ATHABASCA - It was a life-long dream cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, but now Emile Brager is back to collect his mules and carry on travelling around North America.
It was February 2020 when Brager rode into the New Pine Creek area after walking and riding almost daily since July 1, 2019 with his three mules from where he bought them in Cottonwood, Idaho. At that time he met with locals and then Athabasca County reeve Larry Armfelt and recounted his journey as he wound his way from Idaho into Montana, North Dakota, Saskatchewan, and finally to Don and Gail Sissons farm 30 kilometres southeast of Athabasca.
Sissons agreed to board Brager’s three mules while he did a quick two-month trip back to his native France, and now 26 months later he’s returned with his son Oliver to continue the journey.
“We were stuck in France, and France was locked down, Canada was locked down,” Emile said from the Sissons kitchen in a May 17 interview. “I didn’t stay doing nothing, but it was (hard) not knowing. Maybe next week. Maybe next month. Maybe no, maybe yes. Maybe, maybe, maybe.”
And as the months stretched on, the Sissons’ weren’t worried because they had horses of their own to feed.
“There’s no difference firing up the tractor to feed two horses or 10,” Don said, adding the mules would come over for attention while he was out working.
Emile could have come back in September 2021 but for the 72-year-old, he knew it would be rough going sleeping outside and feeding his mules in the Rocky Mountains in the harsh Canadian winter so he continued to postpone his return until the weather would be more accommodating.
“I wanted to go on the Athabasca Trail to Grande Prairie and Grande Cache but what will I do in the Rockies, in the mountains, in winter,” he said. “No grass. Cold. You do not have feed for your mules. I am not tough enough to sleep out all the winter.”
He flew back to Canada and visited a friend in Vegreville before arriving at Sissons and collecting his son Oliver, 11, at Edmonton International Airport.
“When he first told me I was going to go with him for a month or two I was nine-and-a-half, so it was a bit scary,” Oliver said.
“He’s not afraid of bears,” laughed Emile. “But he runs faster than me.”
They have two mules to pack supplies, one for Emile to ride and a horse for Oliver.
“We will go to Athabasca, across the bridge, then we will go to Smith,” Emile said. “Then to Grande Prairie and Grande Cache, then we wish to pass through the Willmore Wilderness (Park) and then we will go south through the Rockies to Kamloops and the U.S. border.”
Oliver will be with his father until sometime in September before flying to San Diego where his mother and sister are waiting.
“I’ll keep riding alone until the end of October or November,” Emile said. “The first cold.”
Then he will sell the mules and move on to his next adventure.
