Adrift: An Email Turned Essay

I recently published a podcast episode titled “A Very Uncomfortable Discussion About the Reality of Modern Hunting Culture” where the intent was to open a dialog within the hunting community where honest and thoughtful perspectives can be shared. It wasn’t easy to publish, but I felt that I needed to speak up as a hunter myself. I wanted to offer my perspective on what I’m seeing in modern hunt culture and where I think it could eventually lead us.

That episode sparked many positive engagements with other hunters and I wanted to share one of those with you in the following essay. It was originally sent as an email, but after reading it over, I asked if I could publish it here for all to read and digest.

I think you’ll find the sincere heart of someone who is trying to come to terms with what hunting is for them and where they want to go with it. I’ve shared a number of incredible conversations in the past with this person and have always been left with yet a new point of view to consider and mull over.

Please enjoy and comment below if you feel so inclined to do so.

-Emory

Adrift

I find myself largely adrift these days when it comes to hunting. On the one hand, I have always been a person who likes to "belong", and be part of something; on the other hand, once I do, I find myself often not really fitting in.

The hunting culture in Europe was so different. It was practically impossible to be a loner in that context. Wildlife management rules forced individual leaseholders into cooperation long ago, leases generally became bigger, as small farming disappeared and forestry companies turned into conglomerates; leases became therefore unaffordable for the individual, and even more so, from the early days, hunting (mostly small game where I lived - only the well-to-do and well-connected and royalty) hunted bigger game like roe deer, stag and boar) was a communal affair; driven shoots for hare, rabbits, some pheasants, and the odd duck were the norm. Warm lunches consisting of pea soup and bread warmed up in the barn, where the smell of wintering cows was so strong, it made your eyes water. I never hunted alone, not having the cash or opportunity to be a leaseholder myself, and it was always a family affair, with my cousin, and uncle, and often my dad tagging along too.

I craved a more independent way of enjoying hunting, and boy did I find it after I moved to Canada. The first eight years here I hunted mostly alone. Always mountains, always sheep, and the odd other ungulates.

Nowadays I find I enjoy the lonely pursuits less. I've sought community by buying into the marketing ploys of "BRAND-X Athlete", or "Ambassador" or "Tribe", and figured I needed to do my part on social media, showing off my prowess, while pushing the brand(s). Of course, it quickly became apparent that this is a one-way street. here is no real community. There is a small group of supported and sometimes paid contributors that spin the yarns, and the mystique (I know some of them, they are bloody hardcore hunters to which I cannot hold a candle, and nice guys too) and other than that just a whole bunch of individuals who somehow seem to get satisfaction or a sense of belonging from tagging their brands and their heroes and counting up the "likes" on their photos.

It did not give me a sense of belonging at all. If anything it made me feel more disenfranchised. The virtual world is a poor substitute for real interactions. The "likes" are a swift and very short-lasting ego boost, and the next day, unless you have another shot of self-gratification waiting to share with the masses, they have become meaningless and empty.

I've published articles in various magazines in the past, about 30 of them, and I have the blog now (which I neglect) because sometimes I feel the need to share thoughts or share experiences in a more elaborate way than just a picture and a paragraph. Even that is largely unsatisfying, as there is, except for the extremely rare case, no feedback or response.

I took up the trad bow after I noticed that killing with a rifle had become a rather mechanical act for me. Once I got good at shooting, through a few intense years of biathlon, the act of shooting an animal no longer excited me. The longbow brought about new enthusiasm, but also a conundrum. Seeing the whites of their eyes has made the animals individuals, and I find it harder and harder to do the deed. In the past I would have bagged a doe or yearling without hesitation - meat is meat - but now I see their interactions, and expressions, curiosity, and shock when they find me inside their red zone, I have a hard time drawing back the bow (the few chances I actually get), and I find that I am fairly happy just cruising around, seeing animals, and perhaps do the odd stalk. Some day I may even shoot one with the bow, but I am oddly OK with just not getting one.

The duck boat project (little square stern kayak/sneak boat) gave me much pleasure. Bringing it back from what appeared to be near-death, and taking it out, and actually shooting a few ducks was really satisfying. I now have a vague plan, if the body doesn't throw any more curveballs, to climb a few ridges and look for ptarmigan (lots of climbing, likely to find very few, if any birds), where normally I’d look sheep. They are lonely pursuits again. My hunting partner is going back to school and continues to do some paid work on weekends or whenever he has time, so he will largely MIA for the next five years. Hunting partners don’t grow on trees. I’d best be relearning how to enjoy the alone-time, and stop expecting any kind of community from the virtual world.

It would be a sad, sad day if hunting would ever cease to exist, as I strongly identify with hunting, and probably always will. I think hunting can or should create within a person a sense of urgency regarding the state of our natural world. If we lose that, we lose it all. We, hunters, should care deeply about conserving space, about not polluting our environment, about making wise choices when it comes to development, and so forth. But then I go out and find discarded shotgun shells, or on the other side of the spectrum, abandoned derelict camping trailers, trash, and empty rifle ammo casings. Circumstantial evidence, but could they have been a group of hunters? 

It leaves me in disgust, but I still hope that these are minority occurrences. Clearly, recent developments have shown that the urban crowd visiting the mountains because they couldn't go to Mexico for their vacation, is just as capable of turning whatever place they visit into a garbage dump and public open-air toilet. Unfortunately, we hunters, really need to be of higher moral standard, and I fear we, on average, are not.

-Frans