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In recent years I’ve returned to hunt the places of my youth after a long absence. The sense of place and timelessness (short of the natural changes) calms me. It would be a great loss to lose this place in a nutso world. Have any of you retained that sense of place and make a trip to honor it so to speak, or adopted a new one? If you lost your old stomping grounds, do you mourn them to this day?
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Paleo — I’m in the process of losing my sacred place right now. It’s too much like the staggering blow of losing dear old friends. That’s about all I can bear to say about it.
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I think that the biggest struggle I’ve had lately is how much location info I share with other people, lest I “lose” my sacred places to overcrowding and competition. Unfortunately, I’ve had to become very protective about giving out details of where I hunt, even with friends. I don’t like having to do this, but I also hate it when people don’t bother finding their own places, and instead just go directly to hunting the exact same spot that I’ve made the mistake of divulging. I don’t want to be a jerk, but it’s bitten me in the butt too many times now. My ‘inner circle’ has gotten very small, and requires a lot of trust-building first…
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What a bittersweet question.
Here in E. PA, every place my “firsts” happened are GONE!
Housing developments, shopping malls, industrial parks… made all my old haunts— gone!
Even haunts I recently drove 3 hrs to get to mid-state are being developed if not directly, down the road and the rug-rats living in those developments, trample all over hunting grounds, state game lands and private property setting up BMX courses (wrote curses first time–hello Dr. Freud)
When I was 21, 41++ yrs ago, I took a walk thru my childhood woodsy play areas… hills we thought were 20′ high were only 3′! That was intriguing to see space and distance in my child memory in adult reality.
Your question, is so devastating, like our CO buddy Dave, it has gotten so common place, but still so friggin painful, it is best left unexplored!
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In the immortal words of Ed Abbey, “No comment”. In my humble guidance and words, “action now my friends we have everything to lose and nothing to gain but our sanity”.
Join the battle with BHA and other such groups–maybe we can save a bit of our life.
Semper Fi
Mike
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Paleoman,
My wife and I almost bought the land and cabin where I first took up bowhunting. Unfortunately, both are trashed now and only worth a small fraction of what their current owner wants. I don’t mourn the loss, but I do think their present condition is very unfortunate.
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David Petersen wrote: Paleo — I’m in the process of losing my sacred place right now. It’s too much like the staggering blow of losing dear old friends. That’s about all I can bear to say about it.
Very strange coincidence. I make a post in part on loss. The mention above in losing people. Not more than a few minutes after this my good friend and hunting partner over many years called to say his wife passed. Here’ s to all the friends, spouses and others who have enriched our outdoor lives.
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Paleo — I didn’t mentioned it in my response, but yesterday morning I lost a dear friend and advisor of 25 years. I am gutted, and it feels so much like when I lost what once was prime forest stomping grounds to wildfire in one week. We cried for two months. This time, the loss of what is left of this sacred space has been gradual and predictable and allowed me to work my mind around it somewhat, and of course it’s due to human stupidity and hubris. Losing two dear old friends at once: one a man, the other a place. A crap thing to say to younger folks, but a day hardly passes that I don’t think it: I’m SO glad I’m old. To paraphrase Aldo, I wouldn’t care to be young again in a world without wildness to grow up in. But what’s left can be saved, and while merely a chink in the crack, BHA for now is our best route for expressing our outrage.
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I got lucky…my first place is an old strip mine that is now turned into state game lands. That is the only good thing with strip mines, when they are done the land aint worth nothing so the state turns it into game lands. Then after 20 years the woods regrow and the game returns. I love it there.
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Development has encroached on some of my old stomping grounds. My safest place is still there on public land, I just can’t access it the way I used to through private land. I really miss that place and the trees we named for our stands as points of reference in our conversations. “My Old Tree” was the best of them to me. I would always stay late after dark just listening to the night critters coming out to hunt. I have imagined it as one of the top spots for the final resting place of my ashes. I loved it that much. I’ve never owned the land I’ve hunted so I have not lost anything except maybe the ability to go there. It was never mine.
Sorry to hear of your friends wife Paleoman, may she rest in peace. Edit: And you too Dave, sorry for your loss as well.
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Reading threads like this one, brings into focus all those trite but true sayings, like, life is a gift, that is why today is called the PRESENT.
People, places, all will pass. I’ve said often in this current political climate, as Dave stated, “I’m glad I’m as old as I am”
Good point on not owning what some have lost… but the connection to those wild places live inside us, and their loss is felt personally.
Not quite as philosophical as Aldo perhaps, but this is not the world my Daddy raised me to live in…
Alas, we’re here. And each day is a present… live life and love it to the fullest each day!
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You said it, Doc!
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One of my sacred spots, under the rim of the NW corner of the Grand Mesa overlooking the town of Mesa, now has a house, outbuildings, kids, barking dogs and a school bus running by at that time of year. Where I used to slip up through the oak brush, I loved to hunt the transition of tall timber to oak brush, I no longer can. At least 10 years ago it was so and bet it ain’t any better now.
I wonder after the housing crunch how many of those weekend escapes or summer homes or whatever that clutter up the hillsides were lost and then bought up by the wealthy from the far west or even farther west enough to be the far east?
I have some little private, semi-sacred spots on the land I hunt now and I can live with that. Dwelling in the past gets me nowhere so I enjoy the moment and have my little places. One of them is where there are metate’s and I know the ancient ones sat there in peace. Great view of that part of my world. Another has chipped flint all over so I know some feller sat there and made arrowheads while he surveyed the land for game or enemies.
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Fellers and Mom … it gets increasingly difficult to discuss the threats to hunting today without going political, don’t it? Yet, in truth, WE are part of the problem. At the same time, we are the best and only bet for a solution … though there are other places to discuss those realities, I suppose, though I’m not sure where. Re Ralph’s stone point chips and how they make him feel … increasingly that lithic connection to our formative past is increasingly personal and important to my sanity (such as it is). Life is unnecessarily complicated, thus insane. Nature is ever simple, thus sane. While we are not the only ones, it has long been clear to me that we–traditional-values hunter in general, and (may I make this elitist statement?) those of us here–are acutely aware of what his been lost in trade for what has been gained.
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This is the kind of thread that makrs this so much better thsn the other forums. Sharing feelings and values without being judged, philibustered, or deleted is a luxury ws should cherish and protect. Thanks Mom for knowing this is the in portant stuff.
I lucked out. Didn’t do anything to deserve it but my “home waters” were and are protected by economics. Nobody wants to live there, not on the way to anywhere, and nothing there to make anything out of. AKA a backwater. Unfortunatly you can tell the people there are… well backwatered. The upwardmobile left a few generations ago. Those left have evolved downward. Anyone that goes to college doesn’t come back. Only ones making a decent living are the bar owners. Would like to live there, but I do not drink (thus no social life), and do need to make a living. Prior to Arwens arrival I was working about 3 weeks per month, and home the other week. That was just about perfect.
Scary part is when people younger than you start dying from natural causes. All of my fly fishimg buddies are dead, and I haven’t made new ones since Arwen arrived.
Typing with one hand isn’t all that bad after all.
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Almost every site strictly enforces rules against religion & politics…I get it too… if not, it could turn into a cyber brawl of ugly proportions forcing advertisers to look elsewhere and to create such an inflammatory environment…in our litigious society today, lawsuits might start flying at everyone including site owners!
That is the rational and logical side…
The flip side of that coin is that we’re either part of the solution or the problem.
I get dozens or more political emails weekly. I quit sharing them. Seems to me that in the old days (being a brat of the 60’s revolution era) we protested, raised cane, stormed elected officials offices…and made a general pain in the patut of ourselves…and did create change…we also forced the throwing out of the baby with the wash water (old PA German expression).
Now, it seems everyone is satisfied to send meaningful emails on political issues on to a dozen friends, who do likewise, and that is all that every comes of it. We forward emails and it gives us the proverbial warm feeling like the old saw at whizzin yourself in a dark suit!
The catastrophic down hill runaway train of change is destroying those things which cannot be renewed or ever resurrected once lost.
Hunting and the environs where it happens, are some of that!
What will WE as hunter do in this cyber world we live in to create change to save what we hold dear?
Other reality is that I’m tired… us people of the people burned the candle at both ends… and are left frazzled and well…’old’.
Now what?
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Hey Grumpy!
Glad you made it through alright. How long will you be one handed?
Traditional archery won’t die if we don’t let it. Studies have already shown that Gen Y is less interested in status and more interested in experiences. I think a renaissance of traditional archery is right around the corner and Gen Y will make it happen. All we have to do is plant the seeds. Show them there is a better experience to be had.
I too get caught up in the seemingly endless unbelievable things happening today but I have to remind myself that there is another way to look at it. Think in terms of good fortune and bad fortune, one follows the other and we have all experienced both. Like Yin and Yang one does not exist without the other. So don’t worry so much, nothing stays the same for very long. Feeling out of control makes us worry. All we can do is our best.
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Duncan,
I’ve got to get this old carcass to bed soon, but reading your note made me initially blush a bit for waxing a bit nostalgic and melancholy…
Alas, a rebuttal did formulate between the ears!
What you say of traditional archery is true. Go to a big shoot probably anywhere, but definitely at the few around me, and there is a surge of interest.
HA! But just in t he s tick and string as a “THING”…not the traditional values that went with it for decades. They do not hunt. They will trod over your campsite. Not the values I grew up with, let alone trad archery values!
If targets are all you care about and the bows and sticks, then I’d agree. If the “one with nature” element, the respecting nature and our place as a spirit driven part of nature, then I’d not be so quick to agree with your upbeat forecast!
I do pray you’re right and I’m dead wrong!:oops:
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Doc,
Why can’t it be both? Some will go for the target experience and some will go for the hunting experience. And as always some will reject it all. But the desire for new experiences is the driving factor with the young people I’m meeting.
I think the desire to try game meats is a natural draw to the sport as well as hunting in general. There is an uptick in interest in wild game meats and not necessarily farm raised animals or so I’m hearing. Guess we will have to wait and see.
Duncan
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Dave/Doc — If you’re all that old, then it must be your grandson in your profile picture. 😛 Darn, I should have thought of that myself. 😆
Seriously, I sure do know what you speak of re burn-out. I was there too. But with rest, the fire rekindles itself, esp. with fanning of the flames by other good folks of the quality we enjoy here.
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Didn’t I say earlier I had to go to bed…real Doc appt in the Am! 🙂
Duncan, I stand with head down. I pray you are right.
I’m probably too tired and not sure it’s the right place, but what point I was making is that the lore of the stick and string and watching arrow arc across the sky, doesn’t seem to float the boat of those “newbies” I’m meeting that now cram the courses and plod around the shoots I attended the past few years.
They brought battery powered CD players and played loud music at all hours. Nature and being involved therein was NOT a part of their “experience”
It was all about Hunger Games and being chic.
I was trad before trad was cool. And the mere discussion in ear-shot of these new sorts, about hunting, broad heads and blood trails, brought gasps and dirty looks!
There is a new “entitlement” mentality and behavior that has begun to hang over the campgrounds that never existed in the past 22+ yrs of attending many shoots.
I won’t go into detail of specific behaviors, as that becomes personal, but people who walk THRU my campsite, pull or swing on my fly ropes, flabbergast me… and I watched them throughout the weekend… if there are ANY values demonstrated they’re not ‘traditional, respectful, or considerate of others or nature.’
Alas, I’m just an old Pfart, and will go take Mr. Grumpy Pants to bed now! Cheers!:D:shock::roll:
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Duncan wrote:
Traditional archery won’t die if we don’t let it. Studies have already shown that Gen Y is less interested in status and more interested in experiences. I think a renaissance of traditional archery is right around the corner and Gen Y will make it happen. All we have to do is plant the seeds. Show them there is a better experience to be had.
I too get caught up in the seemingly endless unbelievable things happening today but I have to remind myself that there is another way to look at it. Think in terms of good fortune and bad fortune, one follows the other and we have all experienced both. Like Yin and Yang one does not exist without the other. So don’t worry so much, nothing stays the same for very long. Feeling out of control makes us worry. All we can do is our best.
Great points, Duncan. I seriously doubt that there has ever been a period in human history in which most didn’t feel like society was going to hell in a handbasket, and that the younger generation (of whatever time period) was utterly lost and causing the irrevocable downfall of society. Yet, at least some of those same folks go on to comprise the new generation of…well, exactly what we all seem to respect and admire.
Are there many absurd and deplorable things happening today from which one could become extremely discouraged? Of course. Be glad you didn’t live in the 1700’s, or the 1200’s…or….
We must take heart, and encourage the next generation however we can, if only because the alternative would be a bleak proposition, indeed.
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When I first moved here to northern Wisconsin, there was a block of land a couple miles down the road from my house that I spent my early years of bowhunting in. In this block of woods was a strip of red pines maybe a mile long by a quarter mile wide. Inside these pines was like its own little world. The undergrowth had grown up enough that once inside, you were enveloped by the trees and shrubs that resided there. In this oasis there was a corridor trail that ran the length of the pines. Whenever the wind was right, it was my favorite stalk. I never got a deer in there but always had close encounters and will always have fond memories of my days in the pine grove. Now there are houses there and the trail is long gone. I have never found an equal for the feeling I got when in those pines. Its hard getting attached to such small parts of an ever changing world and watching so many happy places fall to the almighty dollar. Perhaps one day we will learn we must live with the land and not on it? Until then, I’ll keep looking for my new sacred place! Good luck to all this season, stay safe and God Bless!!!
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Duncan wrote: Traditional archery won’t die if we don’t let it. Studies have already shown that Gen Y is less interested in status and more interested in experiences. I think a renaissance of traditional archery is right around the corner and Gen Y will make it happen. All we have to do is plant the seeds. Show them there is a better experience to be had.
Ah, now here is an area I can actually put my two cents in on any maybe know what I’m talking about!
I’m a Gen Y’er, and I totally agree that there is a renaissance right around the corner. However..
I have to disagree in that my generation is heavily relating status to experiences.
As we have talked about before on different threads, there is a sense of ‘elite’ status for those of us that hunt with trad gear.
Technology can only go so far before we start to step back and realize that we are no longer challenging ourselves. Many kids my age are starting to see trad as a way to challenge themselves and sort of be held in higher regards than our wheeled counterparts.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like they are missing a deeper connection and understanding that this is really all about – and that is what I’m afraid is going to die out.
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I was 7years old the fist time I went camping. It was with my gandfather who was the man who taught me fishing,hunting and about the forest as my father was not the outdoors type. I went with my gramps for a number of years until I became a teen. The last time I was camping with him we carved our names in a cottonwood tree and today that tree is still standing. I can’t camp in our old campsite as it is now on private property and a resort area but at times I drive by and stop and walk down to the tree and remember the times I had as a youth learning about the great outdoors—jim d
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Just a thought on the loss of friends, family and places, I tell myself how lucky I was to have met them known them and been there.
Grief and sorrow is me feeling sorry for myself.
As for being young again I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Mark.
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Juspassin
very well said–
cyberscout
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Back when I lived in Mercer County New Jersey, Some 25 years ago, I had such a place that turned into a luxury housing development. Fortunately, the developer left my old treestand at the end of a street, at the edge of a woodlot. It looks out of place but I stopped to look at it one day and some kids were climbing up it as a tree fort. I asked if they would let me climb up into “their’ fort and they said no. When I told them I built it and what it was for, they went home and got a toy bow and arrow set (with plunger tips on the end. They said one of their parents beefed it up. I stop by and see it when I visit relatives.
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