Monthly Archives: January 2025

Scoring My Annual Buck!

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Travis Sandberg surprised me. I had entered his farm office for an interview for a We Are Water panel scheduled for display in March and quickly realized his office was also a studio for his taxidermy work. Although some of his acreage surrounds Listening Stones, his being a taxidermist was surprising.

Skulls with antlers littered the floor before becoming European mounts, all cleaned by mealworms so perfectly they glistened while awaiting a mounting on wooden plaques, already stained and polished, along with a wall lined with several traditional mounts in various stages of completion. In a later tour of his “man cave” inside his rural farmhouse, his own collection of artistic mounts was displayed along with antelope, pheasant and a fine walleye.

Yes, I knew he was a man who farms in a way that protects both his valuable soil and all of our water resources, which was the reason for my visit. But this? And, Travis is as diligent with his art of taxidermy as he is with his precious top soil.

My 2024 buck was found in the oak savanna of the Bonanza section of Big Stone Lake State Park.

On the other hand I can also say that, yes, I once again got my antlered buck this past autumn. And, no, Travis won’t be mounting my buck for it still lives as far as I know. My buck was shot with my trusty Nikon rather than with a bow or gun, captured within the confines of Big Stone Lake State Park. This is where I go after the Upper Minnesota River Arts Meander and around the hunting season in search of my annual buck. I’ll also readily admit that I do not adhere to the two-week gun hunting season nor the longer, September to December, open season for archery.

This past year I was pleasantly surprised and relieved to even find a photographable buck, and a nice one at that, since there was a special permit granted for area farmers along the Lake Road to kill up to 10 whitetail deer they found munching on their commodity crops of corn and soybeans. Apparently it was a successful program for the deer population along the highway seems significantly reduced.

This beautiful buck was shot in 2022.

While that is rather sad, perhaps there is a silver lining for in past years in the depth of winter many area deer appeared to be stressed food wise. Shrunken flanks, and their munching on shrubs right next to the traffic without regard for the danger and in spite of their shy nature. Over population of the deer herd can also lead to such diseases as chronic wasting disease (CWD) and “blue tongue,” officially known as epizootic hemorrhagic disease. This viral disease can spread quickly through a herd. Symptoms include mouth ulcers and a bluish tongue. 

Fortunately my antlered bucks have all appeared to be healthy, surrounded by a robust herd of does. They seemed to move freely on the park land and along the hills and ravines that drain into Big Stone Lake within the Bonanza portion of the park. Admittedly, there have been some beautiful racks on some of my bucks that were certainly worthy of Sandberg’s trophy’s art.

In 2021 this buck tried to hide from me.

Way back in my youth I remember when a photograph appeared in our local Macon Chronicle Herald of the Missouri Conservation Department releasing a buck and three does from a horse trailer into a nearby woodland. The foursome had been captured in the Ozarks before being released into our wooded hillsides. Later, the same would happen with wild turkeys, and now both are so prominent that Outdoor Life and Sports Afield magazines have since placed Macon County within the top ten hunting counties in the nation for both species. That wasn’t my youth.

However, I was briefly a hunter. Years after the release I had a nice hickory recurve bow and arrows with Fred Bear razor-headed arrows and deemed myself rather proficient at archery, Thanks to my adventures with fly fishing in the area around our family farm, I had a rather decent knowledge of the nearby woody wilds. I knew of a stump surrounded by waist-high brush, and figured this would be a great hideout. People were not hiding in trees back then. I sat with my bow, arrow notched, on the stump to await the big kill. I envisioned the rack. A mount like I’d seen in the Herter’s catalogs and now on Sandberg’s walls. In fact, a mount like my friend Sandberg could create. After a few hours of fidgeting I gave up, hopped into the pickup and drove home with the realization that perhaps I wasn’t made for long hours of patient and tedious sitting. Today I might be more patient and in tune with nature. That was my last hunt, however, probably back in 1958 or so.

A proud pose by my 2020 capture.

In my moving between states through my career years I hadn’t given either hunting or deer much thought. I do recall during my one disasterous month as an editor of Country Magazine viewing an excellent portfolio sent to the magazine by a Kentucky photographer with the most beautiful deer images I had ever seen. Leaping fences. Facing off, antler to antler. Picturesque portrayals in the hilly woodlands like back home. His images were definitely in the wild, and much different from what I had remembered by the legendary Leonard Lerue in the 1960s on whitetail deer.

Then I moved here to Big Stone County to plant a prairie and begin a second career as a prairie photographic artist and learned I was surrounded by incredible numbers of deer. I recalled the Kentuckian’s portfolio, and have since spent hours chasing the whitetails. Does and fawns. Winter, spring, winter and fall. And I began my autumn ritual of searching for a nice buck with a beautiful rack of antlers.

In 2018 there was a moment during the rut …

To date I’ve been rather fortunate. And the deer have been somewhat cooperative. My one wall “trophy” was discovered on a canoe trip along the Minnesota river years ago, the weathered skull of a nice buck that we believed had found a very secluded place to die after being fatally wounded. It hangs here in my office where I could probably hoist a collection of my big buck images. I’ll have to think about that.

Journaling New Horizons

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Here we are fresh into a new year, and I am already having old thoughts, those that bring me back to where I was exactly one year ago. All of which began a few years before that with an ad on Facebook featuring a journal of Minnesota’s then 65 state parks. Although many had been visited over the years, there was neither a file of photographs nor a journal consisting of my thoughts of the individual parks.

Once the book arrived a look at the journaling aspects showed a facing page offering basically an itinerary and planning guide followed by a log of the who, what and whens of the visit on the second page. Not being a list maker, this was way too detailed for my tastes, so, I created my own little manner of journaling that now includes an opening page of photographs followed by my actual journaling. Black ink to the rescue! “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart,” cautioned William Wordsworth. I can’t do that with a list.

Shortly after receiving the book I pasted my first image … one of my late wife, Sharon Yedo White, sitting on a log at the then new Afton State Park with our two sons along with our then exchange student, Fredrik Croona from Sweden. My own image was reflected in a mirror she was holding. It was taken around 1985 or so. Our first home in Minnesota was about a mile south of the southern border of the park, on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the St. Croix and Kinnickinnic Rivers. That was perhaps our most blissful summer together before the stresses of life snagged us … starting a family along with a corporate business life in magazines and an ad agency.

Ah, yes, the makings of a journal. A photograph plus a facing page containing my written thoughts. I promised to fill the rest of the photographic page with images from the park, which was accomplished this past October.

By November of 2024 some 38 state parks had been visited and journaled, although one of my favorites where we spent so much time camping and fishing both as a couple and later with many foreign exchange students, the Upper Sioux Agency State Park, was decommissioned and the land returned to the Dakota Nation. While that was likely an overdue move by the State, it’s a place that holds many fine memories as well as beautiful camping nooks for escaping the ills of society. Yes, it’s journaled.

Just inside the journal is a state map noting the location of each state park, and by now, some three years after receiving the journal most of the state parks in the southern half of the state, from the tip of the Driftless along the Mississippi River and Iowa Border up to the Canadian Border, have been visited, photographed and journaled. Indeed, last September after our aborted effort to do the Lake Superior Circle Tour, we decided to start at Grand Portage State Park at the Canadian border and visit all of the State Parks along the Superior “coast.” A redemption, if you will. Something to sooth our raw souls (yes, thoughts that were journaled!).

Our first day went well, and the second started wonderfully with a short hike into the falls at Cascade River SP that was breathtakingly beautifully. The park was a “water baby’s” dream offering waves of photographic poetry. Next was Temperance River SP where I choose to take a rock stairwell rather than a paved path and lost my balance on a deeper than expected step. Down I went, crushing my camera and lens beneath my body in a hard fall. Both were ruined, which has since led to quite a technological adventure, and one that is quite challenging for a man my age.

After much thought and concern, the decision was made to continue with my art. I wasn’t ready to quit even as I turned 81. Since my crushed Nikon had been discontinued I have since “graduated” into a whole new realm of technology. My old photo processing software wouldn’t handle the new imagery, and then came the reality that the printer I’d used for the past several years was obsolete. Epson had discontinued producing the specified ink cartridges …. meaning a new printer. More technology, and one I’m still dealing with. My two main software programs still operating on my old iMac desktop were long obsolete although still usable with the older equipment. New camera. New software. New printer. More new technology. New tricks for an old mind.

Yet, there’s the state park journal along with my quest to continue my form of “Impressionistic Prairie Art.” No, I wasn’t ready to quit — not my art nor my journal, not when I only 26 state parks short of completing my goal!

This past year we actually visited 17 parks. This came after a count when I sort of felt like I’d short changed myself. This doesn’t include our home park, Big Stone Lake SP with its distant Bonanza Educational Center. Both that and the Meadowbrook section are visited numerous times each month.

So now I’m where I was a year ago in looking over my journaling and the parks previously visited and scheming forthcoming trips. Minnesota is blessed with some of the most beautiful and interesting state parks in the nation, and hopefully if my health and energy continues we’ll make a dent in the 26. Typically we’ll park the camper at one state park and visit any that are close by, Roberta holds Joe Pye on a leash while I search for imagery, sauntering down a narrow wooded trail or seeking an angle of a beautiful river, all while seeking some photographic “poetry.”