Give This Man a Pole and He'll Tangle His Line

Buried amid the mass of random ramblings, tedious humdrum, and other exquisitely mundane revelations found on the typical Facebook newsfeed, one can sometimes unearth a real gem. I discovered one such pearl of wisdom just the other day, when my dear friend Josh Tallmadge posted a comment that really struck me. He said, “Thank god for fishing. If we have fishing, we have hope.”

This notion intrigued me. Josh’s observation seemed to be one of those that go a little deeper. It had a broader connotation, implications that went beyond the surface. It set my boat adrift upon the waters of philosophy. Might as well cast around a bit, I reckoned, and wet a little line.

The first thought I hauled up was that by its very nature fishing is an act of faith, at least for a hack like me. An accomplished angler will certainly argue that any real proficiency depends on a whole lot of skill, but I would venture that even they hold out a little bit of hope while they're waiting for a fish to take the bait. For those less consummate, fishing is the definition of optimism. We cast our net into the dark unknown and hope for the best, never truly certain of what, if anything, we might find.

The next thing I hit upon was the absolute imperative contained within Josh’s comment. Logically, if we accept his assertion as true, then its converse must hold as well. So it follows that, without fishing, we are without hope.

Problem there is, fishing is quickly becoming a delicate proposition. Fisheries worldwide are being depleted at ever increasing rates, overfishing threatens marine biodiversity, and human activity such as resource extraction, waste disposal, and power generation destroys habitat. One in five people relies on fish as their primary source of protein. Josh’s statement may have been made in regards to more personal considerations, but it was equally applicable on a global scale. Loss of fishing might dash the hopes of billions.

There is a wonderful old proverb that goes something like, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat forever.” I have long grasped this metaphor, but in the context of Josh’s comment I have come to see it in a new light. Nowadays, a person can go to market and buy a fish without ever having any idea of where it came from or how it got here. He has been given his fish, and today he will eat. But at what cost? The man doesn’t know. Perhaps there is something to be gained from “teaching the man to fish”, from creating a connection between him and what sustains him, something that offers hope for the future rather than just for the moment.

Lastly I landed at the realization that I need go fishing. Fishing for me is frustrating, since I typically meet with little or no success, mostly due to the fact that I have no idea what it is I’m doing. On one trip up the Blackfoot, after casting with my new Ugly Stik for half an hour to no avail, I handed my rod off to my buddy Tyler Hanley, who promptly caught three fish. Fishing is a learned skill, usually passed down from generation to generation. Tyler learned it from his grandfather, and Josh is teaching it to his boys. Since I want my son Keegan to learn it, my only hope is that there is some patient soul out there who is willing to teach me.

There is a reason why fishing so often appears in literature. Its connotations run deep, inhabiting the very depths of human condition. Fishing gives me faith, even if all I’m really doing is just throwing my line around. Josh is right. If we have fishing, we have hope. Thank god for fishing.

A less than able fly fisherman practices his dubious casting technique on the North Fork Coeur d'Alene river during an annual camping trip to Kit Price

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The Adventures of Little Steve, Vol. 3

Winter has arrived in the Bitterroot. As if this wasn't obvious enough from the solidly frozen water in the dogs' dish or the icy glaze on every window pane, my good friend Jake Pintok called from the comfort of his desk in the Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor's Office to inform me that it was eleven below zero down in Sula last night. Personally, though the moon rising over the mountains was an amazing sight and bluebird skies are always appreciated, I could go for a little less cold and a little more snow. Brandi is of the opinion there is white stuff enough to test our new dog sled up at Lost Trail this weekend, but looking out from my writing nook at the rock hard skiff currently struggling to simply cover the grass in the yard, I am inclined to believe that the runners will probably be riding on pine litter instead.

The real disappointment in finding winter has arrived in Montana, for both Jacob and I, is the knowledge that neither of us put any meat in the freezer. Jake doesn't have much excuse, as he had smaller elk in his sights on several occasions and passed them up for a shot at a big bull, but then again he has the luxury of still having plenty of meat in his freezer from the bull he took two years ago, since he has yet to crack the nut of getting Lisa and the boys to eat venison. Brandi and I, on the other hand, live off the stuff, and though not completely decimated, the stock of steak and ground chuck stored in our freezer from the young bull I took last season is fast dwindling.

Hunting big game is hard, and it certainly isn't for everyone. It takes leg work and the ability to coldly and calculatedly take the life of one of God's beautiful creations. Even when it works out, it isn't necessarily as cost effective as buying half a beef from one of the kids in the local 4-H chapter. It is however, for most of us who engage in the practice, a connection to our farthest past, a link to the natural world and our place in it, and an endeavor that takes an infinitely greater responsibility for itself than ordering a quarter pounder at the McDonald's drive-thru.

So I'm sorry Little Steve. Your dad failed you in his oldest duty, that of putting meat on the family table. Will I save those final few packages of elk in hopes of ensuring that you grow up eating the stuff? Yes. But I have to say I'm more than a little disappointed with the way this season's hunt went, especially what with having wasted several opportunities. I'll tell you more about that later, when you'll better understand.

Stories of hunting success aside, things have been going rather well for Little Steve. At the very least Doc Laraway says he is progressing at a normal rate. He seems to get the hiccups quite often, and he occasionally sees fit to batter his mama's insides looking for a way out of the cozy cocoon she provides for him. Sitting here feeling my toes go numb, this rushing desire to get out and face life only serves to demonstrate to me the naivety of youth. If he knew how cold it was here in the house, I don't think he would be in such a big hurry to escape her warm confines.

A Glass Half Full

I often find myself talking as if the glass were half empty. It gets rather annoying. Despite my rampant cynicism, however, there exists much in the world about which I am truly optimistic. Patagonia is one of those things.

I clearly recall that first encounter with one of their catalogs. The year was 1996, and I had just returned from a three month circumnavigation of the United States, a dirtbag exploration of the continent that included an excursion to Puerto Penasco, Mexico, and several frigid nights spent backpacking a section of the Appalachian Trail in Georgia. Signs of spring may have begun to appear in the south, but winter still maintained a firm grip on Missoula, Montana. After retrieving my wayward pack, which had gone errant somewhere along the bus route between Cincinnati and Chicago, I slogged through the snow up Rattlesnake Canyon to the house where my brother Jeb lived.

Thumbing through a copy of the company’s spring offering in his bedroom, I was struck by two things. The first was an extraordinary photograph of a climber performing a pinch grip front lever beneath a trailhead sign. The second was Patagonia’s announcement that their entire line of cotton clothing would be going organic.

Patagonia inspires me. Whether through the extremely motivational images contained within their catalogs or by their honest admissions about the unavoidable environmental cost of doing business, Patagonia provides me with exactly what I feel is so lacking in this world: something to believe in. To me, Patagonia isn’t just a clothing company. It’s a role model.

Patagonia is a throwback. Their aim is to make stuff that works, not stuff that sells. I bought my first Patagonia garment, an expedition weight Capilene pullover, in 1997. Twelve years later, it’s still goes in my pack on every outing.

The company’s commitment to conservation is unparalleled, yet they are the first to admit that they’re still a business and that everything comes at a price. In a post on the company’s blog The Cleanest Line, a member of their fabric development team is frank about the environmental expense of producing wetsuits. “Don’t settle for marketing “greenwash!”” the article cautions. A link from the Patagonia website leads visitors to the Footprint Chronicles, a mini-site where consumers can trace the journey of specific products and learn firsthand the environmental and social impacts of each purchase. Few companies seek to endow their customers with this level of accountability or exhibit such transparency.

Back in 1996, when Patagonia made the switch, they were one of the first firms to field an entire line of cotton clothing manufactured from organic fabric. They were at the vanguard of a movement, the goal of which was to reshape an industry. Other companies such as Sector 9 and Mission Playground have since followed suit, offering products today that allow consumers further opportunity to foster change through their choice in apparel.

Still clothing is only part of the equation. Patagonia’s whole approach is different. A careers page on their website claims Patagonia is always looking for motivated people to join the company ranks, especially if they share the firm’s love for outdoors, commitment to quality, and desire to make a difference. A paragraph at the bottom of the page reaffirms Patagonia’s ethic. “We work very hard to minimize our impacts on the environment, and we strongly believe that one person's actions can make a difference in the health of our environment,” it states. “In keeping with these values, we'd appreciate some sensitivity to environmental concerns in the preparation of your résumé materials. Please be environmentally responsible in the presentation of your information.”

It is a holistic approach that, to me, is captivating. It gives me pause, forcing me to reevaluate my own approach, my own route, my own line. Patagonia, I feel, is the corporate model of the future; industry that understands it has an obligation to seek ecologic integration as well as profit. It may still be business, but it’s business unusual.

Taking out the Trash

It was our first Saturday in Hamilton together since my return from Alaska, and we had intended on walking down to the Farmer’s Market with hopes of finding some fresh eggs to replace the ones now sizzling in the frying pan. While I set about burning breakfast, Brandi busied herself pulling played out pea plants from her garden and throwing them in the compost bin. She was only half done when I called her to come eat, so after Little Steve had his fill of pancakes we headed back outside to complete the task.

Our yard was in desperate need of some attention. It hadn’t seen much in the way of maintenance over the summer and had grown dry and dusty from constant dog frolics and indiscriminate watering schedules. Large quantities of husky down lay accumulated in every crack and crevice. As I could see it might be awhile before we’d be ready to leave, I grabbed a rake and began combing the ground.

I was still scratching at the hard pack and dead grass when Brandi finished her garden project, and her expression told me that a leisurely stroll through the Farmer’s Market had just been eclipsed by the more pressing needs of our own little plot. What better time to put in some work, we concluded, than Labor Day weekend?

Brandi had collected a large mound of pine needles and other debris when the snows had retreated last spring. It was slated for removal by our landlords, but months later remained heaped in a corner. After borrowing a wheelbarrow from one of Brandi’s co-workers, I scraped the ponderosa’s latest castings into several more piles, and we filled the pickup to capacity with woody detritus. Then we were off to the dump.

Admittedly, I had already given serious consideration to the roguish impulse that urged me to simply chuck the entire mess over a steep bank along one of the surrounding forest roads. It was all organic; with time, it would decompose. Bob had informed us that there would be a charge to dispose of it at the dump when he loaned us the wheelbarrow. I hated the idea of throwing away perfectly good money, but at least this way the worthless mess in our yard would one day be someone else’s pay dirt. Or so I thought.

We haven’t lived in the valley for long, barely a year, so it might just be a case of ignorance on my part. There may well be someplace here that processes organic material I have yet to discover. Still, I think the situation in the Bitterroot indicative of the general attitude toward refuse that prevails in this country. Our yard waste, I soon came to learn, would never realize its full potential as fertilizer. It wasn’t destined to become humus; it was nothing more than plain old rubbish.

I wasn’t aware at the time, but there is no landfill in Ravalli County. All waste generated in the Bitterroot Valley is taken to the transfer station in Victor for transport somewhere else. No effort is made to separate or categorically process the waste. My heart sunk as we were directed into a large steel building and told to empty the truckload of tree litter onto a concrete floor strewn with garbage.

A truck was parked on either side of us. One was filled with old broken furniture, the other household waste. The owners were busy dumping their loads upon the stained pad alongside ours. A small excavator stood ready to shovel the entire mess into a large compactor that oozed Styrofoam, broken glass, and kitchen litter. It smelled as if the entire building was rotting. We finished cleaning out the bed of the pickup, paid our fee, and drove away with the same thought bouncing around inside each of our heads.

“Would have been better off just dumping it in the woods.”

Although I sometimes postulate that a certain amount of organic detritus is in fact a necessary addition to a landfill if there is to be any hope for decomposition, I don’t see this tactic as being an effective waste stream management strategy. Gone are the days of perfunctorily plowing our waste out of sight, out of mind. Ravalli County in no way lacks open space; that it has no landfill only serves to underscore the gravity of the situation. Waste production has reached such a magnitude that nothing less than a comprehensive, systematic approach can possibly manage it.

Our breakfast nook is filled with recyclables. Paper, cardboard, glass, metal, plastic, are all arranged in neatly ordered stacks. There is little opportunity for the proper disposal of recyclables in Hamilton, so we haul them with us whenever we visit Washington. We have begun washing plastic baggies for reuse, and Brandi almost has me trained not to forget the fabric grocery bags when we leave for the store. Now that we have a compost bin, trips to the dumpster in the alley have decreased significantly. Even so, we need to do more.

Truth is our expectations, as a culture, are in need of a complete overhaul. Our entire attitude must evolve. We can no longer afford to pitch refuse haphazardly into landfills. We must resist our craving for disposability and lower our tolerance for garbage in America. Most importantly, we must come to grips with the fact that, since there truly are differences between pine needles and trash, there must be different ways with which to handle them.

Hypocrisy Reigns

Don’t get me wrong. I know I’m a hypocrite. Certainly, the best thing I could do for the environment is drive my shiny Chevy pickup off a cliff. Am I going to do that? Of course not, at least not as a favor to the environment. Maybe because I am too busy fiddling with my iPod (one luxury I don’t have) or updating this blog from my web enabled cell phone (another item I haven’t procured … yet), but not to save the rainforest or anything nearly as noble as that.

To be quite plain, unless we are all going to live in skin tents or grass huts like aborigines there is no lifestyle choice that isn’t going to selfishly degrade the environment. I know that, and I’m not going to try and pretend that I don’t. But this is a blog, and it just wouldn’t seem right if I didn’t editorialize at least a tiny little bit. And, hey, if someone wants to bring back the buffalo and let folks chase them around with a bow and arrow, I’ll be the first to sign up. But I know it wouldn’t change anything if I did, unless everyone else did it as well. We all know that’s not going to happen, so I’ll try to remain realistic.

Of all the things I would like to say on the subject, the most important, I believe, is that we are never going to be able to buy our way out of any predicament. There is nothing new under the sun, and a lot of fine people before me have already addressed the issue of a growing human presence and the extensive environmental degradation associated with it. Somewhere in there, some bright individual came up with the perfect solution to the problem, if you’re willing to accept that there even is one.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

The thing I always find is that most of us fail to realize that those words are placed in order of importance. I see a lot of “green” interest in recycling projects. Well, that’s a good thing to do, I suppose, if you’re not willing to start at the beginning. Maybe you’re easing into it; I don’t know. What I do know, however, is that the first word, reduce, describes the action that is going to produce the biggest results.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve definitely gotten lazier. My willingness to reduce has certainly tended to subside. I have more possessions, more detritus. I’m better with the second two, but reduction has become less of a priority. Perhaps I’m losing my idealism, but I hope not.

And maybe that’s not as true as I think. In some facets of my life, I have reduced, significantly. When I’m hungry, I don’t just buy a meal off the shelf. I’m buying whole foods and making things from scratch more often. I’m happy with simpler things, like a board game or a good book. The habit of driving around in circles looking for something to do has certainly curtailed since my youth.

Still, I have more. A computer, the internet, a gas swilling V8 powered pickup truck. Does this make me a bad person? Probably. Am I able to change it completely today? Don’t I wish. For all my hypocrisy, I will tell you this though, with perfect honesty. My vision of an ideal existence is barely getting by on the merits of a piece of land and my own hard work. Right now, I just don’t have the money to get my start. But if someone pointed out a homestead to me and said “Everything you need to survive is right here on this farm. If you never ask for one more thing you can have it” then I would do just that.

So if any of that piques your interest, check back. For now, Brandi and I are taking our skis up to the pass and letting the dogs run.