The Great North Woods

The Great North Woods
            I was born in the “wilds” of Upper Michigan long ago, longer than I care to think about sometimes, but the fact that the “Great North Woods” is in my blood is undeniable. My family moved around quite a lot, both before and after I was born, but it was always between Lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula and that was because my Dad was always chasing jobs and the Detroit area was better for work in those days during and after the war. During the war my Dad had worked at River Rouge and when that job ended my family moved back north. I was fortunate to have been born in the U. P. because we soon moved back south and stayed there until I was starting third grade when we moved back north for good and I spent the rest of my youth in the “Land of the Hiawatha”.             
           Some people grow up and leave home never to return for whatever reason and they never miss their childhood homeland, but for some lucky people who are born in the “North Country” there is a part of you that never leaves no matter how far you roam. I have traveled quite a lot around the country, as far as Alaska and Mexico and from New York to California, but no matter where I was if it wasn’t in the North Woods it just didn’t feel right. Now I could very easily settle in the Rockies where there is an ample amount of wilderness and trees or in the southwest with few trees but still with charms enough to satisfy me, but I would still be judging my surroundings by my birth peninsula. The lure of the north gets in your blood and mind so that you are never really comfortable anywhere else.
            While we lived in Lower Michigan we would visit my grandparents in the U.P. every so often and we would drive from Detroit up to the ferryboats at the “Straits” and continue on through the Upper Peninsula which took us through some of the most beautiful wilderness in Michigan (lower and upper). The deer we saw as we traveled were like big game in Africa to me and I felt as if I was in a wonderful dream in the wild outdoors where I roamed about hunting and fishing in the woods and rivers. It was enough to make a kid giddy with excitement and then, as we drove the U.P. roads we often stopped at the restaurants, bars and gas stations that had stuffed deer and bear heads and other mounted game on the walls which made me feel like Davy Crocket or Daniel Boone. It was here that I started thinking seriously about wanting to live in the woods and be an outdoorsman for the rest of my life. My dreams were often about hunting or fishing in the wilderness with only a few supplies while I lived off the land or homesteaded! I had such grand dreams then.
            I also credit the North Country for my love of everything related to guns! The wilderness inspired an urge within me that I didn’t really understand until later but anything that I could get a hold of that even resembled a gun was instantly a priceless treasure for me. I had cap guns, plastic guns, and miniature toy guns. I even made toy guns out of things that looked like gun parts- a length of pipe was a barrel-an old wooden chair leg was a stock. I glued things together or wired things with baling wire. I once made a toy gun using a barrel-bolt door latch, a piece of chrome table leg, and an old wooden stock off of another broken toy gun. It probably didn't look like much, but I carried that thing around one whole summer. Another toy was from a cereal box offer and it was a full size plastic replica of a Colt .45 six-gun. I found a cap gun holster that fit and carried that gun around until it broke in two pieces. People most likely thought I was nuts.

I am the little sixgunner!
            Before I was old enough to have anything resembling a real gun my friends and I roamed the countryside like little rascals as we learned how to make bow and arrows out of willow saplings and spent most of our time trying to find things we could shoot. There was an archery range a few miles from my first home in the U.P. where my friends and I used to go look for lost arrows with the real treasure being an aluminum arrow.When I was old enough guns and hunting were as common as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I carried a BB gun almost daily when I wasn’t in school and I hunted the woods for any game I could find, which at that time was mostly old tin cans and an occasional red squirrel or other vermin. I fished only when I couldn’t hunt so I wasn’t just a hunter but that was my first love. I spent as much time in the woods as I did at home loving every minute and I carried this love of hunting into my adult life and have never regretted it.
            As a boy I can remember sitting in the living room at my Grandmother’s Farm on a rainy summer day reading old 1900-1930 vintage hunting, trapping and fishing magazines and catalogs that my Great-Grandfather had read and I marveled at the sporting equipment that sold for mere dollars when those very things would cost me many times more. My Grandmother used to laugh and tell me stories about her dad and the hunting and trapping and fishing he did and often showed me old photographs of her and her family doing those things. She said I inherited my love of guns and hunting and especially the outdoors from both him and her husband. I think I also inherited some of that love from my Grandma though because she kept several pistols with her throughout her life, both at home where she lived in the winter and at the old family Farm where she spent her summers. Grandma was used to guns since her Dad had guns around from before she was even born and on into her later life. She used to tell me how she had to shoot feral pigeons for her Dad because he loved pigeon breasts for breakfast. She even had several photos of herself as a young girl holding pigeons that she had shot with a twenty-two revolver in the yard at the Farm. I would routinely ask her permission to play with her pistols from the time I was little on up to when I was a teenager. She taught me to respect firearms and not to be careless with them and when she passed away my Grandmother’s pistols were passed on to me and I treasure them to this day.

 Revolver Handed Down From past Generations
             I had a .22 rifle by age 12 and a 12 gauge pump by 14 and I lived for small game season each fall. I suddenly got the itch to have a handgun when I was about 16 years old and worked hard at my part-time gas station job until I had enough to buy a new .22 revolver. I convinced my Mother to co-sign with me and convinced the local Sheriff that I was trustworthy enough to use it responsibly and ended up with my “First Sixgun”, my prized Colt .22 Scout revolver. Over the years I have put literally thousands of rounds through my Scout and it still serves me well for target practice whenever I reach for it. In past years it has bagged rabbits, partridge and ridded my homestead of any number of varmints and vermin.

                        My First Sixgun
             My Nordic ancestors passed the bloodline of Northwood’s people on down to my grandparents and parents so I was destined to love the wilderness and hunting. Whether I inherited my passion for guns and all the things that go along with them is speculative but I like to think so. My tales of the Northwoods and my love of guns and hunting continue.
Chris