Of Hunting, Elk and Sex Lines

I recently pulled a few consecutive all-nighters struggling to write an overdue essay for the Center for Humans and Nature. I had (as is typical of me) procrastinated on far too long. The topic: “Does Hunting Make us Human?” I started the piece with an anecdote about a friend of mine who -- while hunting in the remote Tatshenshini Provincial Park along the British Columbia-Yukon border -- discovered the headless but mostly well-preserved remains of a fellow hunter from long ago who had been exposed at the foot of a melting glacier.  “Kwaday Dan Sinchi,” he is called by First Nations people, “Long Ago Person Found.”  

But I couldn’t remember how old the remains were.  I had written a story about it years ago for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s Bugle magazine. So I decided to call my friend Dan, the magazine’s editor, to see if he could look it up for me. Since I did not have Dan’s phone number on me, I decided to call the 1-800-CALL ELK line to reach the Elk Foundation and ask the receptionist to transfer me to Dan. 

Although I spent ten wonderful years as the conservation editor of Bugle, and I think Bugle remains the finest hunting-related conservation magazine out there, I always feel a bit awkward calling them. I’ve had a falling out of sorts with the organization, and have vocally and publicly had a few strong disagreements with the current leadership, particularly with their harsh stance against wolves. I have since been banished from writing for Bugle and shunned by much of the staff.  When I call, I feel a bit like I need to do the over-the-phone, verbal equivalent of wearing a fake nose and glasses and and disguise my voice for fear they’ll hang up on me (admittedly pure paranoia on my part).  

Nevertheless some good friends I respect work there, such as Dan, and I was desperate for the information.

So I called 1-800-CALL ELK.   

Or thought I did. I was so exhausted I apparently dialed 1-800-CALL EEK.   

EEK indeed! Instead of hearing an expected, pleasant greeting from the Elk Foundation receptionist I instead heard the automated voice of woman seemingly trying to sound sexy:

“Welcome to America’s hottest talk line. Ladies: To talk to interesting and exciting guys for free, please press one now. Guys: Hot ladies are waiting to talk to you! Press two to connect for free now. Ladies: Press one now. Guys: Press two now.”

There was no option to press three for guys wanting to talk to interesting and exiting guys for free. Maybe it’s a right-wing, homophobic Christian sex line. But even so, you’d think they’d at least welcome the closeted ones among them -- and I am certain there are many.  

So I hung up. Likely a good thing; I do not need more excuses and distractions to procrastinate.

I dialed 1-800-CALL ELK again and got it right the second time around, got hold of Dan and he found the number for me. 

By the way: Kwaday died 550 years, presumably from falling in an ice-crevice while hunting -- long, long before there were 1-800-SEX lines.  

Coming Out a Hunter

Note: This essay was part of a series of "coming out" stories for the Advocate in celebration of National Coming Out Day. It was published in the Advocate on October 10, 2013.

There is a side to me I don’t share with everyone. It’s certainly nothing I would mention on a first date. I often feel self-conscious about it, and worry others will not understand and will harshly judge me based on stereotypes.

I am a hunter.

I can understand people's disdain for hunting. As the environmental writer and activist Edward Abbey once wrote, "Hunting is one of the hardest things even to think about. Such a storm of conflicting emotion!"

I love elk. They are magnificent, mysterious and powerful animals. I spend all the time I can in elk country around my home in Montana, year-round, hiking, backpacking, snowshoeing, observing and admiring elk. And yet, each year I head into elk country with the intent to kill one.  I like to think I'm a vegetarian of sorts, living off the wild grasses, sedges and forbs that grow near my home. Most these plants are not directly palatable to humans, so I let elk convert them to protein for me. Perhaps someday I can travel through the digestive system of a grizzly and fertilize the vegetation that elk eat: Seems only fair considering all the elk I've killed and eaten. We're all part of this land.

In an indirect way, I became a hunter because I am gay. From a young age, I found comfort being alone in very remote, wild places. In the wilds, there are no societal-created norms, expectations and judgments – everything is what it is. A grizzly might judge me as a possible threat or feast, but doesn’t care who I love and sleep with. The more time I spent in the wilds, the less I wanted to be just a visitor, and the more I wanted to be intimately connected to the wilds. So I pick and eat wild huckleberries. I catch and eat wild trout. I kill and eat wild elk.

I hunt to experience a fundamental connection with nature, because we must all kill to eat, and eating elk nourished on native grasses and forbs has as low an impact on the environment as any of the alternatives. Even eating soybeans and soy-based products supports an agricultural industry that displaces and destroys wildlife habitat to grow a non-native plant, requiring irrigation, pesticides, herbicides, fossil fuels, trucks, roads and industry to be shipped around the country. Not to mention the thousands of deer and other wildlife killed to protect valuable agricultural crops.

Everything we do has consequences. Whether we choose to eat vegetables or meat, store-bought food or homegrown, cattle or venison, we all contribute to the death of animals so we can eat. I choose to eat wild elk. And the money I spend in pursuit of these wild animals, through license fees and excise taxes on hunting equipment helps protect the wild places that sustain them and sustain me. It's the most efficient, environmentally sound and sustainable way I know to live in this somewhat arid western landscape we call Montana. And the countless days and hours I spend pursuing elk through the rugged mountains in the wilderness area where I hunt have provided me with a keen understanding and awareness of these incredible animals and their habitat, which has fueled a passion for the protection of wild elk and the wild places they roam.

I am growing increasingly angry over the ongoing loss of crucial wildlife habitat from human subdivision and development; the people who want to mine and drill our last remaining wild places; the people who deny and evade critical topics such as climate change, and the people -- and a society -- that seems to put greed, profit and money above all else. Throughout the West, homes are rapidly replacing critical elk and deer winter range, calving and fawning habitat and migratory corridors. Not only elk and deer suffer, but all wildlife that depend on that habitat, including everything from wolves and trout to grizzlies and pine martens. My love for wild elk provokes a strong desire to protect their habitat; That desire is fueled, in part, by my passion for hunting and the meat that sustains me.

Hunting has a large ugly side, to be sure, which seems to be growing larger. I sometimes feel like an anti-hunter who hunts. Far too many hunters reveal a disturbing lack of knowledge of, or concern for, wildlife and wild places and actually promote efforts to erode and degrade our wildlife and last remaining wild places. They are as detached from the wilds as most Americans are, and increasingly replace knowledge, skills and effort with technology and other short cuts; They selfishly do everything and anything they can to boost their egos and overcome insecurities by killing other creatures; They fear and hate wolves, they fear and hate grizzlies, they fear and hate wilderness, they fear and hate the wilds; They fear and hate to actually hunt. They just love to kill.

I can think of no better lifestyle than roaming wildlands as a participant of nature, taking responsibility for the deaths I cause, and securing my own sustenance. In his essay, "A Hunter's Heart," Colorado naturalist and writer David Petersen summarizes it nicely:

"Why do I hunt? It's a lot to think about, and I think about it a lot. I hunt to acknowledge my evolutionary roots, millennia deep, as a predatory omnivore. To participate actively in the bedrock workings of nature. For the atavistic challenge of doing it well with an absolute minimum of technological assistance. To learn the lessons, about nature and myself, that only hunting can teach. To accept personal responsibilities for at least some of the deaths that nourish my life. For the glimpse it offers into a wildness we can hardly imagine. Because it provides the closet thing I've known to a spiritual experience. I hunt because it enriches my life and because I can't help myself . . . because I was born with a hunter's heart."

Brokeback Mountain: Best Elk Hunting Movie?

I saw Brokeback Mountain at the historic Wilma Theatre, a short walk from my home in downtown Missoula, Mont. Built in 1921 by producers of a Wild West show meant to bring 'entertainment and culture' to Montana, it is a place where Will Rogers once performed his cowboy satire. Between the old sound system and bad ears from my time in the Marine Corps, I had difficulty hearing what sparse dialogue there was. But the landscape was spectacular, and I could pretty much guess what Jack and Ennis were mumbling after having read Annie Proulx's story twice. 

The first time I read it, I was still closeted and married—fighting, denying, and suppressing my attraction to men—and I was leading a secret, shameful double life. The story hit deep and hard, and I felt doomed to a life of deceit. I read it again last year, when hype about the upcoming movie first hit the press. By then I was out, best friends with my former wife of 14 years, and living more honestly to myself. My second reading of Brokeback Mountain struck a radically different note, of course, making me grateful I'd found the courage to change my own story to a happier ending.

What surprised and moved me most about the movie was the elk hunt. Jack and Ennis lose their supplies when a black bear (played by a sadly tame, fat Hollywood bear) spooks their horses. Hungry and out of food, they sneak up on a bull elk and shoot it. We see the bull stumble and begin to drop, followed instantly by a scene where Jack and Ennis are sitting around a fire, cheerfully gorging on wild elk while strips of meat dry a makeshift rack behind them. It might be the best elk-hunting scene since Jeremiah Johnson or The Last of the Mohicans.

As was the case with my long struggle to come to terms with my homosexuality, I also struggle with my identity as a hunter. I'm sort of an antihunter who hunts. The majority of my fellow hunters leave me saddened. Seemingly caught up in an endless quest to kill the biggest possible bull or buck with the least possible effort, they tear up the land with off-road vehicles, spend fortunes on gadgets meant to replace woodcraft, routinely take shots at distances that show no respect for either themselves or their quarry, and curse the 'damn wolves' they claim are eating all 'their' elk and deer. I love wild meat—bloody and rare—yet I almost see myself as an atavistic vegetarian, eating native sedges, pine grass, and fescues wild elk have converted to protein. In much of the West, hunting is still a sustainable way to live. Through countless hours of hiking and stalking, crawling and slipping through remote, rugged wild country in pursuit of wild elk—seeing and smelling, hearing and feeling not just elk but wolves and grizzlies, pine martens and wolverines, mountain lions and bull trout—I have come to deeply cherish wildlife and the wild places they roam. I have spent most of my life working and volunteering for nonprofits that strive to protect what little wilderness remains. I can't recount how many times hunting has restored me through these primeval connections between predator and prey, between humans and wild things, between heart and soul that unfortunately too few people still experience. Instead, we are in denial and delude ourselves, pretending we are somehow separate and distinct from nature.

I spend a lot of time in elk country, alone in remote places, hunting, fishing, backpacking, snowshoeing and backcountry skiing. I am happiest and most myself—truest to my own nature—in wild places among wild animals. There is always the rare chance a mountain lion or grizzly might judge me a decent feast, but they certainly don't seem to care whom I sleep with. Jack and Ennis falling in love in the wilds, killing and eating wild elk—I didn't need to hear dialogue to relate to that! The movie's tagline sums it up: 'Love is a force of nature.'

I occasionally surf The Bowsite, a chat room where fellow bow-hunters often post rants against liberals, antihunters, wolves, grizzlies, and tree huggers. For fun, on the Big Game Forum, I posted a new thread: 'Brokeback Mountain: Best Elk-Hunting Movie?' Since folks on this site often and justly complain of poor Hollywood depictions of hunting, I mentioned that here was a good positive portrayal. The response didn't surprise me. People with screen names like Terminator, Sewer Rat, Bearman, and ElkSlayer wrote things like 'No queers could really hunt elk'; 'Elk are too majestic an animal to be killed by faggots'; 'Imagine a gay elk camp: guys would worry that camouflage makes them look fat.' The Bible thumpers chimed in, quoting all the antigay gospel they could muster; one claiming that 'no good, God-fearing Wyoming cowboy would engage in homosexual behavior.' I finally asked if any of them had actually seen the movie. Most said they would never watch a movie about 'two faggots.' Since I had actually seen it, one guy said he 'sure did wonder' about me. Another guy called the movie 'Hollywood propaganda to promote a liberal homosexual lifestyle.'

If that's the case, someone in Hollywood screwed up. The movie, like the book, is a heartbreaking depiction of being gay. It goes to the heart of the fear and prejudice that lead to so many sad, desperate, unfulfilling lives. Brokeback may change some minds, but I hold no illusions that my fellow bow-hunters or most rural Westerners will ever accept me into their fold—a gay, wolf-loving, tree-hugging Force Reconnaissance marine who kills elk. Then again, who knows? Perhaps when the DVD is released, a few might sneak it home, secretly watch when no one is around, and face their own internal turmoil.

In the meantime, fortunately, there still exist remote, rugged, wild places where a man like me can roam, true to the forces of nature, and sit around a fire eating wild elk.


Note: This essay was originally published in the Advocate and High Country News.