There is a certain sense of satisfaction that farmers and gardeners and hunters and fishermen get from 'living off the land.' My moose was home, but the work was far from over. Hundreds of pounds of steak, roasts and ribs needed to be cut and wrapped, and all of the scrap needed to be ground into burger. Add another day of work. On top of all of this, my hunting and camping gear needed to be clean...  Read More

Pulling the trigger was the easy part. My moose was down. I've done this by myself many times, and to be honest, there is always a moment of exhale where I think something like, "Lord, what have I done?" The first long job was to get the hide and meat off one side and then the other.  I am also meticulous about keeping my meat clean. On a good sized bull this can take 2 or 3 hours by the time I'm ...  Read More

I managed to stay on the bull- just a glimpse here and there as he made a beeline through the timber. I got a good look at him when I first saw him, and I knew this was a legal bull. When he stepped behind a small patch of low-to-the-ground spruce trees, I steadied my rifle against a birch tree and waited. I couldn't SEE him, but I KNEW I had him. It's actually very common for us to KNOW that we h...  Read More

Hunting moose in the timber is far from ideal, yet I've 'stumbled upon' legal bulls several times in my life. I was a little frustrated with my day. It had taken a long drive and a lot of work to get deep into those mountains, and the low clouds had driven me out of my hunting spot. To make things worse, my ATV had a flat tire and I was literally driving on 3 wheels and a rim. I still had a day an...  Read More

If I'd have had a few more days to hunt, I would have waited for the clouds to lift. With less than two days, I decided to break down the camp I'd just set up and move to lower elevations. Eventually I got beneath the clouds, but this put me in very mediocre country for hunting. But given the dense fog up high, mediocre was better than the place I'd come from. If we waited for circumstances to be ...  Read More

I was by myself- deep in the mountains- hoping to find a moose. Well, that's not exactly accurate. I hunt hard and I ALWAYS find moose. I was trying to find a LEGAL bull. For those of us who are stuck hunting off the road system, this is the area where skill and hard work play a minimal role. You see, we can only shoot a spike/fork or a bull with an antler spread greater than 50 inches. So- I was ...  Read More

Many studies have been done proving that physical appearance provides great advantage (or disadvantage) for career applicants. Beauty and fitness for women and strength and height for men are a distinct advantage. But here's the thing- those qualities have no correlation to excellence in performance of the job.What correlates to high performance and success? Kindness, work ethic, being a 'team pla...  Read More

So yesterday I had an 'emergency' root canal. It's a little bit like self-inflicted torture. Why in the world would a person put himself through that? Not only was the procedure extremely uncomfortable, but it cost more than I paid for my truck. The answer is obvious- I did it because of the payoff on the other side. I had a painful infection that was severe enough to keep me up all night- for sev...  Read More

Though primarily looking for moose, I planned to check on my ram the following morning. If he was still there I planned to go get him in the daylight, when my hunting partners would be able to watch me in the spotting scope the whole time. In the morning, my sheep was gone. Circumstances often dictate our plans, don't they? Other than a grouse that I knocked out of a tree with a rock, the day was ...  Read More

I was serving as 'guide' to a father and adult son on a moose hunt. Both of them were out of shape, and they were very insecure woodsmen. I spotted a legal ram on the other side of a small, steep gorge. By myself I could easily have been on the ram in less than an hour, but it would have been well after dark before I had it packed out. I was facing a dilemma. Neither of my partners were fit enough...  Read More

I know that you have faith, but is it STRONG? More than strong, is it VIBRANT? In other words, is your faith not something you 'believe' so much as it is a reflection of who you are? Vibrant faith impacts every moment of the day, every decision, every relationship, every conversation. You weather life's storms because life for you goes much deeper than your present circumstances. Jesus said, "Come...  Read More

The temperature is a balmy 5° and it's snowing again. First, the clouds move in, hovering over the mountains, then the heat rises, and then the outpouring begins. Years ago on the Isle of Lewis in the New Hebrides, a spontaneous worship service was finally dispersing close to midnight. God had been stirring the hearts of the people for many weeks. A young man told pastor Duncan Campbell, "The Spir...  Read More