Trouble for Bambi and Lil Smokey

Hunting season has arrived and our nature friends are mostly no where to be seen. Deer season is short; only ten days but bear season is 30 days. I am really struggling to grasp meaning and purpose of all of this. These hunters are really tough people. They come up via the boat or they hike in. They then hike out of Holden for days at a time and scour the landscape for game. Once they make a kill, they must debone the animal on the spot and carry the meat out on their backs. The Holden bus takes them back down to the boat so they can head home. I am a watcher of all that goes on here. I want to learn the balance of nature and how we affect the lives of other living creatures.

We work hard here to convince the deer and bear that we are safe and trustworthy. Art just came home with a story of watching a small cub playing in the creek just outside of a window he was passing by. In the same, way, Holden staffers try hard to make all hikers, workers and hunters feel welcome. We encourage them to come back for a visit. Our job is hospitality and yet we live in a place where the natural balance of life must happen as well. Last spring a mother bear with two cubs killed a new born fawn right in the village. All anyone could do was watch and wonder.

The news from the outside carries heavy thoughts of an economy that is struggling. Possibly hunting, gathering, gleaning and preserving are skills that we need to relearn in order to survive. I think I am going to focus some of my reading time on home skills 100 years ago and see if I can glean useful knowledge to help us out when we leave here. Leave a comment if you have thoughts on any of this.