COUGAR — COWBOY, NATURALIST, POET
Jim Metcalfe, or Cougar as he was known to his friends, was born November 11, 1902, in the town of Thirsk, York County, England. He formally began what proved to be a long working career as a horseman in 1919 when he joined the Hussars Corp of England's Army Reserve. He served as a Calvary Officer in Egypt, the Middle East, and India.
Jim emigrated to Canada in 1931 to work as a cowhand on the Douglas Lake Ranch in the southern interior of British Columbia. In 1940, he enlisted with the Rocky Mountain Rangers, serving as an Instructor at the rank of Sergeant. Discharged in 1944, Jim moved to Steveston, BC where he met and married Theresa Ristan. The couple lived in several small mining communities in the Kootenays where Jim worked as a gold miner and explosives handler. Widowed after only 4 years of marriage, Jim inevitably returned t
o cowboy life in the late 1950s, working variously as a horse trainer, wrangler, and caretaker in Vancouver, and at Salmon Lake and Barriere in the interior. In 1980 poor health forced him to leave ranch life. He passed away on May 1, 1982 in Kamloops, BC.
Jim's varied career paths, and the range of places in which he lived and worked, provided a wealth of experiences for his poetry. But all his writings (only a small percentage of which are found in this book) build on a few themes: his love of nature and especially horses, his concern about man's impact on the environment, and his strong dislike of bureaucracy and bureaucratic thinking wherever it is found. He longed for a simpler society, in which people are closer to the land, and less concerned with money and material possessions. Jim himself had few possessions and amassed little capital, but he was generous to his last nickel. He was a voracious reader—military books were a favorite—an avid card player, and a ready conversationalist. He was also known for his voluminous letters, page after page tapped out on a manual typewriter in red and black ink in the evening hours, with a dog at his feet, a parrot on his shoulder, and the land at his door.
Reflections of a Saddle Tramp was compiled by Georgina Nelson (Jim's daughter by marriage) and printed by Northwest Printing & Lithographing Ltd (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) in 1980.
No comments:
Post a Comment