Continue reading Year 2 & Year 3.
A detailed journal of my first 3 years as a novice hunter in the rugged British Columbia Interior.
YEAR ONE
In the summer of 2012, I awoke from a strong dream with the last ringing images a command spoken in me, “Learn to Hunt”. I’m not accustomed to listening to voices in my head, but this one was compelling. Besides I had flirted with the idea of hunting years before, and my son Noah had expressed interest as well, it seemed a good time to embark on a quest for meat and meaning.
Getting Our License
In the fall, my son Noah and I took our CORE (Conservation and Outdoor Recreation Education) and our PAL (Firearms Possession & Acquisition License) in Nakusp BC. The instructor was highly recommended and he packed the whole session of hunting and firearms into a single weekend. We arrived to class in our selvedge denim jeans, graphic tees, and skate shoes. Juxtaposed against the camouflage shirts, Carhartts, & truckers caps of our classmates we learned the ins and outs of hunting and handling firearms. Noah and I scored high on the both the written exams, and the practical arms handling portion of the PAL and the CORE exams. A few of the other students commented humorously that they should have copied off of us when we got our papers.
With my license in hand in late September I set out on an Elk hunt with my friend Brock in the mountains around Nelson BC. That first day we went to the top of a mountain between Nelson and Castlegar spotting on the ridge, and bugling into the drainage below. I couldn’t at the time say why Elk hunting appealed to me. Maybe it’s was Brock’s preferred hunt which was a good first step. Perhaps it was the idea of hunting a big animal that wasn’t skittish like deer. Maybe it was the memory of Elk stew I had at a Rainbow Gathering in western Oregon years ago.
I couldn’t pinpoint my desire, but I knew it wasn’t a macho “kill the beast” attitude that attracted me to hunting. I was aware I had a strong sense in indignation at how I’ve heard other hunters talk about killing an animal. All of my intellectual thoughts, ethics and clash of cultures aside I knew in this hunt I was operating from a visceral impulse. That I was going to hunt an animal and that task, that process, somehow had a lesson or story within it that went beyond merely the idea of making meat or feeding my family.
First Hunt Ever
This instinct was at best a seed on that first hunt. A feeling that precariously straddled the ridge between the sacred and secular. The Shaman and the Atheist. My own dualistic extremes between different world views that afforded a perspective into other ways of living. Much like the ridge we straddled high in the mountains as Brock bugled into a bowl and the drainage it was partly cut off from by the steep descending slope from where we spotted. The bugling produced no response except for a lazy brown bear I spotted with binoculars that sat up and looked around from the patch of huckleberry and sunlight in which it rested.
We abandoned that first spot with no clear visible signs of elk or a call back. It was my first hunt and I quickly realized that we weren’t simply going to walk out in the forest and shoot an animal. I suddenly felt like this was a nearly futile task. One that seemed impossibly hard given the vast range and steep mountains, and how elk easily bounded from mountaintops to valley bottoms for something as simple as a mid-day drink.
We drove to another range and parked on a logging road and hiked over the edge of the a road into the steeply descending forest below. Brock said he and a friend took a shot at a bull a week before in this area. I was struck by how I couldn’t recall a time in my life where I had ever simply walked into the wilderness before. I was entering another world, the vast wilderness of the Kootenay region, where civilization was a tiny human garden of concrete clung to the sides of the large mountain ranges of the Purcell’s & Valhalla’s.
After more than a 100 meters of descent, we hit the valley bottom with a stoney stream and began hiking up the opposite side of the slope. My lack of preparedness became painfully obvious. I was out of shape from my computer job. I had crappy trail shoes which put constant pressure and twists on my ankle. Also, with a steep vertical climb I began to sweat and fatigue quickly.
We got a far way’s up the opposite ridge and the forest changed from bushy slide alder to rhododendron. Eventually thinning out into a more spacious rocky and Larch forest that was tipping toward rocky subalpine. In my uneducated reflections on Elk I thought, “This is the kind of place elk like”.
I opted for us to abandon hiking to the ridge although it was likely less than 150 meters more given my fatigue. Instead, we started down into a bowl south of our initial ascent where we came across my first contact with Elk habitat. We found several large wet, turned earth Elk wallows that smelled of boggy decay, and the faint stench of Elk piss and fur. I was excited to see this and although I felt physically inadequate on this hike, I was happy to have found some confirmation that these great animals were here and lived in these forests and breeding grounds. We bugled from time to time, sitting and listening for a response or some approach, but the forest remained silent. Late afternoon was turning toward dusk as we worked our way back toward the truck via a long slow traverse following the bowl climbing gently toward the truck. We crossed many elk paths and scrapes as I took in the details and signs that a human learns to read as they grow into a hunter. It was dark before we came to the edge of the forest. My legs hurt, my ankle was inflamed, my back ached, and I was cold with and damp with sweat from the strain of the hike. I had slipped and twisted my ankle repeatedly without good supporting boots and I felt beaten and incredibly out of shape compared to my hunting companion.
When we got home, I collapsed gratefully on the carpet too rest and listened as Brock talked about heading out the next day to hunt another location for the last day of elk season. He was planning to go with a friend and I was welcome to go with them if I wanted. I opted out sadly aware of my own physical limitation.
Helping Pack Out a Kill
The next day, as I rested at home, I learned Brock and a friend shot a 6 point bull in the afternoon. They quartered it and packed the meat into trees, walking out late in the night on the opposite side of the mountain from their truck. They meet Brock’s father at a switchback on a logging road that I would become very familiar with over the next two years.
After some late night texting, I agreed to help hike out the quarters the following day. We bushwhacked through a skiff of fresh snow, and icy forest in mid-November to the site of the kill. Even with better boots I was still challenged by the terrain as we hiked 2 kilometres into the woods where the elk was taken. That first view of the bare rib cage laying on the forest floor was visceral and thrilling for me. I helped cut some of the excess meat from the neck and ribs and we packed up the quarters into frame packs and began trudging out of the forest.
In my first year I hadn’t shot and elk, but helped carry the butchered animal out of the forest, I was satisfied. I was also humbled and now knew that elk hunting was not simply crossing a few meandering creeks in a gentle forest and shooting an animal. It was a mission. A full on intensive experience that required endurance, determination, perseverance, strength and dedication to the cause. I had a goal for the next year.