Woss Lake and encounters in the rugged mountains

By Gord Henschel, North Island Eagle, Sept. 25 2020

With some trepidation I pushed my minivan through the brush bordering the old logging road near the end of Woss Lake.  It had been years since I ventured this far up the Woss Valley. Cabins now lined the lake on the logging “main” running past the campground. When the main road turned away from the lake I decided to take the now overgrown road that followed the lake. Entering a clearcut a few miles later, I thought I was a stranger in a foreign land.  A Toyota Land Rover was parked in the middle of the road with two Orientals seated at a miniature table around a meal that looked as if it were straight from a Japanese restaurant, sushi and all. The table was set up in the shade of the rear of the vehicle.

 “How you get here?” one of them asked. It was the first hint I had that I was still in Canada. “Same as you”,  I replied, “I drove”. 

After some small talk about the weather and the beautiful scenery I asked if they were fishing. “No, we hunting”, came the answer. 

I pushed on, “What are you hunting?”  “We shoot bear”, they said, and upon further inquiry as to if they were Japanese, explained that they were Korean. The scene was bizarre yet picturesque: the Toyota parked in front of a brilliant green clearcut with the massive Rugged Mountain Range and Woss Lake in the background and two orientals seated before a miniature table going through some very exotic dining rituals. 

Artwork by Gordon Henschel

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