Stillman Maynard, 91, stunned his entire family when he announced he won a moose licence.
They didn’t know their elderly father even put in for the annual hunt anymore.
“I was kind of astonished,” said Michael Maynard, his 65-year-old son. “I was a little taken back at first that he wanted to go moose hunting and thought it was kind of a joke a bit. I thought, ‘Is he serious?’”
Stillman needs a walker and chairlift to get from his bedroom to his living room and kitchen, Michael said.
But Michael grew up hunting with his father and had some of the best times of his life hunting and fishing with him as a young boy.
“Dad still believes in his ability to live and to do things, regardless of his mobility,” Michael said.
After speaking with his sisters, Paula Daniels and Judy Armstrong, he realized his father was indeed serious.
“OK, we’ll do it,” Michael said.
Travelling from Bellville, Ont., Michael flew to his home province of New Brunswick, where he and his siblings took their father on one last hunt.
On the day before moose season opened, Michael found himself driving 91-year-old Stillman through the forest to a hunting camp in a side-by-side off-road vehicle.
WATCH | 91-year-old Fredericton Junction man goes moose hunting one last time:
The last moose hunt of 91-year-old Stillman Maynard
Stillman Maynard, 91, of Fredericton Junction shocked his family when he told them he wanted to go moose hunting. They made it happen.
They travelled nearly 40 kilometres from Stillman’s home in Fredericton Junction to a tall hunting camp with a crow’s nest for riflemen in the remote meadows near Peltoma Settlement in southwest New Brunswick.
Once they arrived, friends and family members helped lift Stillman from the passenger seat. Then they strapped him in a chair and carried him up a flight of narrow stairs to the second storey of the hunting camp known as “the Bear Trap.”
“He’s got a bad shoulder and a bad back, and his knees aren’t great,” Michael said. “He’s worn out his body.”
And this year has been rough. Stillman’s wife, Gert, died from a heart attack in February at the age of 86.
Michael said his father still weighs more than 200 pounds. It took four men to lift him up into the hunting camp. They set him down on a bed next to a large window overlooking the vast meadows and flowing waters of the Piskahegan Stream.
His 75-year-old nephew, Frank Hartt, poured a few shots of 15-year-old Dalwhinnie single-malt scotch into plastic shot glasses and toasted the moose success they hoped was in the future.
Stillman’s eldest daughter, Judy, checked to make sure her father was comfortable in his bed.
In the morning, he’d awaken before sunrise and start scanning the horizon with his .308 Remington rifle for the moose that had eluded him his entire life.
The Bear Trap is a two-storey hunting camp owned by the Slipp Brothers Ltd. outfitters and used by generations of hunters. It sits along the Piskahegan Stream. (Shane Fowler/CBC)
In 1935, Stillman was born missing an eye. Hartt said he was teased relentlessly as a child, but later became known for being a crack shot with a rifle.
Stillman said he’s hunted since before he was legally old enough to lift a shotgun.
“I did that for years and years and years when my father was around,” he said.
No one had a car back then, so he’d use a three-wheeled cart to travel the railroad to remote areas to hunt deer. He still owns that cart.
Stillman had hunted birds, bear, deer and small game. But there’s one thing he’d never checked off his list.
“I’ve had a licence four times before,” he said. “Never got a moose.”
He recalled wounding a moose the last time he hunted one, nearly a decade ago. He followed its blood trial through the woods, but the moose never fell.
New Brunswick’s moose hunting lottery system gives any hunter slim odds of successfully getting a moose.
Last year, 58,373 New Brunswick hunters applied. Only 4,795 licences were issued — about an eight per cent chance, according to last year’s provincial big game harvest report. Seventy-four per cent of those hunters got their moose.
To better his chances this time, Stillman enlisted help from a ringer: an accomplished hunter and an old friend.
Randy Mersereau has hunted around the globe and known Stillman Maynard for decades when they both worked at N.B. Power. (Shane Fowler/CBC)
Randy Mersereau was 16 when he started working at N.B. Power in 1975. His supervisor was Stillman Maynard. Fifty-one years later, the two men are still connected by their time at the utility and their love of hunting.
“It’s pretty special,” Mersereau said. “It made me feel good that they trusted me to take Stillman.”
A winner of a licence in the annual draw is allowed to designate one other hunter to also use a firearm to help during the hunt. Stillman chose Randy.
Randy has hunted in Africa three times, as well as in Argentina, Greenland and across Canada. He’s hunted moose at the Bear Trap six times — bringing down a moose all but one time.
“I’ve been out here for the last six weeks now looking around, and most of the signs have shown up in the last two weeks,” he said.
His plan this year was to have Stillman shoot from the second-storey balcony of the Bear Trap, while he posted up in the third-storey crow’s nest and called the moose in, around 10 minutes before sunrise.
He felt good about the odds.
But when Stillman, after his travel deep into the woods, was asked if he was excited, he gave a flat “No.”
“I just hope I see a moose,” he said. “That’s all. Maybe get a shot at it.”
For son Michael, despite all the organizing with his sisters, the plane flights and work to get his father through the woods and up to the second floor of the camp, getting a moose didn’t actually matter.
“It doesn’t matter to me one bit,” Michael said. “I don’t remember the last time the four of us were in a camp together, Dad and I and Paula and Judy. It’s been decades.
“We never really seem to get together, and this is a great opportunity for the four of us to spend some time together.”
The hunting party raises a glass to Stillman Maynard and the moose they are about to hunt the day before the season begins. From left are Michael Maynard, Randy Mersereau, Stillman Maynard, Judy Armstrong, Frank Hartt and Paula Daniels. (Shane Fowler/CBC)
The first day of the moose hunt, the crew woke well before dawn. Ten minutes before sunrise they started to call. Some calls came back, but that morning no moose stepped out of the woods into the meadow.
Throughout the day, the only moose the hunters saw was a female with a calf. No shots are fired that first day.
The afternoon of the second day, Stillman got his moose.
A nine-point bull was felled by Randy’s rifle from more than half a kilometre away. It weighed 239 kilograms, or 527 pounds, field dressed. They towed it back to the Bear Trap with a six-wheeled amphibious recreational vehicle.
Stillman, his family and friends, gathered around and celebrate the successful hunt with photos and a drink before loading the moose onto a trailer and making tracks for a moose registration station.
In the days that followed, Stillman found himself laid up in bed. He described the trek as “very, very rough” but his two nights sleeping in the woods were exceptional. His daughters said he’ll likely need to stay in bed a while to recover.
Mersereau, right, worked with Stillman’s friends and family to bring his moose to him before loading it up and taking it to a Department of Natural Resources moose registration station. (Submitted by Judy Armstrong)
Stillman said he’s looking forward to moose steaks, roasts and mincemeat pies. He noted how impressed he was with Randy’s marksmanship and his willingness to help him with the hunt.
When asked if he’ll ever apply for a moose licence again, he noted the slim odds of winning and joked about not wasting the money to apply.
But looking back on the hunt with his family and hearing how much it meant to them brought tears to his eyes.
“I didn’t know it was that important,” Stillman said, crying. “But I guess it was.”