. Dad said he thought it had been in the water for a day or two!

We then talked it over to see if we could get the animal out of the water. First Dad said we have to find a pole to help check the ice and to keep the deer in one area. We got the deer where we could get hold of her then Dad grabbed hold of her ears (the only thing we could reach). She blatted quite a little bit and I said you would blat too if somebody was pulling you by the ears. We kept pulling and Dad got her high enough for me to grab her one hoof and help him pull her out. I had my cell phone with me and took several pictures of dad and the deer.

Dad was like a kid in a candy store. He was so excited and wanted me to take his picture petting the deer! Dad petted her fur coat the full length to get some of the water out of her coat. Eventually dad helped her to stand up but then she fell down again. She didn’t have much strength left. We didn’t think she would survive the hypothermia or the wolves that were sure to come later.

Dad was worried that the wolves would attack her that night. We pulled her away from the hole, hoping that she wouldn’t fall in again. When we left her, she was standing up and watched us walk away.

The next day Dad and my nephew Corey went to check on the deer. They took some hay to feed it and maybe use as bedding for her.

But when they got to the pond, the deer was gone. They followed her footprints to the shore but they couldn’t see her footprints anymore and there was no sign of the deer.

Hopefully the deer survived!

This was an amazing adventure to participate in and is something I will never forget! It is a true memory that I will always have with my dad!

 

 

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