The continent of Africa has been viewed with a mixture of fear and greed for the past 500 years… “The wild creatures I had come to Africa to see are exhilarating in their multitudes and colors, and I imagined far a time that this glimpse of the earth’s...
And here, among these crumbling cliffs and dizzying heights, I had come to hunt the Siberian Mid-Asian ibex in the dark heart and sharp teeth of dead winter. Eons ago, in a great battle of continents, the Indian and Eurasian plates collided with planetary force,...
There was once a land with no people, no mammals, just forested mountains and clear rushing rivers since the rocks were laid down. No deer or antelope, no wolf or bear had ever left a footprint there. That place lay brooding for millions of years, a thing unto itself....
The situation in Iceleand reminded me of an existentialist stage play, like Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Being lost in the fog, with its sensory and sound-deadening effects…was akin to having wandered into the off-stage of life. Iceland...
The most rarefied air on Earth is the painfully thin atmosphere between you and the malignant stare of a wounded Cape buffalo. The tiny bit of oxygen on the top of Mt. Everest must seem like molasses by comparison. You are connected in a wild, primordial way, as he...
I had an uneasy, anxious feeling as we drove to the bait tree just east of camp. It was with a bit of apprehension that I viewed my trip back to Zimbabwe and a patch of hunting land I had come to know and love. Through my long-term partnership with property owner...
It’s cold and gray. That time of year when you gaze out the window, your breath condensing on the glass, and let your mind wander. The Portuguese have a term they call “Saudade.” It doesn’t translate well to English, but it connotes a deep longing for...
I am a New England Ruffed Grouse hunter, and the Western Canadian waterfowl, upland birds and prairies were a new world to me. Sharptail grouse thrive in Saskatchewan and so do those who hunt them. Around Tessier the Sharpies feed in the huge grain fields and shelter...
Peter Ryan on lessons handed down to a son. Our son, Jamie, is 10 years old. Today, after much pleading, he is with me at a cabin on the South Island of New Zealand, a long way from anywhere. There at the head of the valley the snow looms high overhead, waterfalls...
James Stejskal details two occasions across the world where he is on the buffalo hunt and just how he went about claiming his prize. The early morning fog on the river was starting to dissipate as I stood in the waist high grass surveying the terrain ahead. I was...
