“You, the rifle, me, the cartridges ∕ A piece of crooked fir tree in the mouth ∕ In the footsteps of the father’s snowshoes ∕ Do you remember that, little brother? –Tex Lecor, The teapot
Hunting is part of my life. My grandfather Jobin hunted with his sons at the “cric à Lépine”, in what is now a real estate project. My grandfather Pedneaud fed his family wild meat for years. My father introduced me to hunting and I did the same with my son, my daughters seeing no interest in it.
This year, freed from the weight of politics, I hunted more often than in the previous 12 years. It feels good. I even needed my mother’s freezer to store my harvest of venison! A great year.
At the end of the week, Carey Price, from the height of his immense notoriety, made a public outing on the hunt. Basically, he asks for some respect for hunters and he supports the demands of the Canadian Coalition for Gun Rights (it’s a funny name, by the way, do the guns themselves have rights ?). This coalition is fighting a battle to protect access to automatic and semi-automatic weapons, sometimes called assault weapons.
I’ve always found it positive that stars get involved in politics, they’re citizens too, it’s good that they fit into the city. But notoriety comes with responsibility.
The more our voice carries, the more we must use it with caution to ensure that we make a solid and constructive contribution. Because stars have strong voices, sometimes it’s important to respond to them. This is the case here.
So let’s talk briefly about politics before I tell you about my hunt this year.
The Canadian Coalition for Gun Rights, the group that Carey Price supports, has created a “Poly” promotional code to promote the purchase of merchandise on its website. This kind of political aggressiveness makes you vomit. I was in college when 14 young women were shot at Poly, they were my age. I think about it and I’m still shaking. Thirty-three years later, it’s my daughters’ turn to go to university. Thirty-three years is the time it took the federal government to act. That, too, breaks my heart.
One of the t-shirts that the coalition sells with the “Poly” discount bears this logo: “Firearm rights are women’s rights” (they don’t sell anything in French and, for once, I’m very happy with that). This coalition brings to us the American madness about weapons. We no longer talk about hunting, we talk about the principles that make the United States one of the most violent and deadly societies in the world. By supporting them, Price defends a certain vision of hunting and a certain vision of the place of weapons in our society. He is wrong on both counts. Owning a gun is a privilege, not a right. Hunting with an assault weapon is no longer hunting.
A November morning
I was sitting in a small chair, long before sunrise. I couldn’t see my hands. It was dark as in the wolf. Little by little, the forest forgot my presence and started to live again. I had entered nature. A robin was singing about the coming winter, a squirrel was looking for some food to protect from the snow, the wind was blowing and the cold was cracking its first branches. A hunter was on the prowl.
Behind the clouds, the sun began to rise. I watched the snow fall gently. I thought of my father who would have liked to be there.
Suddenly the farm dog yelped. A beast was near. She appeared in the greatest silence. I took aim. Against the light, I could see her perfectly. She walked in front of a fir tree, black on black, I couldn’t shoot anymore. I waited. A long time. She finally moved. When I was certain of my shot, I fired.
Alone in the field, I cleaned the animal, kept the offal, then I put it in safety to let the meat fester.
A few days later, thanks to resourceful friends, we butchered ourselves. Not a gram of meat wasted, all vacuum-packed, meat whose ecological footprint is approaching zero. In the evening, we feasted together.
The most beautiful book you can read on hunting was written by a Spanish philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset. It’s called meditation on the hunt. We read it like we hunt, patiently, savoring every minute that passes. The best edition in French is that of Septentrion, of which a great environmentalist, Louis-Gilles Francœur, signs the introduction. He teaches us in particular that the first ecologists were hunters, that the species hunted for sport are in better condition than many non-hunted species and that the associations of hunters have saved certain species threatened by urbanization.
I invite Mr. Price to read it. We discover all the beauty of hunting and nowhere is there any mention of automatic weapons.