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Pastimes : Bear Stories -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: coug who wrote (743)	10/7/2006 11:48:49 AM
From: ManyMoose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6879

OK, Coug. I understand how you got to where you are. I had a different sort of mentoring. My Dad was an indifferent hunter. He hunted honorably, for the experience of being one with the environment and friends more than the meat, and certainly not at all for the trophy. He was probably much like your Dad, putting an extra bale on the ton in what ever he did. One thing he consistently did was put his family first, which meant that he didn't hunt all that much. We lived three doors down from a family and I became friends with a boy my age. He remains my best friend to this day. We roamed the woods and floated the rivers together as boys, playing in the sandbox when we weren't playing with an orphan fawn we called Bambi. My friend's father was a woodsman, almost legendary even then. He taught us woodsmanship skills: camping, back packing, self-reliance, appreciation for nature, conservation -- and when we were old enough, hunting and trapping. We absorbed everything he taught like sponges, and our views and our ethical foundation spring from his. We earned his and my father's trust, and bought our first pistols when we were still in gradeschool. One day we were hiking in a canyon west of town that we could get to on our bicycles. We had our .22 pistols. We saw a bear eating apples in a small abandoned orchard. We decided that we would go back to town for our hunting rifles, but when we got back to the orchard the bear was gone. A week or so later my Dad asked me if we had seen a bear on our forays up that creek. I said yes. He asked if we shot the bear. I said the truth, no, and explained that we had gone back for our rifles. But somebody had shot the bear and wounded it. The man who told my father about it owned the land with the orchard and was a bank guard at the bank near my father's office. He knew that my friend and I frequently visited the area, so we were likely suspects. He was very upset about the shooting. My father accepted that I told him the truth in detail, and reported it to the bank guard. I have a clear conscience to this day about this and all my hunting experiences. You can read about land ethics in a book my friend's father wrote about it. I recommend it to you, and if you read it you'll see where I'm coming from too. It's called "The Lochsa Story: Land Ethics in the Bitterroot Mountains." It's worth reading for the sheer adventure, and is a true account of ethics from the deepest regions of the heart. amazon.com My friend and his father and sister and I spent a few days relocating some of his old trapper cabins, just two months ago. They are nothing but dust now, but we had a magical time. I wrote this poem about the experience: Moon Saddle Cabin Stop here, he said It’s not far He led the three dreamers Right to it Crushed by tree fall And crumbled by time The ax work remained unmistakably his Each corner notch Each shake, each nail A testament to the man An artifact of his skill Spirits arose out of the rubble A rusty cook pot And other ghosts Sending memories to the man And shivers up the spines Of the three dreamers They tarried awhile Imagining what happened here Those seven decades ago Reluctantly, the spirits settled Back down into the cabin ruins As its creator and the three dreamers Tore themselves away For Bud August 3, 2006 David I took a few pictures. You can see them as a captioned slideshow if you want. www2.snapfish.com I could go on and on. The kind of conservation organizations I support, like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, put their money where their mouth is. rmef.org They celebrate both the environment and man's relationship with it. Its magazine's masthead: Bugle -- Elk Country And The Hunt. We have a common enemy: the wanton waste of wildlife and the environment by senseless poachers and pillagers who kill for no reason. Let's go after them and keep our honor clean. Coug, I respect your views. They are based on your own life experiences. My views and ethics are based on a personal relationship with the environment. I require that they be respected as well.