Earlier this year, Jasper Local publisher Andrea Ziegler skied into a backcountry cabin with her husband and a group of friends. She was not expecting a close encounter with the furred kind.
The incident
After a fun day of skiing followed by an evening feast, a rowdy game of Liar’s Dice and some beverages, nature was calling. Before we bunked down, the guys headed to the pee tree while I slipped and skidded down the steep trench to the outhouse, snow steps long since eroded. The privy at the Monashee Chalet is a spacious two-seater in a man-shed-meets-outhouse aesthetic. Like the chalet, outhouse maintenance is at a low ebb.
Moments after sitting down, I had the horrifying sensation of something launching itself at my undercarriage. And the unmistakable feeling of claws. I jumped up, screaming, slammed the lid shut and put a large can of motor oil on top, not wanting to find myself trapped in the loo with a poop-covered pine marten.
I shouted every swear word I know and made some new ones up.
Back in the chalet, I warned everyone to avoid the outhouse. More horror than sympathy was forthcoming, as (male) hands were rapidly moved in front of groins in a protective gesture.
While sympathy was not forthcoming, rabies stories were.
When his children were in elementary school in Jasper, J. found a dead bat in his backyard. Like any normal parent, his immediate reaction was: this will guarantee my daughter a win at show-and-tell!. He stretched it out, pinned it to a piece of Styrofoam and covered it in cling film. While the grade 3 students were thrilled, public health was not amused. J.’s hesitation to get rabies treatment was met with a choice: get the shots or “we’ll strap you to a bed foaming at the mouth until you die.”
At home in Jasper, G. woke up with a pine marten on his head. He threw it to the end of the bed, but it ran back at him and bit him—again, on the head—before escaping out the window. His wife, a nurse, dragged him in for treatment before breakfast. Both men spared no details in the horrors of the giant needles I was about to face.
The legend
You’ve probably heard some version of this story. It’s grown in the telling over the years, as stories do. But I heard it from the source; he’s a friend and we now also have a weird sort of kinship.
CS drifted into Jasper in the 1970s and fell in love with climbing. In the winter of 1978, he went to Castle Mountain youth hostel for a weekend of ice climbing with his friend and long-term Jasperite, Greg Horne. Hostel guests were warned to only use the women’s outhouse as the men’s outhouse had a pine marten problem. But CS was 19-years-old, male and therefore invincible. He was also, as he recounts, experiencing a certain amount of urgency due to a dinner of instant noodles and cheddar cheese. The women’s outhouse was in use, and he simply couldn’t wait.
“Pull down pants, sit down, poop, all good so far,” he told me. “All of a sudden, I felt this fur across my ass. It was too late. The pine marten grabbed my pecker. I pulled it away and just started screaming.”
CS grabbed his parts and ran back to the hostel, blood spraying on the snowbanks. Hearing the commotion, the hostel guests were gathered on the porch. They figured out what had happened pretty quickly and ran to the back of the hostel, not wanting to see their own John Bobbitt moment. Horne remained to help his friend; he proffered a dish towel.
The park warden who drove CS to the hospital couldn’t stop laughing at his plight. As for CS, “I hadn’t looked at it. I didn’t know what was left.” At the hospital, the nurses took care of what turned out to be a scratch, but a heavy bleeder. Undeterred, CS and Horne went climbing the next day.
CS didn’t tell anyone until 15 years later at his med school admission interview, when he was asked to relate his most embarrassing moment. CS told the interviewer the whole story. He got in.
The aftermath
Back in Jasper, I was directed to the Emergency Room for a tetanus booster and completion of paperwork detailing my “incident.” All rabies exposures are tracked and treatment compliance fully monitored.
Community Health phoned me the following morning. After expressing the appropriate amount of horror, the nurse explained the basics of rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP): extensive wound washing with soap and water for at least 15 minutes soon after an exposure, rabies vaccine (4 shots over a 2-week period) and administration of rabies immune globulin, ominously called “RIG”.
After receiving the recommended doses, rabies vaccine is considered almost 100 percent effective, however, it takes up to two weeks for full protection to develop. RIG provides fast but not long-lasting protection. With rabies symptoms starting as early as a few days after exposure, the combination of RIG and vaccination is required for complete coverage.
At this point, the nurse hesitated.
“To be effective, RIG has to be administered at the site of contact,” she told me, as gently as possible.
Rabies risk around the world
Rabies is a viral disease that attacks the central nervous system of mammals, including humans. It is transmitted through the saliva of an infected animal through a bite, scratch or a lick on an open wound or the mucous membranes of the mouth, nose or eyes. Once the virus infects the central nervous system, rabies is fatal in 100 percent of cases.
Death by rabies is not gentle. Furious rabies accounts for 80 percent of cases. According to the World Health Organization, furious rabies results in hyperactivity, excitable behaviour, hallucinations, lack of coordination, hydrophobia, and even aerophobia (fear of fresh air or drafts). Death occurs after a few days due to cardio-respiratory arrest. Paralytic rabies accounts for about 20 percent of cases.
“Less dramatic and usually longer course than the furious form, muscles gradually become paralysed. A coma slowly develops and eventually death occurs.”
While Canada is largely considered free of dog rabies, wildlife rabies virus variants are present, most commonly in bats, skunks, raccoons and foxes. Wildlife rabies control measures in Canada (i.e. oral rabies vaccines delivered through baiting programs; and trap-vaccinate-release programs) have led to a considerable decline in the number of rabid animals detected in Canada: 670 animals in 2000 to 145 in 2009.
Since 1924, only 28 people have been diagnosed with rabies in Canada. All cases were fatal. Since 2000, there have been six cases of human rabies in Canada, all due to exposure to a rabid bat. Bats are the leading carriers of rabies in Canada, with an estimated 0.5% of bats in BC carrying rabies.
It’s a different story elsewhere: rabies is estimated to cause 59,000 human deaths annually with 95 percent of cases occurring in Africa and Asia, mostly children (40 percent) and mostly from poor rural communities (Global Alliance for Rabies Control).
Meanwhile… back at the hospital
More than somewhat anxious, I showed up at the hospital to begin treatment. Due to the unusual exposure site, Community Health informed me that a doctor would have to administer RIG – a total of 9 mL – or almost two teaspoons full. Yikes!
The doctor on call that day greeted me with, “OH! It was you!” (It’s a small town). He assured me that he would give me gas and a local anaesthetic, if the injection had to proceed at the exposure site.
Five needles later, I returned home and avoided sitting down.
Who should get a rabies vaccine
People who work with animals at risk for rabies routinely get vaccinated: veterinarians, animal researchers, animal control workers, wildlife workers, etc. In Alberta, the cost of these vaccination programs is typically covered by public healthcare.
Alberta Health Services recommends the vaccine for people who volunteer with animals, who travel to areas with a high risk of rabies, or who do leisure activities where there is a risk of rabies, such as spelunking. For people getting the vaccine for these reasons, it is not covered by Alberta Health, however it may be covered by private health insurance.
Tasha Porttin, pharmacist and owner of Jasper mettra Pharmacy, advises that people travelling to developing countries, or who have adventurous itineraries planned, book a travel consultation. As part of her consultations, Porttin discussed rabies and the risks from stray dogs and cats, baboons, monkeys and other animals. Rabies shots can be prescribed by a prescribing pharmacist, but at approximately $240 per dose (times three doses), they aren’t cheap.
Porttin emphasizes that people with a potential rabies exposure must seek medical attention immediately, regardless of immunization status. Post-exposure protocol can also be very expensive outside of Canada. In the US, a full course of PEP (four vaccine doses and one dose of RIG) costs $3,800 on average.
In countries that have less rigorous procedures for ensuring uncontaminated blood products, Porttin recommends having travel insurance that would cover medical evacuation for treatment, as RIG is a blood product.
Outhouse protocol from the expert
As a former Parks Canada backcountry toilet manager, Greg Horne is of the opinion that pine martens have “a little bit of an obsession with toilets and human [poop].” And it’s not just martens: packrats and squirrels also enjoy the coziness of a toilet paper nest tucked into an outhouse.
Horne makes an important distinction between front country and hand-dug backcountry privies. The roadside toilets familiar to Parks Canada visitors have a concrete or fibreglass tank, with a vertical tube leading to the seat. Animals can get in through the seat, but they don’t get out. A former servicer of these toilets estimates that he has pulled 40-plus dead pine martens out when pumping out roadside outhouses.
Hand-dug outhouses are another story. Horne says, “after the incident with CS, I never sit down on a hand-dug outhouse without first inspecting it. I always check, especially on the first visit to an outhouse and especially one that is not used very often.
“You’re literally pissing off the resident of the nest who now lashes out at you.”
Andrea Ziegler // andrea@ravencommunitymedia.com
