This has been a very interesting read. Kind of "de ja vue" all over again.
When I first went off to college - I realized, for the first time, there were people who didn't like guns and hunting. It was a shock to me.
I grew up as part of a family and community, that looked up to the best hunters. I believe I was in my teens before I realized they didn't shut school down for the first week of deer season because it was a holiday - but rather because no one came to school.
My family, having some part Ojibwe heritage, also admired good hunters. When I came home with meat - my mother praised me, and I got the best cut of meat.
When I was young, we were very poor. If I didn't do well hunting - we didn't eat well. It was beans and oatmeal the last week of every month. My father worked long hours, and the hunting fell to me. I never went out for sports. Hunting consumed my time. It was never a chore. I loved hunting. I loved matching wits with the animals I hunted. I loved the kill. I didn't (and don't) especially care for gutting deer, dragging them miles through the woods, skinning, and butchering them.
I remember my first taste of beef. I was 11. I thought it tasted strange.
I never liked to hunt bear so much. I guess I didn't feel any particular empathy with them, though my Ojibwe name is Makwa Bemosi (Bear Walking), and I've been told we are part of the bear clan (or totem). If I had tobacco, I would spread some at the site of the kill, but only because my grandfather would do it. I just never cared that much for the meat, though it is good canned. The fat however, we would collect and render. It is the best for baking or cooking of any grease. We would also use it, mixed with pine tar, for waterproofing shoes and moggasins.
Hunting moose is a chore. They can see almost 360 degrees, and are hard to sneak up on. Hunting them is a challenge - unless you happen on one. Often they are in a river - and you want to wait until they get up on shore - - which leaves you little time for a shot before they dissappear into the brush. If you shoot one in the river - you have a terrible time getting them up on shore. Large ones easy go over half a ton. Getting them dressed and quartered is also a lot of work. To dress a moose, we try to prop it on its rear legs - like an A-frame. You take your knife and start your cut. you end up in the gut cavity , hoping you don't get buried by 250 pounds of guts. It is a very bloody job. If you've shot them back in, transport, usually by canoe, is a lot of work.
I first began hunting in 1962. Now, I usually take five to ten deer a year , and I've taken many bear and several moose (part of my job is tracking and killing car injured deer, bear, and ocassionally a moose). Also, I hunt hare, grouse, and grey squirrel, which is my favorite game meat. When I was young, we would also eat beaver and muskrat - which we trapped.
I'm not so poor now. But, if I didn't hunt, to supplement our diet, make our own sugar, harvest wild rice, pick berries, net whitefish, and keep a garden - we would probably have to move to a city and live in an apartment. I sure wouldn't want to do that.
PG
