A lot of people are surprised to find out that most of Ontario’s moose hunting season is 6 days long and that rifle season for deer is a mere 13.  Rules for shotguns and archery are longer and bird season and other small game start earlier in the fall and last most of the harvest.

Even more people are surprised to learn about the amount of work required for a camp like ours – much of it optional, some necessary for survival and others just because we’re there.  The preparation work for hunting began more than a month ago and will increase in intensity as we get closer to October.

Our cabin sleeps 14 and has 3 stoves (2 in the cabin and one for a shower/sauna room that is necessary to stay clean, low on odour and just generally civilized) and burns a lot of wood:

 The photo above shows less than one-third of the wood that’s been brought into camp for splitting.  We brought it there via ATV and a trailer in 5-7 foot lengths.

All of our wood is harvested as a bi-product of responsible logging.  We gather the deadfalls and ends that the logging industry leaves behind (generally because it is too gnarly, short or hollow) and we split and dry it for firewood.  All of the wood is harvested with permission – at times it’s even neatly piled for us so we can help clear it out-of-the-way.  In som odd way I feel like an Aunt feasting on crumbs from the picnic of giants.

Wood tends to be the first task of the year – the sooner we can split and stack it, the sooner it will dry.  Dry wood burns faster and produces quicker heat – essential when returning from a wet and snowy day in the woods.  There is a funny irony that we gather our heat source in the hottest days of summer when you can barely comprehend why on earth we’ll need this heat in mere months.

There’s some other general maintenance being done around camp.  We’ve had to level the camp (it sits on raised blocks and parts sag or sink that have to be adjusted in order to keep the camp level, doors and windows opening and the building in good repair).

My Father also set up an environmental self-composting bathroom for My Mother and other non-hunting friends that make the cabin a little more livable in the summer (although it’s getting to be pretty easy to stay there!).

A lot of supplies have been brought up.  Many of them were donations from members or people they know – trucks of lumber and more than 998 (but less than 1,000) bricks have been brought and stacked for a new walkway.

An old porch (and the skid walkway leading up to it) were beyond repair and have since been removed.  My Father and several of the veterans left for camp this morning for their annual “Geezer week” (there is an age and retirement requirements) where they may do some or all of the prep work on the deck.

Time is also made for the occasional ride/ hike and to explore the wonderful bounty of nature.  As the hunting season nears the frequency and importance of these excursions dramatically increase as tracking of game and forest become more and more important.  The area is simply some of the most beautiful I know of on this planet:

There will be plenty more work to be done as well.  We’ll be cutting and maintaining trails, setting up tree stands and watches, mapping the woods and finding new areas to explore.

So far I’ve only spent one weekend up there – the majority of the work has been done by my parents and several of the hunters/ friends of the camp.  It’s an amazing place that takes a near-army to maintain; something I am so appreciative of but didn’t recognize for many years.  I also thought the insight might be of interest to some of you…

Here’s to hoping you’re getting a chance to explore the outdoors around you this summer!

This photo (the only known photo of Billy the Kid), which is the size of a credit card, sold at auction this weekend for $2.6 million:

The photo was taken in 1879 or 1880.

There`s a lot of confusion on the legend of BIlly the Kid.  He may have killed 4, 9 or 21 people and all or none may have been in self-defence.  My connection to him isn`t intended to glorify the outlaw – more of a connection to a specific time which seems so far ago.

My connection to the man – and his time – can be seen in the photo.

When I hunt, I use a gun almost identical to what he used in the 1800`s.  Mine is slightly different and was manufactured in the 1960`s but one of the gentlemen at our food camp hunts with a gun that`s nearly identical and was made in the late 1800`s.  It is likely that my gun could use some of the parts with the gun in the photo above – it is more likely that his gun could trade all parts with it.

It is amazing how much technology has developed almost everything around us – yet the primary tool that many of us use in the fall harvest is similar, if not identical, to what was used so long ago.  I am struggling to think of anything that has changed less over the same period of time.

The connection may seem like a stretch but it is something we occaisionally talk about when in the woods – the connection our activities have to the past on this land and traditions that outdate us all.

There`s also a design-related angle to the photo above.  Historians had examined the photo and concluded for years that he was left-handed based on how he held his rifle and the holster on his left-side.  Books and movies were made about the left-handed gun slinger.  It turns out that the tin-type image produces a negative (i.e. reverse of what the photographer saw) so those accounts were flawed.

You need a lot of licenses to hunt in Ontario.

Here`s a list of what I am carrying on me this week in the woods (excluding things like a car license):

• A gun license.  This gives me authority and responsibility to carry a gun.  This is not the same as the gun registry which registers firearms to owners – this registers me as a potential owner and makes me liable if I do something wrong (unlicensed people using my guns for evil still holds me potentially partially accountable as the registered gun owner).
• An outdoors card which is ultimately a license that lets me buy hunting licenses.
• A small games license for bird hunting before the moose hunt (i.e. the weekend before, not in the morning).
• A moose license
• A bear license
• A dog license

Now, the dog license is the one that allows my dog to be in the woods and hunting with me.  It does not allow me to hunt dogs – which would seem obvious to me but I had a very unfortunate misunderstanding with a your customer service rep at a large retailer when I recently tried to purchase a Hunting License for my Dog.  She seemed somewhat agitated and explained to me that her store decided which licenses they would sell and which ones they wouldn`t and that dog was one they didn`t sell.  I left the store and was 10 minutes down the road before the dots connected and I realized that she had thought I was hunting dogs.

There is a double-standard that some may point out here – after all, I am hunting animals.  I would never dream of hunting dogs – the thought is purely horrifying to me.  Ask me to explain why I think it`s ok to eat cattle, pigs or hunt deer or moose and I just don`t have a logical, rational answer.  Understand that my conflict is why I rationalize hunting and eating the meat that I do and not the inverse..

More on the actual hunt when I return, if you`re reading this on Thursday then I`m likely deep into a swamp and up to my knees in water trying to find my way out of the woods.

Imagine yourself going through the following:

• The alarm went off at 4.30 in the morning.  You staggered to the pot of coffee and dragged on some light clothes designed to keep you cool and dry as you walked through the depths of a dark forest and swamp.
• At 5:00AM, in the pure darkness, you got on an ATV and drove 10-15 kilometers away from your camp.  Your clothes was not designed for cold weather at 40 kilometers per hour.
• By 5:15 you got off your bike and walked to a spot to sit.  The walk put a bit of a sweat on and you now sit for 3 hours.  It’s time to get cold again.
• At 8:00AM you know it’s time to start your walk.  It’s a 1-3 hour walk through a forest.  There are no paths, few roads, many obstacles including swamps and fallen roots.  Some of the forest is made of cedars so thick that you have less than 6 inches of visibility.This can go on for 10-15 minutes as you essentially walk through a bush.  The land you are seeing has been seen by 10 or fewer people in the last 100 years.  You begin to sweat through the physical activity and swing between being too hot and too cold.

As a dogger, this is a fairly typical day.  On the odd occasion that you get lost, there is nothing that is typical.

I have been truly lost in the woods 3 times in my life (1 time was during a hunt).  The longest I’ve been truly lost was about 7 hours and it’s a terrifying experience.

The biggest challenge of finding your way home is staying calm.  It is so easy for your mind to race ahead, let concern creep in and make a series of bad decisions (the worst of which is typically to keep walking).  As panic sets in, you begin to walk faster and believe that your safe exit is just ahead and you walk in a random direction.  This can continue for hours (or longer).  It’s not uncommon, after hours of such frantic walking, to end up back where you started.  I can share, from personal experience, that one of the worst feelings in the world happens a moment after realizing that you have discovered a place you were already at 3 hours prior.

When I was younger, we were provided a compass and (sometimes) a map.  When you have a map and know where the closest accessible road is, you set a bearing and walk there.

When you don’t have a compass, things get trickier.  You hope to have the sun and you can use it to orient yourself (i.e.keep it over your right shoulder).  There are some other tricks too – one of the neatest is to stumble on a logging road and walk until you find an intersection.  Intersections in the woods are never 90 degrees – trucks need to make a wide turn.  If you look at the intersection from above (pretend you are flying), the intersection looks like an arrow which points the way to civilization (trucks don`t turn around so an intersection looks more like a curve on one road that merges into another).

The advent of technology (handheld GPS units specifically) has assisted us a great deal but does not guarantee a safe return.  It was only 4 or 5 years ago that I could see where I was on my GPS, hear the shouts of my hunters but could see a large body of water that had me trapped with less than 20 minutes before darkness.  The GPS will show you where you are and where you need to go but it doesn’t account for you not wanting to swim.

We generally find our way out without incident.  As my understanding of the woods and how to navigate safely increases, it becomes less and less likely – but it is a very real possibility and you must respect the forest – she has an odd way of humbling you the moment that you think you know enough.

I hope to bring some neat photos back from some of the areas I walk next week and get to share some of Canada`s remote forests with you!  It is, after all, a lot of fun and very, very pretty.

I am 37 years old and have been actively hunting (meaning that I`ve possessed a gun in the woods during hunting season with the intent to harvest an animal) since I`ve been 15 years old.  22 years of hunting and I haven`t fired a single shot at a large animal.  I`ve harvested several birds but have yet to see the right animal at the right time to even have the chance to participate in the harvest.

I`ve come within 10 feet of an 800-pound female moose, seen a grown adult male swim across a lake, and seen almost as many animals as the number of years that have passed.  Unfortunately (from my perspective), I have never had the privledge andlearning that comes with the right animal (including age and gender) at the right time.  My chances will dramatically decrease this year as I`ll be walking (also known as `dogging`) a lot more with our pup.  Those who walk tend to see less animals as their noise and scent tend to move animals away from them.

In order to increase your chance to see something while walking, you have to learn how to walk.  This is something I was taught as a child (not for hunting but in order to increase my chance to see animals in the woods).  I was taught to examine my feet and how they differed from most of the animals woods.  We have a ball and a heel to our feet and when we walk each foot touches the ground twice.  Most animals have a much smaller footprint that connects with the ground in a single motion.

Understanding the anatomy of the feet (and hooves) found in nature, you will quickly learn that most animals sound very different than humans in the woods.  Our feet will break branches and twigs twice per step (the first break being from the heel and the second when we transfer weight to the ball).  The hoof of a moose would break the same branch once.

To increase your odds of seeing animals in the wild, you have to change how you walk.  Lock your ankle (you can do this anywhere) and place your foot flat on the ground so that the ball and heel touch the earth at the same time.  This is fairly simple on flat ground – it`s an entirely new challenge when walking over uneven terrain that is concealed by a variety of leaves.

I will walk for miles like this next week.  The average walk will take 1-3 hours and be painfully slow – walking 3-10 feet at a time before stopping and listening and then taking a few more flat-footed steps.  Walking like this is essential in the fall when the forest is covered in fallen leaves – which are both crispy and loud underfoot.  It`s a bizzare (but true) fact that a squirel makes more noise in the woods than a running adult moose).  I have seen 800+ pound animals run within 30 feet of me without making a sound.  There`s a lot we can learn from our forest allies…I encourage you to try to walk like this for an hour or two (you can do it discretely).  You may be surprised that remembering to be consistent is the toughest part of the challenge…

There are many different styles of hunting – we participate in a group hunt which means that a group of people get together, pool licenses and expertise and work together to increase their odds at a successful harvest (although some strong trackers would rightfully claim that increasing numbers does not necessarilly increase ones odds).

We have 14 hunters this year and are allowed 1 adult male (a bull), 1 adult female (a cow) and 1 calf per hunter.  The rationale of hunting calves is to cull a herd, increase the relative amount of food per young animal (which can`t reach the high=hanging harvest that adults can and relatively struggle to escape some predators) and should lead to a stronger remaining population.  An average cull of 2 or 3 animals will yield far less than 100 pounds of meat per hunter.

The moose hunt lasts 6 days in our section of Ontario (and is about the same in many regions of Ontario).  `Civilians` are discouraged from entering the woods by the Ministry of Natural Resources though the reason may surprise some.  Safety is generally not an issue (I would argue that it`s not an issue; recall that we have to identify age and gender of an anial so shooting at noises is something our camp does not tolerate); the issue is simply that a hiker walking through the woods could actually be participating in the hunt by `pushing`animals towards armed hunters.  Regulation, common sense and a commitment to each other`s safety is paramont during our hunt.

Animals tend to be more mobile as the sun rises and sets.  We are allowed to hunt from 30 minutes before sunrise until 30 minutes after sunset.  Our alartm clock will wake us around 4.00AM and we will hit the trail by 5:00AM.  It is generally very cold and snow is not out of the question (or rain or rain and snow).  We will generally sit in pure darkness (this plays psychological chaos on the psyche) before our 30 minute limit – loading our guns and beginning the hunt only when allowed by law (there would be no point before this as you simply wouldn`t be able to see anything).

We will sit in a rough circle or horseshoe that will span a mile or more.  Most of the hunters are `watchers`who must stay extremely still (and stay awake) while the `doggers`(also known as `walkers`) will keep still until a set time when they will begin to walk towards the furthest hunters on the line.  Doggers will typically have the wind at their back, will make a moderate amount of noise and attempt to push any animals in their path towards the line (bonus points if we can do this at a casual stroll and not a full-out run).

The goal of having animals wander to the line (as opposed to running) serves several goals:

• From selfish reasons, this makes the harvest easier
• It gives the doggers a better chance to track and a possible (though remote chance) to harvest an animal
• It hopefully makes the shooting easier, more accurate and the dispatching of the animal as fast as possible (when all goes right, this can be an instant process)
• It controls adrenalin.  Adrenalin can create tougher meat.
• It, in theory, makes their progress more predictable by following preset game trails that are often abandoned if pursued.

Because we`ve added a real dog to our family this year, my role will change from one who `watched`a lot to one who `walks`a lot.  This has meant new equipment and will mean that my chances of harvesting an animal have decreased (though I`ve had no luck in my previous 22 years of hunting moose and deer) .  There will be a lot of compass watching, GPS checking and navigating the wilderness through the week.  My gear will be much lighter and layered for the temperatures and I will need some basic survival tools in the event that I get turned around (otherwise known as `lost`).  More on that soon..

It`s the middle of August and  fall is coming sooner than I`d like to admit.

For those who have been with us a year or more, you know that part of our local diet includes wild meat when we have a successful fall harvest.  It`s not an easy topic for many to read about (and just as tough to write about at times).  You can learn a lot about our (non-graphic) perspectives of eating wild meat (deer, moose, partridge) through out introduction to hunting and a series of 9 articles which were taken from my journal in the woods last year over the course of the hunt.

The Moose hunt in our area (Huntsville) lasts 6 days in October but the work and planning has been starting for the last few months.  It`s  kicked into high gear this week – our annual meeting was last night and the `Geezer`week launches Monday (I won`t qualify for this for almost 25 years).  After that the cabin will be a hive of activity from early September through mid-November.  There will be trails to cut, wood to split, tracking to do, maintenance on the cabin and so much more.  It`s a wild amount of work for 6 days of Moose Hunting and up to 12 days of deer hunting.

Our woods have changed a lot in the last few years.  The impact of the cancelled spring bear hunt (we have never really been bear hunters) is starting to take a toll and we`re seeing more of them all the time.  I saw 3 in 36 hours on the Canada Day weekend (contrast that to having seen a total of 7 in 30 years in our woods).  There have been more bear every year and it`s been tough on the deer in our area.  There appears to be a major change in deer habitat as many areas are seeing less deer than the past while others are being inundated with them.  There is a virtual bounty on them with a free hunt in Bancroft this year intended to thin more than 500 of them from a swollen population area.  I don`t know if the two are connected but know that many areas are reporting far more bears and others are reporting far more deer.

There`s also some conditioning – 5-6 days of walking thorough the woods for 8-12 hours per day is going to take some extra prep work this year.  I`ll be walking a lot more than in the past as our puppy prepares for his first year in the woods with me (and yes, there will be more dog training to prepare as well).

We have been lucky with the lottery this year and our large camp is allowed to harvest one adult male and one adult male (calves are a different story that has a much longer explanation but we can harvest more of them).  A lot of people find it surprising to discover that the season is so short, that preparation is so long and that our licenses cover age and gender of animal.  You can find more information on how the Moose Hunting Licenses in Ontario work here.

If you haven`t been exposed to hunting before and are uncomfortable with the idea, I hope you`ll take a look at some of our previous posts and join an open discussion on the topic.  It`s not an easy subject and one that I continue o struggle wrapping my head around.

This post was written more than a week before it appears on the site.  It is posting on a Friday and by the time it is read our hunting fortunes will largely be written for the year 2009.  If we are hunting today, it’s getting desperate and the mood is diminishing.

Some of the men will have had to return to their families and our numbers are dwindling.  We’re, in part, missing home (but won’t admit it to each other) and wondering if we are coming home on Saturday or Sunday.  If no animals are down, we will hunt to the bitter end this year.

There’s also a small glimmer of doubt in your mind as to what you hope for.  Coming home empty handed is disappointing – harvesting an animal at the last minute of the last day is a whole lot of work with less people than is actually ideal.  It’s a tough day and one that can end with an empty feeling – months of work with little to show for it.

I recently mentioned that a successful run was seeing animals – and this stays true.  It will be every bit a great week regardless of what fills our freezers.  There is however something bigger that tugs at my ears – eating naturally harvested meat over potentially genetically modified and industrialized food is something that feels more and more necessary to me.  I eat far less meat than I used to but am very hopeful to provide and have an alternative for the coming months.

Hunting hard on a Friday is not a tradition that excites most of our members!

Having said that, I thought today’s post could reflect on an element related to hunting (and thus the food of my family) that fascinates many who come to visit our land during non-hunting months – the roads of our forefathers.

Our cabin sits on 200 acres and is nestled on the border of two townships (Bethune and Lake of Bays).  We are 15 kilometres from pavement and access the cabin by pickup truck or ATV.  Most of the roads have been selectively logged (i.e. not clear cut) over the last several years and the managed forest has helped much of the local wildlife.  Imagine the buffet of leaves, shoots and nuts that are left behind for bears, moose and deer when a tree is selectively harvested!  Fallen trees also provide obstacles that the long legs of moose and deer can avoid while slowing down their predators (including us humans).

Logging is not new to our area – signs exist of more than 100 years of historical logging in our forests.  Just last year we found an old piece of a harness that would be used by horses to haul logs through the woods.  I have met and still know men who harvested the forest using horses before the automation of mechanical monsters.

If you walk our forest with an open eye and a calm focus, you will find logging roads in a variety of ages and stages.  Some of these roads date back to the history of logging in the area and you can imagine the horses pulling stubborn timbers through the cold of winter with loggers working in conditions we can’t possibly imagine.

This is “Wolf Road”:

Wolf Road was an abandoned logging trail when the founders of our camp began hunting it in the 1960s.  It has not been logged since the 1940s or 50s (at the latest) and is a trail that I have known my entire life – I have early memories from the late 1970s of this road.

We named it Wolf Road as it was the location of the first animal killed at our camp (wolf hunting was legal back then).  It is a winding path that crosses our land before turning through a set of hardwoods on Crown (Government) Land.

The road is more than a kilometre from end-to-end.  There are parts that you could cross without knowing that you are on a road at all.  You can see a hundred yards in some places while being able to see 15-20 feet in others.

My father and many of the “elders” of our camp know 10s (if not, hundreds) of roads like this.  Most don’t have names and most are walked by 0-3 people per year.  It amazes me to hear my Dad and other woodsmen discuss a long solo journey through t he depths of the woods.  It goes something like this:

See anything?

Everything I looked at.  You?

Some fresh sign – looked like a young bull.  I followed her west along the upper timber trail before he lost me in the dirty swamp down there.

The big one or the small one?

Right between the two.

You mean near the big oak standing by itself?

No, closer to the little set of birch trees.

Oh.

There are a tonne of these landmarks that are passed from story-to-story, man to man.  Barry’s Bay.  Shaffer’s Pond.  Water by the Old Mans Home.  Jacklin’s Field.  The Murray Bush.  All of these are made up names that are shared by our small community.  The Raft Creek Camp (which is not actually on Raft Creek).  The Princess Bridge (which is not actually a bridge).  The Frenchmens (which never had a French person in it).  Ponderosa.  The Flat Rock.  The other flat rock.  They all form part of our heritage and come directly from the tales of our forefathers and mothers.  Some of these places have been seen by less than 100 people in 100 years.

I remember walking through the woods about 5 years ago.  I was 2 or 3 kilometres away from the nearest human and at least that far from the nearest road.  I was stunned when I happened on an ancient foundation of a long ago house.  It looked like a square wall made of stones – about 8 feet by 10 feet, complete with door way.  It had been reduced to rubble and was far removed from any noticeable trail or road.  It was however, clear, that this was a forgotten home to someone.

I scampered to my Father and our friend Darryl (also a veteran woodsman).  I mentioned what I had found.  They both smiled wryly – both knew that it was there and instantly knew where I had been.

I remember feeling like I had joined some kind of club – only I hadn’t.  After all, Darryl and Paul could bring you back to that spot, I can only try to remember.

Well Preserved is about food – it is also about preserving the things that form our connections with it.  I often wonder what would happen if we stopped hunting.  Would these places be remembered?  Would the names we attach disappear into the ethos?  Would this part of history be simply forgotten?  Would they be replaced by names that other camps associated with them?

For today, I hope you enjoy some of the pictures of Wolf Road – it’s one of my favourite places in the world.

There are at least 1 type of wolf in our forests and rumors of others coming.  We are fortunate to be graced by the rare Algonquin red wolf (there are less than 200 estimated to exist in the wild) and, depending on who you listen to, also have sightings of grey wolves.

Nature is confusing things for us in recent years as Coywolves have appeared in southern Ontario (they have roots in Algonquin to the 1920s though are becoming more frequent across the region in recent years).  A Coywolf is a bizarre crossbreed of wolf and coyote – bizarre as wolves are natural predators of the coyote.  The animals have the strength of the wolf and the lack of shyness of a coyote.  There is a lot of unknowns around coywolves and what impact they will have on us and the ecosystems in which they live.

We occasionally see sign of wolves and, when fortunate, they have been known to serenade the entire cabin to sleep (though one has to listen carefully through the rhythm of 13 other snoring men to hear them).

It was only 4 or 5 years ago when we found signs of an entire pack of wolves at the end of our driveway (about 500 yards from where we slept).  The road had been covered in tire tracks from ATVs and trucks when we went to bed – the dawn revealed a patch where all signs of human existence had been trampled by the curious feet of a pack of wolves.  Here’s a track I recently found – it appeared the wolf was tracking a small deer who left a trail in front of it:

As a hunter, a wolf offers an odd paradox.  We compete with each other while largely leaving one another alone – on the surface.  Our relationship runs much deeper than surface however – and it not one that is entirely antagonistic.

The most obvious relationship is that one’s success can hinder that of the other – simple explanations like this rarely resolve the complexity that nature offers us.

When we are fortunate to cull an animal in the wild, we “field dress” it.  Field dressing is similar to what you do with a fish that you catch for consumption, often referred to as “cleaning a fish.”  Remnants remain at the spot of the harvest after we leave.  It is not uncommon for all of those remains to be the feast of a pack of wolves in the following 12 hours.

There is a deeper relationship that is difficult for some to accept and I am not a scientist that can prove the claims that I write about below – I accept them as fact because of the evidence (personal observation and in Ministry researched) that the moose population in our area grew consistently for the last 30 years overall – a winter tick infestation in moose in the late 1990s and reports of brainworm in deer and possibly moose have altered that growth pattern and hunting limits are being adjusted to compensate.

I’ll attempt my fairest description of what I believe to be fact and encourage each of you to do your own research and make decisions for yourselves (J).

Let us start with an analogy.  We mentioned that a local vineyard culled up to 30% of its grapes in order to ensure the remaining could be sustained and reach maximum health.  A forest has limited food for each of it’s residents.  In the case of moose and deer, height becomes a factor.  Young animals simply cannot reach as high as adults who eat at all heights.

Hunting limits are set to cull the population to a size of reasonable growth or sustainability (as defined by the ministry).  The theory is the same as the grapes – by culling some of the herd, the health of the remaining will be promoted and encouraged.

Responsible hunting is intended, in theory, to keep growth rates in check.  This, when done correctly, has a trickle down effect to the wolves.  If the forest had a swelling of young (possibly weak) moose, wolves would have a buffet-in-the-making.  This could create an abundance of wolves which could lead to problems downstream – i.e. too many wolves and not enough food.  The moose population could then swell until the pendulum came back the other way – this instability could cause the forest greater chaos.

I believe, with all of my heart, that hunting brings stability to the food supply of the wolf and our shared ecosystem.

I am not an expert nor am I trying to convert/ brainwash anyone into this.  There are arguments on all sides of this explosive topic.  I am hoping that these posts are read with an open mind and respectful eye – I do not want to turn this place into an environment of argument and debate but also want to share what I see as very important parts of what we do with others.