JOURNAL OF THE ART AND LITERATURE OF THE OUTDOOR SPORTS FOR OUTDOOR COMMUNICATORS
The Pines Review
$13.50
Spring-Summer, 2011
Vol. IV No.2
Inside This Issue Pages are hyperlinked Editorial ..................... 3 Letters ........................ 4 Op-Ed ........................ 5 WHO WE ARE Carolee Anita Boyles . 7 FEATURES Reaching Out to Outdoor Bloggers................... 20 Food of Outdoor Literature.................. 22 COLUMNS High On The Wild ... 10 Kathleen Clary Miller
Photography World .. 12 Jeff Davis
Video World ............. 14 Andy Lightbody
Social Media ........... 16 Rachel Bunn
If You Asked Me ...... 18 Michelle Scheuermann
The Pen On The Page19 Galen L. Geer
SHORT FICTION That Was Then ......... 36 BOOK REVIEWS B&C Big Game Awards .................... 38 American Elk Retrospective ........... 40 CRITICAL BOOK REVIEW Hunt, Gather, Cook .. 22 New Products ............. 42 Calendar of Events ... 43 Contributors
Interested in contributing to The Pines Review? We are looking for features on famous outdoor writers of the past, new solutions to old writing problems, the business of writing (or photography, video, etc.) and the craft of writing, photography or art. We are also interested in poetry, short fiction and of course essays on any aspect of the outdoor media/literature. Contact the editor: editorpinesrview@mlgc.com Payment is first day of month following publication.
Henry Herbert, aka Frank Forester, father of modern outdoor writing
Day’s Catch Photo by Galen L. Geer, original photograph altered using Microsoft Digital Suite Editor Original Copyright, 2005, Altered (Day‘s Catch) Copyright 2011
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The Pines Review
Spring-Summer, 2011 Vol. IV No.2
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Spring-Summer, 2011 Vol. IV No.2 Page 3
The Pines Review
Editorial
First, I need to make a couple ―Like the giants of our past,‖ I said, of announcements regarding staff naively thinking that he must be well additions. The first is that my read. When he asked what I meant good friend Chas Clifton is joining my warning flag went up. The secThe Pines Review as an Associate ond flag went up when he informed Editor. Here, at The Review that‘s me that he hadn‘t been to college or sort of like being a ―Field Editor‖ taken any writing courses. I asked at most other publications. Also him what magazines he‘d been pubGalen L. Geer, joining The Review is Michelle lished in and when he told me the tiPublisher/Editor Scheuermann. She should be familtles I realized his stories had been pubiar to readers because of her Op-Ed lished in the growing number of outpiece in the Autumn, 2010 Review when she door magazines that publish hunters‘ stories spoke out about today‘s outdoor broadcast pro- and pay in contributor‘s copies. He also voiced gramming. Her editorial and the following his frustration with the main line outdoor letters convinced me that I needed to consider a magazines for refusing to buy his work. column or department focused on broadcasting. ―My stories are just as good as any of them Michelle will be an excellent columnist. they print,‖ he quipped, then handed me a copy of one of his published works. I read part of it Food How often do we think about food in our and then told him he needed to enroll in a good writing? Ivan Turgenev, Ernest Hemingway, creative writing class and start learning how to and Robert Ruark thought about it. Perhaps it is write. When he began to argue he was a shared trait among the truly great outdoor (thankfully) interrupted by the guest speaker. writers. These giants did not write cookbooks This young man believed that spelling and (although a new cookbook inspired this issue‘s grammar programs would solve any of his writtheme), they wrote fiction and creative nonfic- ing problems. Maybe, in a sense, they will tion and they included detailed descriptions of solve some, but not enough to get him out of food in their texts. Each of our genre‘s masters the lowest tier of outdoor magazines. He had understood that food, whether a dish, an ingre- no understanding of what actually goes into dient, or the time or manner served, could pro- writing a story because to him writing convide a pin upon which the story could turn. sisted of nothing more complex than repeating In this issue‘s ―Food of Outdoor Literaa series of events in his life. The texture of the ture,‖ I try to provide readers an understanding story is unimportant to him. Imagine Hemingof how food has been used and the importance way trying to craft ―Big Two-Hearted River‖ of food in outdoor literature. I don‘t try to exwithout explaining how Nick was able to catch plain why one ingredient or turn of the nose the grasshoppers he would later use for bait. can have such an impact on the course of the My fear is that the young man at that confertext. Understanding the délicat teinte of a tex- ence might be the harbinger of many writers to tual representation of food unlocks how those come, young people who want instant success. genre giants used food. Acquiring the literary These youngsters believe that success is not the skills to include these subtleties involves a product of study and work but is their right great deal of reading and analyzing the work of guaranteed by the possession of technology and our giants. Unfortunately, the willingness to their just reward for simply ―being.‖ I hope invest years of study to master the nuances of readers of The Pines Review are willing to English is a lost ambition. In today‘s world, make an investment in their profession and will whether the study of literature or the building go beyond the technology that dominates their of a bridge, too much is based on the assumplives to study the works of the writers who tion that whatever shortcomings a person might carved out a place for their work among other have can be solved by the computer--no matter genres. Those writers were the artists whose how great that fallacy might be. palettes were filled with the stuff of everyday At the last writer‘s conference I attended I life and they turned it into art. As difficult as it was sitting with a young man who was eagerly may sound, a piece of fried chicken, in the telling me how many stories he‘d had pubhands of a skilled writer, can conjure moments lished and of his desire to become a great out- of remembered bliss on a once forgotten trout door writer. stream, if you pay attention.
Publisher/Editor Galen L. Geer Copy Editor Pam Potter Webmaster Christopher L. Geer Associate Editors Danny White, Alan Bunn, Rachel Bunn, Chas Clifton Photography Jeff Davis Social Media Rachel Bunn Video Andy Lightbody High On The Wild Kathleen Clary Miller If You Ask Me Michelle Scheuermann
The Pines Review is published
three times per year: Winter: Jan.-April, Spring/Summer: May-August, Autumn: Sept.-Dec. . Free Subscriptions: Free online subscription to members of outdoor media, outdoor industry. and all high school/middle school libraries, and colleges, university libraries, English/Creative Writing Departments and instructors. Paid Subscriptions: PDF email: $3.00 per year. PDF by USPS: $9.00 Print: $36.00 per year. Full Color Print Copies: $13.50+$1.50 P&H Order From: http://magcloud.com. Article/Story Reprints: For permission to reprint articles, essays, short fiction or poetry, contact the editor. Contributors: Contributions are welcome. Please Email a synopsis of proposed contribution to editor. Payment on first of month following publication. Submission guidelines available. editorpinesreview@mlgc.com Advertisers: Please email editor and request current rates for display and classified advertising. © Copyright 2011 by Pen and Page, Ink. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, printed, or distributed by any means, electronic or otherwise, without publisher’s written permission Published by Pen and Page, Ink, PO Box 31, Finley, ND 58230. Email: penandpage@mlgc.com. Phone: 701-789-0777
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Spring-Summer, 2011 Vol. IV No.2
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The Pines Review
The Voice of The Outdoors Join America’s oldest organization for outdoor communicators. As a member of OWAA you can : Network with the best in outdoor communications and the outdoors industry. Hone your communication skills. Find opportunities to sell and promote your work. For information on joining OWAA visit: www.owaa.org. Phone: 406-728-7434 Or email: info@owaa.org
Letters Dear Editor, I first read your magazine online last year and I‘ve followed the issues on Issuu. I‘m interested in outdoor writing. I love to fish although I don‘t hunt. I‘ve sold several stories to the suburban weekly newspapers and one to a local magazine. They were not fishing stories but stories about hiking and picnicking. Can I turn my enjoyment of fishing into stories that I can sell and how do I get started? Ross P. Indianapolis, IN Dear Ross, Few people actually make a full living writing only about fishing Many part-time fishing writers also write in several other fields. Contact the outdoor writer organizations after researching them online. Join at least one and attend their annual conference. Write about your fishing and submit your story to one of those newspapers or local magazines. You may be pleasantly surprised Best, Glg Dear Editor, I wanted to thank you for your review of our book, Two Hearts in Tanzania that appeared in the Winter (Jan-April, 2011) edition of The Pines Review. Your review was one of the finest assessments any of our books have ever received. Some were more glowing, some more detailed, but in your reading of the book, you seem to understand that we did not set out to write bestsellers (though what writer does not hope for a wider readership), but more to attempt to capture something on paper worth preserving. I wanted readers to get to know my
parents the way I have known them and to see the places they have visited through the eyes of sportsmen who love hunting and fishing for a myriad of reasons—the least of which may be pulling the trigger. I have come to know my parents and myself better through this process. My young children will never know them the way I have, but through our books, they might better understand where they came from and that alone makes the stories worth writing. I also wanted to commend you on The Pines Review—what a superb literary journal—you have obviously put your heart into it. I believe the hunting and fishing community not only desires but needs this kind of periodical that reminds us why we love the outdoors and what makes it worthy of our dedication and time. Thank you for publishing it and best of luck. Aim True, David Cabela Cabela Books Mr. Cabela & Our Readers, We appreciate the kudos and sincerely look forward to reviewing your next book. In the meantime, we were especially delighted to learn that your writing extends far beyond the family memoir and into the area of the outdoor literature genre that we strive to promote-outdoor fiction and creative nonfiction. Many Review readers will be surprised and pleased to see David Cabela’s fine short story That Was Then in the short fiction pages of this issue (pg. 36-37). Readers can expect to see more of David’s work in future issues as he has agreed to join our stable of contributing authors. Best glg
Free Advertising for Organizations Outdoor Writer Organizations are eligible for free 1/3 page advertising in The Pines Review for up to three consecutive issues. Free advertising space is allocated on a first come-first served basis and is subject to publisher/editor approval. Free ad space is for ads up to 1/3 page, 2-5/8x9 in. and ad copy must be submitted via e-mail. If your organization would like to take advantage of this offer contact the editor by email at: editorpinesreview@mlgc.com Free Advertising may be placed for contests, conferences, membership drives. Free ads may not be political or for organization elections.
The Pines Review The Pines Review accepts letters to the editor on any subject relating to the art and literature of the outdoors and letters commenting on previously published letters, articles, essays, poems or art. All letters submitted become the property of The Pines Review and will not be returned. Letters may be
Letters submitted via email or USPS and the writer’s full name, city and state must be included. The publisher will withhold the name if requested. Letters exceeding 250 words in length may be subject to editing for length and clarity of content. Email: editorpinesreview@mlgc.com
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Spring-Summer, 2011 Vol. IV No.2 Page 5
Op-Ed
How Many Really, Truly, Care About It? By T. C. Flanigan ―Who cares?‖ That short phrase can be a serious question or a brusque dismissal of a point made by another. With regard to wildlife, caring occurs on various levels ranging from generally passive and appreciative to real hands-on care. This point was made quite clearly several years ago when I enjoyed the opportunity to debate the value of sport hunting with a professional antihunting zealot, on a live radio program known as US Radio Daily. The radio in my state wildlife conservation officer‘s official vehicle was always set on an AM news/talk station. Upon cranking the vehicle‘s engine early one fall morning to begin a day of patrol, the radio sprang to life with words that grabbed my ears and wouldn‘t let go; ―Our topic for today is Sport Hunting – Pro or Con.‖ Returning quickly to my home office, I dialed the 800 number for the call-in format talk show. The show‘s guest of the day was a young lady who headed one of the country‘s top animal rights organizations. Her opening remarks about the many wrongs of sport hunting equaled a slap in the face and a challenge to a duel. My call was immediately accepted and when the show‘s host learned of my wildlife-related profession he chortled, ―Oh this ought to be good.‖ Waiting to speak on-air provided me time to prepare a list of the many things that hunter‘s do to benefit wildlife. When the show host announced my call as coming from a wildlife professional in Pennsylvania the guest, let‘s call her Heidi, launched into a tirade about a well known annual live pigeon shoot that attracts throngs of protestors. Her tactic was typical of the anti-hunting segment of our society; change or pervert the subject. She was unsuccessful because pigeons are not considered wildlife in the state and as such are not regulated by game laws or hunted. Upon suggesting that we address the actual topic of the broadcast, Sport hunting – pro or con, the show‘s host agreed and gave me an opportunity to speak. I began with a question for Heidi: ―What does your organization actually do for wildlife?‖ Eager to promote her anti-hunting group, she quickly responded that they run ads and write magazine articles to promote the protection and care of wildlife. The main point of their public communications is highlighting the purported atrocities of hunting. When she breathlessly completed blowing her horn, I again asked: ―That‘s nice, but what do you actually do to benefit wildlife?‖ She made several attempts to illustrate their deep caring for wildlife, but failed to list any actions that actually benefit wildlife on the ground. The sum total of their organization‘s caring was, and is, a PR campaign to denigrate sport hunting in America.
The Pines Review With that point made abundantly clear, the door was thrown widely open to list the numerous real benefits to the welfare of wildlife that hunters make generously and Tim Flanigan is a respected writer and photograwithout pher who seized the opportunity to blunt an antireserve. hunter’s radio appearance. He believes the facts Proof of the about hunting easily overcome anti-hunter hunter‘s propaganda generosity is visible all around us, but the hunting community generally is quiet about their support of all wildlife, game and non-game. In fact, it is very rare to hear a hunter complain about the cost of hunting licenses and/or privilege stamps such as the wonderfully successful Federal Waterfowl Stamp, commonly referred to as the Duck Stamp. The purchase and possession of a Duck Stamp is mandated for waterfowl hunters by law nationwide, and the vast proceeds from the stamp‘s annual sale purchases protects and enhances the prairie pot-hole regions of Canada and midwestern states where many North American ducks nest. These dollars also fund ongoing research and population monitoring as well as enforcement of hunting regulations deemed necessary by this hunter-funded science. For many years, the wonderfully beautiful and absolutely delicious wood duck enjoyed total protection. That protection was enforced by federal and state wildlife officers; in reality, hunters paid to not hunt this coveted species. In the interim, many thousands of duck hunting enthusiasts built and erected wood duck nesting boxes at their personal expense. The purchase of migratory bird hunting permits also is mandatory for those hunters pursuing woodcock, snipe, doves and rails. Many states also require the purchase of state-specific stamps or permits to hunt migratory birds. All of these licenses produce revenue streams into which hunters pour buckets of money to keep the research ongoing. They do so because they love wildlife and care about its welfare. America‘s sportsmen and women can boast of a proud history of generously funding wildlife conservation practices as well as providing and enhancing millions of acres of wildlife habitat so that a myriad of wild critters can thrive – not just game animals. From mice and songbirds to deer, bear, and elk, our sportsman‘s dollars in license fees are a targeted tax on firearms and ammunition that makes my home state of Pennsylvania an ultra-
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friendly place for wildlife. This heavily populated eastern state supports one of the largest whitetail deer populations in North America, and an exceptionally large black bear population with the largest overall average size black bear in the entire nation. Pennsylvania‘s wild turkeys have been trapped and transferred all across the eastern half of America to restore turkeys in many states and the big birds thrive in tremendous abundance and in every one of Pennsylvania‘s counties including Philadelphia. Much of this fantastic wildlife management success is due to the existence of 1.5 million acres of wild lands, scattered throughout the state and known as State Game Lands. These lands are managed by law for the benefit of wildlife, and every acre was purchased by hunter‘s monies, yet these pristine public lands are open for everyone, from bird watchers to anti-hunters to enjoy. In Pennsylvania, hunters‘ monies also fund extensive wildlife habitat enhancement on private lands that are open to public hunting. One of the greatest examples of hunters, monies benefiting the non and anti-hunting public is Ohio‘s MaGee Marsh, located on Lake Erie‘s south shore just east of Toledo. Every May, thousands upon thousands of northward migrating warblers use this rich marsh as a bed and breakfast where they pause to refresh and refuel for the strenuous flight across the broad Great Lake and on to their nesting grounds in the distant north. These colorful birds are met by similar numbers of avid birdwatchers and photographers who marvel at this natural phenomenon while traversing the dense marsh on a user friendly boardwalk. This site, too, was purchased and is maintained by hunters‘ dollars, yet hunters demand no user fees, stamps, or licenses of the non-hunting public. That fact is subtly noted by a small sign posted beside the entrance to the marsh‘s modern visitors‘ center. The amount of state and federal hunter-generated dollars
from license fees and Pittman-Robertson tax on firearms and ammunition is staggering, yet this dynamic is similar to that innocuous little sign; few know about and the antis don‘t care. Perhaps such modesty by America‘s hunting community is why so few outdoor writers extol the vast virtues of hunter-funded wildlife management that benefits the entire public. The same is true of anglers‘ contributions to conservation and water quality management via license, permits, and the Dingle-Johnson tax on fishing equipment. This is a story begging to be told; the facts and figures are available with a phone call or a GoogleTM search. Back to the radio show debate Our intense (on-air) conversation continued uninterrupted for twenty minutes, until the show‘s host was forced to call a halt to fulfill commercial responsibilities. He did so with the exclamation: ―Wow! This has been one very informative program. We‘ve all learned a lot about wildlife and sport hunting today.‖ The most illustrative point of the entire conversation was the exceptional benefits of sport hunting to all manner of wildlife via hunter funding. Secondary was the revelation that anti-hunting organizations, such as the one that Heidi represented, spend their entire wealth of donations to support an emotional appeal, yet provide no actual benefit to the survival of wildlife. Their dollars support staff and advertising companies, not wildlife. How sad it is that Heidi had no answer to questions such as: How many acres of wildlife habitat has your organization purchased and set aside for wildlife? How many wildlife food plots, cover strips, brush piles, tree plantings, forest edge enhancement cuts, and more, have you provided for wildlife? How many wildlife nesting structures such as wood duck, bluebird, wren, kestrel, bat, and barn owl boxes have you built or purchased and placed for wildlife? Quite interestingly, Pennsylvania‘s Game Code mandates that $4.25 from each resident and nonresident license sold and a (Continued on page 9)
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Spring-Summer, 2011 Vol. IV No.2 Page 7
Who We Are . . .
Carolee Anita Boyles, Four Decades of Writing More than one scribe has penned a line to the effect of ―Be careful what you wish for, because you may receive it.‖ From the time I was very young I wished for an unconventional life, and I certainly have had one. It‘s been by turns exciting, stressful, tragic, intense and hilarious, but one thing it never has been is boring. I always knew I wanted to be a writer. Actually, I wanted to be Fiona Sunquist, who has traveled all over the world writing for magazines such as International Wildlife, Audubon and other high end conservation magazines. I went to Florida State University to get a degree in biology, intending to use that as a place to start following that path. At the time that made sense to me, but looking back from the distance of 40 years, it would be nice to go back and tell my younger self that that degree in biology wasn‘t going to do what I wanted it to do. All it really taught me to do was work in a lab or go on to graduate school; I would have been better off with a degree in journalism or one in conservation of natural resources. About the time I graduated from FSU, I got a phone call from someone in the Florida 4H Department at the University of Florida. I had been involved in 4-H throughout high school and into college, and knew a lot of state level faculty members, so this call wasn‘t totally out of the blue. Dr. Tom Greenawalt wanted me to come to Gainesville and work in the Florida 4-H Department writing a new set of youth materials in marine science. This was right after the movie Jaws came out, so there was a lot of interest in all things marine, and in fact the very first document I did was on sharks. I only spent 6 months in that job; it was a temporary position with no benefits. But the materials I wrote were well received, and the Florida 4-H Department eventually hired a fulltime regular faculty member to expand the program. However, success of the materials I wrote reawakened my desire to write, so I went back to school. Since the Florida 4-H Department was (and is) located at the University of Florida, and UF offers a Master of Forest Resources and Conservation, I applied for the program. All of this was partly philosophical. Yes, I wanted to be a writer, but I also had an agenda. At the time I applied to the master‘s program, I
was as anti-hunting as it gets. I was even a vegetarian because I hated going into the grocery store and buying packaged meat because when you buy meat that way it‘s just a ―thing‖ in a package. I had (and have) a problem with that. So, my agenda was to learn enough about the outdoors and wildlife to write about how bad hunting is. Once I started my master‘s program my philosophy came face to face with reality--the uncomfortable notion that hunting is not only a legitimate use of wildlife, in some cases it‘s far less wasteful than letting an overpopulation of large grazers starve attempting to thread themselves through the midwinter needle‘s eye. Not that I would ever hunt, I assured my friends, but I finally accepted that hunting is a part of conservation. A few months later a department staffer mentioned that he was going duck hunting. I talked to him for a while about it, halfdreading, half-hoping that he would invite me along. He didn‘t. But he did bring me some ducks. I plucked them in the kitchen, leaving little mounds of fluffy feathers in the corners while my cats went wild. For several years, that was as close as I got to hunting. I finished my degree and went back to work in the Florida 4-H Department, this time on a longer term grant, writing Integrated Pest Management materials. It wasn‘t as much fun as writing the marine science materials, but it was a job, and it was writing, and it taught me to meet deadlines and work with printers. Then in 1981 I got married and moved to the country. One of my first acts was to insist that my then-husband remove the remains of someone‘s old deer stand from a big oak tree on the back of our property. I might accept hunting as a part of conservation, but I certainly didn‘t want to be reminded of it each time I turned around. I started freelancing–a tough gig no matter how you do it–writing about agriculture. It was a logical move, since I already knew many Extension specialists from my time in 4-H, and I was in an area with a lot of agriculture. Meanwhile, my position on hunting underwent another quantum shift. During my second winter in the country, I heard a couple of my neighbors discussing hunting. ―You know,‖ I thought, ―hunting is a valid part of conservation. How can I call myself a (Continued on page 8)
Submit yourself! Submit five hundred to one thousand words and two or three photos about yourself. Who We Are is a regular feature in The Pines Review and is intended to give outdoor writers, photographers & artists an opportunity to tell the other members of the outdoor sports community about themselves. Veterans and newcomers are encouraged to submit articles. Send submission to: editorpinesreview@mlgc.com with ―Who We Are Submission‖ in the subject line. Length: 500-1000 words Include 2-4 photos. Include both ―office‖ and ―outdoor‖ shots. Payment is on publication.
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Who We Are conservationist if I‘ve never tried it? I‘m going to hate it, but I owe it to myself to have the experience.‖ I didn‘t get a deer that year, but I did the following year. The experience of taking an animal from the field to the table– knowing I literally could put meat on the table–changed my life. It is an incredibly powerful feeling to know that you can provide a meal no matter what it takes to get it. About that time I got a call from Rick Lavender. He had just been hired as the editor of a new publication, Florida Game & Fish magazine. Would I do a story on fishing? You bet! (And just as an aside, I am still writing for them today, under editor Jimmy Jacobs.) After I started writing about hunting and fishing for Florida Game & Fish, I really wanted to expand that part of my writing. However, you have to get out there and do it to know enough about it to write about it. For the next 12 years, family responsibilities and an uncooperative (now ex-) husband kept me from doing any traveling. Finally, when my son Chris was 18 months old, I had an opportunity to go mule deer hunting in Colorado. At the 1991 SHOT Show a friend of mine, Kitty Beuchert, asked Galen Geer, who ran the Soldier of Fortune magazine hunting camp, if he would do a hunting camp for us. Galen reluctantly agreed, so in early October, he picked up us and all our gear at the Colorado Springs airport. The next day, about 3 p.m., we left Canon City for the Rifle/
Carolee Anita Boyles and her husband Rick on their honeymoon.
Meeker area, and by dusk we were headed north from Salida. Elk and deer flowed down off the mountains and into the green fields. We rolled into camp about 4 AM, put up tents, and fell into our sleeping bags. The next day we got the camp set up, did some scouting, and got ready to hunt. Two German army officers who were in Colorado for combined maneuvers wanted to go hunting American style and they joined us for the hunt and camp. The officers were hilarious. They were both stiff and Prussian, but with a ribald sense of humor underneath. At the end of the 5 day season we all got our deer, and had a wonderful time doing it. At the end of the week Kitty and I proposed that we plan a women-only camp for the following year, and Galen agreed--with the caveat that we come up with enough women to fill it (which we did). In fact, we ran that camp for 4 years, using the SOF gear and had good women and good camps every year. I came back from each of those camps with a wealth of material to write about, and experiences that took me ever deeper into the world of hunting and fishing. As a result of that first hunting camp, another opportunity emerged. Galen had been to South Africa the previous spring to arrange a safari for Soldier of Fortune, and Rocco Gioia—the owner of the ranch where the SOF hunt was to take place—had expressed an interest in having a woman come and write about hunting in Africa. After our first hunting camp was over, Galen told me about Rocco‘s invitation. He hadn‘t even finished the sentence before I asked, ―When do we leave?‖ And so it was settled--the following spring I would accompany the Soldier of Fortune safari to South Africa. As it happened, my 40th birthday was right in the middle of that trip. Not a bad birthday present! At the conclusion of that trip I made arrangements to bring some women hunters back the next year, and in 1994 did so. I kept on traveling to southern Africa for the next three years--a total of four trips in all--and hunted and fished a lot of places in southern Africa. What ended those trips was becoming a single mother. To say that Chris's dad didn't like me leaving the farm and going hunting is putting it kindly, and in late 1997 we came to a parting of the ways over it. I always thought that was too bad; I would have loved for him to have come with me, and brought Chris, and to have made it a real family affair. But he would have none of it, and I was unwilling to be forced back into a box by his conventional thinking. When we divorced and Chris and I moved to Tampa, I didn't have anyone to stay with Chris, so my hunting days came to an end for a while. For whatever reason Chris never got the hunting "bug," so it wasn't something we did together, and I didn't want to force hunting on him if he didn't like it. As a result, I stopped writing so many Continued Next Page
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Page 9 I‘m learning about SEO optimization and I am writing for webhunting and fishing stories, and started writing more stories for sites based in Israel and New Zealand. Sometimes I‘m distressed retail magazines. I started with the shooting trades, and from by how little good writing is valued. But with the changes in the there started writing for the Christian trade. It wasn‘t long before marketplace, I‘m falling back on one of the concepts we disI had branched out into a wide variety of retail publications in cussed in an animal behavior class far too long ago: when condimore than a dozen different industries. tions change a species must adapt or die. And I refuse to be a Then when Chris turned 18, I started thinking about going dinosaur. I‘m not sure where this road is going to lead yet, but I West again. And about that time, a wonderful gentleman, Rick can‘t imagine a life that‘s any more fun than the one I‘ve led as a Marshall, entered my life. I had sworn, "Never again," but it just writer, or what on earth I could possibly to do make a living begoes to show you that you never should say ―never.‖ Rick and I sides write. made two trips to Wyoming to go hunting, and then last August The irony of it all is that at least some of the money seems to 28 we got married and used our third fall hunting trip as our hon- have moved away from hunting and fishing magazines and into eymoon. publications that are more about conservation and environmental At the same time all this was going on, the landscape of writ- issues. So here—as I begin the 4th decade of my career as a freeing was changing dramatically. At one time I wrote for as many lance writer—I finally may be taking on some of the conservation as two dozen different trade magazines a month; today I‘m down topics that I set out to write back in the early 1980s. It‘s a delito half a dozen or even fewer, depending on which month you cious irony. ask me. Email: carolee@caroleeboylesmediagroup.com So right now I‘m in the process of re-inventing what I write. (Continued from page 8)
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Op-Ed minimum of $2.00 from each antlerless deer license issued must be used for wildlife habitat improvement, development, maintenance, protection, and restoration conducive to increasing the natural propagation of game and non-game wildlife. Similar funding streams exist in most states and it is reasonable to believe that Heidi and her ilk know this but, they don‘t care. Hunters care. What she does know with absolutely certainty is her audience, and it is not hunters and fishermen. It is the non-hunting, non-fishing public whose ears and minds are fertile and generally unbiased, ideal ground for the seeds of misinformation. We hunters and anglers also must understand that reality, and we must reach the non-hunting audience with the truth about who truly cares for America‘s wildlife, because they care too. They just need to know that hunters and fishermen care enough to put their money where their mouth is. We must tell our story of funding America‘s rich wildlife conservation heritage to the world outside of our fraternities and we must demand that our wildlife and fisheries management agencies join the chorus. We have sung to the choir for much too long. America‘s hunters and fishermen don‘t limit their financial support of natural resource conservation to mandatory license fees and self imposed taxes, but provide additional support through membership in specialized wildlife organizations such as the Ruffed Grouse Society, the National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Trout Unlimited, Pheasants Forever and others. Our radio conversation ended with an admonition that the best thing that Heidi and her fellow anti-hunters can do to benefit wildlife is to purchase hunting and fishing licenses. They also can prove their care and further their concern for wildlife by purchasing guns and ammo and paying the wildlife habitat improvementtargeted, Pitman-Robertson Fund, (PR), taxes on such items. This fund is generated at the point of sale and distributed to the states in proportion to the number of hunting licenses sold in
the state annually. Pennsylvania usually is in the top three states in license sales, and as such, garners a major share of these taxes. During the fiscal year of 2008-2009, this wildlife restoration grant returned the largest amount ever to Pennsylvania: $12,236,088. That notable increase reflected the public‘s apprehension of a pervasive political uncertainty of the right to keep and bear arms. How very fitting that thinly veiled but real threats to our Constitutional Rights act to benefit wildlife through hunters. All across America outdoorsmen and women will notice signs, posted on certain public lands, noting that they were purchased with Pitman-Robertson Fund monies. Wildlife habitat management on these lands is also funded to some degree by PR Fund monies. In my local area, a 600 plus acre scrub oak improvement on a state game land is attracting wildlife to feast upon its now more accessible wealth of scrub oak mast. It‘s also attracting hunters. On the opening day of the recent deer season one of the best bucks ever taken in the county was bagged in the vicinity of the regenerated scrub oak thicket. One of this project‘s publicized key goals is improving habitat conditions for Golden-winged Warblers; not a single hunter has complained. Quite the contrary, we are proud to be a vitally important part of habitat improvement projects that are costly, but yield priceless returns in wildlife health and abundance. America‘s vast wildlife wealth, from salamanders and songbirds to rabbits, squirrels, deer, bear, and wild turkeys is encouraged, enhanced, and cared for by hunters and fishermen, generously and without complaint. So who really cares about wildlife? If you‘re a hunter, trapper, and/or fisherman, pat yourself on the back. You truly care and you prove it by generously funding wildlife management that benefits a myriad of game and non-game wildlife species that can be enjoyed by all Americans. Be proud of your wildlife stewardship and tell your non-hunting friends about it. Thank you, fellow hunters.
T.C. Flanigan
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High On the Wild
T Kathleen Clary Miller
Last year, I met a teenage black bear with one foot in its mouth, working on a pedicure—right smack dab in the middle of the dirt road
Spring-Summer, 2011 Vol. IV No.2
With Kathleen Clary Miller
he season has changed here in Western Montana. Everybody‘s heard that joke about waiting ten minutes if you don‘t like the weather. But we‘ve waited plenty of time for the snow to melt, the rain to slow its torrent, and the sun at last to shine. Rivers are flooding. I do feel for those whose homes are threatened, but selfishly, I love waking up to the rush of my very own creek that runs through our property, high up in the woods. All that extra water has engendered greenery upon greenery, which in turn welcomes even more wildlife right up to our back patio. I unintentionally spook a family of deer lounging on the grass as I slide open the door to engage in my daily constitutional. If walking can be considered a sport, I will earn a gold medal one of these days, since at fifty-nine I forge a 15minute mile for five miles, nearly every day. This particular morning, I grip a canister of bear repellent. It‘s that time of
year when you never know who or what you might bump into popping out of the woods. Last year, I met a teenage black bear with one foot in its mouth, working on a pedicure—right smack dab in the middle of the dirt road just as I‘d rounded the corner. Fortunately, since I was weaponless, we were equally shocked and appalled at our unexpected encounter. When I raised my arms straight into the air then waved them wildly and yelled, (I always forget, does one ―get big‖ with a bear or is that with a mountain lion?) Boo Boo bolted. This year I‘m prepared. With the spring and early summer‘s plentiful water supply, I imagine ursine food supply goes hand in hand. I worship while walking. I prefer practicing religion outdoors in the wild to holding up my arms in an airless church building on a spectacular sunny Sunday. Lord knows I whisper a prayer of thanksgiving for His glorious creation every time I head down Spotted Fawn Road and round the
bend to feel the soft breeze. Even if I‘ve been to a formal church service, this forested communion is my pastoral punctuation, the arboreal Amen. Lupines are in recordbreaking bloom. A riotous offshoot of all our rain is that a profusion of purple blossoms blankets the open spaces beneath protective Ponderosa pines. Their fragrance hits me, as pungent as when I pass through a store‘s cosmetic department—but not as nauseating. I reel, and actually sway, as I inhale nature‘s intoxicating aromatic blending of honey and roses, unrivaled by man‘s pathetic attempt at commercial perfumery. After I swoon and gather my wits again, I look down at the Grizzly Counter Assault spray in my hand and it occurs to me: Considering all of the occasions I‘ve toted this minitank of touted sure-fire defense, I‘ve never once tested it. I wonder: Were a bear to surprise us and we find ourselves in close proximity, would I deftly pull the tab on top and shoot like Wyatt Earp? What if I fumbled and squinted and ducked and screeched like a ten-year-old girl who has just seen a spider? I should practice to exude the proper confidence and ensure success, especially if bears are among those animals that take advantage of fear they can smell a mile away. Time for some role -playing, although the part of the bear will be played by thin air, thank God. Except for the small breeze I felt earlier, the air has been as still as a stone. I preContinued on next page
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tend a menacing bear has leapt from alongside the trail and I react like a sheriff ready for the ambush. As I draw, I swiftly slip the white safety latch from the trigger. So far sooo smooth. I swing up from the shin and aim at arm‘s length. I will my eyes to remain wide open, my posture to rise erect rather than hunched and visibly vulnerable. I depress the black lever ––pssssssssssssst. An astonishing burst of yellow (who expected yellow?) spews over a wide area and way the heck out there in front of me— easy, breezy! Except for the breezy part—just as a gust of wind rushes at my face through the trees. I am felled. I double over from agony to the eyeballs (Am I blind?). I claw at my neck to relieve seizure of the throat (Am I dumb? Don‘t answer that). It stings. It burns. I choke. I gag. I hawk and spit and sputter. I cover my eyelids and press while emitting a sound that may attract a cow elk. After I regain the capacity to inhale I take a seat on a nearby boulder until I can pry open my eyes and allow for the lachrymal flood that follows. Whew. Wow. This is good stuff. On the label is printed the directive: ―Not for use on humans.‖ My first husband, the serial adulterer, pops to mind, but he passed away a couple of years ago in the nick of time, before I knew about this handy dandy potion. I survive my counter counter-assault, but am left with one weensy question: what is the likelihood that an average day in the mountains of western Montana won‘t be breezy? Maybe I need to practice shooting from the hip with my back turned, while holding my breath. I could wear one of those cowboy triangular dust bandanas! For now, I am content to have recovered sufficiently to resume walking a straight line. As I trek along Whitetail Ridge, the ―cotton bugs,‖ as I call the puffs that emanate from the cottonwood trees, fly overhead and swirl around me. Crickets tell their never-ending story. The tickle of dirt-road dust in my nose signals summer. I see a cloud of it billowing up ahead as a vehicle approaches—it‘s the Henrys, in their rig. ―We have a black bear between us!‖ Jim leans over the shotgun seat and calls out as his wife, Sue, rapidly rolls down her window. They live behind us, back through the trees where we know they are but cannot see them for the forest. ―It‘s the big-
gest one I‘ve ever seen and he‘s not at all bothered by our dog!‖ Typically, black bears can be treed by a Chihuahua. The Henrys have one to prove it, along with a Rottweiler and a Pit Bull, but it‘s Molly the Chihuahua that invariably intimidates adult bears. Mary points to my trusty canister and turns to her husband to say something that I cannot hear over the truck‘s idling engine. He grins. ―This guy‘s so huge…maybe you‘d better just shoot yourself in the face with that so you don‘t see him coming at you,‖ he teases. Little does he know. ―Oh, I‘m very good at that,‖ I say. After they turn the corner, I do a 180 and walk backwards. With the canister at my side and nozzle-end face forest, one-handedly I flip the safety and feel for the trigger. I cock my wrist to ensure the spray heads high enough to strike a very tall bear. I know! I‘ll point backwards and press while simultaneously running forward! Brilliant! My teeth clench. I inhale like an opera singer and get ready to hold it like Houdini. I shut my eyes tighter than if I‘m forced to watch a scene from Saw. Ready, aim… well, next time. Better yet, I‘ll offer to take Molly when I walk. Visit Kathleen Clary Miller’s blog to read other stories: http:// kcmillersoutpost.blogspot.com/. Kathleen Clary Miller is the author of over 300 essays and stories that have appeared in such publications as Newsweek Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Hartford Courant, The Los Angeles Times, The Orange County Register, Orange Coast Magazine, Missoula Living Magazine, Flathead Living Magazine, The Johns Hopkins Memory Bulletin, and The Christian Science Monitor. For two years, she was a regular columnist for The Missoulian and now appears on their ―Missoula Mom‖ Blog. Her column ―High on the Wild‖ appears in the Pines Literary Journal and writes ―Peaks and Valleys‖ for Montana Woman Magazine. She has contributed to NP Radio‘s On Point.
The London Review of Books Bookshop Online ordering of books directly from our store. Visit our website for more information and to subscribe to The London Review of Books. Published 24 times per year with essays by leading writers. USA Subscription price: $42.00 annually. Web address is: http:www.lrb.co. Phone: 020 7269 9030 Dept. TPR Fax: 020 7269 9033 Write us:London Review Bookshop 14 Bury Place, London WC1A 2JL
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Photography’s World With Jeff Davis
G Jeff Davis
A Photograph Should Be a Paragraph It has no words, but a good photograph can communicate faster, and more effectively, than language.
Why do outdoor writers spend a great deal of time and effort in crafting their words so carefully, and then put minimal effort into their images? I once saw a writer carefully observe a situation, ask many questions, and take copious notes for hours during a hunting trip. He then went to the front of the cabin, shot two frames, and he was done with the images for his story in less than a minute.
ood photographs tell stories. Bad photographs are just like bad writing: boring, trite, incomplete, and a waste of space. Many images published in the outdoor press range somewhere between serviceable and truly awful, but are published anyway. This problem has two main reasons: many publications require images to be submitted with stories, and will not pay additionally for better images and many writers are illustrating their own adventures without knowing how to utilize one of the most effective communication tools available – the photograph. Most photographers have had people ask them about the cost of their equipment, as if that is the entire explanation of why the professional‘s photos are consistently good, and the non-professional‘s photos are consistently average. The truth is that highquality equipment is necessary for photographers to reach their potential, but if you provide any good photographer with a very basic camera, he or she will still produce better images than a nonprofessional with the same
gear. The corollary also is true: if you provide an amateur photographer with expensive gear the quality of his images will not magically increase. One reason this perception persists is that photography is something that everyone does, and many enthusiastic amateurs think that their
with my cheap knives and electric stovetop and oven. The difference in both cases is training, experience, and desire. So why do outdoor writers spend a great deal of time and effort in crafting their words so carefully, and then put minimal effort into their images? I once saw a writer carefully observe a
images are professional quality. So the difference must be the gear, right? Over the years I‘ve learned to cook a few dishes to the point that I think I‘m a pretty good cook, but yet I harbor no illusions that if you dropped me into a professional kitchen and supplied me with the highest quality ingredients that I‘d be able to produce meals that rival what a trained chef routinely produces. The corollary to this also holds true – drop a real chef into my home kitchen and he or she still would be able to turn out great meals
situation, ask many questions, and take copious notes for hours during a hunting trip. He then went to the front of the cabin, shot two frames, and he was done with the images for his story in less than a minute. In a journalistic sense, photographs are one of the most efficient communication tools that exist. A picture can indeed be worth a thousand words, if it is the right picture. For example, a young man shoots his first deer, and an outdoor writer photographs (Continued on page 13)
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the hunter posing stiffly with his trophy for his story. This image barely informs you of what he, and his dead deer, look like. The harsh noon sunlight and his baseball cap combine to cast a dark shadow on his face, and his eyes are all but invisible. The deer just looks dead; an object taken from the forest. However, a second image is taken by a photographer intent on providing information in the image. Waiting to shoot near sundown provides a warm, glowing, sidelight that captures the excitement in the hunter‘s eyes and face, and provides a twinkle in his now visible eyes. The deer is positioned to show the entire body, not just the head, but the head is closer, and therefore, more prominent. The photographer positions the buck‘s ear, damaged and irregular from many battles with other bucks, against a contrasting area on the hunter‘s coat so a viewer can see that this was an older, aggressive buck. The faces of the hunter and buck are on the left, about 1/3 of the way into the frame, taking advantage of the classic Rule of Thirds compositional technique, and places the eyes of the hunter at the top 1/3 – 1/3 intersection, and the buck‘s eyes on the bottom 1/3 – 1/3 intersection. The body of the buck is arranged to create a diagonal line, which leads the viewer‘s eye to the right side of the frame, where the hunting cabin sits on a hill in the background. The rifle the hunter used is placed in an area where it will not disappear into a chaotic background, and the photographer includes portions of the ground, sky, and the oak trees in the background. This image tells much of the story of the hunt, including the location, terrain, tools, weather, participants, and outcome. There is a beginning, middle, and end. There are details, some
subtle, and some obvious. A quick glance will provide all the information that is included in that first, poor, photograph, but if readers spend any time at all they will receive more information, and the photographer is controlling when they receive it. The photographer knows that when a human views a photograph they look at eyes first, and then will follow perceived lines around the image. In this case a viewer will look at the human eyes first, then the animal‘s eyes, and then follow the line the deer‘s body creates to the cabin in the background. The eyes will then return to the main subject and pick up the rifle, the oak leaves and tree, the deer‘s ear, and all the other details. This image reveals emotional information the reader can connect with from the excitement in the hunter‘s eyes and face, and all of this information is transferred to the reader in a fraction of the time it would take to read the 1,000 words that tell the same story. Photographs can be a noun – a passport image of what you look like. They can be a verb – a partially sharp image of a deer running through the woods. But good photographs can be like a complex sentence or a complete paragraph, constructed with nouns, verbs, adjectives, and modifiers, and imparting more information than the sum of their parts. Like writing, photography is a craft. Unlike writing, photography is constrained by the laws of physics. Writers who need to produce images to go with their stories should learn to communicate visually, and keep working to improve their images. Technique is much more important than equipment. To communicate effectively, knowing where to place the deer‘s ear is just as important as knowing how not to misplace that modifier.
The truth is that the future of hunting is in doubt. At Orion The Hunter’s Institute we’re working hard to insure there is a future for hunting. Orion provides leadership on ethical and philosophical issues to promote fair chase & responsible hunting. We provide a forum to facilitate innovation and ideas, take action to promote fair chase ethical hunting and address other hunting issues. We believe that with vigilance and advocacy the people’s wildlife will remain in the public trust. Orion provides print, multi-media, consultant, and speaker service to promote these ideals to the public. To be part of Orion The Hunter’s Institute contact us by email, phone or visit our website. Email: ericnuse@gmail.com Phone: 1-802-730-8111 Website: http://www.huntright.org/
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Video World With Andy Lightbody
G Andy Lightbody
Move over Mr. Spielberg, today everyone is a Producer, and many have thousands of followers!
Want to know something as mundane as to How to Clean a Trout? You only have to sift through 4,900,000 possible video links! On a personal note, can you imagine how many trout have given their ALL, so that others might learn?
Andy Lightbody on a successful pronghorn hunt.
o back a couple of decades and you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of outdoororiented TV/film producers that were out in the field and shooting programs related to the many facets of the great outdoors and outdoor recreation. They were the Warren Miller-types, the Wild Kingdom folks, and even the Hank Parker and Bill Dance ―fishing gurus.‖ Today, everyone with a ―step-up‖ camera that is better than what you get on your portable cell phone is out in the woods and the backcountry, covering every imaginable idea and facet of outdoor fun. Even 10 years ago, to be an outdoor TV/video show producer required a major investment and some damn deep pockets. Digital cameras such as the Canon XL-1 and other competitor models were expensive. To outfit yourself with those big and bulletproof cameras, tripods, wireless microphones and all the ancillary equipment could easily run $10-15 thousand and often more. Added costs, of course, also came in the ―expensive‖ editing software that was required to turn the ―raw and rough‖ video into a polished and finished production. Just 5 years ago, when HD (High Definition) began gaining in popularity for outdoor programs, the price tags still were in the neighborhood
of $6-10 grand for all the goodies. As an interesting aside, when the smaller/lighter cameras started becoming popular, many in the outdoor media were still of the ―professional opinion‖ that these lil‘ cameras were kind of cute, and we often asked ourselves, ―what are they gonna be when they grow up!?‖ Suddenly, today these ―home-movie‖ looking cameras are all the rage and are setting new industry standards for everyone. For the want of $1000 you can purchase BIG
Add the bonus that for just $200 more, instead of $3-4 thousand of a few years ago, you can purchase high-quality video-editing software packages for both PCs and Macs. This off-the-shelf software enables the user to add music, flyin still pictures, plus special effects, slates, and just about anything that used to be reserved for the dozens, if not hundreds of hours spent in ―post production‖ hidden in an expensive editing studio! Today, guess what? You just became a video producer with hundreds of outlets on the Internet to which you can post your final productions. Is the quality up to what you see on the popular outdoor TV channels? The answer is a resounding and wide open, ―YES, to HELL NO!‖ But is the information that you want and need, virtually at your fingertips and only a few clicks away? Definitely. Today‘s ―Internet Information Revolution‖ has more videos offering advice, directions, information/misinformation, how-to, do-it-yourself, self-help and guidance than can likely be watched and assimilated name-brand cameras that will in a human lifetime. Think let you shoot hundreds of digi- about this, if you want infortal stills in a quality format mational videos about how to that can be blown up for road- hunt deer, a Google search will side billboards, and still shoot give you approximately 4-6 hours of either SD 6,130,000 free video selections (Standard Definition) or HD to choose from. video on a SD (Secure Digital) Want to know something card. This allows the user to as mundane as to How to download it onto their comClean a Trout? You only have puter for viewing. to sift through 4,900,000 possi-
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ble video links! On a personal note, can you imagine how many trout have given their ALL, so that others might learn? Of course, if you are not a ―hook and bullet‖ outdoors person, and simply want to know and see videos about--- What is a Four-Wheel Drive Vehicle? Goggle will give you 72,200,000 choices to select from! So are folks actually watching these volumes of video selections? Again, it is a resounding YES! CNN reported that as more and more Americans divorce themselves from the traditional television set and opt for everything from computers to hand-held mobile devices, the information revolution information and videos continues to grow at an astounding rate. Three years ago fewer than 15 percent of those individuals polled said that they watched video productions online. Today,
that number has skyrocketed to more than 62 percent who are now saying they watch videos on their computer or on their personal/company phones, or other hand-held devices! With so many people opting for the internet as a way of producing and distributing outdoor related programs through You Tube, MyOutdoor TV.com, OutdoorHub.com and many other sites, it isn‘t surprising that any or even all of us who are involved in the outdoor TV/video production side of programs can literally see no end in sight. The bottom line is that the outdoor video revolution is over. It is now a question as to what it is going to eventually evolve into. On that account, let‘s just hope that the proverbial ―light at the end of the tunnel‖ is not a freight train screaming down the tracks at us!
Noted Food/Cooking Outdoor Writer Sylvia Bashline Dies An unfortunate truth is that because of the passage of time many younger members of the fishing/hunting media have little or no idea of the role played in their media by Sylvia and Jim Bashline. Had they personally known the couple, through OWAA or another organization, then they too would mourn the recent passing of Sylvia Bashline. Her death on September 20, 2011 closed the book on a couple who had been a towering duo of the outdoor media. Silvia Bashline was an outdoor food writer whose mark on the outdoor food/ cooking genre will be remembered long into the future because of her influence on the fishing/hunting writers and photographers of her generation as well as those that followed. On August 3, 1952, when she was 19 years old, she married L. James ―Jim‖ Bashline and shortly thereafter began her career in outdoor writing and photography. In 1976, when she was 43 years old, Sylvia became the food editor for Field & Stream magazine. By then she and her husband Jim were travelling throughout the Americas gathering material for their fishing/hunting writing. Jim had become a nationally known and highly respected fishing and hunting author and Sylvia had carved out her own niche in the outdoor cooking/food sub-genre of outdoor literature and had become as well known as Jim. Together, working both as a couple and independently, Jim and
Sylvia had become celebrities in the highly competitive outdoor media field, winning numerous awards for their work. Sylvia remained the food editor for Field & Stream for 24 years, until she became a food columnist for Outdoor Life in 1991, retiring from that position in 1996. During much of her professional career she also served in other positions, both volunteer and paid, and she was the Executive Director of Outdoor Writers Association of America from 1984 until she retired from that post in 1994. Sylvia and Jim Bashline were well loved throughout the outdoor media; they served in leadership roles within the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers, the Ruffed Grouse Society, and fly fishing organizations. Jim died on June 6, 1995 and while Sylvia continued her column with Outdoor Life for one more year it was clear that without her life-long friend, co-writer, companion, and husband she had begun to limit her activities. Sylvia‘s death on September 20, 2011 marked the end of a writing dynasty in the fishing/hunting genre. Sylvia and Jim Bashline are survived by two daughters, Tina Bashline-Brownell, of Wrightstown, PA, and Zoa B. Bashline-Kile, of Landisville . She is also survived by her brother, Ted Grabe, of McCormick, S.C.; four grandchildren, Meredith, Taylor, Alice and Leigh, and Sylvia‘s dog Finley. Memorial contributions may be made to any of the following charities: Sylvia and Jim Bashline Writers‘ Fund c/o OWAA, 615 Oak St. Suite 201, Missoula, MT 58901, or to Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art, P.O. Box 33, 176 Water Company road, Millersburg, PA 17061, or to Pennsylvania Fly fishing Museum Association, 1240 North Mountain Road, Harrisburg, PA 17112.
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Social Media
S Rachel Bunn
Social Media is the 21st. Century’s Wild West
If you can find something on the Internet, so can everyone else. So, before posting something questionable you should really, really think about whomever else could find it and what could happen to you, your family, or your business.
ocial media is to the 21st century what the Wild West was to the 19th century — a realm free from the laws and constraints of established society. Thanks to the First Amendment there are no laws regulating social media (although some workplaces have regulations); however, as social media becomes more and more integrated into the daily life of the average person, there are some typically accepted practices among social media users. Rule #1: It’s about you, but it’s about feedback too. Social media is all about self-promotion. However, it is also a careful balance between promoting yourself and your achievements without being obnoxious. The rise of social media has led to the rise in what is referred to by some media experts as Web 2.0. Web 2.0, in the simplest terms, refers to the interaction between the providers of information and the seekers of information on the Internet. The best attribute social media has in the professional sense is the interactivity among its users. Companies can test their ideas for products before wasting thousands of dollars and man-hours on something the public doesn‘t want. Writers too, can use the Internet to test ideas about article and book projects, getting feedback and brainstorming with others. Feedback (listening to and providing) is key to experiencing social media and all its benefits. Those who only use
With Rachel Bunn social media for selfpromotion are not going to see its full benefits. Rule #2: It is never OK to steal the work of others. Just as plagiarism is illegal in the print world, plagiarism is discouraged online. This seems to be the most basic rule of social media, but it is surprisingly lost on some users. Although much of what is on the Internet is freely acces-
not necessarily a bad thing. It helps promote feedback and (as I mentioned before) it can help with the brainstorming of ideas for products and projects. However, this open flow of dialogue also produces something else: a platform for emotional response. Online, people feel free to offer criticism to anything — whether it is constructive or rude. The desire to defend yourself or your work can easily draw you into an argument with commentators, and while social dialogue is encouraged on social media petty arguments are not because they are damaging to both parties. Remember, it is important to not be drawn into sible never post someone arguments online. Arguments else‘s work as your own, and discourage constructive diathere are copyright laws that logue and also discourage peocould be used against you! ple from viewing your work. A basic rule to follow: if It is also important for you you can find something on the to keep language civil, even if Internet, so can everyone else. something is irritating. InflamSo, before posting something matory language causes much questionable you should really, more harm to your social mereally think about whomever dia efforts than the momentary else could find it and what satisfaction gained by expresscould happen to you, your ing your irritation. family, or your business. A good policy to have is to wait a few hours before you Rule #3: Keep it polite. Everyone has an opinion, reply to an argumentative comand the Internet is a giant can- ment or post — you‘ll have vas on which to express these time to cool your emotions and opinions. Nothing is off limits: can either make a more coneverything and anything can structive post or chose not to and will be posted. post at all. This free interchange is (Continued on page 17)
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Social media is becoming an increasingly important professional tool, and though it is also used for personal reasons, any The best approach to have with social media is to approach it use in a professional setting should follow the same practices like any other media—if you wouldn‘t say something in a news used in business. story, you shouldn‘t say it online. One of the best things to do if you want to use social media for both personal and professional reasons is to create separate Rule #4: Treat rumors with care. The Internet is a giant rumor-mill, and there is no set way to accounts. The more professional the account, the better it is for approach dealing with rumors. Some rumors, such as when a new marketing yourself. product will be released, are generally considered acceptable to Social media is still new, and there are still no real rules for repeat. Others, such as ―news reports‖ not confirmed by a reliable the best approach to take for maximum advantage while avoiding news source, such as the Associated Press or CNN, are not. the Wild West turmoil. The best approach to take is to treat it as In general, it is best to avoid the repetition of rumors unless you would any other media, to take a professional approach, and they have been confirmed by a reliable news source. They ruin to learn from others also using it. credibility and brand you as unprofessional. Social Media (Continued
Briefly. . . Pacific Salmon Disease To Be Studied Juneau, Alaska—Trout Unlimited recently applauded the quick action taken by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D. Wash.), Lis Murkowski (R. Alaska), and Mark Begich (D. Alaska), addressing the outbreak of infectiouis salmon anemia, a virus that is potentially deadly to wild Pacific salmon. The senatorial action was prompted when the virus was found in two sockeye smolts off British Columbia, which was the first time that wild Pacific salmon have ever tested positive for the disease. The senators have introduced new legislation that directs government scientists to determine the scope and cause of the outbreak. Salmon farms in Chile and elsewhere along the western coastlines have been devastated by the infectious salmon anemia. ―The situation is extremely serious given the critical role salmon play in the economy, culture and way of life of so many Alaskans,‖ said Tim Bristol, director of Trout Unlimited Alaska Program. The present outbreak is in British Columbia. Alaska is cur-
rently not testing for the disease and state officials have said they may begin testing as more information becomes available. For more information contact Paula Dobbyn, Trout Unlimited 907-230-1513 or pdobbyn@tu.org.
Sunday Hunting Still an Issue in PA A report prepared for Pennsylvania‘s Legislative budget and Finance Committee reveals that Sunday hunting could generate $56.8 million in state and local taxes and create as many as 7,439 full-time and part-time jobs. The study is an update of a similar one done in 2005. This newest report was commissioned because the state is once again considering whether to continue or drop its prohibition on Sunday hunting. Currently, Pennsylvania is one of 11 states with such a ban. Southwick Associates, a Florida-based natural resources firm, was commissioned to do the study. According to Rob Southwick, president of Southwick Associates, their economic study indicated that for Pennsylvania the opening of Sunday hunting is easy money because the state need to do so little to enact it.
Are you tough enough for the backcountry?
If you want to help stop the loss of traditional hunting opportunities and quiet, quality habitat to motorized abuse, join today! Visit: www.backcountryhunters.org, or call 541-398-0091.
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Spring-Summer, 2011 Vol. IV No.2
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“If You Asked Me …” With Michelle Scheuermann
A Ideas for Starting a TV Show That Will Sell Sponsorships and Draw Viewers
I like what I'm seeing coming up through the ranks in new programming, we can still move the bar and stretch beyond "daddy's outdoor TV show." So don't be afraid to try something new. Michelle Scheuermann will be writing about the world of broadcasting for The Pines Review. She is the Sr. Director of Communications for Sportsman Channel. The words of her boss always ring in her head, "you are a jack of all trades, and master of none." She's still figuring out if that's a compliment. Michelle is currently based in St. Paul, MN Photo: Michelle Scheuermannon on a pheasant hunt.
re you one of the many television viewers who wants to start their own outdoor TV show? While sitting in your plush recliner and watching your favorite host bagging another trophy buck you think, "Hey - I can do that...and better!" Starting a TV show is like starting any business. It's hard. It kind of sucks in how hard it is. But let's say you are so passionate about this project that you are willing to do whatever it takes. Before you start calling on favors for small business loans, you need a kick-butt show idea. Following are my takes from a "birds-eye" view of our industry and the hundreds of viewer emails I've answered over the last seven years. 1. Think very carefully before starting another whitetail show. Yes, white-tailed deer is the number one search term for hunting on the ‗net and yes, they are the number one big game animal. But that doesn‘t mean the market isn't saturated with shows dedicated to them. If this is your bread and butter, you MUST vary the style, terrain, location etc. from what is already on TV. For example, do 'on your own' hunts a la Randy Newberg of On Your Own Adventures. 2. Bowhunting is still hot Sportsman Channel dedicates a whole night to bowhunting. If anything, we could use another traditional bowhunting show (like Fred Eichler) as we've had viewers write in asking for more tradi-
tional bowhunting shows. This is like a niche inside of a niche market, so that means your scope of sponsors might be limited. That's okay, it just means you need to be more creative seeking sponsor outlets. 3. And speaking of niches... Pigman is uber-popular and Les Johnson in Predator Quest has become the ―godfather‖ of predator hunting and we now have four shows on predator hunting. Many people can‘t get enough fly-fishing shows. I see a trend toward more niche programs focusing on one species or method alone. General hunting or general fishing is out. Find the best host in that genre for the job. Do one thing and do it
5. We need more upland bird shows and shows focused on shooting. Neither sub-genre has a lot of competition, which means there are untapped sponsors out there. The shooting show might be more female focused; after all, our research shows that we women like to watch shooting shows with our guys. The upland bird show would focus more on dog training, upbringing and maintenance as well as skills and tips on shooting. 6. Not a strictly competition shooting show. Save that for the Olympics. Unless viewers are vested in the results or the people in the competition, they aren‘t interested. That‘s why shows that allow for viewer voting in the competition do well. But if it is just based on skills and the competitors aren‘t ‗famous,‘ forget it. 7. More fishing Some people say it's like watching paint dry. But dedicated anglers can't get enough of fishing. Especially if it is a niche fishing show focused on well. fly or off-shore fishing. View4. “News” format show. ers want productions of catchGolf Channel started their ing big fish off exotic coasts. ―Morning Drive‖ a few In the end, you are trying months back and I like the to avoid "viewer fatigue." format. The guys banter— While I like what I'm seeing about.. well… golf… and coming up in new programhighlights from the weekend‘s ming, we need to move the bar tours, but then they have beyond "daddy's outdoor TV unique guests in studio and show." Don't be afraid to try they make fun of them. The something new. If someone news combined with laughs tells you can't do that, ask combined with wacky ―guy them why. They probably are talk‖ makes for a decent show. repeating what someone else We need a news format show. said. We need to turn society Think of "The Outdoor Wire" on its head in 2012. Do one on TV. thing and do it well.
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The Pen and The Page With Galen L. Geer English is a vexing language. Nuances of meaning that are hidden in many words and punctuation rules can become hair-splitting for the grammarian and the writer. It is also a beautiful language that allows the skilled writer to create wonderful images for the mind of the most casual reader and to do so with the fewest number of words. English provides writers a massive lexicon to draw from, whether they write pages of purple prose or missives bursting with technical jargon. The problem for every writer, whether the subject is fishing, hunting, technology or biology, is to understand the needs of the audience and select words accordingly. Sometimes, in knowing which words to use, writers discover a string of words of equal visual strength regardless of the subject in a phrase: . . . his metamorphous from clumsy freckle-faced boy in a boat to strong young man at the helm. . . . . . . her metamorphous from awkward freckle-faced girl in a boat to graceful young woman at the helm. . . . . . . its metamorphous from
nondescript pile of wood to a strong and graceful wooden boat. . . . Equally important to successful writing is knowing where to use the words. Outdoor literature, because it is descriptive-narrative dependent to be effective, is a genre that is language craft dependent. Many writers who contribute to main stream periodicals can focus their attention on the information content of their text, but outdoor writers must divide their attention between presenting information and creating images that drive the text. In any writing the successful writer must decide what element of the text is going to be more important, realizing that when he makes the decision to choose one over the other a critical component of the writing is to maintain clarity for the reader. This means not unexpectedly switching from the presentation of information to a descriptive paragraph and then returning to the informative without providing a warning of the changes. This writing problem is common in periodicals that blend several editorial intents into one publication. Some au-
thors force-write different topics into one article; attempting to include several facets of a periodical‘s stated subject area in a single paragraph. A common example is the fishing article in which the author tries to cram equipment technical information into a paragraph of the introspective self analysis of the experience that is set in the event‘s location. Heading off the confusion created by this sort of writing is difficult for even the most experienced editors. Writers can help the editor by putting place markers, or sub-heads, between the two types of information. A more seamless transition is created by linking the last paragraph of one information block with the first paragraph of the following block. The challenge of writing transitions is to ensure both paragraphs contain words enabling the reader to easily link one subject area to the next. That‘s a blessing of the English language, the thousands of words that make transition writing less a chore and more a pleasure, so the author‘s outdoor experience is shared with readers.
Fishing and Hunting writing is complex because outdoor writers must divide their attention between information and textual images.
Galen Geer is an experienced newspaper and magazine editor and has had more than two thousand articles published and has authored books in fiction and nonfiction on subjects as diverse as action/ adventure, optics, crossbows, and a collection of short stories about Americans in Africa. He has won numerous awards from national outdoor writers’ organizations for both his writing and photography.
A New Kind of Wildlife Photography By Holly A. Heyser Left: Mallard Tails Right: Drake Gadwall Breast Feathers
NorCal Cazadora: Hunting stories, conversations & Reviews: www.norcalcazadora.com Wild Waterfowl Feather Photography: heyserphoto.smugmug.com
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By Chas S. Clifton
Blogs are not newspapers. Nor are they magazines. Yet due to their readerships (and to the fact that their content is indexed on the Web), blogs offer a useful way for the outdoor-products industry to reach consumers. Bloggers themselves, however, are a different breed from print-media editors, and in too many cases, industry (and agency) publicists have not fully processed that difference. At one of my newspaper jobs, after some community group complained to the editor that we had not published their news release, he addressed the news staff with these words: ―A newspaper is not a public utility.‖ In other words, the paper was not obligated to cover any event or to run any news release. Bloggers are not obligated either. Blogs are intensely personal. They are shaped by their writers‘ quirks and passions—which may be why so many corporate and organizational blogs are boring or soon fade away—too many higher-ups are looking over the writer‘s shoulder. They also function as a sort of ―Greek chorus,‖ commenting on the news or, at times, starting a wave of interest that eventually hits the so-called mainstream media. And whatever a blogger writes and posts remains visible and searchable as long as Google or another search engine can catalog it. Liana Evans, author of Social Media Marketing (Que, 2010), writes, ―Blog posts have the potential to rank well in search engines because those posts might contain fresh content about a poignant subject. So if the post gains enough attention from other blogs and sites linking to it, it has great potential to live on in the search engine rankings; it won‘t just affect the audiences with a day or two of the post. . . . the propensity for blog posts to outrank your company‘s static [Web] pages is greater. Bloggers understand this and aren‘t afraid to wield this power.‖ For example, as I write this in January, numerous bloggers are covering the SHOT Show in Las Vegas, publicizing—and at times intensely criticizing—the new products on display there. And let‘s be frank, since these bloggers are not dependent on advertising revenue, they can write bluntly about a new revolver that they think is misconceived or a firearms maker that, in one popular gun-blogger‘s words, offers a ―unique combination of brilliant ideas and flawed execution.‖ How Not to Approach Bloggers Despite the increasing number of bloggers at the SHOT show, outdoor bloggers still are somewhat overlooked by the outdoor-products industry, I suspect. Instead, as Holly Heyser, author of the hunting blog NorCal Cazadora writes, ―Mostly I get approached by jacklegs who want to ‗exchange links‘ to build Google juice for their projects. The inquiries contain statements professing love for my blog, but they are often total crap, like the one I got today from some chick who wanted to share a ‗story‘ about new iPhone apps for job-hunting. Get it—hunting! Yeah. Right. Glad you read the blog, honey.‖ Probably ―some chick‖ just Googled ―blog + hunting‖ and then started cutting-and-pasting her message to the bloggers that her search turned up. Sometimes the pitch is more blatant, as in this example that I recently received: ―I work for an online provider of outdoor/hunting gear and equipment that is trying to bring more exposure to the crossbow section of their website. I recently stumbled onto your blog and was curious if there is a possibility of getting a text link on your site pointing back to my client's site. If you could help us out, we would be willing to send some cash to your PayPal account.‖
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I have nothing against crossbows, but why is this person (who did sign his name, or a name) concealing the identity of the ―online provider‖? On the Internet, home of deceptive Web sites, potty-mouth blog commenters (mostly on political blogs), and people hiding behind screen names, you need to be completely open and above-board to overcome my normal level of caution. Or take this enigmatic and ungrammatical pitch that I received in December 2010: ―Winner of an unprecedented 10th ASP World Title and surfing icon Kelly Slater will visit Fuel TV‘s daily variety show ‗The Daily Habit‘ on Thursday December 9 th at 9:30pm ET.‖ My blog‘s title is Southern Rockies Nature Blog. I write even less about surfing than I do about crossbows. After two more paragraphs of puffery, the email ends with, ―I hope you can find the space to post these links to these clips on your site before Thursday to help promote tune-in. If you need addition assets [sic], please feel free to contact me.‖ The next example was a little better, but there is still no comprehension of what the blog is about: ―Hi, this is Rubes, I'm working with VERSUS and their VERSUS Country programming and wanted to pass along shows that air on Friday nights and they deal with hunting that might be appealing to your readers. If you might have a chance to post about this on your site, it would be greatly appreciate [sic]. You'll see below a description of the VERSUS Country shows and also enclosed is an image about the shows.‖ (The link led to a show about hunting ―monster‖ whitetail bucks, not in the Rocky Mountain West, of course.) Both of these are examples of what outdoor writer and blogger Chad Love calls ―incessant flakspeak.‖ Love writes and blogs for Field & Stream, but I asked him for his thoughts in regard to his personal outdoor blog, The Mallard of Discontent. He replied, ―Wrong approach? Trying to be either an oily smooth glad-hander or a bullshit-spewing blowhard. I‘ve got a pretty good internal bullshit meter, and if the needle jumps over that line, I tend to give you the big ‗whatever, dude.‘ Be genuine, and if you believe in the product, that will show.‖ An English blogger with quite a few American readers, Sten of Suburban Bushwacker (subtitled ―From Fat Boy to Elk Hunter: A Suburban Dad‘s Journey‖) also lamented ―cut and paste‖ emails from public-relations practitioners: ―Most have been from people who obviously haven‘t read even the first page of my blog.‖ Approaches to Bloggers That Work The best blogs are personal, even more so than a personal column in a magazine or newspaper. Back when I wrote a weekly outdoor column for a newspaper, I threw in some personal experiences, but on other days took more of a news-feature approach. As a blogger, I am much less afraid to let my opinions show—and to link to other opinionated bloggers or to just go off on a tangent that is meaningful to me. Chad Love notes blogging‘s ―immediacy, its ability to react,‖ but rightly adds that blogging is a worse medium than print for in-depth narrative. Blogs, says Sten of Suburban Bushwacker, are often more credible than the mainstream media because ―people writing for fun just tell you what they think.‖ When I saw that Sten had a reviewed a rucksack from the Duluth Pack Company, a lengthy review with a dozen photographs, I wrote to Molly Solberg, Duluth‘s ―director of social media and business development.‖ Her duties include both writing the company blog and interacting with independent bloggers. Rather than just emailing news releases, Solberg said, ―I also comment on blogs that do a posting on us. If they are kind enough to take the time to mention us, I like to thank them. I also comment on blogs about products similar to ours. We are a 129-year-old company, but a lot of folks have never heard of us. Blogs are a way to let folks know about our hand-made, lifetime-guaranteed products. I do read and subscribe to various blogs introducing products.‖ As everyone who has deleted email spam knows, the Internet makes it easy to send out multiple messages quickly and cheaply. Yet to get results, publicists need to take time and make personal contact—if not face to face at an event like the SHOT show, through the comment boxes on a blog. Most outdoor bloggers are not making big money—they write because they have something to say, and they like to expand their circle of friends. If publicists will read and comment on a blog, getting a feel for the writer, before offering the news release or the product review, they will be more successful. Jessica Miller-Merrell, a ―social media trainer‖ and consultant, suggests that publicists reach out to ―the smaller blogging communities. Most industries have some sort of top 100 bloggers list and that is a place you can start. These are easy to Google and get started. I remember the first story line that was pitched to me. I was thrilled and of course I ran with the story and did my best to promote it in a lot of different ways.‖ As Field & Stream’s Chad Love says, ―The line [between blogs and traditional media] is blurring as blogging becomes a larger and (for lack of a better term) more legitimate news media outlet.‖ Blogs Mentioned in this Article Duluth Pack Company blog (Molly Solberg) blog.duluthpack.com Field Notes (Field & Stream) www.fieldandstream.com/taxonomy/term/20515 JMsquared (Jessica Miller-Merrell) jessicamillermerrell.com The Mallard of Discontent (Chad Love) mallardofdiscontent.blogspot.com NorCal Cazadora (Holly Heyser) norcalcazadora.blogspot.com Southern Rockies Nature Blog (Chas Clifton) natureblog.blogspot.com Suburban Bushwacker (Sten) suburbanbushwacker.blogspot.com
The Pines Review
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F
ood dominates our lives. We fight wars over its availability. Food defines culture by its preparation, taste, and style of consumption. Whole populations are destroyed by the lack of it, while other nations discard tons of food daily. Food can be art, or drab. It is in tubes, jars, cans, dried, candied, frozen, or boiled. We cannot survive without it; in excess, we cannot survive with it. Food is the universal human need. This universality is the common link between peoples of our world. Perhaps, however, in our rush to meet humanity‘s future, we have been reaching too quickly for the plastic and steel world Isaac Asimov created in his 1954 novel The Caves of Steel; and his characters detective Elijah Baley and the robot R. Daneel Oliver would feel at home in a McDonald‘s®, Wendy‘s® or Burger King® with their stainless steel and plastic designer interiors and mass processed food served in boxes with condiments pumped from gallon vats or in plastic tubes. Civilization seems to be in a headlong rush to erect greater and greater barriers between people and the source of their food. Each year more supermarkets eliminate their meat cutting/packaging departments and leave custom meat cutting to specialty shops.
Book Review
Shaw‘s book initially triggers a comparison to Euell Gibbons‘ (b. 1911 d. Review By: Galen L. Geer 1975) Stalking the Wild Asparagus Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast (1962). That book propelled Gibbons to ISBN 978-1-60529-320-2 national fame during the sixties back to By Hank Shaw nature movement, which isn‘t fair to st 1 Edition, 2010Harback, 80 B&W photos, illustrations, Indexed, Shaw because Gibbons frequently tee336 pages. Price: $25.95 tered on the edge of ―crackpot.‖ Shaw Rodale Inc., 733 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017 delivers a seriously worthwhile work Author’s Web page: www.honest-food.net that advocates cooks and readers learn more about the naturally growing food he narratives don‘t seem to belong in the book. They without resorting to lectures or gimshould be in a book on hunting upland game birds, or micks. fishing, or waterfowl. But, there is another section of the book Shaw‘s book is divided into three that is all about making wines from fruit and flowers. sections: Foraging from Coast to Coast, There‘s so much to enjoy, between the covers of Hank Fishing and Feasting From Streams to Shaw‘s wonderful cookbook, Hunt, Gather, Cook, that this is the the Sea, Hunting for Food and Fulfillonly cookbook I have read cover to cover. Shaw‘s use of lanment. The sections make it clear this is guage provides savory imagery beyond the methodical steps of not ―just another wild food book.‖ The the recipes. recipes, grouped into the sections, are based upon the wild foods that abound Hank Shaw photos by Holly Heyser & © by Holly Heyser throughout nature; except Shaw takes
T
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As supermarkets turn to packaged meat from industrial slaughterhouses the public‘s connection to the source of their food is being stretched ever more distant. Slowly, inexplicably, the growing industrial processing of fish, fowl, and vegetable also is decreasing food‘s political volatility. A few decades ago food was linked to the farm, a link last universally experienced among the Baby Boomers. The full mechanization of food production and processing during the Vietnam era effectively severed most links between consumers and the source of their food. Subsequent generations have increasingly vague concepts of food production, and the next generation is likely to have no concept of the source of their food, thus rendering the political football of food availability to the locker room. Traditionally politicians avoid the specter of a lack of food in First World countries because food poor populations threaten political stability. Getting food to the First World‘s poor, even in the United States, is a Herculean task because more than eleven percent of all American households experience some form of hungeri, a fact which accounts for the increasing popularity of programs such as ―Hunters Against Hunger.‖ Each year hunters donate hundreds of tons of venison providing essential meat protein to tens of thousands of families in need. But, except for the understanding that the meat is venison and not beef or pork, the disconnections between source and plate still exist. Michael Pollan, arguably America‘s most quoted food writer, is a staunch critic of industrialized food production. He has frequently been cited in both the liberal and conservative press because of his highly successful books, especially his 2006 book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which was named one of the five best nonfiction books of the year. In his May 20, 2010 essay for The New York Review of Books Pollan addressed key elements of the food problem in America when he wrote: It might sound odd to say this about something people deal with at least three times a day, but food in America has been more or less invisible, politically speaking, until very recently. . . . Americans have not had to think very hard about where their food comes from, or what it is doing to the planet, their bodies, and their society. Most people count this a blessing. Americans spend a smaller percentage of their income on food that any people in history --slightly less than 10 percent--and a smaller amount of their time preparing it: a mere thirty-one minutes a day on average, including clean-up. The supermarkets brim with produce summoned from every corner of the globe, a steady stream of novel food products (17,000 new ones each year) crowds the middle aisles, and in the freezer case you can find ―home meal replacements‖ in every conceivable ethnic stripe, demanding nothing more of the eater than opening the package and waiting for the microwave to chirp. Considered in the long sweep of human history, in which getting food dominated not just daily life but economic and political life as well, having to worry about food as little as we do, or did, seems almost a kind of dream. (Internet) (Continued on page 24)
the concept of the ―wild food‖ book to the level other authors have refused to go-the hunt. By including the hunt Shaw is delivering more on the promise of the natural diet. He is honest in a field overpopulated with gurus advocating natural diets without possessing the honesty of the hunt. Shaw begins his hunting section with the philosophical questions: ―Why Hunt?‖ His discussion is from a perspective different from most responses because his approach is as a chef who knows the forager‘s range of emotions while trying to provide healthy alternatives to industrialized food. The textual journey is constructed so the reader passes through the foraging, then fishing for clams, oysters and fish, then hunting, the logical conclusion. In the final step Shaw takes the reader through his evolution from non-hunter to hunter. The reader reluctant to take up hunting can follow the journey that Hank and his girlfriend Holly took, avoiding many of the
stumbling blocks. His honest explanation of hunting has a sense of the real that I circled for future reference: But hunting is more than pursuit of free-range meat. Hunting has given us a sense of self-sufficiency, a sense of honesty, and a clear-eye understanding of exactly where our meat comes from. No factory farms, no hormones, antibiotics, and, arguably, no cruelty. Every animal we kill had been living the life God intended until it met us that one fateful day. We practice our marksmanship all year long to do our best to make sure that, when the day comes, the animal dies quickly and cleanly. I always put myself in the animal‘s position: Would I want to go out like that? It‘s why those less-than-perfect shots, which are an unfortunate part of this pursuit, can gnaw at me for months afterward. (196) Risky Approach Shaw is taking a risk if one looks only at the potential sales base because the community of hunters is much smaller than the non-hunters. He might have realized more sales by avoiding hunting or at least limiting that section to bird hunting. Thankfully he didn‘t; a few paragraphs after the above he writes: ―It might surprise some of you to learn that I did not start hunting until I was 32 years old‖ (197). This personal honesty resonates with readers and transforms the book from another recipe collection and wild foods manual to resource that has a place in the (Continued on page 24)
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in the food you eat, the food you feed your family and friends. For the most part, that food does not come Pollan may not be intending to make a case for the role of fishing ―ready to eat.‖ It doesn‘t have a shiny label and wasn‘t and hunting (for the table), and gathering wild edibles, but he is, raised on a factory farm or subject to genetic modificabecause his argument is narrowing in on the separation between tion. It is, as author Michael Pollan puts it, food your ―eater‖ and source. Later in the same essay Pollan attacks some grandmother, or really your great-grandmother would of the institutional providers of foods by referring to Eric recognize. Our grandparents and great-grandparents Schlosser‘s 2001 book Fast Food Nation, writing: knew many of the skills in this book. It‘s time we re. . . the food journalism of the last decade has succeeded learned them. (x) in making clear and telling connections between the methShaw‘s book is not so much a ―new‖ cookbook as the author‘s ods of industrial food production, agricultural policy, food effort to step back from the problems Pollan discusses, trying to -borne illness, childhood obesity, the decline of the family reconnect with the source of food, and through that connection meal as an institution, and, notably, the decline of family reestablish a sense of personal food culture. income beginning in the 1970s. Nature Separation . . . falling wages made fast food both cheap to produce The joke or comment, depending on the audience, about toand a welcome, if not indispensible, option for pinched day‘s urban young is they believe a chicken or hamburger is and harried families. The picture of the food economy ―born‖ in the plastic wrap. This is no longer a joke but is the Schlosser painted resembles an upside-down version of subject of a very real and increasingly serious psychological the social compact sometimes referred to as ―Fordism‖: problem among the nation‘s youth. Richard Louv has defined this instead of paying workers well enough to allow them to as ―Nature-Deficit Disorder,‖ which is made more understandbuy things like cars, as Henry Ford proposed to do, comable in his book Last Child in the Woodsii. One of the critical panies like Wal-Mart and McDonalds‘s pay their workers issues that Louv explores is the relationship between the urbanso poorly that they can afford only [italics, Pollan‘s] the ized child and that child‘s food. To illustrate the gap, Louv turns cheap, low-quality food these companies sell, creating a to David Sobel, the co-director of the Center for Place-based kind of nonvirtuous circle driving down both wages and Education at the Antioch New England Graduate School. Sobel the quality of food. tells the story of a young man a century ago who would shoot at Pollan‘s arguments about the quality and sources of food are ech- seagulls along the shore, revealing at the end of the story that the oed up by Hank Shaw in his Hunt, Gather, Cook (see book reyoung man was John Muir. Louv explains why the story is so view accompanying this feature). Shaw writes: important: I want to help you become a more active participant (Continued on page 25) Food
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from the start. All of my favorite cookbooks are those with a lot of storytelling. . . .‖ Shaw then added, ―Without good stories I kitchen or family library. In his interview with The Pines Review can get through a new cookbook in a couple hours. It‘s the stories Shaw explains that he was reaching for something different when about the food that draw me in as a reader, so I wanted to replihe set out to write the book. ―I never had any intention of writing cate that in my book‖ a straight-up cookbook, so I knew I‘d do something different Shaw‘s stories do carry the book. An example is his answer to his question: ―Why Hunt?‖ He provides is very concise, well-written explanation of the steps involved in going from non-hunter to hunter, covering topics the non-hunter will encounter. He does a better job of explaining this complex information than most books written to introduce people to hunting. Shaw does follow the traditional introduction to hunting logic, because he begins with small game: rabbits, hares, and squirrels. Following the literary tradition he goes through the species, explains where each is found, traditional hunting tips, and equipment to be successful. Throughout the text he maintains a conversational first person narrative, sprinkling anecdotes among the recipes. Combining all of these elements leads the reader through all the steps of becoming a greater participant in the natural Hunt, Gather, Cook Reivew (Continued from page 23)
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He [Sobel] uses this example to illustrate just how much the interaction between children and nature has changed. Practitioners in the new fields of conservation psychology (focused on how people become environmentalists) and ecopsychology (the study of how ecology interacts with the human psyche) note that, as Americans become increasingly urbanized, their attitudes toward animals change in paradoxical ways. To urbanized people, the source of food and the reality of nature are becoming more abstract. At the same time, urban folks are more likely to feel protective toward animals--or to fear them. . . . the bad news is that children are so disconnected from nature that they either idealize it or associate it with fear--two sides of the same coin, since we tend to fear or romanticize what we don‘t know. Sobel, one the most important thinkers in the realm of education and nature, views ―ecophobia‖ as one of the sources of the problem. (pg. 133) Louv goes on to explain how Sobel has written extensively on ecophobia, defining it as the fear of ecological deterioration. He illustrates his definition with descriptions of school children being subjected to intensive videos and lectures on the plight of the rainforest and other environmental problems, without realizing (often not caring) that ―a rain-forest curriculum is developmentally appropriate in middle or high school, but not in the primary grades. Some educators . . . do agree with Sobel‘s basic premise that environmental education is out of balance‖ (pg. 135). The effects of Nature-Deficit Disorder are far-reaching and incredibly complex in contemporary society, especially in First world. Shaw explained to The Review his desire to make nature more available: ―I did want to convey in the book some sense of the power that being close to nature brings. Whenever I am in a room full of urban or suburban people who can‘t tell the difference between an oak and a maple, or a mallard and a pintail, I feel like I am the possessor of some ancient, secret knowledge. I want to make that knowledge less secret. I want readers to want to live in this world, not just on it.‖ The Recipes Finally, there are the recipes. No matter how well written a cookbook is, the final analysis is about the recipes, and that determines the book‘s success or failure. The recipes in this book work, in no small part because Hank Shaw is an experienced cook. His blog, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, has received two nominations for a James Beard Award, and did receive an IACP
World countries. To the men and women who are wrestling with the problems of recruitment of a new generation of anglers/ hunters the effects are especially important. Leaders of the hunting community have discovered that Sobel‘s assertion of an abstraction of source is very real and that it places hurdles in front of them when they try to recruit new participants, one of the biggest being that prospective new anglers/hunters don‘t ―need‖ to fish or hunt because the supermarket has ample food supplies (emergency notwithstanding) that are already processed and ready for consumption. For many non-participants the availability of vast amounts of supermarket food simply blunts any compelling reason to view fishing or hunting as activities focused on collecting food. Pro-hunting arguments based on nutritional values, absence of artificial growth hormones, absence of harmful chemicals, do resonate with some nonparticipants and stimulate interest but those arguments alone are not reversing the larger trend of shrinking numbers in the angling/hunting communities. Deeper in his essay Pollan writes on the political nature of food in which he cites cheap food‘s position as a ―pillar of the modern economy,‖ then he points out that it is not ―uncontested‖ and has led to the creation of a new social movement; ―the ‗food movement,‘ or perhaps I should say ‗movements,‘ since it is unified as yet by little more than the recognition that industrial food production is in need of reform because its social/environmental/ public health/animal welfare/gastronomic costs are too high‖ (Internet). Unfortunately, the movement has proven attractive to PETA and HSUS, the angling/hunting communities‘ age old adversaries. They have discovered they can forge ideological bonds on perceived common ground with food safety advocates (Continued on page 26)
Award (International Association of Culinary Professionals). Because I grew up on some of the natural foods that he writes about, such as lambs-quarters and duck breasts my confidence in his recipes is solid. When I read his recipe for ―Oil-Poached Bluegill Salad with Summer Veggies‖ I knew this book will be used in my house. His bluegill recipe is reprinted exactly as it appears in the book: Oil-Poached Bluegill Salad with Summer Veggies What makes this recipe special is the way you cook the fish. You poach it in olive oil, which adds a little fat to otherwise lean fish. It creates a luxurious texture for what are often humble fish. Don‘t worry about the long cooking time or the amount of oil in this: You can strain and reuse the oil, and the stove is off for most of the cooking. The quality of the ingredi-
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The message, however, rarely reaches the majority of nonparticipants, even non-participants joining the food movement whose mantra is small scale agriculture, a practice that includes and searching for healthy alternatives. Shaw‘s cookbook, and ―free range‖ animal products, which PETA and HSUS use as a others that adopt a background story-telling format, are filling platform for inserting their messages against hunting into groups what was a niche market, but when ―discovered‖ by members of advocating closer to nature food sources. the food movement, their popularity usually increases dramatiAny union between the animal rights groups and the food cally. The outdoor media, across the board, however, has not movement may be short-lived if the union puts stress on sustain- kept pace with either the food movements or the strength of niche able/low-impact agriculture. The American Agra-industry is not cookbooks even though there is a plethora of websites that prowilling to give ground on issues involving chemical additives, mote wild game as a healthy food. The Mayo Clinic‘s Nutrition whether applied as herbicides, pesticides, or injected for acceler- and Healthy Eating page of the Clinic‘s website, which provides ated growth or disease protection. The American people (and information on the healthy advantage of wild game, is an examothers) are showing signs of strain under a troubled food supply ple. ―In general, wild game is leaner than domesticated animals, system that is emphasizing the quantity of food available over because animals in the wild are typically more active. In comquality. Highly publicized food recalls capture national headparison to lean cuts of beef and pork, game meat has about onelines, but equally disturbing is that each year in the United States third fewer calories (game birds have about half the calories and alone there are thousands of food recalls, covering every group quite bit less saturated fat)‖ (Internet). Surprisingly, the CNN and type of food on store shelves. If, as Pollan maintains, dissat- Health website‘s author, Dr. Melina Jampolis, offers the same isfaction with corporate food production is leading to a reconnec- opinion on wild game, writing: ―In addition, fat from wild game tion with the source of food, then angling and hunting, activities contains a higher proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids. Their that lead to both a healthier lifestyle and healthier food, ideally nutrition statistics are very similar to a skinless chicken breast, should be a part of that movement. If it is not then the angling/ with most cuts having around 110 to 130 calories, 2 grams of fat hunting community must rethink their efforts to reach nonpartici- and 25 grams of protein for a 3 oz. serving‖ (Internet). Hundreds pants. of Internet sites offering every facet of caring for and cooking wild game can be found with a basic search for information, but The Message A search of available publications, whether by angling/ the wealth of information is reaching only a fraction of the audihunting advocacy groups, or by university extension services, ence needed by the angling/hunting community. produces a deluge of nutritional information on every type of The difficulty for many non-participants who are considering fish, fowl, and game found throughout North America, and all of becoming an angler, hunter or both, is persistent rumors about the it points to the value of wild food over supermarkets‘ stocks. (Continued on page 27) Food
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ents is key. There isn‘t much being done to them here, so you will taste the difference between old corn and fresh, between a supermarket tomato and one from your garden. What happens if you want to make this dish in cold weather? Replace the tomatoes with roasted and chunked red and golden beets; the corn with cannellini, borlotti, or cranberry beans; the fresh chili with dried; and the cilantro with parsley. It will be delicious. Serves 4 1 pound skinless fillets of bluegills, crappies, perch, porgies, walleyes, etc. Salt 2-3 cups olive oil Kernels from 2 ears of corn, or 1 cup frozen 1 chili pepper, finely chopped, anything from a jalapeño to habanero 3 scallions, chopped 2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped 2-3 tomatoes, seeded and chopped 3 tablespoons chopped parsley or cilantro Freshly ground black pepper Juice of 1 lemon Rinse off your fish and pat dry. Sprinkle salt all over them and set aside at room temperature for 30 minutes. In a heavy pot, add enough olive oil to submerge all the fish fillets. Heat over medium heat to 160 o F. Turn
off the heat. Slip the fish into the oil, then shake the pot to make sure the pieces do not stick to the bottom. Cover and set aside. The fish will cook slowly, as the oil retains heat well. Let the oil cool for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until you can place your hand on the outside of the pot and feel only slight warmth. Remove the fish carefully and set on a plate. Pour a little of the poaching oil into a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the corn, chili pepper, scallions, and garlic. Cook, stirring often, for 3 to 4 minutes. Meanwhile, put the tomatoes and parsley in a large bowl. Flake the fish with your fingers and add it to the bowl. Add the corn mixture to the bowl, stir gently to combine, and add a little more of the olive oil, if you‘d like. Grind some black pepper over it all, add the lemon juice, and serve. (pg. 122-123) There is completeness in the recipes so the cook is not stepping into a kitchen project that has the ingredients for failure. Shaw has reached beyond the expectation of what many believe is the traditional outdoor cookbook to establish a new level excellence for the outdoor cookbook genre. When you open the cover of Hunt, Gather, Cook you will experience nature as a gatherer/ angler/hunter and you‘ll be led into the surf for mussels, and the woods for deer. Every step of the adventure will be leading toward a new sensory experience at a table set by nature.
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difficulty of caring for game in the field or overcoming ―gamey‖ tastes in venison. The first source of information for many would be anglers/hunters is the outdoor cookbook, and for those who find it, Shaw‘s book is an ideal choice because it does resonate
with the newcomer. When many new participants begin their search for help they encounter a surprising two-fold problem, First, there is an information overload on the Internet, a simple search for cooking wild game produces an overwhelming number of hits and even when the search is refined to a specific type of wild game (e.g. deer venison roast) the number remains in the tens of thousands. Second, opting to find information in a traditional cookbook is going to produce another surprise--there are hundreds of cookbooks that specialize in the preparation and cooking of wild fish, fowl, and game. Jim Casada, a nationallyknown outdoor writer whose credits includes a variety of successful books, including cookbooks (with his wife, Ann), columns, articles and stories, has a mixed opinion on the state of today‘s outdoor cookbooks. Casada explained his feelings to The Review by email, writing: ―I think cookbooks as a genre (those focusing on the outdoors) have on the whole declined. Too many of them focus on celebrity status--think Nugent‘s Kill It and Grill It--or are compilations of ―favorite recipes‖ which are all over the globe in terms of merit, ease or difficulty of preparation, and the like‖ (Email). Casada‘s ―all over the globe‖ observation is a viable criticism of the outdoor cookbook genre--there isn‘t any standard against which to compare outdoor cookbooks. What was once as much art as practicality is sliding into mediocrity in the digital age of publishing. Authors are in a race to be noticed by the web browsing public and too often are publishing recipes without giv-
ing them the through and through testing of both kitchen and dining table. The non-participant trying to discover how to preserve the ―raved about delicacy of waterfowl or upland game bird‖ may encounter a ―duck‖ recipe that calls for more fruit than a holiday fruit cake. There is no explanation as to why the duck‘s flavors are drowned under (actual ingredient list from online recipe): orange juice, grated orange peel, pureed peaches, pureed pineapple, whipping cream, bacon, butter, garlic, tomato paste, chicken broth and honey. Even the actual species of waterfowl the recipe is meant for is a mystery. This sort of nonsense discourages the novice. Dr. Joseph Greenfield, in his book on quail hunting, succinctly addressed the problem when he wrote: There are countless recipes for preparing quail. Most involve smothering the taste of the birds in mixtures of wine, herbs, butter, garlic, sugar and spices. Often these produce reasonably good fare, but the results don‘t taste like quail. In fact, with enough of these ingredients, shoe leather can be turned into a gourmet dish. (161) Greenfield‘s complaints aside, an examination of recipes available online turns up another stumbling block to non-participants‘ acceptance--sterility of writing. The recipes are heavy on instruction with little background of the hunt, quarry, etc. in the writing. The following cooking instructions are taken directly from an Internet site (sans ingredient list): Disjoint pheasant and split breast in half. Lightly season with salt and pepper and place in heavy skillet or deep pot. Brown on all sides in butter and peanut oil. Remove meat from skillet. Stir and add wine and half and half. Blend and simmer another 15 minutes. Remove from heat; add sour cream and blend thoroughly. Add Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice and blend well. Place pheasant pieces and juices into sauce, return heat to low and simmer 1 hour. Serve pheasant pieces with adequate sauce over rice, noodles, or dumplings. (Internet) The site, Pursue The Outdoors, offers a wealth of accurate and timely information on nearly all aspects of angling/hunting activities. Unfortunately, recipes like the above instructions are at best an information dump. This recipe, however, was easily located with a single broad search and was in the top ten sites returned by the search engine. This recipe is easy to fol(Continued on page 28)
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low and like most recipes on the Pursue website it is a straight forward approach to handling wild game. The website‘s texts follow the emerging ―shorter is better‖ philosophy of digital media writing. Some of the pundits of outdoor media maintain that the ―shorter is better‖ writing philosophy should be applied to all outdoor writing because a narrow and short text is the secret to attracting non-participant support for angling and hunting. Ultimately, these critics claim, new participants will emerge from those supporters. If this is true the historical model of outdoor writing is no longer valid. The outdoor message, according to those pundits, resides in the result (the kill, the fish caught), not the event (inclusive of all aspects from planning the trip to the return home) which is the historical model of outdoor texts. Result writing eliminates all nonessentials, such as in the Pursue website‘s instructions. An example of traditional event writing is a 1978 recipe for ―Game Stuffed Pheasant and Grouse‖ by David Backus. In a heavy skillet brown hickory smoked bacon or side pork to get a good bath of hot fat. Fry very lightly 2 to 2 ½ cups of finely diced rabbit or squirrel or venison trimmings --or even a combination of all three if for some reason you have it so--for each bird; remove from heat, add 1 cup raw onion finely chopped, sage and laurel to taste but fairly liberally; pack the birds very tightly (meat stuffings don‘t expand like cereals but contract!), truss or sew up, and lard the exterior with thick sliced bacon. Roast tightly covered for a long time at low temperature until very tender, open pan, remove bacon and brown before serving. Try not to add any water to pan drippings but do baste occasionally during cooking. A bit of flour and ruby port in these concentrated drippings make a sweetly rich gravy. Here it is appropriate to add a good tart (that is home made!) current or red berry jelly to the gravy just before serving. Overlapping grouse/deer seasons make venison liver an excellent grouse stuffing possibility. Dice liver, but sauté in butter not bacon or pork; add diced onion as above, but much easier on the sage, no laurel, oregano and thyme, again not much. Stuff big, lightly hung ruffs, lard with butter, roast slowly, covered, use only pan juice
to base. Brown lightly as above before serving, use red burgundy rather than port in the gravy and no conserve or jelly. This is delightful but much more delicate than squirrel/rabbit stuffed pheasant. (39) Both recipes get the reader to the same point--the finished meal. Casada wants to see contemporary outdoor writers take cookbook writing to a higher level. ―I would like to see more of what we (Casada and his wife, Ann) did with The Remington Cookbook. Namely, suggestions for a full menu and wine pairings. Most of all, and this is strictly personal, I am fascinated when the folklore and history of food is interwoven into a cookbook. To me that makes it so much more appealing than just a litany of recipes‖ (Email). Cooking Columns The two or three decades following the mid-point of the twentieth century were the high-point decades for angling/hunting‘s print media and the big three magazines: Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, and Sports Afield included food columns and/or periodic cooking or food articles in their publishing schedule. Sports Afieldiii, following its acquisition by Ludo Wurfbain, dropped food from its publishing format. When I asked Wurfbain why no food features or column are in the magazine he frankly replied that he had no idea why the magazine didn‘t have a ―cooking section every now and then‖ (Email). Interestingly, each of the one-time ―big three‖ of the outdoor media has undergone a significant editorial change that has left them without the traditional cooking column that was once a regular feature. Field & Stream does have ―The Wild Chef‖ in the magazine‘s ―Sportsman‘s Notebook‖ section but where the preparation of wild game had been an inclusive part of the hunt, with references to the hunt, the savory wild flavors that evoked a hunting memory, the cooking section is now a recipe not unlike what one would expect from any church cookbook. A copy by copy examination of angling/hunting magazines available in a Barnes & Noble‘s periodical section produced an interesting result--the only publications still using the older model of a cooking column are niche publications. Kayak Angler, edited by Paul Lebowitz, is one such magazine. The magazine‘s ―Lip-Gripper‖ section, a multi-subject section, includes ―Fish Food‖ that follows the traditional angling magazine cooking column. The photoillustrated column does retain the conversational tone that food is part of the experience. Another traditional example of the cooking column is ―Bear (Continued on page 29)
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Fare,‖ authored by Susan Kane-Doyle for North American Bear Foundation magazine, which is published for that foundation‘s membership. Kane-Doyle‘s approach to her column is the same approach that was common in the pre-digital age of outdoor magazines--a personal comment or anecdote followed by an explanation of why the recipe first caught the author‘s attention, then some kind of comment, whether it is ingredients that can be substituted or similarity to other recipes. Finally, in a traditional format, the recipe completes the column. The column, including photography, fills one page in North American Bear magazine. Another organizational magazine that follows a similar format is Whitetails Unlimited magazine, again for members of the organization. This column, written by Nancy Brabbit-Davis, titled ―U Killed it, U Cook it!‖ spans two pages and utilizes a number of photographs and uses a modular layout. One notable difference between Whitetails Unlimited and other niche publications is the author‘s use of her voice throughout the text. The outdoor cooking column is only one facet of the complex use of food in outdoor literature, whether in angling/hunting literature, or broader outdoor literature. The outdoor cooking column historically served as a cornerstone that validated the larger complex of angling/hunting literature, whether within that single issue of a publication or the complete body of angling/hunting texts. Early History of Food in Literature The use of food when writing about either fishing or hunting is as old as history itself; instructions have been found in the surviving cuneiforms of the early Samarians, in the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Food, whether the source is wild or domestic, has defined cultures throughout history. The Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484 BCE – c. 425 BCE), who generally is recognized as the Western world‘s first historian, wrote an important series of works that provide detailed information about Greek society and other civilizations and he frequently used food to illustrate other cultures for his readersiv. His descriptions of the eating habits of the Egyptians provide archeologists, historians and Egyptologists an important window into life 2500 years ago: ...and as to their diet, it is as follows:--they eat bread, making loaves of maize, which they call kyllestis, and they use habitually a wine made out of barley, for vines they have not in their land. Of their fish some they dry in the sun and eat them without cooking, others they eat
cured in brine. Of birds they eat quails and ducks and small bird without cooking, after first curing them; and everything else which they have belonging to the class of birds or fishes, except such as have been set apart by them as sacred, they eat roasted or boiled. (40-41) The writing pattern he established in his ―Accounts‖ was followed by the two major Greek historians who followed him. Xenophon, who figures prominently in the history of hunting literature, is the first Greek writer whose entire works survived intact and from them we find ample evidence of the role of food in literature. In The Anabasis Book I, his account of the attempted coup by Cyrus, he wrote of Cyrus using food and wine gifts to his friends as examples of sharing the bounty of a good life: 25. Frequently, when he had wine served him of a peculiarly fine flavor, he would send half-emptied flagons of it to some of his friends with a message to this effect: ―Cyrus has not for some time met with pleasanter wine than this; and he has therefore sent some of it to you, and begs you will drink it today, with those whom you love best.‖ 26. He would often, too, send geese partly eaten, and the halves of loaves, and other such things, desiring the bearer to say, in presenting them, ―Cyrus has been delighted with these, and therefore wishes you also to taste of them.‖ (386) Homer also used food in his Iliad to convey the importance of setting and events. In Book IX when Agamemnon reluctantly agrees to return Briseis to Achilles (whom he had stolen from Achilles) to entice him to return to his army during the Trojan War, feasts are the settings for Agamemnon‘s capitulation to Achilles. Throughout the Iliad, food, both simple meals and feasts, are keyed by Homer to the passages of the poem in which he is emphasizing the events that will ultimately lead to the poem‘s epic battles. Today‘s angling/hunting literature‘s use of food has its roots in this Greek and Latin literature, an historical progression that is easily traced to today‘s outdoor literature. The evolution is apparent in the oldest English language book on hunting, The Master of Gamev. (c. 1420) by Edward of Norwich. In Chapter XXXIII he wrote a detailed description of the feast that preceded the hunt: How the Assembly that Men Call gathering Should Be Made Both Winter and Summer After The Guise of Beyond The Sea (Continued on page 30)
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caught by Piscator is taken to a nearby pub house where he instructs the hostess what to do with the fish: The assembly "that men call gather" should be made . . . Come, Hostess, how do you do? Will you first give in this manner: the night before that the Lord the Master us a cup of your best drink, and then dress this chub as of the Game will go to the wood, he must cause to come you dressed my last, when I and my friend were here before him all the hunters and the helps, the grooms and about eight or ten days ago? But you must do me one the pages, and shall assign to each one of them their courtesy, it must be done instantly. quests in a certain place, and separate the one from the Hostess. I will do it, Mr. Piscator, and with all the speed I other, and the one should not come into the quest of the can. other, nor do him annoyance or hinder him. And every [The prepared fish is served.] one should quest in his best wise, in the manner that I Pisc. Well, sir, how do you like it? have said; and should assign them the place where the Ven. Trust me, ‗tis as good meat as I ever tasted: now let gathering shall be made, at most ease for them all, and the me thank you for it, drink to you. . . . (67) nearest to their quests. And the place where the gathering From this point on Venator becomes Piscator‘s student to learn shall be made should be in a fair mead well green, where the art of angling and food appears several more times in the text, fair trees grow all about, the one far from the other, and a usually as important place markers signifying changes in emphaclear well or beside some running brook. And it is called sis or instruction; this is a literary development that continued to gathering because all the men and the hounds for hunting evolve over the next two centuries. By the mid-nineteenth cengather thither, for all they that go to the quest should all tury when the Russian author, Ivan Turgenev, had hit his stride come again in a certain place that I have spoken of. And and compiled his masterpiece, A Sportsman’s Notebook, food and also they that come from home, and all the officers that the act of dining had evolved into important features throughout come from home should bring thither all that they need, literature. Whether used sparingly as Turgenev does in his stoeveryone in his office, well and plenteously, and should ries, relying on it to quickly convey a poignant scene within the lay the towels and board clothes all about upon the green text, or extravagantly, as Christina Rossetti does in her sexuality grass, and set divers meats upon a great platter (meaning laced poem Goblin Market. Rossetti‘s poem, regarded as a poetic "in great plenty") after the lord's power. And some masterpiece of the period, uses food to define the villains should eat sitting, and some standing, and some leaning (goblins) and the heroine: upon their elbows, some should drink, some laugh, some Morning and evening jangle, some joke and some play--in short do all manner Maids heard the goblins cry: of disports of gladness, and when men be set at tables ere "Come buy our orchard fruits, they eat then should the lymerers (tracking house on a Come buy, come buy: leash) and their grooms with their lymerers the which Apples and quinces, have been questing, and every one shall say his report to Lemons and oranges, the lord of what they have done and found and lay the Plump unpecked cherries, fumes before the lord that hath any found, and then the Melons and raspberries, Lord or the Master of the hunting by the counsel of them Bloom-down-cheeked peaches, all shall choose which will move and run to and which Swart-headed mulberries, shall be the greatest hart and the highest deer. And when Wild free-born cranberries, they shall have eaten, the lord shall devise where the reCrab-apples, dewberries, lays shall go and other things which I shall say more Pine-apples, blackberries, plainly, and then shall every man speed him to his place, Apricots, strawberries;-and all haste them to go to the finding. All ripe together Edward did not limit his description of the handling of food to In summer weather,-this passage; later, when he describes the distribution of the meat Morns that pass by, from a successful hunt he provides detailed instructions for the Fair eves that fly; fruit of the hunt, from the dogs to handlers to the Lord of the Come buy, come buy: Manor or the King. Our grapes fresh from the vine, Pomegranates full and fine, The Model Examine any literary genre following the close of the CruDates and sharp bullaces, sades and food is part of the text, whether functioning as the priRare pears and greengages, mary subject, or being manipulated by the author to reinforce the Damsons and bilberries, text‘s premise. Izaak Walton‘s classic fishing text The Compleat Taste them and try: Angler, is one in which the author makes numerous uses of food. Currants and gooseberries, The chapter, ―Third Day‖ is rich with Walton‘s use of the eating Bright-fire-like barberries, quality of a fish to demonstrate one advantage of angling to the Figs to fill your mouth, character Venator (representing the hunter). In the short dialogue Citrons from the South, between Piscator (the angler and narrator) and Venator, a chub (Continued on page 31) Food
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defined it, stret tracks for the table. And a mighty differSweet to tongue and sound to eye; ent table it was from that to which we had sat down on the Come buy, come buy." (1-31) preceding morning. Timothy--unscared by the wonder of (1479) the mountain nymphs, who deemed a being of the mascuTurgenev approached food‘s role in his stories in a role that line gender as an intruder, scare to be tolerated, on the is a different formant, but the importance of his use of food in his mysteries of the culinary art--had exerted his whole skill, writing cannot be overstated. One example is in Prince Hamlet of and brought forth all the contents of his canteen! We had Shchigrovo in which Turgenev uses every element of food and a superb stead of the fattest venison, graced by cranberries dining as satire to convey the excess of privilege: stewed with cayenne pepper, and sliced lemons. A pot of Need I tell the reader how the great Personage was excellent black tea, almost as strong as the cognac which given the place of honour between the Excellency and the flanked it; a disk of beautiful fried perch, with cream as Marshal of Nobility of the Province, a man with a frank, this as porridge, our own load sugar, and Teachman‘s new dignified expression, completely in keeping with his laid eggs, hot wheaten cakes, and hissing rashers of right starched shirt-front, immense waistcoat, and round snufftender pork, furnished a breakfast forth that might have box full of French snuff; how the host fussed, ran about, vied successfully with those which called forth, in the worried, pressed his guests to fall to, smiled at the great Hebrides, such raptures from the lexicographer. (83) Personage's back as he passed, and, standing in a corner The meal is a turning point for the story and the characters like a schoolboy, hurriedly gulped down a plate of soup or move on to a much anticipated grouse hunt that is the final hunt a morsel of beef; how the butler handed round a fish a and day in a story that spans five days of hunting. yard long with a bouquet in its mouth; how liveried, For the next 100 years outdoor writers continued to evolve server-looking footmen gloomily and improve their craft and the role of plied each gentleman, now with food in the story evolved with other Malaga, now with dry Madeira; how aspects of the literary craft. Henry almost all of the gentlemen, espeVan Dyke, essayist, educator, clergycially those of a certain age, as if in man and diplomat, was a popular turnreluctant obedience to a sense of of-the-century writer. In his 1899 book duty, drank down glass after glass, of fishing essays one of the essays, and how at last the champagne bot―The Open Fire,‖ includes several tles popped and the toasts began paragraphs on the cooking fire: coming out: this is probably all too You cannot always rely on your familiar to the reader. (282-283) guides for a tasteful preparation of While European authors were experifood. Many of them are ignorant of menting with various literary forms and the difference between frying and the role of food, the United States‘ antebroiling, and their notion of boiling a bellum period was the setting for Henry potato or a fish is to reduce it to a pulp. Herbert‘s (aka Frank Forester) literary ... career, which reached its zenith in the Old Edouard, the Montaignais period roughly corresponding to Turgenev‘s, when he was creatIndian who cooked for my friends H. E. G. and C. S. D. last ing his European stories. Herbert‘s work, however, would usher summer on the Ste. Marguérite en bas [Italics, Van Dyke‘s], into popularity the modern magazine angling/hunting article, was such a man. But Edouard could not read, and the only bringing fishing and hunting adventures into the American home. way he could tell the nature of the canned provisions was by Herbert, like his contemporaries, used food and eating in a varithe pictures on the cans. If the picture was strange to him, ety of roles but the American model, especially in the emerging there was no guessing what he would do with the contents outdoor genre, was frequently more explicit. When Herbert pubof the can. He was capable of roasting strawberries, and lished Warwick Woodlandsvi, a compilation of his stories that serving green peas cold for dessert. One day a can of mulliwere first published between May and November 1839 in The gatawny soup and a can of apricots were handed out to him American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, he demonstrated simultaneously and without explanations. Edouard solved a keen understanding of how food can be used to set a story‘s the problem by opening both cans and cooking them totone, define a character, or define an entire group of people. gether. We had a new soup that day, mulligatawny aux apInto what violent asseveration our host would have ricots. It was not as bad as it sounds. plunged at this declaration, remains, like the tale of CamIt tasted somewhat like chutney. buscan bold, veiled in deep mystery: for as he started The real reason why food that is cooked over an open from the log on which he had been reposing while in the fire tastes so good to us is because we are really hungry act of unsplicing his bamboo fishing pole, the elder of the when we get it. . . . (216) Teachmans thrust his head out of the cabin nearest to us-Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, writers in ―Come, boys, to breakfast!‖--and at the first word of his all the genres continued to polish their use of food and every aswelcome voice, Tom made, as he would have himself (Continued on page 32) (Continued from page 30)
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Food (Continued from page 31)
pect of the rituals that surround it. In August, 1924 a young Ernest Hemingway was putting the finishing touches on what is one of the most important angling stories ever written: ―Big TwoHearted River: Part I & II.‖ Whether Hemingway took a cue from Van Dyke‘s description of the cook fire, or from some other source he did write an insightful and memorable passage on hunger that provides the reader a glance into the deep pool of emotions tearing at Nick Adams on his return from war. After setting up his camp Nick prepares his meal: Nick was hungry. He did not believe he had ever been hungrier. He opened and emptied a can of pork and beans and a can of spaghetti into the frying pan. ―I‘ve got a right to eat this kind of stuff, if I‘m willing to carry it,‖ Nick said. His voice sounded strange in the darkening woods. He did not speak again. He started a fire with some chunks of pine he got with the ax from a stump. Over the fire he stuck a wire grill, pushing the four legs down into the ground with his book. Nick put the frying pan on the grill over the flames. He was hungrier. The beans and spaghetti warmed. Nick stirred them and mixed them together. They began to bubble, making little bubbles that rose with difficulty to the surface. There was a good smell. Nick got out a bottle of tomato catchup and cut four slices of bread. The little bubbles were coming faster now. Nick sat down beside the fire and lifted the frying pan off. He poured about half the contents out into the tin plate. It spread slowly on the plate. Nick knew it was too hot. He poured on some tomato catchup. He knew the beans and spaghetti were still too hot. He looked at the fire, then at the tent, he was not going to spoil it all by burning his tongue. For years he had never enjoyed fried bananas because he had never been able to wait for them to cool. His tongue was very sensitive. He was very hungry. Across the river in the swamp, in the almost dark, he saw mist rising. He looked at the tent once more. All right. He took a full spoonful from the plate. ―Chrise,‖ Nick said, ―Geezus Chrise,‖ he said happily. In the next paragraph Hemingway provides an important glimpse into Nick‘s earlier, somewhat murky experiences--an example of Hemingway‘s ―iceberg theory.‖ He [Nick] ate the whole plateful before he remembered the bread. Nick finished the second plateful with the bread, mopping the plate shiny. He had not eaten since a cup of coffee and a ham sandwich at the station restaurant at St. Ignace [Michigan]. It had been a very fine experience. He had been that hungry before, but had not been able to satisfy it. He could have made camp hours before if he had wanted to. There were plenty of good places to camp on the river. But this was good. (168) Whether it is the river, the shadows on it, or the trout within it, Hemingway is constantly moving Nick Adams toward a confrontation with nature and Nick‘s still obscured past. Hunger and the
dual acts of cooking his food and then eating it are, in Hemingway‘s text, psychological tools that provide the reader with an understanding of the character. What reader has not been hungry and found great pleasure in the simplest of meals? In the world of outdoor literature most readers have, at one time or another, experienced the pleasure of cooking their own food to satisfy their hunger while camping on a fishing or hunting trip. On Hemingway‘s heels came another writer, Robert Ruark, whose use of food in his text has helped to shape much of today‘s outdoor literature. Jim Casada is also one of the country‘s leading scholars on Ruark‘s work and in his email to The Review he wrote: ―I think food is a wonderful standard by which to judge an outdoor writer. For example, if anyone can read Robert Ruark‘s description of his visit to Cajun country in Louisiana with the Old Man and not find their salivary glands in overdrive, I suspect they‘ve got serious problems‖ (Email). Casada‘s assessment of readers is probably close to what authors hope to elicit from their readers when they incorporate food into the text. The use of food in literature began with the earliest of texts, in the English language Beowulf’s author set the textual stage for the next scene by using a feast, often only implied, whether it is Grendel‘s attacks or Beowulf‘s victory over Grendel. There are similar tales in every language; in all of them the role of food and feast is a key tool for the text. Little has changed in the centuries. The closing decades of the twentieth century, however, were decades of struggle for outdoor literature. The use of food in texts continued and a few authors found new ways to incorporate food into their texts, one of the best known is Peter Capstick (19401996). His graphic descriptions of Africa‘s apex predators feeding on both humans and animals often are built on the foundation of a meal. Off to our left, the hyenas had pulled down an impala or some other luckless beast whose time had come, and they were having a hell of a wonderful time processing its essential salts and protein into whatever makes the grass grow. It was cold--very cold--and we were all wearing down jackets. (One of the basic and uniquely crazy enjoyments of the African campfire lies in the fact that your shins roast like well-based spare rips while your back freezes.) [Parenthesis, Capstick‘s] The preceding paragraph (below) describes the meal that Capstick‘s hunting party had just enjoyed before the hyenas episode: We finished our drinks reasonably close to eight o‘clock, and were then summoned to dinner, where we attacked a succulent proliferation of roast chicken, preceded by a hearty buffalo tail soup and trailed by a gourmet‘s delight of vegetables (obtains and transplanted at no slight trouble) [Parenthesis, Capstick‘s], and culminating-in the literal middle of the bush, goddamn--in a feast of genuine ice cream. . . . (14-15) Capstick‘s weaving of what is occurring in the African bush with the pleasantries of the bush camp is a maneuver common throughout his books. He was so successful that fifteen years after his death his books are still popular among the community of anglers and hunters. Three years before Capstick‘s death an(Continued on page 33)
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other writer who makes extensive use of food in his text, Ted Kerasote, a respected nature writer, used food as the constant key to his exploration of the hunt and his motivations for being a hunter in his controversial book Bloodties. Kerasote‘s narrative of an evening picnic is one example of how he uses food: One night I defrost an elk tenderloin and we drive to String Lake, at the base of the Tetons, for a picnic. As we broil what we of Western society consider this choicest bit of meat, a small herd of cow elk, now in their summer quarters, sift among the trees and call to each other as the full moon rises. Robin, thin as a blade and with a bristle of moustache, kneels by the fire and explains to four-yearold Kiely that what‘s cooking for dinner is what‘s calling out in the fields beyond the trees. Kiely has short black hair, round cheeks, bright precocious eyes, and a little dab of a nose, a miniature version of her mom, who is of Chinese descent. Taking her parents‘ hands, she walks to the edge of the meadow and they look at the elk together. Then we eat our salad and this smoky piece of flesh, tender as meat can be, and full of dark, musky flavors while a pack of coyotes howls from the other side of the lake. ―It would be easier,‖ says Robin, a Buddhist who sometimes eats meat, ―if they didn‘t taste so good.‖ (184) Connect the picnic with elk meat to the wildness surrounding them by introducing the howls of coyotes, whether authorial license, or actual event, the effect is to bring an expanded sense of nature to the text. The late David Foster, who was Editor-in-Chief of Gray’s Sporting Journal for 15 years, recognized the varied roles food plays in literature and one of his best examples appeared in the September/October 2004 issue of Gray’s, when he used a bottle of catsup and the act of pouring the slow moving condiment as a metaphor for waiting out the last seven days before the opening of duck season. . . . Anticipation takes forever and the event consumes a nanosecond. But that‘s no consolation tonight. Tonight I want to be there. Can‘t wait. Can‘t think of anything else, and although I know it isn‘t five years, the seven days will pass interminably. My skin wants to jump off. Some things don‘t change in a half-century. Then again, 68 days and two eternities from now, quail season opens in Georgia. When you look at it that way, seven days and five years is easy time. Or so I tell myself, sighing, once again the eight-year-old watching wide-eyed for the first sign of catsup squeezing interminably through the neck of an old-fashioned glass bottle. One of the dogs sighs. I do, too. But probably not for the same reason. (7) Moving deeper into the second decade of the 21 st Century, outdoor writers must cope with the same issues that plagued those of the twentieth century, plus new issues from war to the environment. Many of the best writers will discover that food and the act of eating can help them create a more meaningful text outside the stainless steel and plastic world imagined by Isaac Asimov. Notes i
Hunger Figures: See http://www.bread.org/hungerbasics/domestic.html for detailed information.
ii
Last Child in the Woods was reviewed in the January, 2011 issue of The Pines Review iii Sports Afield magazine was a causality of the crumbling print empire, beset by costs, competition and the rising world of digital publishing. Although the magazine was rescued by Ludo Wurfbain, the publisher of Safari Press, some of the magazine’s original ambience has been replaced with an appeal to a newer, more affluent target market. The magazine’s revival by Wurfbain has been, in light of the changing competitiveness of the outdoor magazine market, a remarkable publishing achievement. iv Readers, here the title of “readers” is used for simplicity because, in fact, it is more likely that Herodotus read to his audience and only a few wealthy Greeks actually had copies of his books. v Master of Game, is the oldest English language book and it is actually a translation of Count Gaston de Foix’s Livre de Chasse. The Duke of York (Edward of Norwich) was imprisoned in Pevensey Castle for his involvement with an assassination attempt and during this time he translated Livre de Chasse into English and added five more chapters, specifically regarding the English hunting practices. vi Warwick Woodlands is Herbert’s most important work as it establishes the outdoor story as an important element in the American literary canon although both it and the outdoor genre have been excluded by later, twentieth century critics. RESOURCES Backus, David. European Recipes for American Fish & Game. Oshkosh: Willow Creek Press, 1978. Capstick, Peter. Peter Capsitck‘s Africa. New York: St. Martin‘s Press, 1987. Casada, Jim. "Cookbooks and food in outdoor writing." Email to Galen L. Geer. 26 Aug. 2011. Forester, Frank. "Warwick Woodlands." Ed. Camp, Raymond R. Hunting Trails. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1961. 69-90. Foster, David. "Catsup." Gray's Sporting Journal. September/October 2004: 6-7. Greenfield, Dr. Joseph C., Jr. A Quail Hunter's Odyssey. Long Beach: Safari Press, 2009. Hemingway, Ernest. "Big Two-Hearted River: Part I." The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigía Edition. New York: Charles Scribner Sons, 1987. 163-169. Herodotus. An Account of Egypt Book II, Harvard Classics. Vol. 33. New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1938. Jampolis, Dr. Melina. CNN Health. 29 Oct. 2010 CNN. Aug. 2011. <http:// www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/expert.q.a/10/29/wild.game.meat.jampolis/ index.html>. Kerasote, Ted. Bloodties. New York: Random House, 1993. Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2008. Pollan, Michael. Michael Pollan. 26 Mar. 2006 Michael Pollan. 3 Sept. 2011 <http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/the-modern-hunter-gatherer/>. Pollan, Michael. Michael Pollan. 20 May. 2010 Michael Pollan. 3 Sept. 2011 <http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/the-food-movement-rising>. ―Pursue The Outdoors.‖ Unk. Unk Pursue The Outdoors. Aug. 2011. <http:// www.pursuetheoutdoors.com/features/wild-game-recipes/pheasant/19.php>. Rossetti, Christina. "Goblin Market Lns 1-31." Ed. Abrams, M. H. The Norton Anthology English Literature. New York: Norton, 1962, 6th. Ed. V. II. 1479. Shaw, Hand. Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast. New York: Rodale, 2011. Turgenev, Ivan. "Prince Hamlet of Shchigrovo." Ed. Hepburn, Charles and Natasha. A Sportsman's Notebook. London: David Campbell Publishers, Ltd., 1992. 276-302. Van Dyke, Henry. Fisherman's Luck. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899. Walton, Izaak. The Compleat Angler. New York: Weathervane Books, 1931, Orig. 1634. Wurfbain, Ludo. "Sports Afield." Email to the author. 18 Sept. 2011. Xenophon. "The Anabasis." Ed. Finley, M. I. The Portable Greek Historians. New York: Penguin Books, 1977. 383-439. York, Edward of Norwich, Duke of. The Master of Game, Orig. Pub. 1413, Modern Ed. Pub. 1909 by F. Duffield and Co. Paperback Ed. . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
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Road Poem By Galen L. Geer First Publication North Country 2001
I drove that road, that old road that winds south to Ogallala, that road that nature is reclaiming.
North of Arthur the Old Cowboy Rest home, is a tiny building with white paint peeling and Arthur's fronted buildings, are taken from movie sets to be real reminders of the West.
There's cracks in that road and the weeds chip away the memories of everyone who drove between towns connected by pie-and-coffee cafes with faded welcome signs that are now gone.
Beside that old road, that I once drove, another direction they built another, smoother, wider, faster. A prairie concentration camp strung across the land, on wooden stakes impaling the prairie sod.
Boot-topped fence stakes cut from trees stripped from unseen forests the new road's prisoners never see. Stakes, twisted, dried and bleached like bones reaching for faded skies, holding the wire and herds and penning the pronghorn that starve in winter because free generations never learned to jump.
Those barbs that banish travelers like me have not changed since I first drove that road when wildflowers and grass were not mowed but left to grow beside the road and mice and snakes and turtles lived below barbed wires where perching larks called but the falcons had died and Carson's warning to us reached across the sand hills to that old road we drove.
Sometimes, on a sand hill's crest we look across a valley and the valley below us is green, made greener by thunderstorms that roll across this land and everything we see looks like worn green felt stolen from cowboy pool halls. And the wind moves over the grazed and broken land. And the fences keep us penned to the new road, and we don't stop to look but we hear the tires and nothing else.
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The new road curves and changes and follows the old road but it is now better and wider and the ranches are corporations with a better bottom line and the old homesteads are gone. Dove, crossing the road, the road in pairs, sometimes with a third following are looking for trees not there. The cattle stand in the sun, there isn't any shade. From the road we don't see a tree then we drive through a valley and there is water and trees and green and the water is green and the cattails are trying to clean the water. But the bottom line is green but the homesteads are bleached like bones.
South of Arthur the old road is the new road the same road and sunflowers grow beside the road and the curves are tighter and the fences are closer and the Glenmore extension club cleans up the trash and you can't pass or you pass with care and the weeds go on and the cattle stand inside the fences and the house with the big red and white barn, with the decaying trucks in the yard, is a reminder that the land belongs to someone. There's sand, and yucca plants that don't belong, and sunflowers that might belong and grasses that probably don't. There are tall cottonwood trees marking boundaries of homesteads replaced by plants that don't belong. On the old road, that becomes the only road, where there's no shoulder and the road is narrow and the turns are tighter and you catch yourself where the two roads blend.
Nebraska Sixty-One to Ogallala. with haystacks, yellow against the green and grasshoppers as big as hummingbirds on the road and no traffic and the afternoon sun, and the weak blue sky is better and cleaner now. Signs tell us the litter is picked up by the Lion's club and Kiwanis and a ranchers group. The names of ranches flash past and we read them then forget them. The yellow signs with arrows tell us where to go.
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Short Fiction
That Was Then By David Cabela
With the belief that hard work and freedom unlock endless possibilities, David Cabela combined two of his passions—writing and the outdoors—and turned them into a career. He is the author of four books, the most recent of which, Two Hearts in Tanzania: Dick and Mary Cabela’s Hunting Chronicles, is available at bookstores everywhere.
The river met the meadow in a smooth, clear bow. Measured against the rapids upstream, this stretch rolled like churning butter. On most banks the tangle of trees crowded together in what seemed a concerted effort to impede foot traffic. Where the river met the meadow it opened itself like an honest shopkeeper. A thin, lithe figure knee-deep in the water sent fluid false-casts over his head—fragile and elegant like the river. ―Hey, Will. How they biting?‖ Will‘s eyes never left the caddis imitation riding on the current. His khaki shorts were wet halfway up his thighs. He wore a baseball cap faded to a dull red and an overloaded, lightweight fishing vest. His lips pressed together, his eyes narrowed. ―What the hell you want?‖ he finally said. ―Molly said you were fishing. I checked the beaver hole. When I didn‘t find you there, I knew you‘d be here. I brought my rod. Thought maybe we could fish together.‖ Aden had decided to move out east. He had just one last demon to face. He had his chest waders and a wide-brimmed hat with a collage of colorful fish-related pins. An almost non-existent wind held a few caddis, but it wasn‘t a full hatch. ―I have nothing to say to you.‖ Will popped his fly from the surface. ―Is that an elk hair? What size?‖ Aden flipped open his fly box and poked around in it with his finger. When he looked up, he saw Will working his way upstream. ―Wait a minute.‖ Will stopped. He studied a deep pool beside an undercut bank and sent an effortless cast. His fly touched the surface. Nothing rose. ―I‘m not asking you to forgive me,‖ Aden said. ―I could never ask that. I‘m asking you to listen—that‘s all.‖ Will turned his head, but refused to make eye contact. His fly hung where the drift ended. ―It‘s been two years—‖ ―Two years, three months.‖ Will sent another cast to the same pool. ―Nothing‘s changed.‖ Aden had to lift his voice above the water. ―I guess I thought that after a while it wouldn‘t be so hard. You know, time heals all wounds and all that. But it doesn‘t. The days don‘t get much easier.‖
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Will turned to glare at him. ―You can‘t face the day. What about us? What about Molly and me?‖ His voice cracked. Turning away, he lowered his tone. ―You got off easy.‖ Aden‘s gaze fixed on the motion of the water. The surface sparkled like a prism in the post-dawn sun. Below the riffles were rocks, smooth and solid, unwavering. With a single kick, the once-stable stones could be disturbed forever. Aden met eyes with his closest friend briefly. They were tired. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he needed to say. ―I remember when your parents bought this place from Old Man Proctor when we were twelve. It was off limits before you moved in. Man, we had some fun, didn‘t we?‖ A small piece of driftwood floated by and disappeared around the bend. ―Like when we borrowed that old canoe from behind Hamlen‘s Hardware and took it down the river,‖ Aden continued. ―We never even thought about how we were gonna get home. You got grounded for a week. I got a bruised behind.‖ Aden smirked. ―That was the first time I ever spent the night in the woods. You were so scared.‖ Will snipped his fly from the tippet and turned upriver again. ―I loved him too, Will.‖ ―No.‖ Will‘s head snapped back. ―You don‘t get to.‖ Will almost pointed at Aden. ―Who do you see when you look in the mirror? We see him. But he‘s not there. Not anymore. We have you to thank for that.‖ The sun‘s reflection off the water forced Aden to squint. ―I shouldn‘t have come,‖ he said. Will waded upstream toward Crayfish Slew, past the ten-foot cliff where the water was not deep enough for diving, but just right for a shallow cannonball. When he went by the two big boulders in that short run of frothy water—when he went beyond earshot—Aden looked up and whispered. ―I‘m sorry, Will.‖ Aden never had the chance to talk to Will after the accident. He had tried at the funeral, but Will‘s brother, Kevin, stopped him. Said Will didn‘t want to talk to him. He had seen Will a few times in town, but went out of his way to avoid him. He had picked up the phone to call a few times. He even let it ring once, but hung up before anyone answered. If he had only glanced behind the truck that morning. If he had not been in such a hurry. If he had only turned down the radio.
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An impulse prodded him to follow Will upstream. He wanted to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, to see his face at the set, to watch the fight unfold, to anticipate the outcome. He wanted to fish with his friend again. Those waters held more than trout. They had learned to fish together in the very spot Aden stood. It was just above the rapids where Aden realized Will had far surpassed him in skill on the water. When Will worked a river, it was art in motion. Aden climbed up the bank, water dripping from his waders, his rod unstrung. His line hadn‘t been wet for over two years. Two years—where did it go? What did it matter? Aden slunk into the shadows. He had become comfortable there, where stares and whispers didn‘t follow. He leaned against a heavy cottonwood, where he had a wide view of the river. Will had waded past his waist, trying to reach a small pool behind a boulder on the opposite bank. Big fish always seemed to hole up there. It was a difficult cast from deep water. In that moment Will‘s attitude transformed. Indifference became intensity. In his deep focus to gain that extra inch, the water reached the point where chest waders would have been an encumbrance. Will rarely burdened himself with waders. Aden never went without them. He had never been as daring as Will. And now, like many times before, his heart raced from the safety of vicarious distances. Will struggled against the water‘s weight. His arms became an extension of the rod and line—everything just a part of the fly, making it soar, willing it to float in animated suspense. When the fly touched down, a mouth engulfed it. The rod bowed before the grand brook trout. Line unspooled as Will thrust his arms high. Then he lost his footing. The river tried to take him. He held the rod above his head. The water spun him around. The fish torpedoed up river.
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Page 37 Aden took a step forward, but paused when he saw his friend‘s face. A smile was rare these days. The fish snapped off by the time Will‘s feet found solid ground, but for a moment, when he sloshed from the river, dripping wet, his eyes beamed. Then he saw Aden in the shadows and it all vanished. Will walked past his old friend without a glance. Then he stopped. He did not turn around. ―The fishing wasn‘t too good today,‖ he said. ―Might be better next week.‖ Then he was gone.
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Book Review Boone and Crockett Club’s 27th Big Game Awards: 2007-2009 Staff Review Boone and Crockett Club’s 27th Big Game Awards 2007-2009. 704 pages. Color and Black and White Photographs. Hardback $49.95, Associate Member $39.95. Paperback $29.95. Boone and Crockett Club, 250 Station Dr., Missoula, MT 59801. www.booneandcrockettclub.com. The debate between trophy hunters and meat hunters is an old one. The idea of a hunter‘s sole intent for the hunt being only the size of the antlers, skull, or horns of a big game animal is, for some hunters, the antithesis of hunting. This debate continues because many hunters, from both groups, are not aware of trophy hunting‘s role in the turn-of-thecentury development of America‘s conservation movement. Both the trophy hunter and non-trophy hunter agree that today‘s conservation programs grew out of the foresight, wisdom, and philosophy of a few men at the birth of the 20th century, but they would be surprised to learn that these men believed that the best method for bringing national attention to the problems besetting America‘s wildlife life was to publicize the most magnificent example of North America‘s big game, and to urge the conservation and intelligent management of remaining animals. The general mood of these sportsmen and women (there were a number of women involved in conservation decades before they had won the vote), was that because of uncontrolled market hunting North America‘s most remarkable species were already doomed. The conservation success, however, was littered with boulders and potholes complicating all the early organizational efforts. Conflicting views on every aspect of the conservation movement hampered the B&C Club‘s founders‘ efforts to shepherd conservation into what would become the movement‘s pinnacle years. On many occasions it seemed these problems would derail their efforts. One of the more frustrating debates was what determined a trophy game animal. The problem widened from the B&C Club and became a common debate among the general
population of hunters years before the first Sportsman‘s Exposition was held at Madison Square Garden in 1895. To resolve the trophy issue three of the most important leaders of the conservation movement, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, and Archibald Rogers, all of whom were among the founding fathers of the Boone and Crockett Club, were appointed judges in the first trophy competition, but the controversy, challenges and debate over how the trophies were judged led to the creation of a committee to create a standardized scoring procedure for North American big game. Roosevelt and Rogers, who were on the original judging table, and Casper Whitney, were appointed to the committee. Historians were frustrated when they tried to compile any history of the committee‘s work because all records of the committee‘s work apparently were lost. In 2007, however, a single copy of Big Game Measurements: Game Book of the Boone & Crockett Club, the only record of the committee‘s work, published in 1906 by Boone and Crockett member James H. Kidder, was unexpectedly discovered. This book provided B&C Club‘s contemporary historians with their first insights into the club‘s early scoring efforts. Big game record keeping remained chaotic until 1932 when the B&C club published its first Records of North American Big Game which initiated some semblance of order into the scoring process. Seven years later a second edition of the book was published; it included a chapter authored by Grancel Fitz in which he presented his conception of a more complex, but thoroughly objective, measurement system that would result in a numerical score to rank trophy game heads. The intent was to eliminate as much judge‘s bias as possible so the scoring would be completely objective. After World War II, in 1947, the B&C Club began an annual Big Game Competition program. The club‘s leadership realized that determining the winning trophies by a subjective panel of judges was not in the spirit of an objective scoring system. In 1949 another committee was selected to devise a truly equitable and objective measurement system. The new system was adopted in 1950 and has been in use ever since; it has eliminated the scoring confusion that had been so troublesome throughout the club‘s first 50 years. Also, between 1947 and 1968, the Big Game Competition changed from an annual event to a triennial one, and in the 1970s the name of the program was changed from ―Competition‖ to ―Awards‖ Program to emphasize Fair Chase Hunting and to remove the stigma of competition for trophies.
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In 1952 the third edition of B&C records was published, Records of North American Big Game; and it was the first edition to use the scoring system that had been copyrighted in 1950 by the club. Finally, in 1984 a new book of records was added to B&C‘s record keeping books: Boone and Crockett Club’s 18th Big Game Awards, which was also the first record book to include only those trophies that were accepted during the 18 th Awards Program. Today, within the broad landscape of contemporary hunting literature, the B&C record books serve two functions. These books, first and foremost, provide private and public libraries with records of trophy game animals taken by hunters during fair chase hunts. Secondly, the stories of how many of these animals were taken are preserved within these pages. The accounts of these hunts are rarely written by professional writers, although they are edited and polished by professional editors employed by B&C. Usually these accounts are written by the hunters, usually in their own words, as first person narratives recounting how they accomplished the feat of hunting and bringing down a trophy animal. Each one of these stories is a treasure within the corpus of American outdoor sporting literature. Each story preserves the details of the hunt for future generations to experience through the written word. A few of these hunting stories do possess a surprising literary worth well beyond the intended B&C audience; these are works that fit into the rarefied world of true literature. Of course, these are historically important accounts of some of the most challenging big game hunts in North America, and the preservation of the drama underscores the case for continuing the strong conservation ethic that insures the survival of the species. One of the elements that makes these books good reading is how each author tells his or her story. Some authors tell their stories in a straightforward liner form, relying on the presentation of the facts of their hunt to carry the reader. Other writers, either by professional coaching and editing or a writing ability they have honed, venture into the realm of creative nonfiction, utilizing the techniques of the story teller to bring a literary life to their story. An excellent example of a story reaching for something beyond the liner is Rodney W. Debias‘ compelling account of a bow hunt for a grizzly bear. In his efforts to reach for the words to involve the reader in his experience he achieves a strong level of intimacy with the reader by writing the final moments of the hunt in the present tense: At 10 yards, he suddenly stops. He raises his nose. His nostrils flare, and I can hear him draw a deep breath. He exhales, and I can smell him. He draws another breath, this time curling his lips outward. I am amazed at his size. He exhales again. I smell him. He knows something is up. With the wind at my nose, I know he cannot smell us. It must be his sixth sense. He takes two steps, stands straight up and looks down on us. (pg. 37) Debias has an almost lyrical sense to his writing; and although switching tense is usually a syntactic no-no, for him the technique works. His writing is a successful blending of the mystical elements of his hunt with the physical elements through the use of a prose poetry‘s device of stopping or slowing time. He
uses this technique to bring the adversaries, himself as hunter and the bear as the hunted, together in the reader‘s space and time. Allen M. Shearer, on the other hand, is a hunter who for several years had unsuccessfully bid at auction for a British Columbia Roosevelt elk hunt; when his bid finally won he came face to face with a monster elk and after his successful and breath-holding stalk, he was able to end the lifetime dream with a single shot from his muzzleloader. His compelling account does not reach for the mystical or poetic connection between words and the hunt. Shearer‘s writing is more more pedestrian than Debias, preferring to rely on the recounting of events, as they occurred, yet is equally dramatic: . . . At daybreak, we crept up over a rise and were shocked to see the bull right in front of us with 12 cows. Words cannot express the sight the bull standing there before us! Brad was quick to get the video going as Tom and I looked through our binoculars to size him up. This bull had gone from a 7x7 to a 9x10 and had incredible mass; the Boon and Crockett score would later reveal 66 inches, along with a great point length. The unique crowning of Roosevelt‘s Bulls was well-established, affirming his status as the king. (pg. 113) The difference between Shearer‘s narrative of seeing the bull he would eventually bring down, and Debias‘ bear, is the straightforward sense of excitement of the hunt that Shearer describes compared to Debias‘ mystical connection. Each story is a valuable narrative in its own right. Shearer isn‘t looking for a mystical explanation of his long hunt, nor does he try to understand the mystical circles made by hunter and quarry until they close on each other and one or the other wins. Years of patience at annual auctions and then more patience on the hunt all come to a satisfactory conclusion in his account of the hunt. The sense of accomplishment Shearer exhibits in his writing becomes his motivation to share this hunt with others. Rarely do these stories find their way into any of the major outdoor magazines. Without the B&C books most of these hunters would put the trophy on the wall, with a plaque or medal and in time, after they have told the story to everyone who will listen the story becomes family lore and then family legend. The hunters who write these stories are not the American Aristocracy many believe are the trophy hunters. These successful hunters range from the blue collar to the wealthy globe trotter, but they all share the common passion of the hunt. Fortunately, the Boone and Crockett Club‘s record books do more than keep records; they keep the dreams of many hunters alive by the stories that are published. Notes i The American conservation movement did not begin with these three men but they were responsible for pulling the movement together and giving it a forcefulness that it had lacked. For a more detailed look at the movement consult American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation by John F. Reiger, Oregon State University Press, 101 Waldo Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331-6407. ii A 150 copy run reprint of this book was made by B&C publishing and copies are available at $200.00 each. http://www.boone-crockett.org/ iii B&C extensively uses the euphemistic “harvest” which The Pines Review opposes as a grammatical practice that is the simplistic glossing over of language at the expense of literary truth.
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BOOK REVIEW
An American Elk Retrospective An American Elk Retrospective. 272 pages. Black and White Photographs. Hardback $34.95, Associate Member $27.95. Boone and Crockett Club, 250 Station Dr., Missoula, MT 59801. www.booneandcrockettclub.com History is an amalgamation of events. Some of the events appear to be so disparate that it is hard to understand how they can be related to one another. That was the case when I saw the dust jacket of Boone and Crockett Club‘s An American Elk Retrospective. I was sure that I recognized both the antlers and the place the photograph was taken. The building in the background looked like the Natural History Museum of Cañon City, Colorado. The museum is the place in my memory where I first looked up at the massive antlers of a trophy elk and moose. At the time I was perhaps six or seven years old, and the trophies, already high on the wall, towered over me. Both the moose and elk were trophies that had been taken by one of Cañon City‘s most colorful historical figures--Dall DeWeese, a close friend of Theodore Roosevelt. DeWeese had accompanied Roosevelt on several of his hunts and was also a respected member of the turn-of-thecentury conservation movement. Unfortunately, the elk antlers pictured on the cover of An American Elk Retrospective are not the DeWeese antlers that had towered over me but the antlers of the G.J. van Heek trophy elk, whose story is also in the book.
Elk Retrospective is one of those books that reaches beyond the presentation of historical anecdotes to the preservation of an important part of American outdoor history. Making this book valuable to the common reader and collector of outdoor books is that each of its six chapters is designed to be a fully inclusive segment of the history of American trophy elk, without impinging on the value of the hunt itself. Sometimes this is accomplished through the recounting of an historical hunt (as in the DeWeese Hunt) or the reprinting of the original score sheet for an historical trophy elk. Opponents of trophy hunting will argue, often quite vehemently, that a book such as this promotes trophy hunting above recreational or meat (freezer) hunting, a publishing policy, these hunters argue, which is dangerous for hunting‘s future. There is no denying that the sentiment of the hunter who opposes trophy hunting is in the right place-preservation of hunting--although this sentiment frequently ignores other truths. The problem with eliminating trophy hunting is that it quickly pushes all hunting into a state of diminishing returns. This would be true for elk, pronghorn, whitetail or mule deer--any big game species. Trophy hunting is a management tool that enables wildlife officials to gauge the effectiveness of their management programs. When trophy hunting is removed from the management tool chest there is a trend to reduce the universe of hunters and those who remain place a greater emphasis is placed on securing a ―freezer kill‖ at any cost. In the case of elk, as has been demonstrated in hunts throughout
info@artemistradingcompany.com www.artemistradingcompany.com
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the elk range in North America, when trophy management is not a policy, spike bulls, cows and even elk calves, are excessively targeted, affecting the overall health of the herd. Unscrupulous trophy hunters have committed their crimes as well, but the difference will be one or two criminal trophy hunters compared to dozens or even hundreds of misinformed/misguided freezer hunters. The two programs need to work in concert. Trophy hunting, then, is an important management tool for wildlife officials, but it is only an effective tool if there is a scorecard system by which the trophies are compared against one another, and the rules are enforceable. The catalyst for the earliest scorecards, created at the beginning of the 20 th century, was the fruit of the minds of three important Americans; Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, and Archibald Rogers Boone. They had concluded that the most effective means to draw national public attention to the desperate plight of America‘s wildlife was by the preservation of statistical trophy information. The system they devised would be radically changed in succeeding years, but the principle of trophy records for species preservation had been created. Obviously, the record books that are maintained and published by The Boone and Crockett Club are the primary source of tabulated record data for North American trophy game. These official records are also maps to where the game herds are being well managed because the regular production of trophies is only possible with healthy wildlife herds. Trophy listings alone are not the complete history of the recovery and expansion of American big game, but buried in the B&C files is a large part of that history. By organizing the B&C Club‘s treasure trove of letters, photographs, score sheets and clippings into a well-crafted book the B&C publishers are assuring anyone with an interest in the history of North America‘s big game access to the history of the scoring system and its role in
the history of conservation.. Evolution of a System The opening chapter of Elk Retrospective, written by Jack Reneau, the Director of Big Game Records for B&C, is an excellent compilation of the events which led up to present B&C scoring system, its evolution from idea to today‘s precise and fair scoring system. Anyone with an interest in understanding the scoring system will get that information from Reneau‘s chapter. As informative as the first chapter is, the second chapter, written by the Assistant Director for Records, Justin Spring, is titled ―Distribution‖ but it could easily be called ―Species Survival.‖ In only a few thousand words Spring‘s text traces the history of American elk through explanations of the species‘ rescue by various transplants and the desperately needed laws to protect herds struggling to recover from the mass slaughter by market hunters. The chapter is made more visual through the inclusion of maps with accompanying explanations. The meat of this book is the wonderful collection of photographs and related information that has been in the B&C record keeping department. Any elk hunting aficionado will easily spend an evening thumbing through the collection of historical photos and score sheets, but it is the text, the descriptions of how some of the most intriguing trophies were taken by the different hunters, that is truly captivating. A few of these trophy elk merit special consideration when the story behind the hunt, the hunter and the trophy is a historical event. These stories are in Chapter Five, ―Special Trophies.‖ Keith Balfourd is the author and editor of ―Special Trophies‖ and in his introduction he writes in one paragraph why these trophies are special: Truly special trophies are not in the eyes of the beholder: They are special to everyone. Across a body of work listing American and Roosevelt‘s elk, there exist such trophies that stop those leafing
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Products For Outdoor Artists, Writers and Photographers Editors don‘t care. They need to sell magazines and art on the page, whatever the source, has got to contribute to sales. It‘s a tough demand on writers. ArNeed Art for an Article? tRage is an art program developed and marketed by ArtRage can help Ambient Design and it solves the art program for Sooner or later, in the most outdoor writers. The software, ArtRage Studio career of every outdoor comand ArtRage Studio Pro 3.5 is economical (fits even a municator, there arises the writer‘s pocketbook), is easy to use and enables the need for some basic art to writer to produce illustrations with a flair. illustrate an article. The The best part of the ArtRage programs is problem is that most outdoor that a person does not need a degree in writers are not artists, but art to learn that doesn‘t eliminate the to use them Something New for the need to provide an editor and proOutdoor Media? with the occasional drawing. Often, the only way to overcome the duce reaproblem is to hire a high school student or even the teacher to The Pines Review is sonable art constantly on the lookout for produce the needed art. That‘s okay with a project generating on their products and services that enough profit after overhead and paying the artist. will make the work of being computer. Usually, however, the outdoor writer‘s margin is so slim the an outdoor writer, The profifty to hundred bucks, or more paid, to hire an artist is the profit photographer or broadcaster grams works equally well with the margin! Tightening financial belts and rising costs are forcing easier. If you would like to submit a press release send it writers to hold on to even more of the income if there is going to finger pad on laptops, a mouse, or to the editor at: digital pen. Finished art can be exbe anything left after expenses. Some writers rely on the drawing editorpinesreview@mlgc.com ported as a .jpng, png or psd file. programs preinstalled on their computers. These are basic proFor more information contact prietary programs that are intended to motivate the user to buy ArtRage: http://www.artrage.com/index.html. full programs and are often somewhat clunky to use. By the time DeWeese made his hunt he was already a wellknown international big game hunter, entrepreneur and writer. through cabinets full of files. All in this chapter have Ten years later, 1897, DeWeese and his new wife, Emma, travbeen celebrated as an initial entry. Some have been elled to the Kenai Peninsula for a five month hunting trip with singled out at the time they were listed as special and guide Andrew Berg. DeWeese‘s account of his hunt was pubgiven extra attention; some you may be learning lished first in the Cañon City newspaper and the following year about for the first time. (pg. 127) in the inaugural issue of Outdoor Life. In 1901, when DeWeese To describe these elk Balfourd reprints letters from state officials, and Emma returned to the Kenai, the big game herds they had letters from family members, and photographs of the trophies and hunted a few years earlier had been nearly wiped out by a frenzy the original score sheets. The trophy elk that towered over me of uncontrolled and unethical trophy hunting, mostly by Eurowhen I was a youngster is one of those special elk and is known pean hunters. simply as the DeWeese Bull. Dall DeWeese was convinced he was responsible for the Rather than Balfourd trying to explain the circumstances of rush of hunters and decimation of the herds. Aware of the fledghow DeWeese hunted and killed his trophy he reprints a letter ling Boone & Crockett Club‘s dedication to conservation, and that DeWeese wrote to his friends who were unable to accombecause he was a personal friend of Theodore Roosevelt, pany him on his 1888 high country hunt. The letter was printed DeWeese wrote the president and asked him to create laws to in the Cannon [sic] City Clipper newspaper and it is a reprint of curtail overhunting and create conservation lands on the Kenai. this letter, complete with period spelling and colloquialisms that Roosevelt‘s Forestry chief Gifford Pinchet sent William Langille dominate the entire text, just as the DeWeese bull dominates the to study the Kenai and make recommendations. Ultimately the museum: region became the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The sun was half an hour high and the shadows of the The full history of DeWeese and Roosevelt reaches far bespruce groves were stretching out over the parks -- and yond the pages of B&C‘s Elk Retrospective. In a broader sense this is the hour for the elk to come from the forest and this is the intent of the book‘s editors--to reach beyond the covers feed in the parks. Sitting quietly in the saddle, our gaze of a single book to create one that invites more reading, encourroving over the beautiful landscape, we sighted a band aging hunters to expand their knowledge of the history of the of elk a mile away just emerging from the spruce. We species and conservation. For the historian, outdoor literati, or counted eleven; all were large, one in particular, and just the casual reader, An American Elk Retrospective is an excurwe remarked that there was an ―Old Towser.‖ (pg 135) sion through history. Book Review
(Continued from page 41)
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Events Calendar 2012 January:
February: March: April:
May:
June:
July: August: September:
October:` November: December:
Jan. 5-8: Key West Literary Seminar, Key West, FL miles@kwls.org. Jan. 17-20: SHOT Show, Sands Convention Ctr. Las Vegas, NV http://www.shotshow.org Feb. 2-4: RMEF Annual elk Camp, Las Vegas, NV http://www.rmef.org/AboutUs/ElkCamp/ Mar. 27-April 1: Univ. North Dakota Writers Conference. writresconference@und.nodak.edu April 19-20: Tenn. Outdoor Writers Conf. Chattanooga, TN mmenterprises1@charter.net April 20-22: Pikes Peak Writers Conf. Colo. Springs, CO jodi.anderson@pikespeakwriters.com May 5-8: NYSOWA Spring Safari, Ramada Conf. Center, Cortland, NY http://www.nysowa.org/ May 7-8: Calif. Outdoor Writers Spring Conf. Morrow Bay, CA http://www.owac.org/ May 14-17: AGLOW Cast & Blast, Niagara, NY. http://aglowinfo.org/?page_id=106 June 8-10: 69th Philadelphia Writer‘s Conf. Holiday Inn Historic District. info@pwcwriters.org June 28-30: Jackson Hole Writers Conf. Jackson Hole, WY http://www.jacksonholewritersconference.com/contact July 22-28: OWAA Goldenrod Writing Workshop, Missoula, MT. http://owaa.org/ Aug. 8-12: POMA Annual Conf. Harrah‘s, Tunica, MS http://professionaloutdoormedia.org/ Sept. 4-6: OWAA Annual Conf. Fairbanks, AK. http://owaa.org/ Sept. 12-16: Florida Outdoor Writers Annual Conf., Titusville, Fl. info@fowa.org or capttommy@me.com Sept. 17-20: AGLOW Annual Conference, Branson, MO http://aglowinfo.org/?page_id=174 Sept. 26-29: SEOPA Annual Conference, Johnson City, TN. http://www.seopa.org/ Oct. 20-23: NYSOWA Annual Conf. Four Points by Sheraton, Niagara Falls, NY http://www.nysowa.org/ No Listing No Listing
Events listing is free to writers organizations, conservation organizations and other groups with events that are of interest to members of outdoor media. All listings are subject to editor’s approval. Contact the editor at: editorpinesreview@mlgc.com.
Classified Advertising Autographed Copies Last Supper In Paradise By: Galen L. Geer $13.95 +$5.00 P&H Collection of short stories set in modern Africa. ggeerpinesed@mlg.com Writer’s Retreat Cabin For Rent A-frame cabin in scenic Wet Mountains of Southern Colorado. Rent by day, week or month. See our ad this issue. Phone: 719.784-3160. Email: chasclifton@mac.com. German Wirehaired Pointers Top quality pups. Three Paws Kennel 701.347.5246. Casselton, North Dakota Free Newsletter Free monthly e-newsletter. Lists of books on turkey hunting, Africana, Archibald Rutledge. www.jimcasadaoutdoors. com. Or write: Jim Casada 1250 Yorkdale Drive Rock Hill, SC 29730-7638 Phone: 803-329-4354 FAX: 803-329-2420. Voltage Converters Travelling outside the USA? Convert 220v to 110v. $25 plus $5.00 S&H. ggeerpinesed@mlgc.com Classified ads in The Pines Review are limited to 25 words; the rate is $10 per issue.
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FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. —A recent survey conducted as part of Southwick Associate‘s monthly Hunter Survey revealed that more active hunters and shooters claim membership in the National Rifle Association than any other organization. The organization with the next highest membership was the North American Hunting Club. The conservation organization that received the next highest membership claim was Ducks Unlimited. The National Wild Turkey Federation and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation were next, respectively. The Southwick survey findings confirm the groups‘ reported membership, with the NRA claiming as many as 4.3 million members, while the NAHC has more than 850,000 and Ducks Unlimited close to 780,000. ―Involvement and unity has been the silver lining to all the political and conservation issues faced by hunters and shooters. No other recreational group can claim to be as organized and effective as sportsmen and women in defending their freedoms and rights,‖ said Rob Southwick, president of Southwick Associates, which designs and conducts the surveys at HunterSurvey.com, ShooterSurvey.com and AnglerSurvey.com. AnglerSurvey.com and HunterSurvey.com: help the outdoor equipment industry, wildlife agencies, and conservation organizations track consumer activities and expenditure trends. Results are scientifically analyzed to reflect the attitudes and habits of anglers and hunters across the United States. Find them on Facebook at http://facebook.com/huntersurvey and http://facebook.com/anglersurvey.
Henry Herbert, father of modern outdoor writing, wrote under the pseudonym of “Frank Forester.”
Book Reviewers & Book Publishers Please Note! The Pines Review welcomes book review contributions. Reviews must be for books that have been released no more than one year previously or will be released within six months of The Review‘s issue date. Contact the editor before submitting a review. Book review assignments are not made to PR firm writers. Books for ―Revisited‖ must have been published at least two years previously. Critical studies of older books or the works of authors are considered for assignment and are not published as book reviews. Qualifications for critical work must be included in query. Self-published books, whether Print On Demand or traditional printing, are given equal review consideration as all other books submitted for review. Publishers are encouraged to submit books for review. All books submitted for review become the property of Pen on Page, Ink or the reviewer and cannot be returned. Publishers should send books for review to: The Pines Review PO Box 31 Finley, ND 58230. For more information contact the editor by email: editorpinesreview@mlgc.com
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