Thursday November 18, 2021 No Shangri La, Yet a Paradise all the Same

 No Shangri La, Yet a Paradise all the Same

A recent snowstorm during deer season

 

   I enjoy deer hunting and all it entails, especially with my family. Minnesota’s Firearm Deer Season in Zone 101, is a traditional three-week event that creates stories and renews memories. Our deer camp is relatively new as local deer camps go, being only eleven years old. Some of the older camps in the township date back eighty years or more, whose founders were original homesteaders in the area beginning in the late 1800s.

   I've hunted here for roughly thirty-nine years, although I've owned the land for fifty purchasing it from an uncle and aunt in 1971. Before then, the land was mostly open, cleared for small grain farming and pasture. I had began planting trees on its perimeter but they were seedling-sized and of little cover or food value to wildlife for many years. So I began hunting at a family deer camp nearby, where I learned about deer and grouse hunting from my uncles and cousins who were experienced hunters.

   My wife and I fashioned our camp about eleven years ago when her sons were at a stage in their lives where they could benefit from my efforts in CRP (Conservation Reserve Program). I like to think, I re-established wildlife habitat that existed here when my mother walked to the one-room schoolhouse on the SW corner of this quarter of land, during the very early 20th century. She told me that this had been all woods.

 

Views of Mikinaak Creek

   Our deer shack is the house we live in all year long. I've seen many deer shacks that look nicer than our house, top to bottom, complete with wide-screen TVs and computers; Man-Caves and kitchens. All we provide are the comforts of home with a beautiful natural view of Mikinaak Creek, that very few people know exist; home-cooked meals, a laundry facility, a shower, two indoor bathrooms (no waiting) and the two of us as amiable staff; one of whom lays down the law when they get rowdy -- as only an over-50 year old bunch of 'boys' (plus a 30-year old grandson) can do when they want to.

   But I must add here, our daughters and granddaughters too, although not hunters in their own right, enjoy the benefits of this deer camp as much they can when they can. Natural beauty, relative solitude and private spaces appeal to all in the family; it's here for them whenever they wish to visit however limited we are by the social limitations of Covid-19. 

   This year, a wedding of one of the sons, outranked the long-anticipated deer season opener of November 6th, and so delayed ou gathering until November 13th. Two of the brothers attended the festivity the weekend of the 13th through the 16th; the third is set to arrive on the 18th through the 21st. The wife made a comment the house was starting to resemble a B&B; all of which she is excited about whenever family visits us up here.

    And so begins the following morning's activities when hunters awake in utter darkness well before dawn to dress in their florescent-orange hunting gear; each person’s clothing and accessories (knives, handwarmers, field dressing gloves, towels, and bags) unique to their choosing or experience. Their rifles are stored either indoors or outdoors, ready to be loaded with ammunition, and carried with them as they leave their deer shacks for the woods.

   Some hunters have considerable distance to walk to get to their deer or tree stands, up to a mile in some cases. To be clear, deer stands are roofed boxes, with open/shut windows, that stand on stilt-like legs; and tree stands are partially-enclosed platforms secured to trees and accessed by tall ladders. 

Some hunters walk a few hundred yards; others are shuttled to a departure point leading to their stands so to shorten their walking time afield. This way, once at their stand, they can quickly hide themselves and their human scent above the ground, or position themselves comfortably against a tree or in a ground tent where they quietly and patiently await the passage of deer, walking or running, after sunrise or before sunset.

   Some hunters choose a later hunt; sleeping-in when their bodies demand it or when experience tells them that hunting will be better after breakfast and coffee, -- (or bowel movement). They make their calls to family members who don’t or can’t hunt because of other obligations like employment, education, health, age, or distance.

   Once they’re ready to go out, they tell others where they are going, or send text messages indicating their anticipated direction of travel so still others can take advantage of their movement that could stir deer from their hiding spots to their advantage, depending on wind direction and proximity.

   When there’s snow on the ground, it often gets daylight earlier. Anticipation builds as depth perception increases with each passing minute. I think about the new hunters learning about these tricks of the eye that arouse their attention, prompts them to raise their guns to their shoulders, their rifle scopes to their eyes, then experience their relaxation when they realize that what looked like deer at a distance are really just fallen trees, horizontal shadows, or aligned tree stumps.

   In the following days, we experience the physical exertion of walking an accumulation of miles through six-inches of snow this year and varied woodlands; across fields, climbing deer stand ladders; standing still for an hour at a time in a deer stand with no heat in freezing temperatures; or standing or sitting inside one that is ‘heated,’ meaning having a rural mailbox-sized propane heater over which they can dangle cold fingers, or stand beside one which they can warm their back or backsides, but not at the same time. It isn’t Shangri La.

   Deer hunting is also downright dangerous if hunters are not careful of themselves and others. Add the element of open water this year of November 2021, and the necessary use of a stable, flat-bottomed, jon boat to cross it to check for blood sign in the snow on an opposite bank. A hunter must use safety and common sense to ferry his gun and himself using a  boat; a padded gun case to protect their unloaded firearm, and a insulating life vest to protect themselves. To underestimate the effect of hypothermia in November, while wearing heavy hunting clothes and boots, is a mistake no hunter should make and few survive. 

Contemplating a ferrying tactic.

   Deer hunting can be tiring and just plain frustrating. Especially with fresh deer tracks in the snow, every hunter knows deer are darting through the brush around them as though their lives depends on it. But we wouldn’t have it any other way. If deer hunting was so simple as to sit in a deer stand and shoot deer on an open field like so many crows on a fence line, there would be no challenge to it.     

   I know some of our guys would prefer a few less trees in the way, I understand. But woodland hunting is what I was taught at family camp where open fields were but small clearings, and tall trees, willows, and water were challenging elements that we often had to negotiate; a place where deer appeared between trees or behind them; where we had to judge placing our shots; where it was indeed a game of hide and seek, and the deer often slipped past like apparitions after we had heard them noisily approach for a long distance through shallow swamp ice, then suddenly fall completely silent. 

   It was a place where my ears throbbed trying to discern the snap of a twig; where my eyes strained to see movement in my peripheral as I attempted to sit motionless with my carbine held upright against my chest with my gloved left hand; my finger loosely on the trigger, my thumb firmly on the hammer and hand-grip with my bare right hand.

    I developed this little spot of land along Mikinaak Creek near its confluence of the Roseau River, so that the family and I could experience the same earthly sensations hunters have held here over the millennia in a paradise all the same.