comerade;
Top of the morning to you sir, I trust the summer has been going well for you folks out east and that you've been getting a reprieve from the last few years of fire season as we are this summer.
As I've mentioned often here before, I grew up in a land which no longer exists in that pretty much everyone I knew was a hunter or at very least had firearms about and shot things.
My late father and long gone favorite Uncle Frank would go on an annual moose hunt into "the bush" in east central Saskatchewan every fall and the family joke is that I was conceived when Dad returned one year, albeit without a moose.
Uncle Frank used to tease him and say, "You can't say you didn't get anything that year Fred - look at Dwayne here!" and then they'd both laugh and laugh - much to the embarrassment of any of the female members of the family present.
Since I'm the youngest, my siblings tell me that as early as 3, I began to want to go along on the annual hunts with them and though my brother who is 9 years older than me did go a couple times, he's never been a hunter, though he did hunt for a few years - if that makes any sense?
So for me hunting was something that was as natural and normal as milking the cow, feeding the chickens and pigs or shoveling snow for half the year - nearly everybody in Saskatchewan did that and so did I!
As far as specific hunting mentors however, I'd have to say that a cousin of mine from Medicine Hat showed me the light on careful sighting in your arm of choice, whitetail techniques and the use of good optics.
Writers who influenced me? Goodness sir if you could see my library - and I'll note I need to build more shelves or start selling books - that's a tough one. In the spirit of full disclosure, before I typed this response I slithered back downstairs and with a pen wrote down the authors I've got entire books from which include:
- Olaus Murie
- Russell Thornberry - a Texan who I believe is still in Alberta
- Michael Crammond - a BC writer who wasn't that bad actually - if you ever get out this way I'd lend you the books - but they're hard to find hard covers that I lucked into from way back in the day.
- Peter Hathaway Capstick - I know it likely wasn't him always, but my goodness I enjoy his story telling!
- Wayne Van Zwoll - underrated in my view, with an understandable, lucid manner of conveying information
- Jack O'Connor
- Skeeter Skelton - not exactly a lot of hunting, but a great story teller all the same
- Ortega y Gasset
- Robert Ruark - my liver and kidneys ache just reading his safari book....
- Jim Zumbo
- Zane Grey - one can tell he liked to fish more than hunt, but still an interesting sound bite of the times
- Clyde Ormand
- Elmer Keith - again entertaining style, but I got the impression he wasn't easy to be around at all times.
- Lawrence Koller
- John Barsness - I believe I've got everything in print that's still available from John
- Eileen Clarke - while not exactly hunting per se, her two books "Slice of the Wild" and "Sausage Season" are what I recommend to beginning hunters more often than any other book - but that's almost another thread....
Overall I'd say for sure John's writing has had the greatest impact on how I hunt and attempt to pass that knowledge on to other hunters when I'm either teaching a Hunter Safety Course or plain old mentoring/discussing the subject with them. A big part of that for me however is that John writes in a language which I understand - he's from Montana and as you know western Canada and the western states have much in common in the way we communicate and articulate our thoughts.
That and John has been gracious enough to answer many of my queries over the years either through email or PM's here - something I have always been grateful for.
My goodness I see I've typed a whole bunch and perhaps not adequately answered your question, but I hope so somewhat at least.
Finally comerade, at my stage of life now, I'm hoping that at some point in the future if there's still hunting and forums such as this exist in whatever form, when the question comes up someone will be able to say that a little bald guy with a big mustache from OK Falls was helpful for them when they started hunting.
If that happens, then I'll have accomplished what I'm endeavoring to do, you know?
All the best to you folks for the rest of the summer sir, may the fire season miss us altogether and good luck on your hunts this fall.
Dwayne
