The Happy Hunting Grounds...

Mythical to most but native Americans...the proverbial 'happy hunting grounds' was very real to the driftless areas first inhabitants.  Think about it...a place of perfection for the afterlife just has to have some basis in fact.  How would a primitive people know of the concept if not for a place they knew.  And where else could life survive with most of the continent under ice...the driftless area.  We know the last three glaciers missed this part of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois.  The last just a relatively short 10,000 years ago.  Surrounded by ice but for the most southern part, life flourished on this edge of the glacier.  Including man...almost an ark of life dependant on the open area for survival.  A balance in miniature...there is a reason the driftless area has the greatest biodiversity on the planet.  All wild things are creatures of the edge.  This edge of Lakes Superior and Michigan along with the raised hard bedrock of northern Wisconsin formed a trench the glaciers followed around the driftless.

Mastodon, elk, deer...everything necessary to qualify for a happy hunting ground was found here.  A paradise to this day but without perhaps the mastodon...there are still rumors by longtime locals.  But, not more than 10 miles from me a full mastodon was found in a small spring creek a century ago.  Complete with 10 inch spearpoint it is one of the few examples of natives actually hunting one.  Elk were here 150 years ago and deer thrived until the white man hunted them to remnant populations.  The native Amerricans knew better.  Rather than try to populate the area they remained along river corridors and sent hunting parties up in summerr to return with canoes full of game and pelts to get the tribes through the winters.  An archeological dig was done by the UW just a few miles from my grandparents farm along the Wisconsin river.  The dig showed man lived there for 10000 years and my mother remembered populations still when she was young though they were mostly migrating west from failed treaties and hopes of a better life.  The arrowheads and mauls and spearpoints my grandfather and uncles found was legendary and eventually evaluated by UW researchers.  One flint point drew specific attention as it was a flint found only out west...meaning some followed the retreating glacier to this open piece of land and stayed.


The tribe along the Wisconsin river between Gotham and Muscoda was near many rivers flowing south through Richland county and were perfect for full canoes heading home in fall.  There was no nead to populate the rest of the area...it was too tangled.  An arctic jungle some today call it but without these many spring creeks travel would have been all but impossible.  Joe Porter grew up on the ridge above me and is one of the most respected native American experts in the country teaching at William and Mary and writing books on our first people.  I would pick Joe up at the airport in Madison near my business and bring him here to see his mother.  Our conversations were mostly me asking questions...how often does one get a captive audience of such expertise.  Joe's book on Geronimo was nominated for a Pulitzer prize.  He was also one of the few white men allowed in native religous ceremonies in this country.


Besides our discussions of Blues music...he was also once head of Missouri Historical Society and and expert on Joplin and its ragtime blues.  But, our conversations almost always were about this area.  He even had a copy of one of General Atkinsons soldiers diaries...they were chasing Blackhawk on another trail of tears through the driftless hills and valleys.  Blackhawk is another story of its own but the diary told of an Army well equiped with cook wagons, cannon, and even whiskey barrells.  Blackhawk wouldn't have any of that and found his escape through Madison to Sauk county to the valley I live in to the Bad Axe river at the Mississippi.  He may have made his escape west if not for the gunboat that just happened to come across him and what was left of his people as they crossed the father of rivers.


My life has followed this trail and when the diary mentioned 'finally coming to a narrow east west running valley with a cold water creek just 6 miles from the Kickapoo,' I asked Joe if that could be Elk creek he said he had no doubt some of Blackhawks flight came down through here.  The description fits as all the valleys before here run north south.  The soldiers just followed the brightly decorated natives that had died along the way...resembling birds according to the diary.  Blackhawk was also a neighborhood next to mine in Madison and a Country club with caves along Lake Mendota bluffs that Blackhawk hid out in while soldiers searched.  It also has effigy mounds and I caddied there as a teenager and remember well the direction tree bent to point the way to Sauk county, named for the Sauk or Sac tribes, along Old Sauk road.  My first school was on Old Sauk Road..,my first setter was an Irish I bought from the owner of Blackhawk Ridge where Blackhawk the warrior and 60 of his men held off Gen Atkinsons army of 700 while his women and children crossed the Wisconsin river to the north.  A little known fact that Abe Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were both part of this army and Jeff Davis said that if Blackhawk had been a white man it would have been called one of the greatest military achievements of all time.  The Battle of Wisconsin Heights is well known and chronicled...my brother lived there along the river and we knew it well.  My oldest daughters first school was Blackhawk in the small town of Blackhawk.  But, try to imagine an army well equiped chasing fleeting creatures of the edge in their own realm.  The diary complained of the brushing and log cutting just to get wagons west over those north south ridges and valleys.  Each valley with a stream and its assorted beaver dams and ponds and arctic jungle flora to be crossed.  Many rivers to cross indeed for both pursuer and pursued...legend in my present valley is one of Gen Atkinsons cannon burried here to be picked up later.  Yet to be found but I know many who still look...including myself and I know a couple of mounds that need further research.  Not to be dug as these were burial mound building people and the tribe along the Wisconsin river left beautiful eagle and bear and elk mounds that still exist but so many more were lost to cleared fields and forestry practices.  Some though are yet to be discovered.


Not the Happy Hunting Grounds, though...we know it is the driftless.  Blackhawk was just the last of its first people.  The first white man clear cut the woods and killed all the deer and elk and planted the hillsides causing errossion that dibilitated the land to the point it took Aldo Leopold to renew it.  Or it may never have become what it was today.  You see that first white man was forced to leave too after its pilaging and only those that could not go remained.  Like my wifes family the Hadleys...who could survive on that same edge as the first here.  But, others have come and with a historical perspective and all is well now in the happy hunting grounds.  For a while until that law of nature that is balance takes effect again.  It always does...

"I will follow the white man's trail. I will make him my friend, but I will not bend my back to his burdens. I will be cunning as a coyote. I will ask him to help me understand his ways, then I will prepare the way for my children. Maybe they will outrun the white man in his own shoes. There are but two ways for us. One leads to hunger and death, the other leads to where the poor white man lives. Beyond is the happy hunting ground where the white man cannot go."
Many Horses - Oglala Lakota

Happy Thanksgiving!

I really mean that...a holiday that is still a holiday.  Family, friends, and even enemies get together on this day...republicans and democrats.  The crass commercialism over the next month is appalling to me.  What ever happened...Black Friday.  Really...it sounds like black christmas.  What a way to start a religious celebration.  A far cry from the Christmas eve service and Christmas day generosity and feast I knew growing up.   Gifts were hidden and I believed in Santa for an inordinate amount of time.  The service before gift opening was always a spiritual time for me.  Although, like all kids I counted presents too.  Parents just love your kids...I know what a difficult time it can be for us...

But, thanksgiving is like Christmas without the expectations...a remembrance, too.  But, of survival and true human spirit.  Yes, native Americans were human back then, too.  Just because they didn't know the concept of land ownership doesn't mean they didn't understand survival and generosity.  Somewhere I read what they had to eat at the first thanksgiving and it was generous.  Puritan pilgims really abused that generosity toward their own just a short time after the first thanksgiving and the true hero was the natives.  Puritanism ended with the Salem witch trials.  Somehow the native generosity is what we celebrate and should.  Just as we should celebrate Christ and what he did for us.  He showed us the path...

I'm sorry...I promised I wouldn't preach.  But, it seems difficult for retailers to get that last thursday in November into their corner.  Just the day after.  But, up through tomorrow we see little of it in newspapers or on television.  Our bird is thawing and I ususally get up early and stuff it with giblet stuffing.  Then I go hunting and come in to help with the rest of the dinner. 

There is much to be thankful for including many thanksgiving day does that end up on the table throughout the winter.  I shoot does on thanksgiving if I haven't found a mature buck.  A good reason to give thanks.  Like today on thanksgiving eve and the nice 8 point buck my son took today.  A clean double lung shot that made me proud.  I believe venison was on the table that first thanksgiving. 

 Hunter is a direct descendant of the Salem witch trials.  His ancestors came over on the second voyage of the Mayflower.  And the tragic hero of the witch trials, John Proctor, had a sister who married George Hadley.  The bible tracing this lineage to a Jug creek cemetery near Lafarge just north of here still exists and my childrens Grandmother is a Hadley who's father is in that book.  And the stories were intact through her father and his.  My wife had to rediscover them over weeks of research, though as if some were tryiing to forget ancestors being hung as witches like they really were.  I call it creeping puritanism.  Something to watchout for still today.  The book 'The Crucible' is about John Proctor...who's father is my kids grandparent.  With such a small gene pool back then my kids are also related to several others killed at the trials.  But, John Proctors lettter from jail to Boston and Cotton Mather ended spectral evidence and Puritanism.  It also saved his pregnant wifes life but not his own.  The church was poor and John owned land and a tavern...a perfect suspect for seizing land by the church.  The letter of apology came much later but did restore his assetts to his heirs.   The Hadleys made a trek to Wisconsins driftless area through New York, Ohio, and Oklahoma where Hiram Moses Hadley was an Indian Agent for the US government before coming north with that bible.  All the while with their music and to this day all play instruments and sing and dance.  The same thing they were persecutued for by the puritans.  Those puritans.,..

The same puritans and native American generosity we celebrate tomorrow but lets remember who the hero's to this day are.  America could use a lot more of its own reparations to its native first people.  So we celebrate Hunters nice buck and remember our ancestors and give thanks...to God and his children that saved our very existance.  And keep it going for a month as we celebrate the gifts of wise men to a child...

My mother in law Barb Hadley and more photos of descendants of George Hadley and the Salem witch trials..,and Cotton Mather.  Plus Hunters buck and a few oldtimers...

Angel

                                                               

                                                       

The hex was on...the large but ephemeral mayflies written through the ages, rise quickly to the surface, popping above the water in an instant.  Ephemeral in their one day as an adult, spending a year in an underwater stage only to shed that existance for one day to live, fly, and die, in the beauty of another world.  Drying angel wings and stumbling off the water was evidence enough to the perils of this last day.  Flowing with the current in this ancient struggle of procreation as they dry those wings that lift off into the clouds of mating above the riffles only to drop dying, spent with wings flat on the water.  By the thousands they perform this mating dance.  Some to completion...most to be dismissed by the trout or a thousand other dangers to this ritual of the ancients.   Evolved with a mouth not able to eat is symbolic of the adult mafly.   Its sole purpose to mate and carry on the de-evolution of its species back to another life in mother water.

Her name was Angela and she was fully alive with her life ahead...living in a beauty that is hers alone.  I had crossed her path without knowing...and only later recognized the connection to these mayflies.  Ephemeral too, in her life cut short.  Ever the witness, the angler.  I wish I wasn't...but, am glad I was.  Somebody had to be that witness.  Even though the writing was clear I could not see it at first.  But, I had heard the shots that night.  And I did remember the night of the mayflies.

It was a night of chasing the hex hatch like many others...not spectacular like the night of the fireworks and the big hexagenia nymphs rising from their burrows in the silt along the banks of Black Earth Creek.  That night they had performed their dance under the brilliant fireworks of the home revelers across the river from me who had lit the sky for the entire hatch...performing their ritual to perfection in a mirror of reds, yellows, blues, and whites on the smooth water.  The trout obliged and I obliged the trout...catching big browns as long as my arm, rising in the reflections, under this once in a lifetime light show. Perfection for an angler to behold that night.  But, not so this next evening.

It was more about my friends wanting to go fishing with me.  The story of the mirrored reflections was just too great...but, the hatch too is short lived, lasting only a week or ten days by my journals.  My friends didn't know this...they just wanted the trout.  I wanted the mayflies...the trout would follow.  As did the predators this night...I was a witness.  Not as the angler...but, the guide.  Even more the witness to be a guide, unlike the angler the guide must always speak truth.  Because of truth I could no longer be one after this evening.  The wings of an angel wouldn't let me.    I had experienced that light show knowing it could never happen again, but, my friends had me trapped by my own words.  I had to take them.  It was a good thing they did.  I was about to enter another world of life under the surface...in fear and questioning my own courage.  But I had that image of the guide to protect.  Just a night like any other night...of the hex.  Or so I thought.  My own life would catch up to me.

The fishing was poor that dusk to dark evening...we had each caught some trout but my stories had raised expectations and I felt obligated to visit with my friends afterwords at the Black Earth bowling alley over a martini and a beer.  Just enough to have me streaking home at 100 mph along the back country roads next to Blackhawk ridge to Sauk city and the bridge over the Wisconsin river.  Crowds spilled out of the small bar on the corner as I sat at the stoplight on the bridge in the now silent BMW.  Amazing to me later that silence.  For all the excitement of a Saturday night in small town America I was unaware.  But, still at this moment our paths crossed, the unintended consequences began.
 
She was eighteen having just graduated from high school.  The parties and life of the recent high school graduate is not unusual.  Forward is the motto...or as I like to tell graduates, timing in life is everything.  Remember that...timing is critical to this story.  That first week in June is perilous to high school graduates.  Common knowledge...for survivors.  Like the mayfly, living life on the edge before knowing that is where they are.  Indulging a new found freedom...to emerge with an instinctual relationship to the future dance.  Not to be criticized...remember that, too.  After the graduation party this dance began with another party...with her family and friends.  The party was innocent enough...especially for high school students.  A band and friends.  But, that night she looked to emerge from her cap and gown and it was only a short drive along the Wisconsin river to Hondos in Sauk City.  The crowd spilled out into the street as I sat at the stop light on the bridge crossing her path along highway 60 with mine on highway 78.  Its that number eighteen again...like I tell other 18 year old graduates.  Be a survivor....

The adult youths all looked the same to me...I had my own problems.  It was a warm night and I envied their health and abiltiy to still have a good time on a night out.  Age was beginning to set in and by my later 30's I could tell its affects.  Possibly resentment as I drove off when the light turned green...but, I did turn my head to see as much of the dance as I could.  I imagine the youth of a young boy or girl turning to adulthood in such an atmosphere and remember those I knew that didn't survive.  An age old part of the dance I know the effects of too well.  A scar for survivors that never heals and will always show.  This hot summer night was ripe for those scars of the heat.

 I raced the last six miles home in the BMW trying to make up for going in the first place.  I knew it wasn't good for my marriage.  But, also knowing it was over and had been for a long time.  Still...I pounded the coupe through the driftless hills and valleys for the kids to see me in the morning.  It was after 2:00 am and a Saturday night...what would she think.  The same thing she always did...my past was my future.  I wasn't looking forward to it...sliding into the driveway as silently as I could and treading lightly up the porch stairs into the house.  All was quiet.  Too quiet...

Comments...

...are few but for my friend Tom.  We are brothers though.  I mean this more for my own...some thoughts lately that aren't really formulated enough for a single post.  First, I am most humbled for the fact that anyone is reading this...second, I'm grateful you do.  I really mean that...

I've been hunting hard getting out almost every day.  It is an addiction I suppose...walking up that hill is invigorating and the sitting in a tree stand is meditative.  The cold wind is not cold if you like it and I like it.  To put your face into a strong cold wind and just feel it is a good thing...like remembering something painful that must be remembered.  It really doesn't hurt...its just a feeling.  I've had great views from that treestand already.  Bucks and does right under me...some not knowing I'm there.  Some busting me with a snort and a wheeze.  I love it all...so peaceful but with a sense of reality of the kill.  Something already discussed but it really is never easy after...it does become spriitual for days.  So far I've only been tempted by a pair of 2 1/2 year old 8 pointers...one wide and short tined and the other the opposite, tall and narrow.  Both typical of the whitetail genes in this valley.  Almost two distinctly different genetics...the first was the wide 8 and I never noticed it until it was right under me.  It came from behind and quietly...by the time I heard it, it was too close to move for my bow.  It took a right turn and I waited to look but when I did it hadn't moved far and busted me.  It must have been a comical sight from a distance that would make a great picture.  The old cat and mouse game.  But, not clear which is which.   That wider than the ears 8 pointer wasn't sure what I was but walked away in the other direction slowly...all behind the large tree I was in.  Ten minutes later I still couldn't find it so I slowly stood up and there it busted me for sure about 40 yards away.  I never really had a shot but I don't think I would have taken it...yet. 

The second 2 1/2 year old 8 point came up the same trail behind me and I didn't hear it until it was in the same place as the first an hour earlier.  Only I didn't move and it went to the left just 5 yards away from the tree I was in offering a good quartering away shot.  It never saw me and I never reached for my  bow.  The G3 was broke on the right side and it would be a great buck someday.  Besides, either of those bucks would be great for my sons.  We hope to get out this weekend and give it a try.  The last few days have been empty but enjoyable.  It is probably the best thing for my health both mental and physical and each time I take that walk up that hill I enjoy it as if its the last time I do.  Like fishing for trout, it is my gauge for being truly alive...

Then, there is this writing...I enjoy it as long as I don't read it.  My streaming consciousness style is fine for short work like here but serious writing is so difficult for me that I have tried to write the same book for the last 25 years.  I know it but can't write it.  The longhanded versions here are helping and I am focused on writing it again.  I appreciate any indulgence being accepted for what it is.  A learning experience of my own as I write much of this.  And, hopefully helpful in telling a story that really needs to be told.

Another thing I might approach...the music and a spirituality.  Music has come back to me in a big way...I suppose a spirituality goes with it.  But, both have brought me joy.  I'm comfortable with the music but my mother raised me to be a preacher...I didn't find this out until I was fourteen.  Too late then and my apologies if any of this gives offense.  My religion is my fathers...and wish it on no one else.  My father was this way and it goes back to his German birth and I suppose his fathers...quiet but strong was his belief.  He could swear as if a prayer...never using vulgar language but would quietly say jesus christ or god damn in a way that never sounded wrong.  Just a beseachment.  Some of that tone may be in myself and believe me I mean no arrogance.  But, my mother was the opposite and expected more of me.  Some of that had to stick, too.  While I welcome all word and support, I will watch my own preaching.  And, leave it in the music...

...it will be good for my karma, too.  In the woods it seems that karma is science.  Scent control and stand position or time of day and just having the right attitude to sit out on cold days and not see anything and not let it get to you.  To have a fresh attitude each day...today can always be the day.  Oops...there I go preaching again.  I did catch it though and in pennance offer some photos of this falls bow hunting.  My religion for now...