A Man Made of Elk
January/February by Dave Sigurslid
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If you'd timed it just right across the last decade, you could have run into artist Thomas Aquinas Daly, biologists Stephen Kellert, Michael Soulé, or Tom Beck, Pulitzer-winning L.A. Times reporter John Balzar, jazz musician Alex Bugnon, or novelist John Nichols, among others. What you'd be timing is a visit to the Dave Petersen cabin nestled in the San Juan Mountains, where all of the above have visited at various times. And what you'd overhear is conversation, stories mainly, stories of all kinds about the wild country that makes up a good bit of Southwest Colorado, the plants and animals that populate it, and the interactions among those wild beings and the people who impact them. But no need to pry into the carefully guarded privacy of one of America's most conscientious writers and hunters, as you can now read these stories and others in Petersen's most recent book, a collection of essays entitled A Man Made of Elk.
It's a biological fact that nearly all the cells in our bodies are regularly replaced, some frequently and others less so. That fact, coupled with the aphorism that we are what we eat would lead logically to the conclusion that a person who ate locally grown, organic natural food would eventually become comprised of same. Thus we understand that Petersen, a decades-long, inveterate and successful hunter and eater of elk is made of elk himself. Ergo, the title of his book. But if you only knew that much, you'd miss the most important part, and that is that Petersen not only wants to be made of elk, but, as his wife alleges, he wants to be an elk.
This will come as no surprise to those who know Petersen's work. He has written of elk and elk hunting for more than 20 years. His nearly single-minded devotion to, study of, interaction with, and powerful advocacy for elk has made him uniquely able to write with authority on the subject, and on subjects that intersect - including bears, mountain lions, hunting ethics, trophy homes, and many more et ceteras.
A Man Made of Elk reflects, and reflects upon, many such intersections, divided into three parts: an almanac, a treatise on woodsmanship, and a philosophy. This affords readability to those other than die-hard Petersen fans, elk hunters, or traditional archers (the way the author hunts). People concerned with guarding wild land against development will find a fierce ally here, as will others who might weigh the merits of eating local organic food. Read Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and picture the kind of person who best exemplifies the ideals in that book and you will find Petersen as he has lived for the last 30 years, after leaving the Marines and Southern California for "a real life" in the Rockies.
The first section, "An Elk Hunter's Almanac," will be of most interest if you're a hunter, in fact an elk hunter, and in particular a hunting archer who just may make the very bow you carry into the forest. Stories of the hunt always seem to overplay the culminating event where blood is spilled. But that is not hunting, certainly not all of it. For Petersen, the hunt is a dance, a cat-and-mouse hide-and-seek game where the careful and conscientious hunter seeks to get close enough to engage those culminating moments. That Petersen does not kill an elk with a bow every year, despite daily interaction to that end (during hunting season) and ample opportunity, speaks to his love of the hunt, not necessarily the kill. The Almanac reflects this practice.
"Woodsmanship" is the very thing we nature-loving parents try to instill in our children, whether or not it involves hunting. Woodsmanship is a term that encompasses not only what one must do in order to move through the forest as a resident denizen, but also what one should do. That takes us to the last section wherein "shoulds" are discussed.
Petersen serves as one of the two resident philosophers in the pages of Traditional Bowhunter Magazine, and as such, he functions as the conscience of thousands of hunter-readers. These final essays are drawn from his writing for that venue.
As the current Colorado field director for the conservation organization Trout Unlimited's Public Lands Initiative, Petersen no longer has the time to make his living as a hunter and a writer. We are consequently not likely to see another book-length work by this esteemed outdoor author for some time, perhaps never if you listen to him. The best way for us to make do, then, is to savor this most recent work.
Dave Sigurslid is a local physician, naturalist, archer, and erstwhile hunter.