Category: Cultural critique
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Southwest wild game cassoulet
Hunting has changed my eating habits. When decades of eating industrial beef and chicken is your frame of reference, wild game can do nothing but challenge that. The flavors and textures are just different, especially when you get away from the more straightforward cuts of venison. Of course, hunting also gives you access to the…
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Snow and scat
Yesterday I did one of my favorite hikin’ and packraftin’ loops in Glacier National Park. In spite of thus-far unfulfilled intentions to ski it, I’ve never been in there this early. I had snowshoes on my pack as well as the usual rafting gear, which made for good training weight, but the ‘shoes went unused.…
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New Zealand: in conclusion
Photo series by M. I’ve long been skeptical of the short-term ethos of “traveling” as it exists for the first world bourgeoisie; getting to know a place takes months, years, and thus even the best prepared journey guarantees tourism, and all the worst things which come with it. That said, New Zealand is the first…
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New Zealand logistics for the DIY hunter
In New Zealand, all big game (and a lot of small game) is non-native, which is why you can hunt Canada Geese with a rifle. Before the arrival of Maori 700 years ago, and of Europeans 400 years later, New Zealand was one of the more distinctive ecosystems on earth. The largest mammal was a…
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One day lost
Wednesday afternoon we spent in the Dallas airport, waiting for the Qantas desk to open so we could recheck the rifle, having had to leave security after our flight from Des Moines to do so. That had its adventures (firearms logistics will get a post of their own in due time), but soon enough we…
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The Human Factor: The Only Factor
Black Diamond, Powder Magazine, and writer David Page completed a series on avalanche risk entitled The Human Factor, which I suggest just about everyone read, here. Taken as a whole, I find the article frightening. It is full of passages like this one: “The report, like most in the genre, is long on details about…
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Hunting, land, and a moral failure of American capitalism
Hunting is expensive. Non-resident elk tags in the lower 48 run between 500 and 1300 dollars, when all costs are included. Deer tags are generally a fair bit less. Any other big game species (bear, moose, mountain goat, sheep) is generally quite a bit, or exponentially, more expensive than elk. Sheep tags cost between 1300…
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The importance of Mehl
I first met Luc Mehl way back in August of 2010, when I was living in Missoula, Luc came down to visit his brother, and thanks to the wonders of the ‘net and friends of friends we met up with Forrest McCarthy and packrafted the Selway. I was nervous because I’d owned a packraft for…
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Banff 2014: Turning the Corner
It’s been plain for a while now that the Banff Film festival is in a perilous position. The relative accessibility of video equipment has made outdoor films more common than ever before, thus in theory increasing both the breadth and depth of the pool from which an official fest like Banff has to draw. At…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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