By Tim King
Not long ago, my friend Jake told me that he and his son were going deer hunting together. They were going to hunt during the special youth hunting season that the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has initiated in recent years. In my opinion, somebody in the DNR has done a great favor to young people and their parents by establishing this hunting season. It’s been my experience that hunting together gives children and their parents a wonderful opportunity to form precious and long-lasting memories.
The last time that I went deer hunting with my Dad was November of 1968. He died the following June.
We didn’t shoot, or see, any deer on that outing but we created memories that I’ve carried, and cherished, for more than a half century.
Dad organized the trip and, without saying or perhaps without even knowing, gave it to me as a gift. I was in college at the time and he must have encouraged me to take Friday off from classes.
Talking on the telephone wasn’t something we did but he did send me short letters, written in his elegant cursive hand writing, on the blue-lined yellow legal paper that he used in his law practice. I suspect that, in one of those letters, he encouraged me to take Friday off, come home, and drive up to deer camp with him.
The idea of deer camp was enticing since, normally, we hunted close to home and spent the night in our own beds. As we headed north, up Highway 71, he still hadn’t told me where we were going. We were always pretty comfortable in our silence but finally I asked him.
Lake George, he told me.
For those who don’t know, Lake George is an unincorporated village north of Lake Itasca and south of Bemidji. It is also home of an annual summer blueberry festival and to the largest of Minnesota’s six Lake Georges, at 798 acres.
To me, however, the village was in the North Woods and that held magnetic attraction for me. I relished the fact that we were going deer hunting in the forest near Lake George and didn’t ask more questions.
Memory that has been aging for more than half a century, like a half forgotten dream, is a pleasure to savor but is fleeting.
As I recall, Dad turned off the highway, not too far from the Lake George store and pub. He drove down a narrow gravel road. As dusk fell he turned into the pines. My memory is not of a house but there must have been one because a man came out of the growing darkness and greeted us. He was expecting us.
What I do remember is the field stone cabin. The man ushered us into the cabin and showed it to us. It must have had a table, chairs, and two bunks, and it met Dad’s expectations.
I have several shreds of memory about that cabin. A girl came out of the dark and into the light of the cabin. She carried two steaming plates of food which she left with us. I don’t remember eating the food but we did and it must have been good.
Then my dad, who was not a card player, produced a deck of cards. He proposed playing solitaire. I didn’t know how and I told him I thought the game was only played by one person. He explained that that wasn’t necessarily the case and he showed me.
For an hour or so that evening my dad showed me how and we played a quiet game of cards together.
The next morning, in the dark, we went to a spot in the woods to conduct our hunt. Dad, perhaps because of his heart condition, preferred to stand, wait, and hope a deer would come by. I preferred to walk and did so for the entire day. I over extended myself and, briefly lost in the unfamiliar forest, did not find my way back until after dark.
I remember two things when I came out of the dark trees. I recall the welcoming lights of the pub and I remember my Dad’s calm welcome back to the stone cabin. He had trusted that I would not get lost in the woods.
The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote that memory keeps us sane. I can’t say whether or not that’s true, but I can say that my Dad’s trust in me on that hunting trip and his interest in spending the evening playing cards with me are foundational to my self-confidence and self-worth today.
I hope that Jake and his son’s experience hunting together serve a similar purpose.
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