Outdoors: When the hunting plans don’t work out, find a good book

Well, another moose season has come and gone. And, no, I didn’t get my antlerless moose on the permit I drew for this season. I had high hopes and big plans until my right knee gave out. It’s no fun getting older!

I did some road hunting and looked over a few possible trails I hoped to hunt if everything was normal, but such is life. While I can walk, I can’t walk very far and packing a moose is out of the question. By the time I swallowed my pride and figured I’d give my proxy to a friend to hunt for me, all my close friends were either already committed to other plans or were facing health issues like I was. “Best laid plans of mice….”

Along with the knee issue, the weather didn’t help. The fall was beautiful and warm. The warm part makes caring for meat a little problematic. The rainy periods weren’t much fun either.

So, what does a guy do when his hunting plans don’t work out? In my case, I find a good book, settle into my corner of the couch with my buddy, Lil’ Squirt, curled in my lap and I read.

Regular readers know my fondness for history and the blackpowder shooting sports. Given that, this first book shouldn’t be a surprise. The “Life of ‘Billy’ Dixon, Plainsman, Scout and Pioneer” by Olive K. Dixon, is the biography of William Dixon as he told it to his wife.

I’ll quote from the Editor’s Note: “…William “Billy” Dixon is perhaps best known for a very long shot with a 50-90 Sharps buffalo rifle. He was one of a small number of buffalo hunters staying at Adobe Walls, a settlement in present-day Hutchinson County, Texas. Early on June 27, 1874, hundreds of Kiowas. Comanches, and Cheyennes, angered by the killing of buffalo on their lands, attacked the settlement.”

On the third day of the fighting, several Indians were gathered on a rise, later surveyed at 1,538 yards from where Dixon was located, when Dixon aimed his borrowed 50-90 Sharps rifle and fired. Nearly a second-and-a-half later, an Indian fell off his horse. History never recorded whether the Indian was killed or wounded but that shot essentially ended the battle.

The discussion of the Battle of Adobe Walls, however, is only a small section of the book. Most of the narrative describes his life working as a freighter, buffalo hunter, and Army scout. I enjoyed reading the descriptions of what life was like during that era of American history. It’s not a long book and reads easily. If you enjoy reading about our American Western history, it’s worth a look.

The second book, “At Home in the Woods, Living the Life of Thoreau Today” by Vena and Bradford Angier, was written during the middle of the twentieth century. It’s about a young, urban couple that decide to abandon the rat race of “civilization” and return to a simpler wilderness lifestyle in northern British Columbia.

The story is told mostly from Vena’s perspective and gives a nice description of all the things the two “greenhorns” needed to learn to survive and eventually thrive living in a small, wilderness community. Quoting from one of the reviews, “How the Angiers built and stocked their cabin with the help of neighbors makes instructive reading. And if you plan to do more than just think about escaping to the wilderness, ‘At Home in the Woods’ can be your handy, practical woodcraft-filled guide.”

The third book I read, “On the Edge of Nowhere,” by James Huntington, tells his true-life story. The book jacket states, “Brought up on the hard, primitive Alaskan countryside by a white trapper father and an Indian mother, Huntington learned early to fight for survival. Life was hard on the Big Land, hardships commonplace: Huntington’s Indian mother walked 1,000 miles in the dead of winter to return to her family; later, after she died, it fell to her son to provide for her younger children—at the tender age of seven!”

Huntington’s life story reads like a fictional action adventure, but it’s all true. For example, he really did fight three enraged bears armed only with an ax! The Huntington’s were also strong believers in education because they saw this as the key to functioning in whatever life situation they encountered.

I enjoyed reading all three books, but Huntington’s story intrigued me the most because I know one of his descendants. I have a connection to the story!