Campfire Ponderings

The flames of the fire danced, reaching upwards to lick at the star-filled sky. My brother and I were three days into an exploration and trail cutting trip. We were 40 miles in from the nearest road in a place neither of us had ever been to before. We may very well have been the only two people who had ever been to this place. I moved closer to soak up the warmth of the fire and dry out after the long day.

A full moon slowly rose over the nearby mountain ridge, bathing the world in light once again. It is times like these that seem tailor made for pondering. In this peaceful quiet place, with only the crackling of the fire and the occasional comforting jingle of the horse bell from the nearby meadow, I began to contemplate life’s deep philosophical questions. What was the purpose of life? What did it mean to be successful? What was wrong in society today? I have never been very good at putting thoughts into words on paper, but I will try to share some of the things I have pondered while gazing into the flames and glowing embers of a good campfire.

First off, a little background. I was born in 1984. My family moved to Northern BC from Michigan the year I was born and bought a guide outfitting business. So, I have lived and worked and played in the mountains my entire life. I was married to my beautiful wife in 2011, and we now have four children, aged from 10 years to 2 months. We live in our remote guiding area year-round, 350 kilometers of gravel road from the nearest town and often snowed in for seven months of winter.

I had a hunting client last year ask me if I had always known that I wanted to be a hunting guide. He was very surprised when I told him that I did not consider myself to be a hunting guide! His exact words were, “Well, you are damn good at being a hunting guide if you are not actually one!” So, I went on to explain…

I do not define who I am by my occupation. Sure, I work a couple months of the year guiding hunters, but that doesn’t make me who I am. Today’s society has it so ingrained into all of us that we need to have a specific occupation to be a success as a person. It starts when we are young, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” When I hear someone ask my kids that question, I tell them they should say that they are going to be a person! You don’t need a specific occupation to be worthy… to be somebody. It continues as we grow up. We are told we need to go to school for 13 years and then to college for several more, otherwise we won’t be able to get the best job to make the most money.

Long ago, a lot of people just lived their lives. They worked to live. They learned to do a little of everything to do what needed to be done. These days it seems most people go to work every day, doing someone else’s work for them, in trade for money. And then they use that money in trade to have other people to do their own work for them. I try to avoid working for money as much as is possible in modern society. I do things for myself whenever I can and most of the work I do is just working to live, not working to make money. Happiness comes from not being a slave to a job and money. The best way to have enough money is always to spend less, not to make more. It is the sad reality of the world today that most are not able to live the way that I do. I realize how lucky I am.

On one of our rare trips to town earlier this summer (for the birth of our youngest daughter) I sat in church and listened to the Sunday school lesson. The teacher of the lesson brought up the question, “What does it mean to you to be successful?” Other members of the class came up with answers related to their job, how much money they could make, and even how much money they could make without having to do any actual work… by being the boss and delegating the work to employees. Another had an answer relating to religion, with success being measured by how well we can share the Gospel with others. I didn’t say anything at the time, because I am not one for public speaking, but that lesson got me pondering what success is to me.

My conclusion is that success is simply being a good person. Being a person who is honest and trustworthy and who others respect and admire. It doesn’t matter what job you do or how much money you can make. It doesn’t matter what you believe or do not believe spiritually. Just to be a good person is to be successful.

An even higher level of success comes with raising children to be good people. Children who are generous and kind and who have empathy and compassion towards ALL people. Children who are leaders who set the example for others to follow. Children who are strong and able to help those who are weaker or less fortunate. Children who respect others and have a deep respect and appreciation for nature and animals. Children who know how to work with their hands and have the patience and perseverance to do a task properly. Children who will one day raise their own children to be good people. That is the ultimate measure of success.

It is not all about money. Most people go to school for 15 or 16 years, to get a good high paying job. Then they are a slave to that job for another 40 years until they retire. By then they are too old to do the things they could have done when they were younger if they hadn’t been in school or at their job instead. It is the reality of many people’s lives. It is what society tells us we need to do… what is expected of us. Most don’t even know that a better way exists. Life can be an adventure. It doesn’t have to just be an endless quest for more money. I do not think that anybody, at the end of their life, looks back on it and wishes they’d had a better job and made more money during their life. Nobody takes it with them when they go.

I wish more people still had the opportunity to live more simply. To build their own homes, grow their own food, and make their own clothing. And to trade with their neighbors for other things they may need. There are only a lucky few who are still able to live that way. To not be controlled by their education or their job for most of their lives. To live a life filled with adventure and make memories.

Speaking of memories, I have already made more than a few, and I plan to make many more in the years to come! Since this is an article in a magazine about hunting, I will tell the story of a memory I made while hunting/guiding.

The first good hunting story that comes to mind took place in October 2007. I was guiding a father and son, John and Johnny. The kid, Johnny, was about 16 years old. It was one of my first years of serving as the primary guide. Prior to this hunt, I had gone along with my dad or older brothers for many years, but they had always been the primary guides, and I had been along just to help. Being that this was the early October hunt, the land was blanketed in snow just before the hunt began. I decided to make an easy day of it for the first day and ride up onto the mountain just behind the main lodge. The moose in our area tend to head for higher elevation, just on the edge of the treeline, in the late rut when the snow starts to fall. Then later in October and early November as the snow gets too deep up high, they move back down and migrate out of our area to lower river valleys, where there is less snow and higher willows to browse throughout the winter. There is a meadow down along the mountain to the south that was the destination I had in mind. Almost every year there was a moose rutting in that meadow at this time of year so, I expected to see a moose. It was just a matter of whether the moose that was rutting there would be one that was big enough that we’d want to shoot it on the first day.
We rode to the spot I had in mind, stopping every half hour to do some calling along the way. As is typical in our area though, there was not a sound nor a track anywhere in the fresh snow from the day before. We rode to within a couple hundred yards of the destination meadow then tied the horses and went ahead on foot from there so that we could move a little more quietly.

As we came to the edge of the meadow we stood in silence, listening for several moments. Nothing. I did a couple of cow calls followed up by a few bull grunts. Almost immediately a cow moose appeared out of a strip of trees in the meadow just 80 yards from us. She was looking intently in our direction, so we all froze and waited in anticipation of the appearance of the bull that I was confident was in the trees behind her. After what seemed like forever, the cow lost interest in what she thought she had heard or seen and wandered ahead farther out into the meadow.

And then, he appeared.

My first impression was one of disappointment. I didn’t see the big paddles I had hoped for. “He looks pretty small,” I whispered to John. But, after some further studying through my binoculars, I somewhat modified my assessment. The one side looked kind of deformed in some way, and the other side just had long points and not a lot of palmation. But because of the shape the antlers were, that is, laid out to the sides instead of going up, the rack was deceptively wide. I shared my assessment with John and after a few minutes of indecision, with the bull waiting patiently broadside, John got a rest on a small tree and took the shot. At 80 yards the shot was good, and the first moose of the hunt was down just after noon on the first day! The rack measured 51 inches wide, but it was the smallest 51-inch rack I had ever seen. John was happy with it though, because of the uniqueness of the rack and the fact that they had driven up so they would be taking all the meat home with them.

After some pictures, I was able to radio back to the lodge and get my younger brother, Hawk, headed our way with the three pack horses it would take to haul the moose back. By the time we were done butchering, Hawk had shown up with horses and we loaded up and headed down, getting back to the lodge before dark. A successful first day!

Day 2 started off snowing again. I decided to head for another high sub-alpine meadow about three hours ride from the lodge where we often saw moose that time of year. Hawk came along with John, Johnny, and me. The weather was not nice. Large wet flakes of snow piled up on the branches bending them down low over the trail. Every branch sent a shower of new cold wet snow onto the saddles. We finally arrived at the meadow after, once again, not coming across a single fresh track in the snow the entire three-hour trip. Also like the day before, we stopped before reaching the meadow to proceed on foot.

At the edge of the meadow I did some calling, knowing it was unlikely anything would hear me with the wind and the heavily-falling snow. We waited for awhile, then walked along the meadow up to the far end and did more calling from there. Nothing. No sound, and not a track anywhere.

Feeling slightly discouraged, we started walking back straight across the middle of the brushy meadow towards the horses. Suddenly, in the meadow right in front of us, there was a bull moose standing there! With nothing for a rest, and in a rush at about 100 yards, with the snow still coming down hard, Johnny made a great shot, and we had our second moose. It was a nice bull with pretty good palms and an antler spread in the mid forties.
Since then, I have often commented to hunters when we haven’t seen a track in the snow all day, to not be discouraged because “sometimes the first tracks you see will have a moose standing in them!”

After pictures, we set to work butchering. About halfway through butchering, the clouds had lifted slightly, and the sun was starting to occasionally poke through the clouds. Suddenly, I heard Hawk excitedly whisper, “Caribou!!”

I looked up at the mountain, expecting to see a herd hanging out on the slopes above us. Hawk pointed and said, “ No, right here!”

There in the meadow, walking straight towards us, less than 80 yards away was a bull caribou! There was a bit of a frenzied scramble, me going for my binoculars, and Johnny going for his rifle which he had returned to the scabbard on the horse, assuming that the hunting for the day was over. It only took a second through the binoculars to confirm the bull was legal (6 points on the main beam including the rear point). This one had LOTS of points!

Johnny got to me with his rifle, and I told him it was legal and to take the shot whenever he could. By this time the caribou had seen all the movement and was trotting straight away. In a matter of seconds he would be into the trees, unlikely to ever be seen again. He had to go up a bit of a hill just before the trees, and once again Johnny made a very impressive off-hand shot, breaking the caribou’s back as it was still going straight away up the hill. Another quick shot to finish it off and just like that, in the first two days of the hunt we had two moose and a caribou!

After more pictures and more butchering, it was just before dark before we were mounted up to ride the three hours back to the lodge. That feeling, when you are riding back in the dark because of successful hunt, with great stories to tell around the dinner table late that night, is hard to describe. Some of my best memories are those kinds of rides. Quiet, except for the creaking of the saddle leather, barely able to make out your horse’s ears in the darkness, keeping your head low to avoid snowy branches to the face, trusting your horse to take you home. It is a peaceful feeling of satisfaction and success but also an excitement to get home and tell the stories of the day’s adventures.

That night my heart was full, with appreciation and love for the wonderful creation we have been given to enjoy and grateful to have the opportunity to enjoy it so much more than my fair share.
And the adventures of this hunt were not over yet! After going back with four pack horses the next day to pack back the moose and caribou, it was on to goat hunting for Johnny. John only had the moose tag, so he was no longer hunting after the first day, but he still came along with me and Johnny.

The snow was deep up high on the mountains and getting deeper every day with bad weather. Goats are harder to see in the snow, especially when the sun is not out, and the tops of the mountains are fogged in or there is snow in the air. After four or five days with very little success at finding any goats, the weather improved some and there was some sun on and off.

My older brother, Clayton, had the day free and offered to come with me. He is 10 years older than me and had a lot more years of experience with finding goats in the snow, and after several days with no success, I welcomed the help. It didn’t take long and in the late afternoon that day, Clayton spotted a good goat high up in the rocks above a basin we had ridden up into. I stayed below with the horses while Clayton and Johnny headed up the mountain through the knee-deep snow to try to get in range for a shot.

They made it up to the base of the steeper rocks, to the side of the goat and still quite a way below it. The goat stayed laying on a small point of rock in the cliffs and never knew they were there. Johnny got a good rest on a rock at about 300 yards. After waiting for a while for the goat to stand up, the decision was made to just take the shot with the goat laying down. The goat was high up in the cliffs but there weren’t too many straight off drops and the snow would cushion the fall. It seemed almost inevitable that the goat would fall from where it was when it was shot. But…

That’s not what happened. After the shot the goat barely moved. It laid its head down and remained perched on the little precipice of rock in the cliffs. With no safe way to get to where the goat was from where they were, Clayton and Johnny came back down to where I was waiting at the horses. Darkness was settling in, so we decided to head back to the lodge for the night and return the next day to make a plan to retrieve the goat.
The next day had beautiful clear skies and sunshine. We made it back to the basin the goat was in by mid-morning. From the bottom we planned a route. There was a steep narrow wash that extended up through the cliffs to above where the goat was, about 50 yards to the one side of it. We decided that if we went up through that wash to just above the goat, we might be able to work our way across and down the icy slope to a little ridge that ran out to the rock the goat was balanced on.

We headed up the wash in thigh-deep snow where it had drifted full. The deep snow was helpful because without the snow to pack out good footholds, it would’ve been too steep to climb. After an hour of hard climbing, we were above the goat to the point where we planned to leave the wash. The slope was steep and windblown, covered only by a thick layer of ice. We decided only one of us needed to get across to the goat, so I stayed on the edge of the wash while Clayton headed across the frozen slope.

Slowly and carefully, testing each foothold, and at times digging into the ice and frozen dirt with his fingers, Clayton made it across the slope to the relative safety of the little ridge leading to the goat. He very carefully skinned out the goat and cut the horns and skull plate off the head. He rolled up the hide and tied it into a bundle with a piece of twine. Then he pushed the carcass with the meat still all attached, off the edge, followed by the bundled-up hide. Both the carcass and hide fell, rolled, and slid all the way down the mountain to within less than 100 yards of where John and Johnny were waiting, watching anxiously with the horses!

Clayton tied the horns to his belt, leaving both his hands free, and headed back across the slope. After a few more tense and stressful moments he was back across the icy slope to where I was, and we made our way back down the wash. When we got down, we were able to “reconstruct” the goat and get some pictures of Johnny with his trophy. Then we finished butchering, loaded up, and headed home!

For me, it is experiences and memories like these that make life interesting and exciting. I want to have many stories to tell when I am old, instead of having many possessions to pass on. I will die content, knowing it was a life well-lived.