Stacks of informative articles and level-headed opinion pieces have been written of late about our slinking progress toward wholesale public land transfer and the ongoing efforts to stop it. See Todd Tanner, Bob Marshall, Scott Willoughby, Ben Neary, Judith Kohler, Raph Graybill, and as always Hal Herring for particularly eloquent examples. What follows here will not be as civil. I am angry, and I am frightened. I believe that anyone who isn’t angry and frightened, isn’t paying attention. And I believe the time for polite discourse has passed.
Open-minded, well-informed consideration of every issue is critical to the functional health of any democracy. In fact I think the erosion of such vigorous debate in our society explains many of our current ills. But public lands transfer is not a topic on which reasonable adults can disagree. It’s not a “topic” at all. It is an attempted robbery – a bald-faced, unabashed, mass swindling of the first order. And the crooks have damn near pulled it off already.
Which would be difficult enough to swallow if it were just land at stake. Our public lands are our most economically valuable national asset, responsible for raking billions of dollars directly into the national coffers each year and supporting far more lucrative free market economic activity. We are literally talking about selling off 28% our country. But politicians’ hands have swept mankind’s pockets ever since we outbred the hunter-gatherer clan structure, maybe longer. What’s a few hundred million more acres pilfered from the people?
It’s not about the land or the money though. What’s ultimately at stake here is a way of life. Who we are as a nation, how we live as a people and what it means to be American have all sprouted from the public soil of our great republic. Public land is the bedrock on which our national mythology is built. The cowboys, mountain men and pioneers wouldn’t have existed without public land. Huckleberry Finn is a public land story, as are Call of the Wild, Lonesome Dove, and A River Runs Through It. Don’t Fence Me In and America the Beautiful were written about a landscape with equal access for all. Public lands put the Wild in the Wild West. Our spirit of exploration and adventure is inexorably tethered to the distant horizon and predicated on the freedom to cross the ground in between. Without public land, hunting, fishing, hiking and camping are reduced to commercial transactions and restricted to those who can afford them. Are we still American without room in America to roam?
Surely, nothing so central to our economy, identity and lifestyle could be genuinely threatened by the people who represent us. Maybe in some backwater banana republic or former Soviet state, but such gross injustice, such shameless theft could never happen here, right?
One would think. But I’m here to tell you the barbarians are at the gate, they are coming for what you hold dear, and they are winning. With the passage of SA 838, 51 United States Senators have thrown down the gauntlet, spit in your eye, and made their intentions clear. They are rewriting the laws to take your land. Their threat is real, and it is really happening. We can probably count on the current administration to thwart a land grab for the next eighteen months, but who knows after the next election? Particularly if such brazen disregard for the public interest goes unpunished.
And let us be clear. We are being disregarded. The Senators, Representatives and state governments who’ve led us down this path to the brink of unthinkable calamity know exactly what they’re doing. They are not stupid and they are not misinformed. There has been no misunderstanding of American sentiment. They just don’t care. They don’t care because they’ve sized us up, taken our measure and deemed us impotent. Maybe they figure we’re scared enough of the long promised, but never quite materializing, gun-snatching Bogeyman that we won’t dare abandon their protection. Maybe they figure we’re so absorbed in Netflix and Clash of Clans that we’ve lost track of the real world. Maybe they’ve just done the math and decided we’re already beaten…
STS Index: Our Public Lands
Acres of federal public land in the United States: 640,000,000
U.S. public land owners: 320,590,000
Hunters and anglers who rely on public land: 69%
Westerners who’ve used public lands in the last year: 95%
Annual outdoor recreation economy supported by public lands: $646 billion
Jobs supported by public lands recreation: 6,100,000
Sportsmen’s groups & outdoor businesses that oppose transfer: 114
Western voters (the supposed beneficiaries of transfer) opposing sell-off: 67%
Senators who voted to open the door to wide-scale divestment of public land: 51
State governments who’ve moved to “reclaim” federal public land: 7
Politicians voted from office for supporting sell-off efforts: 0
I have to admit it. So far, from their perspective, the math looks pretty sound. I could pile-up reams of compelling numbers, in fact, the much more capable professionals at the National Wildlife Federation, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and Colorado College already have. But at this point, there’s really only one calculation that carries weight. Unless the big fat zero at the end of the above list changes, the behavior of our elected officials won’t change either.
I was born in Charlottesville, Virginia USA and with my first squalling breath I inherited one million square miles of the most beautiful real estate on planet earth– boom, a geo-genetic jackpot winner just like every other natural-born American citizen. I can wander where I choose, hunt in the hills, fish in the rivers, lose myself in the mountains or find myself in the desert. Millions of naturalized immigrants earned these rare and precious privileges with the sweat of their brow. Millions more Americans have defended them with the blood in their veins. Now, regardless of our previous paths, we’re all facing the same question. Will our kids know these same freedoms or will they become disenfranchised visitors on someone else’s property?
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
It does for now. If we don’t start making a lot more noise though, we’ll need to rewrite that land part pretty damn quick.
“O’er the holdings of the corporations?”
“O’er the real-estate portfolios of the 1%?”
I don’t know, neither sounds like where the brave live to me.
So please, get on the phone. Tell your elected officials they need to fix this – all of them. Follow that call with a letter… or three. Then get back on the phone and ask your friends, family, neighbors and coworkers to do the same. Sign the Sportsmen’s Access Petition, Trout Unlimited’s Public Lands Petition Hold a rally. Wave placards. Go to the next town hall meeting and speak your mind. Demand to know where candidates for public office stand on our public lands. Keep score.
Then vote your conscience.
He’s probably a hundred years old, but it’s hard to say for sure. There’s a language barrier, so you can’t just ask him.
Slim and proper, proud and sturdy, but a little frail too. Certainly lighter than the young bucks of today, with less meat on his bones. He was formed in leaner times.
Formal in his dress, as befits a man of his era, age and standing. A little down at the heel though, with scars and scrapes that attest to his character and a long life well lived – clearly not a hard scrabble sharecropper, but not a drawing-room dandy either. More along the lines of a dignified gentleman of means with an adventurous past.
Double barrels aligned like friends hunting a hedgerow, side by side, each backing the other with their own independent trigger, amiably, for a century. Just enough gold ornamentation and skillful scrollwork to set off his clean, practical lines and lend an upscale air. Never gaudy.
Wood a gentle timeworn brown, with checkering smoother at the fore end than the stock. Two clues — the too sharp checkering at the wrist and the welded tang under the trigger – indicate the stock is prosthetic, added to replace a limb lost in a calamitous fall afield. Handsome though, and well done, and as functional as the original must have been, even if it is a centimeter too short. A gentle reminder he’s European and not from around here. A gentleman traveler of the world.
As befits a guest, he is treated to his choice of victuals and prefers sixteen gauge fives or sixes, not too spicy, and never steel; it causes heartburn in old barrels, you know.
Weather is a deciding factor in planning his time afield. These days he elects not to go out in the damp, or to visit the rough and tumble chukar hills, preferring crisp dry days on level ground. In deference to his age I am happy to comply, though I maintain he would be an excellent chukar companion.
He just smiles, a twinkle in his eye, remembering how he wound up with a new stock all those years ago…
It’s not exactly a secret spot, but you never mention it in conversation. It’s a little out of the way — an extra hour drive, say, or at the end of a particularly burly two-track — and so it’s not in the regular rotation. You don’t make it there all that often. Once a year maybe. Maybe less.
But because absence makes the heart grow fonder, or because you’ve never had a bad day there, or because it’s so damn pretty that you smile just picturing it, or because you discovered it with your best friend, or because there was that one fish that you’ve never told anyone about (because who would believe you if you did?), that stretch of water has an unlabeled place of honor in your personal pantheon of fishing holes.
You know the place I’m talking about.
And you’re not getting any younger.
So what are you waiting for?
Toeing the dirt reality set in. No one else was around. The ranch was deserted. For a thirteen year old with a short attention span that spelled trouble. A whitetail doe tag was burning a hole in my pocket and I had hunting on my mind. Four and a half miles of dirt, and a nonexistent driver’s license stood between me and good whitetail country, but I had an idea.
Grabbing a halter I went into the coral and caught Butte. He was a strong bay horse with a long forelock. Roughly 8 years old at the time, we had picked him up as a four year old from someone in his namesake town. He was always one of my favorites. I saddled him, put my rifle in the scabbard and made sure I had a rope in case I needed to drag a deer. We headed out the front gate at a trot.
Covering the ground in under an hour, we arrived at the lower ranch with a couple hours left of shooting light. I tied Butte with a mule knot to a post near an old hay shed. Shouldering my Remington Model Seven in 7mm-08, I began walking. Moving slowly between junipers and into some large cottonwoods. It wasn’t long before I spotted three does grazing. Fifteen minutes later I was within 75 yards and in position for a comfortable shot.
With my heart pounding, I sat down and rested my elbows on my knees. Gaining control of my breathing, I put the crosshairs over the neck and slowly pulled the trigger. The doe dropped in her tracks. A flood of emotion raced over me. It was only the third big game animal I had taken, and the first without an adult nearby. It was also my first neck shot, something my uncle had done for years when he had a good opportunity. He preferred it so he could save as much meat as possible. Pride filled my skinny frame. But I was also saddened, I have never become callus to killing an animal, but it was particularly hard for me at a young age.
Holding my hand against the still warm body, I sat for a moment. Then I pulled out a fixed blade knife that had been given to me by my father. Carefully I slit open the deer as I had been taught. With my hands inside the animal and light begining to fade, I lost direction. My education and experience no longer served me, my progress came to a halt. Sweat built up on the back of my neck and I felt as if I could no longer breath. Working for what seemed like an eternity the mess only became worse.
Feeling terrible for failing in what was an essential part of the hunting process I didn’t know where to turn. Finally I gave up. Covered in green stomach contents, I did my best to wash it off with dry sage, which was all that was available. The smell was terrible. Dejected I walked back to Butte, with my head hung down. Surrounded by darkness we traveled together back to the main house. After turning Butte out for the night I washed my arms in cold water and fell asleep on the couch.
Nearing midnight my uncle arrived. We had planned to hunt over the weekend. Explaining my predicament, he was more gracious than I appreciated at the time. Together we drove in his rusted out brown F150 back to where my deer still lay. He teased me a little, but mostly he took care of the mess. Little meat was ruined and all it took was a skilled hand to finish the job. Once the doe was hung he turned to me and said “your the Green Machine”. The nickname stuck.
It’s a tough lot, being the youngest. The big kids have all the say-so, all the privileges and all the might to hang onto both. Most methods for carving out one’s fair share of the fun and attention — tactical screaming, say, or the maniacal deployment of blunt weaponry — only produce angry parents and certain sibling retribution. No doubt about it, the deck is stacked, and there’s almost no recourse. What’s a little kid to do?
Own the net, that’s what.
Who needs admission to the big boys’ fort when there’s action on the water. Let ‘em keep their wolf tracks, driftwood spears and elk bones. In fact, the farther they wander on their exclusive adventures, the better.
Because when dad pulls tight again, he’ll need someone to scoop for him, and Big Fish are the ultimate equalizer. Nobody laughs at the kid holding the hog.
Even when he accidentally drops it…
We drove higher up the steadily shrinking dirt road looking for a decent spot to camp. Our options were diminishing. We just needed a spot for one night. It was Memorial Day weekend and every campground was full. Several Forest Service roads still had not opened for the season. A fact we did not realize until we found ourselves confronted with closed gates. We were winging it.
Just as it seemed we were out of options, we found a spot to pitch the family tent — an idilic green meadow, perched high on the mountain, guarded by conifers, and with a view of the valley below. We spent the evening tossing a football, roasting hot dogs, and making smores. It couldn’t have been better or more cliche. It was exactly what we wanted.
Storm clouds on the horizon refrained from crushing us while we set up camp and enjoyed the evening. But overnight they moved in with conviction. The rain was slow and steady and switched to snow well before dawn. We awoke to a sloppy mess of early season slush. Nothing changed. We layered up. Cooked breakfast, drank coffee and cocoa and went on about our business. The kids didn’t bat an eye. We packed up our camp and continued on our road trip.
Spend enough time outside and you will encounter everything. Plan ahead and be prepared and you can handle all of it. Today we are loading the truck again and heading for the mountains. Rain and snow are in the forecast. It’s not the weather I had hoped for, but we are committed.
We’ll see how I feel about the decision on the flip side.
It’s been a good year. The cold damp soaking my thighs and the tang of wet sage are evidence. Water is life wherever you go, but the connection is hard to miss on the high desert prairie. The whole palette brightens and shifts toward green. In July, much of Wyoming looked like Ireland. Now, in late September, you can see fat on the pronghorn from 150 yards.
I’ve always disliked the term “harvest” to describe the taking of a game animal. Vegetables are harvested. Animals we kill. I think it’s important not to deceive ourselves on that score, even with a well intentioned euphemism.
But with my belly in the dirt, and a healthy buck steady in the crosshairs, the parallels are hard to miss. No matter our personal preferences, or our individual attitudes toward responsibility and participation, we all sit at Mother Nature’s table. No farmer can outwit the climate. No hunter can grow a herd. She’s been generous this year, and soon I will reap the benefit.
The wind is to my face, yet another blessing. It gives me time. Time to admire, to grow certain and to give thanks.
“I hope you’ve had a good life,” I whisper under my breath. “Now I’m going to take it. I’m sorry. Thank you.”
The mechanics of it all are mind boggling. Seven launches per day. 30 people per group. Five nights on the river. Five months straight. Sure a few launches go unused and some groups are not at capacity, but roughly 1,000 people are on the river at any given time during high season.
It sounds crazy, and at the boat launch it feels crazy. When the water drops in late July another dimension is added. The first 25 miles are bypassed and everyone fly’s into a dirt airstrip in the heart of one of our country’s largest Wilderness complexs. A one way flight from Stanley, ID (population 63) becomes the hottest ticket in town and Indian Creek turns into one of the regions busiest airports.
Fixed wing Cessna’s buzz in and out. Dust flies from the prop wash. Eager boaters hurriedly shuttle dry bags, boats, and kitchen boxes to the water. Moving like ants each group seeks to ready its craft. Final adjustments are made and groups push off in what becomes a staggered start. Oddly enough, after the chaotic beginning the river becomes quiet.
There is room for everyone. Groups spread out. Sound management, carefully tweaked to handle the traffic, allows everyone to experience the river on their own terms. The Middle Fork of the Salmon still offers a truly great Wilderness experience.
It’s time to set your affairs in order.
Be quick about those yard chores, garage repairs and home improvement projects. A little O.T. at the office wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Load-up on family time. And for heaven’s sake, get some rest.
Because archery season is only the first plunge on the roller-coaster of autumn. Mountain grouse, doves and snipe loop round the next bend. In a breathless flash you’ll be rocketing through antelope, elk and deer seasons and over the hills and banks of sage grouse, pheasant, chukar and water fowl, and all the while streamer fishing will build strength.
The butterflies in your stomach are not mistaken.
Fall is almost here. Buckle-up. Here comes the greatest ride on earth.
Huge fish, big bulls, grip and grins, hero shots, we all love them. But the quality of our experience rarely has much to do with the quarry. Here’s what a trophy looks like (How I lucked out and landed the one above I’ll never know):
Good friends…outshine a 180 inch Muley any day.
Kids…about the size of a nice Chinook, but with a way better smile.
Dad…I’ll always choose a day in the hills with this bruiser over a 5 pound brown.
As you plan your next hunting or fishing trip, put some thought into who you invite to go with you. It might be the most important decision you make.