My Sick Father Asked Me to Drive Him into the Woods—Said He Wanted to Say Goodbye To a Bigfoot There
My father asked me to drive him three hours into the woods on the second Saturday of October, 2019.
At the time, he was seventy-nine years old and dying.
For nearly two years, a cruel lung disease had been shrinking his world piece by piece. The strong man who once spent entire weekends wandering deep through the Adirondack wilderness could no longer walk to his mailbox without stopping to catch his breath. An oxygen tube ran beneath his nose, connected to a green metal tank that hissed softly every time he inhaled.
The disease had confined him to the corner of his living room, where his recliner faced a window looking west. Most days he sat there for hours, watching the distant tree line as if something beyond it was calling his name.
On a Friday evening in early October, I was sitting at his kitchen table eating a bowl of homemade soup when he suddenly set down his spoon and looked at me.
“There’s someone I need to see one more time before the end,” he said quietly. “And I need you to take me.”
I asked who it was.
Instead of answering, he told me to pack a thermos of coffee and a blanket. Then he instructed me to arrive at his house at six o’clock the next morning.
“The drive will take about three hours each way,” he said. “We’ll be back before dark.”
He paused to catch his breath.
“Bring your warm jacket. I’d like to walk a little when we get there… if my lungs allow it.”
Then his voice dropped lower than I had ever heard before.
“The man we’re going to see will already be there waiting when we arrive.”
A faint smile crossed his face.
“He always is.”
My name is Calvin Boudreau.
I was fifty-six years old that autumn and owned a small heating and cooling business outside Plattsburgh, New York. I had spent my entire life within fifty miles of the town where I grew up. My days were filled with repairing furnaces, servicing boilers, and helping families survive the brutal Adirondack winters.
I wasn’t a hunter.
I wasn’t particularly outdoorsy.
I preferred familiar roads, familiar people, and sleeping in my own bed.
My father was the opposite.
Armand Boudreau belonged to the woods.
For more than forty years he had disappeared into the forests west of our home almost every weekend. Sometimes he returned with deer or fish. Most times he came back with nothing except a distant look in his eyes.
My mother never questioned him.
Neither did I.
There was simply a part of my father that existed somewhere beyond the reach of ordinary life.
A secret place.
A place he rarely spoke about.
But I knew enough.
When I was twenty-seven, he had taken me there once.
Only once.
I remembered the long drive into the wilderness. I remembered a hidden spring deep in the forest. Most importantly, I remembered seeing something that I had spent nearly thirty years convincing myself wasn’t real.
After that day, we never discussed it again.
Life happened.
I got married.
I raised children.
I built a business.
And the memory faded into a dusty corner of my mind where impossible things are stored.
Until that Friday night.
Until my dying father looked at me across his kitchen table and asked me for one final journey.
I arrived at his house at 5:55 the next morning.
The sun had not yet risen over the Saranac River. Frost covered the grass, and the thermometer outside his kitchen window read thirty-four degrees.
Dad was already waiting on the porch.
He sat on a wooden bench beside his oxygen tank, bundled in layers of flannel, wool, and thermal clothing. A weathered canvas bag rested on his lap. Two spare oxygen cylinders stood beside the door.
When my headlights swept across the yard, he slowly rose to his feet.
The effort alone seemed painful.
He gripped the porch railing and carefully descended the three wooden steps.
I hurried over and reached for his bag.
He gave me a look.
The same stubborn look he had given me my entire life.
I backed off immediately.
Without a word, he carried the bag himself to the truck.
Watching him struggle was harder than I expected.
The man who once seemed indestructible now looked fragile enough to break beneath the weight of a strong wind. His face had grown pale and thin. The skin around his eyes resembled old parchment. Even his lips carried a faint blue tint.
For the first time, a thought struck me with absolute certainty:
This might be the last time my father ever leaves his home under his own power.
The realization settled heavily in my chest.
He finally climbed into the passenger seat and closed his eyes while the oxygen hissed softly beside him.
I loaded the spare tanks into the back and started the engine.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He opened his eyes.
“Head west on Route 3,” he said. “Through Saranac Lake. Through Tupper Lake. Past Cranberry Lake.”
He looked out into the darkness beyond the windshield.
“After that, I’ll tell you.”
And with that, we began the last journey of my father’s life.
