The Story

Timeswhitedeer2 Earl Plato

Part Two: The interview with Les concerning the fate of the local white deer. “My reason, Earl, for calling you as I know when the deer was first killed. There were a lot of rumours out there about how it was killed and where it went. I personally don’t want any publicity. The day it was killed I received a phone call from a gentleman who lives near the quarries off Stonemill. He told me that the white deer was in the quarry and dead. I went over with a friend and we yanked it out from the quarry. We could see at that time that it had a hole and blood in its neck. Our first impression was that it had been shot and we were miffed.”
Writer’s note: Les made this strong statement, “I’m a hunter of deer and a lot of my friends hunt but we all have held to the thing, you don’t shoot the white deer.
The white deer was off limits no matter what. A lot of my friends have had it as close as fifteen yards under their stands but nobody had shot it which I give them credit.”
Len and his friend discover the truth. “We took the deer to my garage and a friend and I cleaned it out. We found it wasn’t shot. The tine mark from an antler was cleaned out. It was perfectly the size of a tine and went to a point. It was 21/2 inches deep and there was another in the back of its thigh. We figure that was the one that killed it for it hit the main artery in the back leg. There was a ball of congealed blood between the skin and the meat. He was dying one way or another. He had two other tine marks up his side and one on the other side. We realized he got the crap beat ot of him by two bucks. Remember this was late October and the rutting season. We felt better that he hadn’t been shot.
Writer’s note: Les had many curious visitors to his home. Finally he ended taking the carcass far out of town to a skilful taxidermist. Ontario Monster Whitetails, a deer hunter’s magazine, did a piece on our white deer. Les showed me the article. “This piece was done 2004 and 2005 on our piebald deer while he was still alive. My friend who took the photos for the magazine measured the white deer’s dropped rack from last year and it scored 165 inches, which is big. “
Les said that the guys who published the magazine took it on themselves to do some research on the deer. Using the Ontario record books and other records such as Boone and Crockett they basically said they found nothing that would exceed our white deer in size. The largest white deer in Ontario and possibly in Canada!
I asked Les the age of our famed white deer. He replied, “ I assume four to five years.” He showed me the deer’s lower jaw which he will submit to the Ministry and they wll gauge it for me 100%. Les showed me where the deer had lost some teeth in a fight where an attacking buck scored previously. Les said that the noted taxidermist, Richard Reaume of Tilbury, Ontario, concluded that our white deer was a fighter. Les appreciated Reaume’s great work who had won Canadian championships for his works. He told Les that our deer had survived many a fight - a most remarkable deer!