Loss

Today we discovered that one of our very special people in our lives has passed. Jack Chernysh.....no one else will ever take his place. He lived on a little farm on the edge of the town of Prairie River Saskatchewan....When we met him he lived there with his mom and his older brother Len... Their dad had died years before and the boys promised to remain on the farm and care for their mother...til she died . She died about 10 years ago...
We were up bear hunting north of Jacks place when we met him . Rion tells the story best today with tears in his eyes. We would be camped in our tent usually in snow and Jack would ride up on his quad every night for his visit. He was so calm and quiet and seemed to not have a worry in the world . HE was an"Northerner and liked to tease us "southerners"  Would laugh at how we did things and teach us how "northerners" did things and it was better.  He didn't want to hunt bears but he was always eager to tag along baiting and getting to know all of us...We always had lots of young hunters with us and there was nothing we loved more than sitting around the campfire at night sharing stories and listening to Jack do his phenomenal wolf call...Hmm just remembered him and Zak my grandson having a wolf call competition this spring ...so glad Zak got to meet and love Jack.
He was skidooing on Sunday. He got a new pup in the fall after losing his 2 elderly dogs in the early part of 2011 the pup loved to run alongside the skidoo and that is what they left the farm to do early Sunday mornig...Lunch came and went and Jack didn't come home for lunch or to do his chores. Len his older brother worried but waited anxiously..by 5:30 pm he knew something was wrong and called the neighbours who jumped on their skidoos and headed to look for him.....They found Jack , dog by his side, face down in the snow....right in an area he called his "favourite spot"  He had gotten stuck then gotten unstuck seemed he sat down to rest and then his heart gave out...he died right there in his spot.
His dog stayed with the skidoo after Jack was taken away....It wasn't until the coroner drove the skidoo the 1/2 mile or so back to the farm that he followed and then he went to lay beside the vehicle Jack laid in....and stayed there and followed it out of the yard ...when they tried to leave. They had to drive back into the yard and the put the dog in the house..the first time Jack would leave the farm without his latest four legged best friend.....He had had  many.. Max and Sam and Skipper and now I forget his name DUKE   OH but the story is they got this latest dog and named it the very masculine name and afterwards discovered it was a female....its a complex story Jack wasn't dumb!!! the guy that sold him the dog said it was a boy and well until they became close Jack just didnt didn't notice it was a girl..But even after the discovery they had wanted a boy dog had decided on Duke and she remained Duke.So I teased Jack last time I was there and  said you got to call it Duchess now ..I would say here Duchess  and he would say NO SHEILA IT IS DUKE...so  man's best friend remained Duke and ....will always be called Duke by me.  I will reminisce more about Jack on here in days to come .....He was my husbands best friend like another brother and his heart is breaking right now knowing there wont be anymore 2 1/2 hour phone calls where they can discuss guns and bows and solve the world problems together...hunting trips together in the Moose shack or quad rides back into the forest with a picnic lunch. My heart aches at my loss but more for  Tom...it is sad to lose a damn good friend....very sad