In 1996, -97, and -98 I was living an outdoors-man's dream. A typical day I would wake up at the crack of dawn, and journey out to tend my muskrat and beaver sets. I would come home at dark and spend hours in a fur skinning shed. Once a week or sometimes more depending on my catch I would visit the fur man and get a nice check. I loved the smell of the swamp, the trees, the exhaust from a warm vehicle. I was subsidized by an unemployment check. My bills were paid, and I felt I had a purpose in life- to catch and kill and skin and stretch as much fur as a human could. By most trappers accounts, I was considered good. I took over 3500 muskrats and nearly a 600 beaver in those years. Foxes, coyotes, badgers, fishers, bobcats, and I even had a wolf in a trap one time, but got it loosed. I struggled over the idea of trying to smuggle the hide into Canada. But I turned him loose.
I remember picking up one of my children just born from the hospital in a pickup loaded with beavers in the round and some put up and hauling them and my family to the fur man Ordean Sunrud in Fosston, MN. My boys tasted a freshly cooked beaver there, and it was good.
Life moved on for me, I had a couple of career changes, markets dropped and I sold my traps and some supplies to another guy who wanted to make a go at it. I was raising turkeys. One night something got into my turkey shed and killed about 600 birds outright, while the rest piled up in the four corners of the shed. Tracks left in the mud led certain evidence plus the fact in my alfalfa field I had seen a pair of wolves earlier that summer. I was angry, financially devastated. I became consumed with the spirit of vengeance and within a couple days I had settled the score. I encouraged others to do the same , and got on the anti wolf bandwagon.
A couple years later after moving on from ranching and settling in to another chapter of my life, I was driving around one day. In a distant meadow I saw two wolves playing around a bale. My instinct was to grab the gun, but instead I grabbed the binoculars... it changed my heart and my life.
I saw that the pair were actually hunting mice. In the grass I could see smaller wolves, pups. The pair was teaching them how to hunt and feed. The pups would play and wrestle around. It reminded me of my boys. When the wrestling got a little rough, the mom would intervene and they would snap back and pay attention again. They were just doing what wolves do. They were being a family not much different than mine.
They were just being the way God created them. They play and sleep together, hunt together, they encourage each other to grow and become stronger. They keep each other in line so that their family can function together as a unit.
Same with the beaver, building a home together, gathering food. So it is then I realized that as we are brother and sisters in Christ, so too are we brothers and sisters to the furry four legs in Creation. I will not take any of my fur legged brothers or sisters nor teach the ways of it no more...forever. This does not mean that I will not hunt or trap again. It means doing only these things for me to provide a meal, or clothe myself. After all, who can turn down a plate of well prepared venison.
Who am I to judge one of God's families. It was on that day, and although possibly distorted at the time, I began my journey back on the Red Road. A road that has led me back to God's family, their have been struggles and victories. We are more alike than different.
Of wolves and beavers, I hold nothing against the man who takes the fur as a part of his journey of existence on his life. I hold nothing against the farmer protecting his crops and livestock. But I hold in the least regard for men who were takers as I once was "sportsmen" satisfying an ego, . Using greed as their creed and giving nothing back. I hold even less regard for a government or bureau profiting from the control of these creatures.
Worse are those who wantonly waste the creatures of Creation in the name of satisfying a void in their heart with the excitement of hearing the crack of a firearm and the satisfaction of an aimed shot. It matters not what others do though. And if because of my beliefs the retelling of these exploits brings joy to their hearts to see mine sad; then... Amen. I know that it is what they have to do as part of their journey to find their own center. I will pray to live in the spirit of forgiveness so that I may forgive.
Mitakuye Oyasin
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