The tree cutter who found a loaded rocket launcher along a highway on Vancouver Island said he was dropping large rounds of wood only two or three feet away from the deadly weapon.
Steve Taylor was in a bucket removing tree limbs on the Malahat Highway near Shawnigan Lake, northeast of Victoria, Thursday afternoon when he looked down to see something strange.
"I could see, well, the rocket launcher but I didn't know at that point what it was. The colour of it and the shape of it caught my eye. I thought, what a weird looking object," Taylor told reporters the day after his find.
In Pictures: Worker finds rocket launcher
The 33-year-old climbed up to the bank where he'd first seen the object, and noticed some writing on it once he cleared away the surrounding moss and brush.
"It said: To fire, aim, pull pin and press trigger," he said.
His company, Capital Tree Service, then contacted BC Hydro, who notified police.
Taylor, who took funny photos beside the weapon with his coworkers, said he wasn't aware that it had a live round inside, or that he was in any potential danger.
"One of the trees I cut down was probably no more than about two or three feet away from it," he said.
An officer who served two tours of duty with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan recognized the weapon to be an M72 self-propelled rocket launcher as soon as he arrived. It had one live rocket grenade in the tube.
CFB Esquimalt is still not sure how the rocket launcher ended up in the rural location.
Police believe the weapon had been in the dense brush for six months or longer.
RCMP Sgt. Tim Shields said officers at the scene didn't believe the weapon was thrown from a vehicle based on how dense the bush and trees were between the road and where it was found.
The rocket launcher is now in the hands of the Canadian Forces, which has similar weapons in its inventory.
"Whether that specific one was a Canadian one, that's all part of the investigation," Lt.-Cmdr. Nathalie Garcia, spokeswoman for Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, said in a statement.
The M72 is an anti-tank weapon described as a "shoulder fired, disposable rocket launcher." When the rocket explodes, the heat and force creates a powerful gas jet that may start a fire or cause an explosion. If the target is a vehicle, it can spray molten metal inside.
The weapon has been in production since the early 1960s.
With files from The Canadian Press
