PAUL A. SMITH; Answering the Call of the Wild

By PAUL A. SMITH

“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.”

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949.

Like the great conservationist, I am one who cannot. I feel fortunate to have learned to love the wild things, the outdoors, as a boy.

Whether it’s standing in a darkening stream as broad-shouldered trout slurp mayflies or sitting in the spring woods as the first gobble echoes across the coulee or watching raucous flights of cranes landing in the marsh, the Wisconsin outdoors has colored my life.

It has made all the difference; has led me to this place.

Each of us experiences the outdoors differently. Some seek to avoid it and slip from home to automobile to office without taking notice of the natural events that surround them, even in the city. Others seek it out, regard it as sustaining, affirming, eminently meaningful.

I was posed a simple but important question two weeks ago: Would I accept the position of outdoors editor of this newspaper? Big decisions take time. Like a nanosecond.

As this represents the beginning of a relationship with you, the readers, I’ve been asked to introduce myself this first Sunday on the job. Many of us become journalists because we prefer to ask questions, not answer them. I’ll deal with the anxiety by projecting — I’m fishing in a Lake Michigan tributary, after the recent thaw, surrounded by dozens of bright steelhead. The outdoors is rich and powerful.

“Nature tells a library full of stories every day. We just have to study a while before we can learn to read them. If you can learn to understand the stories in nature, you’ll understand yourself better.”

Kenny Salwey, Alma, Wisconsin, personal interview, 1997.

I’m a native of Racine, and except for a summer spent as a forester in Colorado, a life-long Wisconsinite. For most of my youth, I was able to walk out the backdoor and roam a rural edge of southwest Racine. It was a place of fallow farm fields, shaded woodlots, ponds and creeks that, though not wilderness, was home to a representative population of Wisconsin wildlife. Adventure was as close as the other side of the threshold. I fished, shot a pellet gun and bow and arrow and trapped for raccoons and muskrats.

As much as I loved the Green Bay Packers, I learned early that a day spent catching bluegill and discovering where the painted turtles bask in the sun was better than watching the struggles of Scott Hunter.

“When I heard the full-throated bawling howl, I should have had chills racing up and down my spine. Instead I was thrilled to know that the big grays might have picked up my trail and were following me down the glistening frozen highway of the river.”

Sigurd Olson, The Singing Wilderness, 1956.

Given the freedom to explore, I learned to identify most of the plants and animals of southeastern Wisconsin, their habits and behaviors, what they eat and what eats them. I hunted and fished with enthusiasm; I also noticed the changes that occurred in my surroundings over months, seasons and years. Mostly that meant more houses, fewer fields, less game.

“But maybe it’s not a bad thing to fall in love with a river.”

Gordon MacQuarrie, That River . . . The Brule, The Gordon MacQuarrie Sporting Treasury, 1998.

The outdoor experiences of my youth led to a fascination with science and I graduated with a degree in biology, natural science and conservation from Carthage College in Kenosha. The Pike River flows through campus and afforded between-class fishing for chinook salmon. In class we studied Leopold — a perfect combination.

Among Leopold’s teachings is the land ethic, which urges us to see the earth as a community to which we belong rather than a commodity which we own. We should all care for a place as much as MacQuarrie cared for the Brule. Mine is the West Fork of the Kickapoo River in Vernon County, a trout stream that twinkles and runs through pastures and past oak ridges in what is arguably Wisconsin’s prettiest corner. I return to the West Fork over and over, learning something each time.

“I can truthfully say I know of no other recreation that will do so much toward keeping a woman in good health and figure than a few hours spent occasionally at trap shooting.”

Annie Oakley, Sports Afield, August 1915.

The outdoors is the original fitness club. For the last decade one of my favorite activities has been spring turkey hunting, especially in the Driftless Area of western Wisconsin. Regardless of my exercise regimen at the time, after a few days of chasing gobblers up and down steep hills, I always return in better shape than I left.

“If, when we were young, we tramped through forests of Nebraska cottonwoods, or raised pigeons on a rooftop in Queens, or fished for Ozark bluegills, or felt the swell of a wave that traveled a thousand miles before lifting our boat, then we were bound to the natural world and remain so today. Unlike television, nature does not steal time; it amplifies it.”

Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods, Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, 2006.

It’s critical that Wisconsinites — and especially children — are provided opportunities to partake in outdoors activities, for their health and for the future of hunting and fishing, the sports most responsible for funding conservation in America.

Richard Louv has coined the phrase “nature-deficit disorder” for the detachment many in our culture experience from the natural world. We are becoming a race of viewers, not participants. Louv quotes a fourth-grader who says “I like to play indoors better ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are.”

There are very few things I believe to be universally true, but this is one — the stronger our connection to the outdoors, the better. Whether yours is through hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, canoeing or bird watching, keep it, build on it. And next time you go afield, take someone new with you.

“God doesn’t count the hours you spend afield with friends.”

Gene Hill, The Primrose Path, 1972.

Some time ago I decided to expand the amount of time I spent outdoors to encompass work and play. For the last 14 years I have worked as an outdoors writer and photographer, principally for The Journal Times in Racine. Outdoor recreation is a constant in my life. My wife and I often design our vacations around it.

“The wildlife of today is not ours to do with as we please. The original stock was given to us in trust for the benefit both of the present and the future. We must render an accounting of this trust to those who come after us.”

Theodore Roosevelt, in a speech circa 1900.

At the start of the 20th century, America faced issues of over- exploitation of its wildlife. Today the wildlife management in our country — and especially in our state — is the envy of the world. With funding from sportsmen, biologists now use science to manage bag limits and regulations. Our challenges of today are to help manage over-population of species such as white-tailed deer, combat the effects of exotic species, manage the spread of wildlife diseases and limit habitat loss due to continued human development.

What hasn’t changed since Roosevelt’s time is the responsibility we have for future generations. And the wonder a child — or adult – - can feel at the twitch of a bobber, the flush of a grouse or the screech of an eagle.

Now I have a unique opportunity to share it with you. I hope you continue to turn to these pages as we explore the people, issues and adventures that make the outdoors so vital to life in Wisconsin.

So please join me — I’ve got a spot reserved for you.

Send e-mail to psmith@journalsentinel.com

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