Our Marks

Faded photographs, yellowed with age, leap from the pages of an old album – carrying the scent of pipe tobacco and coffee stains. A memory caught by a fleeting glance. Time standing still. A day on the mountain. A moment relived. A dream fulfilled.

All of us have turned those pages – revelled in days long passed, ever searching, ever reaching…

Where will our next great hunt take us? High into the mountains of the cliff dwellers? Through swamps and lakes in pursuit of the white paddles? Over the wind-swept plateaus of the caribou? Or across the glacier-lily slides of the bears?

Do we plan for the unexpected or let the unexpected plan for us?

The desire to explore burns in us. It ignites the fire that drives us. It warms us on cold nights, and it captures the very heart of who we are – and why we hunt.

To us, that’s what matters – not whether we’re chasing elk or sheep, bears or cats – but that we are hunting. That we’re treading unknown territory, seeking the adventure that drives us forward.

Like so many before us, we follow in the footsteps of men and women long gone – eager to make our own mark, leave a piece of ourselves, and a story behind.

As days turn to weeks, to months, then to years, some details may escape us. Our minds grow tired. But still, we remember the sound the rifle made on that frosty September morning.

We relive that first forty inches of horn we ever saw, or the sixty-inch spread that disappeared into the willows.

We know the hour – and can still feel the wind in our face – when our sons or daughters held their first animal, walked beside us on their first hunt, cried cold tears and laughed with unrestrained joy.

We turn the pages in our mind, like an old book, recalling events with unparallelled clarity.

We see the goats that tumbled. Hear the grizzlies that roared. Remembered the elk that bugled and the sheep that silhouetted themselves on the skyline – only to roll out of reach.

We’ve cursed the missed shots, lost sleep over the blown stalks, and cried aloud over all the “should-have-beens” and “could-have-beens.”

All of us who hunt have sat around an old wood stove or campfire telling stories of days gone by – or listening while others shared theirs.

And as we heard those stories, we dreamt of the next one we have yet to make.

We think back to days of cursing the weather and the horses, of lost light and banged up scopes. We remember praising those same “cursed at” horses for all the miles they carried our weary bones – packed heavy with meat and horn, blood and sweat. We’ve shouted with joy among the friends who lived our adventures, shared in our triumphs, and laughed by our side.

At times we find ourselves lost in memory – thinking back to the last time we left our marks for someone else to find. Perhaps a shell casing or a saw cut way up on some side slope will leave someone guessing. Knives and gloves, binoculars and hats – lost only to be found by some not-so-different stranger, following that same journey.

These are the lost relics, in a new history, of an old frontier.

The question remains: are we so different from those who came before?

We still strive for success by any means necessary. We still face trials and tribulations every step of the way. We’ve left our blood and our tears in the wilderness – and the rewards have been plenty.

The mountains didn’t get any smaller. And although the rivers’ courses may have changed, we still had to cross them.

Our marks may be different, but we still made them.

Again, we look at old pictures of our ancestors and envy their time in the mountains – the bighorns and grizzlies they encountered on those high alpine slides. We gaze into their eyes and try to reflect on their lifetimes spent in the wild – left wanting, wishing, and hoping that our own time is spent enjoying the outdoors as fully as they did. Turning pages of old albums, being left awestruck by huge mule deer taken high in mountain basins, craving for the taste of success that came with that 400-inch bull.

We see the marks they made – in every picture we see their eyes smiling, and – if the light is right – we see a bit of us in them. Their legacy, we long to preserve, seeing ourselves trying to replace a memory that is not so long forgotten.

Thumbing through those old pages, often we wish we had that same opportunity, that same chance to chase monsters of the past.

The truth is – we do.

We are making our own records, chasing the same animals – only on different paths, at different times. We hold the ability to leave behind today and step back into yesterday, creating our own dreams.

We still hear the bugling of bulls from days long past, and look out over valleys of wildflowers that scream with beauty. We quench our thirst in rivers that cut through ancient canyons.

Those of us who truly understand the hunt – who grasp the beauty and the passion in the journey – are the lucky ones.

We plan our stalk, hoping and praying that our decisions were wise. We crawl, we climb, we push ourselves to the very limit of endurance, silently grumbling over every swirl of the wind, every loosened boulder.

We reach heights unconquered and cross Hell itself – only to find on the other side, paradise; a place for us alone.

This life is truly a wonder – full of endless possibilities. We can create miracles or suffer sorrow with every step we take. We’ve seen tragedy show its ugly face. We’ve lost friends, horses, and camps to fires, floods and wind. We’ve watched laughter turn to tears, dreams into nightmares, sun into shadow.

Yet through it all – all the wrecks and disasters – we’ve still seen the joy. We’ve stood witness to emotional triumphs, to hugs in victory, to the new day’s sunrise. We’ve shared in success when failure felt imminent. We’ve shaken hands with greatness and watched miracles unfold.

This is our life. This is our story. These are our marks.

We have all looked back and felt regret – but hunting isn’t one of them. These pages of hunting history that we’re lucky enough to turn – they are our stories and our heritage. Our pictures are now added to their books. Our words now mingle with theirs. Walking beside them we’ve created our own footprints.

T.K. Whipple once wrote “We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream.”

We have that chance – to live that dream. Our days are now. Our time is here.

Every day in the wilderness brings that dream closer to reality. We walk the line that draws us near to our ancestors and carves a new history that is ours to record.

Hunting runs in our blood. New trails are forged with our boot prints – all watched over by the trailblazers of old.

The marks we leave are ours.

The circle continues.