Primal

Our leaves are beginning the change, the lush green of summer is turning to pale yellows in the birch and aspens. Our maples are still mostly green but some are shifting to the fiery red and orange. The tamaracks have not started yet though, still their olive green. Tamarack is an Algonquin word that loosely translates to 'wood used for snowshoes'. A poultice of its inner bark has been used to treat cuts, infected wounds, boils, and frostbite. Tamaracks resemble evergreens but they are not. It is a deciduous coniferous tree. Like other leaf bearing deciduous trees they'll change from green to a nice yellow before dropping its needles.

Young Tamarack

Close up of needles...

Tamarack in the fall

Our temperatures are dropping too, down into the forties at night, highs in the mid to upper sixties. Fall is coming and with it comes that familiar deeply instinctual urge to make meat. Ron, The Trying Woodsman, recently posted about the urge to start foraging.  The idea being that humans have an instinctual compulsion that may be triggered by the seasons to do certain things. Foraging and harvesting, putting back for the long winter ahead for example. I've believed this to be the case for many years, most of my adult life I've recognized this compulsion. I believe it's tied to our distant past when our survival was much closer to the bone.

For me, the compulsion to hunt is the most intense. It is a primal thing buried deep beneath the dusty eons, a thing not easily disregarded.

For as long as we've walked the earth we've eaten the bounty thereof, as much a predator as the wolf or the cougar. There's a connection, I believe it is partly instinctual, the same as a cat will instinctively crouch and pounce, or a short hair pointer will point as a young pup. It's somehow hardwired in them, it's also hardwired into some humans as well. Beyond the purely instinctual, it's also spiritual in nature for me. Something I believe our ancient ancestors felt as well.

There are a number of reasons that I hunt. Some are related to this primal spiritual instinctual connection, others because I prefer to know where my meat came from, still others related to the environment and the fact that hunting is in fact much more environmentally friendly than massive commercial meat farms. I'm not condemning meat production, God knows I like a good beef steak, as well as nice and juicy cheeseburgers as much as the next person. Because I am in a position to supply 90% of our meat by way hunting it would be utterly foolish not to do so, you can't get fresher, you can't get cleaner.

I am the follower from whence it came, I will be there where it goes.

I am the the tracker, the eyes in the woods, the silent shadow.

I am the hand that completes the cycle, taker and provider.

I am the hunter.