Some­thing to wash away the cynicism

By Gar­rett VeneKlasen

“All in favor of the monument?”

“All opposed?”

I haven’t had much faith in human­ity lately. I don’t think many of us have. The tragedies of late haven’t helped my faith in my fel­low man. And as the father of a beau­ti­ful six-year-old girl, I’ve felt my usual cyn­i­cism dip even deeper.

It was hard to get out of bed this past Sat­ur­day. But the Sec­re­tary of the Inte­rior, Ken Salazar, and Con­gress­man Ben Ray Lujan, were com­ing to Taos to hold a pub­lic forum on a pro­posal to des­ig­nate the Rio Grande del Norte a national monument.

The Rio Grande del Norte is about 236,000 acres of BLM land and con­tains some of the most spec­tac­u­lar lands and pub­lic hunt­ing and fish­ing habi­tat in all of New Mex­ico. Wild trout, game herds … majes­tic coun­try … it’s a place that speaks to the sportsman’s heart.

Sec­re­tary Salazar and Con­gress­man Lujan were both hum­ble and gra­cious that morn­ing. They weren’t politi­cians, just two middle-aged men at a loss for words or answers.

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It’s dark and snow is pound­ing the frozen Octo­ber pave­ment on Route 30 out­side of Soda Springs, ID. After 12 hours behind the wheel, I’m crawl­ing up Fish Creek Sum­mit, squint­ing to make out the faint lines in the snow and I know I’m beat because I answer a ques­tion no one asked me. “Damn right it’s worth it,” I say out loud. “The first day of bird school starts early tomorrow.”

First, let me be clear. I didn’t grow up in the West. Nor did my fam­ily have access to end­less  tracts of pub­lic lands to hunt, fish or hike. My broth­ers and I spent our Mid­west­ern sum­mers ped­al­ing our shiny BMX bikes to and from the local pond lift­ing sun­fish after sun­fish from the water all while scan­ning the sur­face for an elu­sive giant snap­ping tur­tle.  Not that I’m par­tic­u­larly proud of it, but many squir­rels and birds also fell vic­tim to our pel­let guns trained on the power lines near our home in those days.

That was our hunting.

After a child­hood spent in the heart­land of our fair coun­try I feel as though I’m in seri­ous need of catch­ing up out West. I don’t know what it takes to hunt a wild pheas­ant but I have no prob­lem try­ing to learn. Enter what I’m now call­ing my own per­sonal bird school.

Bird school is not some­thing one signs up for online. It’s cer­tainly not adver­tised in the back of a sport­ing mag­a­zine. You won’t find a brochure pinned to the bul­letin board in your local sport­ing goods store either. It is found in con­ver­sa­tion with a good friend.

How do you know where the birds are hold­ing? How do you iden­tify the birds? What’s the best way to hold the gun? Will you show me how to clean and pre­pare the bird for cook­ing? Can I bor­row some equipment?

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We remem­ber those who pro­tect wild places – and those who don’t.

To the Con­gres­sional mem­bers mak­ing life dif­fi­cult for sports­men (you know who you are), it seems that at the very least, you and I have a misunderstanding.

As a sports­woman who hunts and fishes on pub­lic lands, you have been relent­less this week. You killed a fully funded bill (The Sportsman’s Act) that would have increased much needed access for hunters and anglers. You’ve sup­ported cut­ting con­ser­va­tion funds. And then there was that threat to sell pub­lic lands all to fix a debt that is appar­ently so great that we must sell the very soul of our coun­try to pay it.

Cer­tainly, there are bet­ter ways?

Maybe it’s all that post-election pent-up par­ti­san­ship, but sud­denly you have become the Ghost­busters’ Stay-Puft Marsh­mal­l­low Man bent on destroy­ing the city. Only in this ver­sion, you are still you and the city is my backyard—the places I love to hunt and fish.

What gives?

I sup­pose you think I should feel grate­ful you have saved our coun­try from “out-of-control spend­ing.” But I don’t.

I can only reckon that the rea­son you work so hard against these things—these things I and mil­lions of oth­ers so love—is because you have not expe­ri­enced them.

Per­haps you don’t know what it’s like to stand in the mid­dle of a river with a fresh-from-the-sea steel­head on your line, reel scream­ing, as you watch your entire fish-less week flash before your eyes and feel your stom­ach drop to your butt and utter a prayer… “Please, God let that knot be tight…”

Maybe you don’t know what it’s like to walk up on your dog that you trained with your very own hand as he stands at atten­tion, tail feath­ers flap­ping in the wind as a pheas­ant comes scream­ing out of the brush, shoot­ing like a mis­sile into a cloud­less sky.

Maybe you don’t know what it’s like to con­tem­plate life—your very existence—on a cold rock over­look­ing a whole mess of mountains.

It’s really the only expla­na­tion I can come up with for you being able to tell me with a straight face that sports­men don’t matter—that moments like these don’t matter—that my kids won’t be able to expe­ri­ence the same amaz­ing won­der I have on our pub­lic lands.

Like I said, per­haps you Con­gress peo­ple and I just have a mis­un­der­stand­ing. So to clear it up, let me just say this: Sports­men and women are immensely impor­tant. We care for the land, the fish and the wildlife. And we remem­ber those who don’t.

Tell your Sen­a­tor to pass the Sportsmen’s Act!

Lost and Found

Lately, when I wake up at 4a.m., it’s to lull our son back to sleep for another cou­ple hours.

This year, my first tag was for early sea­son antler­less deer out in the scrub coun­try between the moun­tains and desert in south­west Col­orado – the cor­ner I call home. It was still hot after a dry sum­mer, and my scout­ing trips were telling me the deer were some­where else, most likely some­where that looked a lit­tle less scorched.

Usu­ally when scout­ing I have an arrow like focus on read­ing the coun­try and fig­ur­ing out where the ani­mals were. But this year, that focus had been replaced by steadily drift­ing thoughts of my son and wife at home: preparing meals, read­ing books, build­ing forts, laugh­ing off another fall, shar­ing all of the small moments that add up to a life together.  I was miss­ing more of them with every day and night I was out.

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