His name was Hugh Dawson Dixon, he went by Dawson and he loved to smoke tobacco and weed and drink his homebrew. He left the city about 25 years ago in a five ton flat bed truck with all he owned, headed for the wilderness to start a new life. He built a cabin from a garage package and covered it with cedar shakes he harvested from his land. He loved to debate and talk loud as he got drunk,and the man could put up a pretty good wrestle. So many times he drove home to his cabin from mine seeing through one blurry eye. We spun doughnuts on my neighbour's lawn and spilt beers in circles. We worked together 20 years ago trying to get my pump to pull water from my well, we've waited at waters edge for the next cold beer to float by, I bet there are a few still swirling in his pool of cold water. At one point he had a rooster so mean that he had to keep a switch close to where he parked his 1966 Barracuda, just to ward off the attacking bird as he exited his car. He's taught me many an outdoor trick, he showed me how to split cedar shakes and how to harvest fiddle heads for consuming.He grew his own tobacco and when he was forced to kill a bear he ate every last bit of it, he made a fur vest from it's hide and had given it fair warning. He once told me how he could take down a grizzly with his two fingers by shoving them up its nose. He told funny stories and tumbled with gravity. He fished Poplar River and even had a couple of holes on the Lardeau. He told me he was getting sick of eating fish, but it was a good part of his diet, he told me he was getting sick of shovelling the heavy snow falls and that one day would move into society. Well I hope it will all be easier for him now as he found his final sleep on his couch in his cabin after doing his final morning chores. I'm going to miss you Dawson, you were a good man and I'll blow my horn every time I cross Poplar Creek bridge, just to let you know I'm in the neighbourhood. Thank you my friend for showing me your mountains.
