And then there are those rural recreational hunters.......
I know it varies some from place to place, and I don’t intend to broad-brush things, but it seems quite common among the 20-30 age group in some places that “free” is an actual concept that costs no one anything. I have a couple of step sons who are perfect examples. One has crossed the 30 threshold, has inserted three children into a woman , who squirted them into the world. I brought him and s friend up to camp over a dozen years ago to help move materials for the cabin we were building. It was just occasional assistance I needed so the boys went down and tried to ‘catch’ a seal... which eventually happened, but, since it was late enough in the spring that we were boating, the seals were already losing their buoyant blubber and it sank. I helped them skewer it with a screw-tipped harpoon and retrieve it in relatively shallow water, but after many tries. I showed him how to skin it and prepare the the oil, meat, etc. As far as I know, that is the last time he’s fired a gun. I’m sure he’s glad I came home... brought his oldest son too 8 years old. We ‘rescued’ him from the mom (in Anchorage) over a year ago - when she was hospitalized for cutting herself, but before OCS got there hands on him. So Dad, whose had a year to try to get his $11,000 child support whittled down, now has his son to look after. (Mother’s sister adopted second son, and another sister has custody of the daughter.) So step son really doesn’t have a big load, but doesn’t/won’t hunt, lives rent free in our village home, can’t keep the lights on or heat so it is squalid and unfit. And that is not an en entirely unusual deal other than the fact that the chess pieces aren’t being played by OCS. The younger step son isn’t much better. Told the boys to move our old fish rack up a bit last summer so they can cut and dry some fish for winter. I’m pretty sure the storms will knock it over before they ever get to it. Gotta sleep enough you know.
And then there are those young guys who lose all or some of their kids to ‘the State’, won’t drive an old used sno go (cause they’re not cool enough). Won’t hunt when it’s cold (not so much of a problem recently), mostly uses the rig when choosing between “dope or diapers?’ and puts more miles on along the same few miles of local trail. But that machine is “vital for hunting.” (It gets used in springtime to hunt waterfowl, a traditional subsistence source that has become a recreational activity for many of such young bucks.)
Of course there are other who have more dignity, honor, and respect too, but it seems like they are fading with each passing generation. How long they will hold on is anyone’s guess. Some of these guys will put 3000-5000 miles on their rigs in a year. Yeah, I think they can justify the 12 grand or so that they cost... perhaps.
I don’t know what the answers are. I don’t even begin to understand how all the factors fit together. But I do know that some places appear to be dying out (were it not for the Gov, perhaps already dead), but for too many the drain on society as the unwilling move ‘inward’ ( to the city) isn’t much of a solution... and it’s happening. But for the moment, if there are no fish I the net today, it will be rice... and maybe beans. It’s too darned expensive to buy the stuff that is largely price supported through government aid.
......end of long, largely point-lost rant........ for now!🙄
