I remember those rabbits. At Two Mile Encombe there were rabbit trails running all over the place in the bush on the bank over-looking the railroad tracks. And in the fall once the leaves all fell you could see the rabbits so-o-o-o clearly in amongst the willows once their coats turned white. Even at some distance.
One day we were out bunch of us hunting rabbits there. Some of the boys starting one end of this bushy area and the rest of us would wait down the other end. Their job was to make lots of noise shouting as they walked through the bush toward us and hopefully scaring all the rabbits in our direction. And it worked because I was running along a rabbit trail when I spotted one some distance coming in my direction. The rabbit was running in a large arc along a trail toward a corner in the trail. Then it turned the corner and I figured if it kept going it was going to be heading in my direction for sure. I quickly checked around me and sure enough found a huge heavy stick maybe about 4 feet long lying in the bush next to the trail. The rabbit kept coming and turned my corner just as I lifted the stick up over my head planting one foot one side of the rabbit trial and the other foot the other side.
I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT! RABBIT JUST KEPT COMING!
All of a sudden the darn thing ran right under me as I brought the stick down hard as I could! Jesus! If I didn’t nail the ground with a thousand pounds of force!!!
Where....rabbit....I turned around quick as I could.....what the hell happened?!
The rabbit ran right through and under my legs and kept going. I thought I got it but it just kept going. But then....but then....all of a sudden one of the boys was hollering “I got it, I got it!”
The rabbit ran right by me then hit a tree some ten feet behind me. I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. It got so scared it never made the corner behind me instead running head-on into a tree on the corner. I just remember seeing him, it looked like he was just sitting there when one of the boys (I think it was Harvey Gunanoot) came running up grabbed the rabbit which was already dead!
Harvey Gunanoot was one of the boys in Intermediates with us in 1967-68. He was from Hagwilget at Hazelton. His older brother was Shubert and his sister, Elaine, was in my class at residential school.
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