Bear Grease - Ep. 478: This Country Life - Air Canada and the Lost Baggage Blues

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Flying is always stressful for Brent. He says he likes being in different and remote places, he just doesn't always enjoy the process of getting there. A fear of flying isn't the issue; trusting his possessions to strangers is. You're allowed to carry backpack with a shaving kit and extra change of clothes on the plane with you, but you can't carry a bow and arrow and store it in an overhead bin. If he could, though, he wouldn't have anything to talk about this week. Get your boarding pass and settle in at the gate. It's time for MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast. Thank you to our sponsors, Case Knives and Stor-Mor. Shop This Country Life Merch Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop This Country Life MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From Coon Hunting to Trotlining and Just General Country Living, I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This Country Life is presented by Case Knives from the Storemore Studio on Meat Eat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts that Airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. Air Canada and the Lost Baggage Blues.

We need an introduction to this episode about like I need an excuse to cook fish. I don't need them. I am bear hunting in one of my most favoriteest places on earth. So join me at the fire. Let's get started. My boss, Garrett Long, called me after the first of the year and said, Be thinking about what projects you want to do this year. And by projects, he meant what we call long-form films.

Like the Manitoba Moose Hunt, my good friend, the cinematographer, Dave Gardner and I shot last October, where the northern lights danced above our heads for a week. That's a big question, and one that I didn't take lightly. My mind raced around the globe as I thought about places I wanted to go and the animals I wanted to chase. But working at Meat Eater is not a free ticket to hunt wherever. and whatever you want. We're in the storytelling business, and that weighs heavily on the decisions

that we make about the content that we produce. It's not just closing your eyes and chunking a dart at a map to see where you're going. There are emails and meetings upon meetings about getting the storylines approved as in what the hunt is really going to be about. What story are we telling? Then we have meetings to get the budget approved.

Following that hurdle, licenses and permissions not just to hunt but for filming the hunt and moving people, plus their equipment to remote areas is tackled by the producer and associate producer, whose job it is to ensure that all the eyes are dotted and all the T's are crossed. Traveling to another country to work, even a neighboring one, comes with a lot of paperwork and documentation. My producer Jason Raring and associate producer Omar Lopez worked their hind ends off to ensure that Dave and I had everything that we needed. Now, I call them mine, but I don't want to infer that they work for me, or better yet, infer that they answer to me. They work for me all right, but in the sense of coordinating all the moving parts of a big production that takes a focused attention to detail to be successful. One unsigned document, one negated fee or permission, and the folks at customs will look at you like they finally caught the dude that was breaking wind at the supper table.

They will turn you around and send you home and will have forgotten you even existed before you can get out of the airport. And when you see Jason and Omar's names at the end of the show for less than a second in the credits, it's pretty easy to look over their participation, but you shouldn't. They made it easy for me and Dave to get ourselves in all our gear from different locations in the good old US of A across the border at two separate crossings only to link up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I would be in three different airports before I went wheels down in the fourth at Saskatoon. But the hiccup came in the third when I checked in through customs in Toronto. With my passport in hand and hoping my heart, I made my wish. way through the maze of rope lines to be met by a Canadian border agent who flagged my boarding pass with a purple highlighter when I answered her question of had I brought a weapon with me, and I said,

yes, ma'am. She looked at me all over as if she was looking for it, and I told her that I didn't have it with me. It was arsher equipment, and that it was locked in a case and had been checked in my baggage when I left Little Rock three flights ago. She held her hand in front of my face, and said, wait here. I looked at my watch. My next flight would start boarding in an hour. Hopefully, this wouldn't take long. Upon her return, she said,

take this paper and go downstairs to the customs office to declare your weapon. They have taken it off the aircraft. Hmm, all right. Well, this shouldn't be a problem. Just follow the painted line on the floor down past the other border agent and hit the stairs to the lower level.

How long could it take it? take to check a bow and a half a dozen errors. When I got to the top of the escalator, the den of noise from the lower level grew more intense as I descended into the depths of that airport. Halfway down the walled partitioned to my right disappeared and I saw a sea of people and baggage carousels. It was utter chaos and I assumed that this would be the place where I died. No Jason or Omar to help me get through this one.

I was all on my own, and there wasn't a soul in this Canadian fire drill that was taking place before me. They gave two hoots in Hades, whether or not I made my next flight, much less eventually jobbed a hole in one of their bears. I was absolutely lost. The agent I talked to made it seem that there was someone waiting for me at the lower level. But when I stepped off that escalator, the only folks I saw were travelers like me. Most of them, they were speaking languages that didn't remotely sound like English. At first, I wondered what language they were jibber-jabbering back and forth in that congestion of humanity.

Then, I remembered how I almost filled Miss Glenetta Burke's seventh-grade English class. A language I'd have been speaking for over a dozen years to that point. Didn't matter what they were speaking. The only thing that mattered was me finding someone who would say, Brent. You're all checked in. Now go get on that airplane and get ready to poke a hole in a big old black bear. But I did not see that person. I thought about going back upstairs, but those clever canucks had already thought of that.

That escalator was a narrow one-way street and set at a speed that I don't think Carl Lewis could have been fast enough to get back up. No, sir. I was at the mercy of my wits to navigate and work this problem. I started to sweat. I hung a right and walked toward an open area with fewer people to the only empty baggage carousel numbered 11 out of 13. I went back and forth like a metal man in a shooting gallery until I heard the voice of an angel say, Sir, can I help you? In an accent, I didn't recognize or care to decipher.

All I knew was that I had just drafted my first confidant to Team Reeves. Out of 8.3 billion people on this planet, I had to be able to. somehow managed to find one of them taking an interest in my obvious look of confusion and mild panic. I didn't know what kind of uniform she had on, but I think she worked for an airline that I wasn't even flying. But she had a radio and she wasn't scared to use it. She asked me how I got there. I explained as best I could how I started out in Southeast Arkansas in 1966 and just hit the highlights until I got to the part about meeting her here today. And after she came to, she asked for my checked back receipts and told me to wait right there

and she hurried off out of sight and a mass of people moving in every conceivable direction. I looked at my watch, 40 minutes until my next flight started boarding. She told me to wait right there, and I promise you, had that airport called on fire while she was gone? The pile of charcoal with a southern accent beside Carousel No. 11 would have been yours, truly, I wasn't moving. I checked my watch and with 30 minutes left until the Air Canada Flight 1125 started boarding out of gate 34, I saw my most favorite person in Toronto

making her way back to me like an Olympic downhill skier, bobbing and weaving like she'd done this many times before. She walked right up to me, handed my baggage claims, and said, you're good to go, Mr. Reeves. Your luggage wasn't even removed from the plane. Okay, nice. So it'll be in Saskatoon when I get there, right? Sir, it's already loaded on the plane. Thank you, ma'am. I appreciate it so much. Now, how do I get to gate 34 from here?

Unfortunately, you have to go back through security. Go back to why you came until you see the custom agents just outside of Carousel 9. Go through that checkpoint, then up the stairs, and you'll see the security that you've already been through and the signs for the the gate that you're looking for. Well, I thank her, and I took off like I knew where I was going. I did not. The customs agents beside Carousel No. 9 snatched me out of line. I was still holding that paper slip with the purple highlighter marks on it, and he saw it immediately.

Can I help you, sir? No, sir. I got all my questions answered, just trying to get to my gate, my flight boards, and 25 minutes. Well, you have to take that form you got there with you down to declare a weapon. sir, go to see the customs agent down the hallway. Well, I don't have a weapon to declare, sir. It's archie equipment, and it's already on the plane that leaves in 24 minutes. You have to go see the duty officer, sir.

Roger that. I was not about to argue with anyone who could make me doing about face and tote my person back to the other side of the border. I think back to the untold hordes of folks over my 32-year career as being a police officer who could have stayed out of jail by practicing the same thought process. I hot-footed it down the hall and stepped up to a row of desk where three customs officers stood shooting the breeze.

I showed one of the paper and he said, you're already cleared. Go down this hallway, up the stairs, and back to the security. Apparently, they didn't even offload your luggage. So it's on the plane that leaves from Gate 34 in 20 minutes. Already there, pal. Back through security. security I went, where regardless of if you're pre-checked or not, your shoes are coming off your

feet. I did all of that again and made it to my gate with five minutes to spare. A fellow traveler stood nearby as I collected my wind and began to calm down from the near calamity that I thought may wrecked my trip before it even got started good. You an American? Yes, sir, I am. Having a little issue with Air Canada? Well, I don't think so. just a little confusion going through customs with a bow and error, but it's all good now. They assured me my luggage is on the plane. He smiled at me, and he leaned in as if taking me into his confidence. He said, I've been flying air Canada for years.

You know, their motto is, we're not happy unless you're not happy. Well, that was funny, and it brought some levity to what had been a stressful 55 minutes of trying to get myself positions for the last three-hour flight of the day. It had been a long time since 3.30 that morning, and I had been zigzagging back and forth through time zones like a man possessed all over North America. The route from Little Rock to Saskatoon had been anything but direct. Now, with one last hurdle before me, I could rest once I got to Saskatoon, gathered my boatcase and duffel bag, and met Dave

at the Saskatoon Inn for a late supper before our 5.30 departure the next morning. Once on the plane, I found my seat, and I filled my ears full of electronics and dozed on it off as a movie played on my phone, while 1,400 miles

clicked off below me from 36,000 feet. I could finally relax. The whole custom thing was but a mere anecdote in this story that had really only just begun. Listen. And you're there.

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That flight went faster than I expected. I'd been snoozing through the most of it, so when the pilot came on and said we'd better get all our plundered in order so he could land, it caught me by surprise. I checked my watch, but I really had no idea what time it was. I'd lost track of which time zone I was currently in, but it didn't matter. And I didn't really care. I was about to see my bus. buddy Dave and get some supper. I hadn't had anything to eat all day, and I was hungry as a hostage and ready to relax. Twenty minutes had gone by since we went wheels down in Saskatoon. We all de-plained and gathered at the baggage

carousel like expected ranchers waiting for that stainless steel animal to start pushing out luggage babies for all of us to pick over and take home. We waited and waited. Finally, that creature buzzed. loudly as the yellow strobe light flashed and now as into the world that the last activity of the day had begun. I watched the deformed portion of that belt make lap after lap through that curved track as one by one passengers claimed their property and made their way outside with their possessions.

Stared at the deformed panel when the belt stopped moving and the light stopped flashing. I looked at my boarding pass and corroborated again what I already knew. Air Canada Flight 1125 to run through to Saskatoon baggage area one. There was no more luggage. My bow case and duffelback had definitely not been on the same plane as me as I had been assured by no less than three people in uniform. Well, Air Canada should be happy now because I wasn't. As I stood there alone staring at the empty baggage collection point, knowing that in less than

eight hours I was supposed to be back in that airport on another flight with those two bags, one of which contained my bow. Jocelyn said, having trouble, eh? Well, I knew her name to be Jocelyn because that's what her Air Canada name tag displayed. Yes, ma'am, I'm missing two bags. Then I briefed Jocelyn on everything she needed to know, plus some that. got us to the point where she found me sadly standing alone like I'd been stood up at the altar waiting for the bride who wasn't coming. Jocelyn took my baggage receipts and walked to the

opposite end of the airport where she took her position at a computer terminal and began machine gunning that keyboard like her life depended on it. Suddenly felt relaxed. And with Jocelyn handling the issue, she turned a stressful moment of panic into a solvable problem assuring me that she she was going to ride the storm out with me. Mr. Reeves, I found your bags. They're coming in on the next flight, which gets here at 1 a.m. We will have the courier bring them to your hotel.

Now, we fly out in the morning at 5.30. No worries, Mr. Reeves, your bags will be at your hotel when you get up in the morning. They told me in Toronto they'd be in Saskatoon when I got here. Well, sir, that was them. Not me. I like you, Jocelyn. I also believe you.

I'm going to eat supper and go to bed. Sir, your bags will be waiting for you at the front desk. So, that's what I did. I walked out of that airport with my full faith and confidence in Jocelyn. A lady I had only just met, but that had taken an interest in helping someone, she didn't know in as professional and personal manner as I could have hoped for. By the time Dave and I met up,

had a short visit and gone back to our rooms and finally laid down, it was after midnight. I stepped off the elevator and into the lobby the next morning at 4.15, and there stacked securely behind the front desk were my two missing bags. When Jocelyn tells you something, you can believe it. That morning, Dave and I did the whole routine again. Shuttle to the airport, baggage check, security, waiting at the gate, Then everything but moving like the cattle we were simulating as we moved in herd form from one point to the next at the direction of our handlers. From Saskatoon, we shed our earthly bonds, track it almost due north for 500 miles.

We stopped off in Fondalot, a community formed 150 years ago by the Dinessela, the First Nations people, some of whom still lived their subsistence life of hunting and fishing there. The First Nations man who introduced himself as Floyd, sat down behind me and Dave on the long pool northward from Saskatoon. He was a fishing guide betrayed and had recognized us back at the airport. Now, having someone like Floyd tell you he enjoys watching what you do on YouTube was quite a pleasant surprise. We had a great visit. And once he and the rest of his family deep-plained in Fondalock, the 50-mile hop over the the Stony Rapids was a quick one. Stony Rapids would be our jumping off spot.

Situated 51 miles south of the border of the Northwest Territories, Stony Rapids sits on the south side of the Fondalock River, the river that our last flight would leave from. A float-plane flight of a little over half an hour in a Cessna caravan would be the final time for a week

that we had to load ourselves and gear into an air-worthy conveyance. Nick Gauss met us at the airport. Airstrip. Not sure which one better describes that particular area where aircraft come and go, but don't get the idea. I mean that disrespectfully. On the contrary, in a world where long, drivable roads only appear when water freezes,

the aircraft is king and the quickest way to get from one spot to the next. Those two paved and well-kept airstrips in Fondalock and Stony Rapids were the literal hub for everything. coming in out of those communities. Nick got us squared away, and we loaded our gear for the short drive over to the float plane base where we packed it and ourselves on an aircraft piloted by Wayne. Wayne is a local legend with a million hours of experience flying in the Canadian North in all kinds of weather and just the guy you won't drive and you on the most treacherous portion

of the trip. His takeoff was buttery smoke. than at 3,600 feet, 10 times less than what I'd been cruising at from Little Rock to Toronto, the world didn't look any smaller, but it did look more remote. I was reminded of eight months earlier when Dave and I were sitting on a similar aircraft in the neighboring province of Manitoba, surveying the vastness of what appeared to be an endless patchwork of water and rock separated by undeveloped tracks of jackpine, Willa, aspen birch and spruce trees.

This would be our home for the next nine days. For nine days, we would be traveling by boat in search of Ursus Americana, the American Black Bear, a monikered beast whose name would lead you to believe it referenced the United States, when in

reality, it identifies its vast and growing distribution over North America. We skied to a stop at the floating dock at Bear Camp. Less than 200 yards away in the center of that camp is at a log cabin built in the 1960s by our fur trapper and float-playing pilot. A man that lived the kind of life I dreamed of living while growing up in Arkansas over 1,800 miles southeast of where I currently stood. This was bear country, and we were just getting started.

However, y'all that have been watching the clock knew we weren't going to be doing this all in one episode. I only know one way to tell the story and that's to tell it all. And the rest will have to wait until next week. Brent, that is a terrible thing to do. You did that the last time you went to Canada with Dave Gardner Hunting Moose. Well, blame it on Dave. Regardless, we're in Bear Camp now and next week the action starts. quickly.

Now, for all of you would-bees world champion squirrel chefs out there, you've got an opportunity coming up on September the 12th to be the world champion. Get on Facebook or Google World Championship Squirrel Cookoff, fill out the forms, get your team together, get your recipe together, and join me. And some other folks that you know and love at the J.B. and John L. Hunt, Ozark Highlands Nature Center in Springdale, Arkansas. September the 12th, get your recipe, get your folks together, get your permits filled out, and your fees paid so you can come, have a great time with all this.

Until next week, this is Brent Reeves, signing off. Y'all be careful. Hunting demands preparation, persistence, and gear that will not quit on you. That is why I wear first light. This isn't about hype. It's about no compromise gear. Built to perform, built to last, whether it's their industry, leading merino wool, keeping me comfortable through the cold and the hot, or their durable

outerwear shrugging off the elements. First Light is built to help you go farther and stay longer, designed by hunters, four hunters, with a deep commitment to conservation and land access. No shortcuts, no excuses. Just gear you can count on. Head to firstlight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E. dot com.