I am a Native Canadian who lives on the West Coast of Canada and have had 12 Near Death Experiences in my lifetime, 9 of which happened before I was 21 and were mostly fishing related. During a trip me and the men in my family went on to got get Cockles (a type of Shellfish) we went during winter to avoid what we call “Red Tide”, which is the Fuel and Oil that comes off of boats and ships and seeps into the sands where Shellfish live. Whenever we go and dig for Cockles (or any other Shellfish for that matter) we have to go when the tide is at it’s lowest, which happens 3-4 times a year (it varies due to the Lunar activities). During the Winter our daylight lasts from about 9:00am to 4:30 pm and the trip going to our digging spot took up all the daylight. The boat we had at that time had no shelter from the elements and we were at the mercy of Nature, that particular day the water was flat calm and no wind so we went full nearly speed to get to our digging spot which amplified the Winter temperature of -20 Celsius (or -4 Fahrenheit) to a bone chilling - 30 Celsius (or -22 Fahrenheit) which was made worse due to it being Ocean Air and the humidity bit straight through all our layers of clothes.
When we finally got to our cabin it was getting dark out so we brought all our clothes and food inside and rested until the next day. When daylight finally came we took stock of everything we needed (buckets, our tools for digging and a Gun) and set out to the beach to dig but went slower than usual due to temperature. When looking for the signs of Cockles you need to look for small holes in the sand and spot the telltale spurt of water that they shoot out (like a small watergun you’d give to a toddler) and sometimes 4-5 inches under the sand you’ll find them spurting out water and you’ll find more further down and around them.
We were digging for all the daylight hours and it got dark and something that most big city folk don’t really understand is when it get dark out…it REALLY get’s dark, the kind of dark were the trees are almost Black and the only light you see is from the stars. While we were digging and using headlamps to see in the dark….we heard something walking on the beach near us and while exhausted I picked up the gun (to give an example for gamers it was like a Cowboy Repeater from Fallout New Vegas) and aimed it in the general direction of the footsteps and almost yelled for someone to shine the light for me. In the midst of darkness and low to the ground we saw a pair of eyes glowing from the Flashlights, I asked my Grandfather if I should fire a warning shot and he immediately said yes…so I aimed in front of it and aimed to the right and fired then reloaded right away and aimed between it’s eyes……that thing slowly took 3 steps towards us then stopped…..after about 5 seconds it slowly backed away, into the darkness walked down the beach. We didn’t say anything but we all knew that if we stayed at that beach we would not be returning home so w packed up all out gear, went down to the boat and started slowly driving back to our cabin….when we got to the middle bay that the beach was in….we heard the ENTIRE bay echo with howls….we were being hunted by Wolves. We didn’t say anything while driving back to the cabin but we all knew that we saw Deaths Gaze and barely avoided becoming a missing persons report in the middle of Winter….Hours away from Civilization or ANY people for that matter. In the midst of the Darkness that is the Canadian wilderness I will give this advise that most Canadians abide by, be nice to people….because you never know when The End is near.