136 ~ Deer hunting blind

The Wisconsin gun deer season will soon be upon us, starting on Saturday, and something that's often heard from us hunters, especially older ones with many opening days behind them, is that going into the woods with a gun in November is not (or is no longer) so much to kill a deer, but an excuse to immerse in nature. That connection with nature and the woods is sufficient reward, whether or not a filled tag is the result.

            What to make, then, of the recent proliferation of solid walled, two-story high deer hunting blinds? Those things that look like landing pods from an alien civilization, set down on the edge of a field, or clustered for adoption outside hardware stores and sporting goods emporia. One popular model is called, incredibly, "The Office", and the manufacturer boasts of the blind's "insulated steel inside...silent one-hand operable glass windows, and sound deadening floor pad". 

Some are priced upwards of a few thousand dollars, and the principal function of these small apartments for shooting animals seems to be to close hunters off from nature. And these structures can't be placed in the woods, given their size and weight. They can pretty much only be put along a field, delivered by truck.

            When deer season rolls around, hunters can drive their vehicle or an ATV right up to the foot of the pod's ladder, climb up and seal themselves within complete, hermetic comfort. No breeze on the face, no smell of autumn earth, no reassuring feel of your back pressed against the ancient strength of a living, breathing tree. Secure inside on a comfortable chair, all you need to do, between checks of the phone, bites of pizza or sips of beer, is wait for a deer to step into the open field. Then point your rifle out the window, pull the trigger and it's all done.

The head-to-toe camo is perhaps superfluous…

I'm not sure what to call what happens from these pods  – maybe deer shooting or deer killing - but it's not deer hunting. In fact, it is illegal to shoot at an animal from your house or car, but this is getting close to that. The pods, and ATVs, make it possible to take a deer's life with maximum ease and convenience. But taking a wild life should, by grace of God, require some effort, an immersion in and relationship with the wild that grew the buck from a fawn. Comfort and ease are not useful allies here, and are best left at home.  

            Granted, some users of these tower blinds might be hunters physically limited by age or disability, still trying to get out there, and that's wonderful. But such folks seem to be a minority of the customer base.

            Two great Wisconsinites, Aldo Leopold and Frank Lloyd Wright, understood the profound importance of connection with nature (Leopold was born in Iowa, but later lived and did his most important work in Wisconsin). In his classic work A Sand County Almanac, published in 1949, Leopold was already expressing skepticism and concern about the intrusion of technology into our experience of nature, particularly the increasing intrusion of roads and cars into the wild. Leopold wrote: "Recreation is valuable in proportion to the intensity of its experiences, and to the degree to which it differs from and contrasts with workaday life. By these criteria, mechanized outings are at best a milk-and-water affair".

            And for Frank Lloyd Wright, the central, critical objective of architecture was not to separate humans from nature - which had essentially been architecture's function for thousands of years before he came long - but to unite us with it. I suspect that Wright would be appalled if he was still around to witness the architecture and the purpose of these sterile hunting pods.

            Most hunters were drawn to hunting by their love of nature, but increasingly, things like ATVs, these elaborate blinds and even high tech camera traps distance us from our relationship with the wild. Love of anything at close range is not easy, but that is where the greatest rewards will be found.

            And so here's a suggestion to my fellow Wisconsin deer hunters: Honor our Wisconsin heritage, and the deer: Leave your ATV in the shed, and walk into the woods in the cold dark of early morning. Listen to the rhythmic crunch of the footfalls of your precious human life. Sit in the open, under a canopy of stars, or in the exquisite grace of snowflakes falling, with your back pressed against the bark of an infinite oak. Watch the vapor of your breath gently rise and float, giving you clues to the wind direction. Listen to the maniacal duet of barred owls in love, and as the world begins to lighten from the east, hear a soft rustle of dead leaves and strain to distinguish a squirrel errand from the steps of an approaching deer. I promise - you, and the world, will be richer for it.

~~~

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