insight pared

KNOWLEDGE SHARED

outdoor bold

To access Roland's weblog and column archives

 

 

Tip o' the Day

Most info handed out by official agencies relative to human activities in grizzly country is a whole bunch of "don'ts". Even most of their "dos" seem to me like "don'ts" in disguise.

"Do hike in groups," actually says, "Don't hike alone."

"Do hang your food ten feet high and four feet out from the bole of a tree," actually says, "Don't leave your food piled within reach of a bear, you dork!"

Personally I like my own set of "dos." But my "dos" comes with certain elements of risk. For instance, I've been known to hike alone. I'm also pleased to hike (or ride) with compatible companions. But if I have the opportunity to go and can find no one to accompany me, then I'll go it alone -- and be glad! After all, at my advancing age, it's entirely possible that some day my heart or lungs or legs or prostrate will say "To hell with it" and I'll wish I'd climbed a few more ridges or floated a few more rivers.

On the other hand, if you are fearful of the great unknown and wish only a risk-free environment, then by all means stay ensconced in your townhouse high rise, throw your four deadbolts on the front door each evening, lock your windows (including the safety latches), draw your blinds, close your drapes and turn on your TV to the Discovery channel where you'll find what you missed and I found.

Are there risks from pursuing adventure amid my mountains? Of course. I was once in a seven-person hiking group who encountered a grizzly bear sow with two cubs. Boy, was that dangerous -- for the grizzly! She could hardly get her cubs out of that huckleberry patch fast enough! I also once bumped into a sow grizzly with one cub while hiking alone. She wasn't nearly so swift in retreat -- not as swift as I would've been had I a place to go.

So, Roland, how'd it turn out? Well, you can go to my website: www.rolandcheek.comand read the first chapter of Learning To Talk Bear and find out. Suffice it to say, however, that 25 years after the incident, I'm sitting at my computer writing about it, so it couldn't have been too bad. And I'll bet the average reader poring over this weblog hasn't gone that long without experiencing some sort of fright on the freeway, or in his or her apartment building.

The point is to cut down on your risk by using commonsense and logic. Do drive defensively, Don't drink and drive. Do participate in a "neighborhood watch." Do think ahead.

You already do all the above? Good for you. So do I. It's just that my neighborhood and its trails aren't quite so dangerous as yours.

* * *

A weblog that occasionally discusses an animal that is arguably the most powerful land carnivore on earth seems a perfect place to stick a plug for my two popular books on grizzly bears. First is Learning To Talk Bear -- our best selling title, now in its 5th printing.

REJECTING THE ANTI-HUNTER

When the woman spat "You killer!" I looked up in surprise. I may have been bored and, despite the crowd moving to and fro along busy Los Angeles sport show aisles, it took a moment for me to process what the sleekly dressed, impeccably coiffured woman had said. "I beg your pardon, ma'am?"

"How could you shoot those defenseless creatures!"

I turned to see where she pointed, perhaps expecting to see a brace of peacocks or a gaggle of birds of paradise thrown over our booth's backdrop. Instead, all that was there was what had been there from the show's opening -- an antler mount of an exceptionally large elk, and the head mount of a trophy mule deer buck. I pointed to the big lake trout mounted on the wall and murmured, "I didn't shoot that one, ma'am. Instead, she had the temerity to try and wrest a silver and red wobblng spoon from one end of my fishing line." When her mouth pinched into a fine line, I blushed and added, "She very nearly won."

"He's dead and you're not!" she screeched, pointing an index finger at my left eye.

"She," I murmured. "It was spawning time and she was filled with eggs." I gazed off down the aisle, wondering why me? After all, many of the nearby booths harbored more game heads than mine. One farther down had eight African antelope mounts. Maybe I looked like an easier target -- the three guys in the booth next to mine was openly drinking beer from paper cups, smoking cigarettes, and riotously behaving. Perhaps she lacked the temerity to upbraid them.

Two passersby paused long enough for me to hear one say to the other, "Another Bambi lover. Ain't there no end?"

I leaned over the counter and gazed down at the lady's patent-leather pumps and waist-wide belt. "How come you're wearing leather, ma'am? Didn't your mother ever tell you that an animal had to part with his hide in order for you to buy belt and boots?"

Her voice turned even more shrill. "But I didn't shoot them! I'm no murderer!" I was damned glad, to tell the truth, what with the way she waved her finger at my temple. What if it'd been the muzzle of a Smith & Wesson?

"I suppose you eat steak, or munch on sausage for breakfast," I politely said. "And if you own a cat or dog and feed 'em anything but cabbage leaves, I'd make that out to be hypocritical. Some of us don't hire our butchering done, ma'am. We do it ourselves." The lady stomped off to jeers and catcalls, and I'll confess to swelling some at my eruditeness. That was in 1974, though, and for years after that, things seemed to go downhill for hunters.

I was raised in rural Oregon and transplanted to Montana. I'm a westerner, a hunter, and was an outfitter and guide in the Bob Marshall Wilderness -- one of America's best known and best loved wild places. The elk antlers came from an elk I spotted at long distance and stalked for more than six hours through deep snow, then spent the next two days packing the meat out to the nearest road on my back. The mule deer's story was even more unlikely: I'd spotted him and another huge buck of equal size the week before, but decided the 29 miles back to road's end was simply too far to carry a deer. I had no luck on elk, however, so a week later I was back on the same wind-swept plateau to search for one of the big bucks.

I guess what I'm saying is, given my background, one shouldn't wonder that it was hard for me to take the anti-hunting/anti-gun thing seriously. But a couple of years after being castigated by the PETA harpy at the Los Angeles sport show, a midwestern sporting goods store owner told me he doubted if his kids would be able to own guns and go hunting. That occasion was during an elk hunt in the bob Marshall Wilderness. I was aghast at what he said. But the man gave me his perspective as he saw it. And who was I to argue with a guy who dwelled closer to the action?

By then my own son had to register to buy .22 rimfires (or his parents did) and ordering sporting firearms was growing more difficult by the day. Congressional leaders like Rostenkowski, Dodd, and Kennedy were turning the screws to stop us from owning guns, while Cleveland Amory and his ilk (along with CBS television) gained national audiences for their diatribes against sport hunting. Worse, the kind of politics then in vogue seemed to embrace these twin apocalyse of a hunter's nightmare.

The the trend began a tedious change. Organizations geared up for big political fights affecting citizens gun ownership, and the long American tradition for sport hunting. Trendy anti-hunting/anti-gun fell in disfavor in ever-widening circles.

But won? No. Continuing our right to hunt is, I'm afraid to say, a forever fight. Let's not forget to remain vigilant.

 

 

Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and broadcast a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:

www.rolandcheek.com

Comments

Click Here

for detailed info about each of Roland's books

Read Reviews

Read their first chapters