Steve, I'm sure many camps have faded away like yours did. I'm sure a few started like Dave and Pam's did as well.
I'm not sure if I've ever shared this on here or not. If I have, sorry, if not...sorry anyway.
My uncle Jeff had a camp in Alborn, MN in the late 70's-mid 80's. Camp was Jeff, Uncle Rick, and my Dad. It was a cool place on 40acres. It was an octagon, had water(well)/electrical, but still pretty "rustic." No plumbing, the water was heated on the stove and the dish water ran outside into 5 gal pails, out house, deer racks on the facia...typical MN camp.
Jeff decided to sell the camp to pay for his wedding
and my dad and Rick could not afford to buy him out. The new owner was going to build a house on the property but said they could use the place for a few years to hunt.
My uncle Rick was like a father to me. We were very close. He would be at our house at 6am wheter we wanted to go or not... Rick was there. I was not able to legally hunt yet, but I had a bb gun was was in the deer stands, walking the trails, clearing brush, pushing bush for deer, scouting...everything that one does for hunting without carrying
a gun. We were fishing, bird hunting, deer hunting, camping, anything outdoors.
In 1986 Rick was diagnosed with Leukeima. We were devestated, me especially. He went through a long treatment process and it went into remission In 88 he was once again able to hunt. The "camp" was gone but we had a camper that we used and
hunted the same area in Alborn. We didn't get a deer that year, but I remember almost everything we did together that season. It sounds weird, but I do. I remember it like yesterday. I remember setting out mock scrapes on the firday before the season started in the back of the gravel pit the camper was in, the campfire we had that night, the brats we cooked over the fire, going to bed and waking up to 4" of fresh fluffy
snow...like it happened yesterday. I remember the excitement of walking with him along the woods line early the next day (opening day) and seeing the dirt of the scrape "glow" from the snow that was scraped off it sometime in the last few hours.
Rick's cancer came back with a vengance later the next spring and he was dead by May of 1989. A few weeks before my 12th birthday, the year I finally got to hunt for real with him... I didn't know what to do, where to turn, or how to handle any of it...Hell I was 12.
My dad didn't have any desire to hunt anymore. He took me, but didn't want to go. Dad hasn't hunted since 1990. He called a buddy that had some land on the Iron Range and he said I could hunt there and I did, for the next 20 years.
I shot a lot of deer there and some dandy bucks through the years. But as things happen the land owner's adult kids started to hunt there. They were grown up when I
started and they didn't have an intrest then but did 15 years later. I was only allowed to sit in one stand and not move around because I'd "spook" all the deer. They started to
bait their stands (not legal) so I'd not see deer, silly games like that. Well the last two years I hunted there, I shot a 9pt and 6pt even though they tried everything to not have deer by me. They got mad, and it wasn't fun anymore.
In 2009 I was invited to hunt up at Chickenbuck and I think I've hunted at least one deer season of some sort ever since. I'm pround to be allowed there. Happy to be part of a camp and have been inviting myself back to eat Dave's ribs ever since.
I'm thankful to have met Dave and Pam. Uncle Dusty, Missy, Preacher Joe, Weezy,
Nate, Justin, Kenna, Makes no Patties, Big Jelly, Toumor buck, White Bear, Busch Pilot, Lester, Tommy, Colorado1135and all the other boys and girls that come up.
It is something I truly look forward too every year. Even when we work up there, its fun. I wish I lived closer so I could go a lot more...but maybe Dave and Pam did that by design.
