Soul Hunting

By Kevin Bustard

With difficulty, I crammed my feet into frozen boots and worked the tepee zipper open to stretch outside in the crisp dark. My leather hiking boots were uncomfortable, like castings of the saturated ones I’d unlaced the previous night, now frozen into an exaggerated arch. 

It was like I was wearing wooden clogs. Moving on the dry snow sounded like footsteps on squeaky Styrofoam.

Almost nothing worked as it had in the weeks prior; ratchet straps, vehicles, stoves, and even my knees and hips were creakier. 

It was the month of stuffing synthetic mummy bags into down-filled sleeping bags, and our dog too was burrowed into a sleeping bag. 

It was post-rut, but the deer were still moving. 

I was itching to go, the kids were happy to stay in camp, and my wife was content to let me hunt alone because she knows what makes me happy. 

Hunting always gives us what we need while rarely giving us what we want; it gives with one hand and takes away with the other. But if we always got what we wanted, the experience would feel empty, and we know that. 

It's not just about deer or guns but more like a nexus of vital things—a way to experience life in high definition.

We are out there reading between the lines or, like the blind, using our fingertips to discern a stranger’s face which belongs to a voice we vaguely remember. 

We uncover this soul of hunting within the totality of unexceptional experiences. Like a nonmaterial continuum which shows up in mundane happenings: such as managing sweat and alternating cold, lacing frozen boots, or mitigating the heat of our frosty cheeks against the binoculars lens. Little things revealing something larger and deeper.

Western big game hunting is part rigour and part relaxation— It is feeling small, though significant in the big woods.

It is so personal you can hardly speak it aloud. 

We can only share it with someone who has been there—who has borne the same cold, endured the mind melting lows and experienced the soul filling highs- someone who understands each nuance of the nearly inarticulable story of a deeply personal hunt. 

Otherwise, it is like a monk's hushed prayer or a shibboleth— an unutterable winning hand, like a straight flush we hold flat on the table and close to our chest.