Rosella Leslie - The Cougar Lady: Legendary Trapper of Sechelt Inlet

Bergie hunted alone in the mountains above Jervis, Salmon, Sechelt and Narrows inlets, often spending nights in the wilderness with only her gun and one of her Norwegian elkhounds for protection. Carlson Creek, photo courtesy of Bill Walkey.

She didnt like that, he explained, because it might be mistaken for bare lady, so I said what about Cougar Lady? Well, she liked that one and that is how she came to be called the Cougar Lady of the Inlet.

It was an apt name for a woman who had spent most of her life in the woods, who had climbed treacherous mountain trails in pursuit of wild goats, and who had wrestled with bears and cougars.

While she augmented her living by hunting, trapping and fishing, Bergies main income came from the logging industry. She started as a whistlepunk for the Osborne Logging Company Ltd., a job that entailed sending signals from the cut area to the yarder via a switchbox attached to a long electric cable. In order to stay close enough to the chokerman to hear his commands, she had to scramble over limbs and stumps; avoid hidden holes; be wary of powerful steel cables whipping over the slash, threatening to trip, cut or decapitate anything in their path; and watch out for airborne logs that could swing and twist in any direction, their limbs and tops frequently breaking off, sometimes flying into the air, then slamming back down to the ground. On rainy days, squeezing the switchbox often caused twelve volts of electricity to shoot through her hand.

Whenever the rigging crew moved to a new cut, Bergie would help gather cables, including the straw line, which was used to haul heavier cables and which ranged from one inch to one-and-a-quarter inches in diameter.

It was about the only time shed wear gloves, said Robert Lemieux, who worked with Bergie at one of Gus Crucils logging camps. But even then she sometimes wouldnt and her hands would get all cut up.

One of his most vivid memories of Bergie originated during one of these rigging moves.

It was important to keep the cables clear of everything so they didnt get damaged, he said. That afternoon Bergie came in with about a thousand feet of wire around her neck. She was sopping wet and her hair was tangled up in the wire. It was all I could do to lift that wire off myself. That cable was always spliced, and normally the person hauling would take the splices apart. I asked her why she didnt undo the splices and bring it in smaller rolls, and she said she didnt want to make that many trips. But I think it was because she could never find the tool she needed to take the splices apart.

Often Bergie combined her work as a whistlepunk with a camp-watching job.

Betty Laidlaw told of a time when her husband, Ed, and brother-in-law, Art Asseltine, heard that Bergie was keeping a bear cub as a pet at a camp she was looking after.

Art and Ed went to Sechelt Creek one day to see Bergie. She said she had a bear cub. Shed fought it down the hill and into a shed.

Bergie asked if the two men would like to see the cub, and when they agreed, she led the way into the shed. There was no light and she couldnt see the bear.

Oh, gosh, she said. Where did it go?

Then they heard a growl up in the rafters.

There was her baby, said Ed. It was a two-year-old bear! Bergie was all covered in scratches.

Bergies fiery temper resulted in some dramatic encounters with local law enforcement officers. In 1979, shortly after his arrival on the coast, conservation officer James A. Stephen Jr. (known as Jamie) caught her with two fresh bearskins but no licence. As part of his investigation, it was necessary for him to confiscate her weapons. Bergie was fifty-six and living in a trailer as night watchperson for Jackson Brothers Logging at Gray Creek. It was close to suppertime when Stephen arrived with a warrant to search the premises, but having heard stories about Bergie decking loggers, he had asked for an RCMP backup. Unfortunately, just as they arrived, the officer received a radio call to deal with a domestic dispute and the conservation officer was left alone. When it became clear that one of the rifles he was about to confiscate was the Winchester she had inherited from her father, Bergie flew into a rage.

In the confines of that small trailer, said Stephen, it was a very, very unpleasant scene. Shed been cooking and had a pot of scalding soup or dog food on the stove, and she actually threw that at me. It degenerated from there and we both ended up outside, and we had a tug-of-war for the gun. I ultimately subdued her and seized the .30-30.