Today I travelled out to the swamp. It's not a swamp like Hollywood would portray; rather, a junk of overgrown prairie mixed with oak savanna on glacial till ridges, mixed with boreal deciduous and conifer. In between these ridges lies small tracts of peat bog, willows, slough grass, and cattails. For those who know me that is where my family hunts whitetail deer. What we were doing out there was scouting for next season. The details are secret. These secrets are a common courtesy that all avid deer hunters would not dare ask for they know what we were doing and would be impolite to ask any more details of where and exactly what, and how.
We travelled on snowmobiles down abandoned roads and logging trails. Funny thing is that this area northwest of Middle River has never been logged. Since the arrival of the white man it probably has never been burned off enough. Every time i go back to the swamp, I travel back in time. I travel to a time when life was maybe simpler. A time when immigrants took a few deer and grouse for a staple. A harsher time than now when people cut a few cords of wood to burn in pot belly stoves to keep a small house comfortable if someone would tend the fire a couple times in the middle of the nights. This time also included no electricity and people actually took the time to write a letter back to Norway by light of a kerosene lamp instead of shooting off an e-mail. It is hard for me to imagine such a time in history, but I like to, and some parts of my life i have even tried living out a fantasy of trying to live in old ways, actually earning a good portion of my income in the winter months by trapping fur.
But what enthuses me most are the kids. I find myself telling stories to these kids of places in the swamp where we got a big buck or saw a bear or wolf one time. Today one of my sons was telling me stories of his hunt while I was out on the pipeline this year. We had scouted all summer and decided to place an observation post near one of our sacred hunting spots, "The Tamarack Strip." Last November he called me with great enthusiasm to tell me how his planning had paid off. my heart soared knowing he loved to tell the story and today he retold it to his fellow hunters young an old out in the middle of the swamp.
We ended the day with a comradely run race of snowmobiles all the way from the corral to the cabin. Yes the swamp atmosphere can get competitive.
Today was a little different for me. Nothing has changed really out in the swamp. Yet, I never get tired of it or bored. I was feel like I belong there, but the trees didn't seem to be dancing as lively. I never grow tired of this swamp and I have not learned all its secrets, yet although the swamp was welcoming me home so to speak, it was almost as if the willows were mourning knowing I would be departing again.
When I go out to the swamp I often pray, " Heavenly Creator, whose voice I hear in the wind...." Today the wind was more of a gentle breeze and the voice more of a whisper, "Peace I give you until I see you again. We missed you, will miss you and we will welcome you again."
Times change, but the core of the soul doesn't. In the big picture, my adventures, my scouting may not always be a swamp. It could be the gorges of White Earth Valley, Mouse River, or possibly the bluffs of the upper Missouri and Yellowstone River in Western north Dakota. The adventurer in me takes mental notes of how I would hunt the open plains versus the confined forests. It pulls on me the thought of hunting different deer, possibly antelope. My soul seems to be shifting. I owe it to those like me that have come before and similar hearts that are coming and have yet to come, to take on this new adventure with enthusiasm and the spirit of the hunter and explorer.
The big picture seems to be opening up many new doors and at the same time not slamming old ones shut. Closing windows that lead in and down and leaving windows open that lead out and up. It almost that time to to explore the big picture of my life as it is with its serious endeavors also, and welcome any changes that may come. I can not ignore the voice I hear when out on the Great Plains, during this time in America's history during this time of great change, "Come!"
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