The Rescue of Belle and Sundance (21 page)

Once the media had gotten wind of the dramatic events on Mount Renshaw, I became a point person for the story. At Christmas, the world wanted an uplifting story, and it seemed that the “heroic” rescue of Belle and Sundance—right in our own backyard—was the one that people were warming to in December of 2008.

I never expected this attention, and I found it overwhelming. When we handed Belle and Sundance over to Ray Long, I thought my job was done. I was looking forward to a day off, going into town and finally doing some Christmas shopping with Marc. Instead, I spent the day on the phone, finally stopping at 4 p.m.

SOFT LANDINGS FOR BELLE AND SUNDANCE

W
hile the rescuers marked their Christmas, Belle and Sundance recuperated in the barn at Ray and Lu’s farm on Jeck Road. Throughout the digging process, Ray had provided bales of hay to the rescuers (without charging a penny), so the two horses had grown well used to the fare.

“They’re skin and bone,” Ray told Marc when he swung by for a visit just a few days into their stay. Marc had promised himself that every time he passed Ray’s place he’d stop in and say hello to the horses. Ray took Marc into the barn, and the men leaned in and eyed the two horses in the large stall they shared.

“They’re tight,” Ray said. “If you take one away, they both complain.”

Marc thought the horses looked content. He rubbed Sundance’s head, then went on his way. A few days later, Monika also went to visit them and reported watching Sundance playfully bite Belle. It lifted her heart just to see them.

Having grown fond of Belle and Sundance, we volunteers hoped and expected that the two horses would remain together and that new owners in the valley would take them in. If the rescue itself was a gift, that outcome would have been the bright bow on the wrapping. But according to the SPCA, there’d been only a few local inquiries about adopting the rescued horses. Meanwhile, Frank Mackay was making it known in the press and by calls to Reg, the brand inspector, that he wanted his horses back.

The SPCA, it seemed, wanted the situation resolved quickly, for just one day into the horses’ stay, the SPCA declared that Belle and Sundance would be transferred to a foster home in Prince George.

But five days later, Toni Jeck and a friend—both hired by the SPCA to transport the horses—arrived at Ray’s farm and, with a vet’s blessing, loaded Belle and Sundance. Though temperatures had risen slightly, Ray was not pleased. What was the rush, he wanted to know. Sure, the two horses wore blankets, but they were still weak from their ordeal and now would face almost three hours in that cold trailer. Ray insisted that Toni tie a tarp over the trailer’s open places to reduce wind chill and stop any snow from swirling in.

 

During the entire rescue, most of the volunteers hadn’t a clue as to the identity of the person who owned Belle and Sundance—nor did we know the names of the horses themselves. All we knew was that the owner was an Edmonton lawyer named Frank. This information had come from Stan Walchuk, who had loaned this man two pack horses on a failed expedition to find the horses in October, and from Glenn at Spin Drift.

Reg, however, had known the owner’s full name even before I headed up Mount Renshaw for the first time: the brand office had received the name from the McBride RCMP. Confidentiality rules, though, meant Reg couldn’t tell any of us. Then, on Christmas Eve, CTV News aired an interview with the horses’ owner, but the segment used just his voice—no picture, no name. This interview revealed to us the horses’ names. It was nice, finally, to know their real names—but not critical. Renshaw and Reggae had worked just as well as “the gelding” and “the mare.”

I learned the owner’s name in early January of 2009 by contacting a TV reporter who was covering the story. Frank C. Mackay, it turned out, was born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. The son of a doctor, with a science degree from McGill University and a law degree from Dalhousie University, he had practised law with the Edmonton law firm of Cummings Andrews Mackay for some thirty-two years. The firm was founded in 1915 by a lawyer who would go on to become the Attorney General of Alberta. The focus of the firm was litigation following injury or accident, though Mackay himself—according to the firm’s website—was, at sixty-three, the firm’s senior solicitor, with “a wealth of experience in the area of real estate, corporate/commercial law and estate matters.”

One Alberta journalist, perhaps one of the few reporters to do so, actually visited Frank Mackay’s farm southwest of Edmonton. Daniel Z. Jacobs was researching a piece for a weekly newspaper called the
Fitzhugh
. The article he wrote for the January 8, 2009, issue was startling on several counts. Mackay’s candid opinions stood out for one thing; his salty language for another.

Daniel was mystified by his encounter with the man, and certain details remained fresh in his mind months later when he and I spoke.

“Is this Frank Mackay?” Daniel had asked him on the telephone before the meeting.

“It depends on who’s asking,” came his reply. “What’s your agenda?”

Daniel told him he had no agenda, that he was a twenty-six-year-old reporter who had ridden horses as a child. He wondered if he might come to the farm and interview Mackay there. Mackay agreed.

When Daniel arrived, the horses on the farm looked to him to be healthy and happy. The photo that accompanied Daniel’s story showed Mackay looking very much the rancher—brown wool hat on his head, orange scarf at his neck, an open brown checked shirt over several layers below and light-blue jeans stuffed into high boots. He was standing under a brilliant sky in a snowy paddock with a blue-eyed grey called Frank (named after the blue-eyed singer, Frank Sinatra). The horse, one of nine that Daniel counted on the farm, nosed around Mackay’s pocket, as if looking for a treat.

The reporter observed on Mackay’s forehead a large gash—the aftermath, Mackay explained, of an accident while driving home from Mount Renshaw on December 5. Daniel wondered privately whether Mackay had suffered a concussion in the accident and whether the head injury might explain his subsequent behaviour.

During the interview at the farm, Daniel asked, “Why didn’t you hire a trapper to find the horses and put them down?” Mackay turned the air blue with his reply. Daniel later huddled with his editor to edit out some of Mackay’s more profane utterances. The story, published under the title “Equine examination: McBride horse story more complicated than it seems,” nonetheless conveyed Mackay’s salty language.

Up on the mountain, however, the whereabouts of the owner was a common theme. Where was he, rescuers had asked, when they were there digging for eight numbingly cold days? Couldn’t he at least have come by with hot drinks? And would, as many rescuers hoped, the B.C. SPCA lay charges of abandonment and cruelty causing pain and suffering?

Near the end of January 2009, two things happened at more or less the same time. Charges of animal mistreatment were indeed laid against Frank Mackay, and the horses found new homes. Once the abandoned horses had been seized by the SPCA, their previous owner lost any chance of recovering them. They would stay at the Prince George Rescue Farm until responsible and
caring new owners could be found. No matter how the courts decided, one thing was certain: Belle and Sundance weren’t going back to Frank Mackay.

Belle landed—and what a strange and wondrous coincidence this was—in the hands of Kim Gilbeau, whose daughter, Stacie Hewitt, is a friend of Gord Jeck, who had helped dig the trench on Mount Renshaw. But Kim learned this only much later.

It made her blood boil when she found out how Belle and Sundance came to be on the mountain. But it wasn’t pity that made this woman fall in love with Belle.

Kim and her husband live on a ranch near Red Rock, about twenty-eight kilometres south of Prince George. Belle, or Bella, as Kim came to call her (the Italian suits the mare better, she thought), arrived at Prince George Equine Rescue in early January of 2009, along with Sundance. One day, the rescue unit’s trailer arrived at Kim’s place to deliver a horse she was going to foster. Belle and Sundance happened to be on that trailer (they had gone to the vet for a checkup), and both horses were unloaded to make way for the foster horse. Kim herself ended up unloading Belle. Right away she fell for her. She thought the mare looked good but terribly skinny. What Kim loved immediately was her personality, her soft affectionate manner, and the way the mare had sidled up to her. She made inquiries about adopting her, and following some
SPCA visits to her ranch, the papers were signed. Belle became a Valentine’s Day present from Kim’s husband, Tom.