It was the summer of my 16th. year. Young and strong, I was...fearless in a naive sense and eager to test myself alone in the wilderness. Since I was old enough to remember my Father's fantastic bedtime stories of hunting, camping and fishing in the Great North Country, I had longed to travel alone into the forest and prove my courage and skill as an outdoorsman. To feel pride towards myself and gain further, the respect of my Father, who until now, had been my only teacher in the ways of the great outdoors. Now, the time had come to apply all that I had been taught, to test that which I believed I knew of the forest and it's creatures. Just as my Father experienced in his sixteenth year, it was time now for me to do as he and his Father before him had done. For 7-nights I was to enter the forest and to journey on my own, to fish, hunt and care for myself without the aid of someone else at my side. Such was and still is the tradition in our family...that each child, girl or boy, shall journey 7-nights caring for themselves, alone in the great woods. To formally begin the life-long task of learning the mystical and wonderful ways of the forest and all that live there...to confront and defeat one's fears and find the stength from inside one's very soul to bravely approach and overcome all obstacles real or imagined. Such were the noble reasons for which I entered the forest that late spring day in ninteen hundred and sixty-one. Supplied with scant few cooking items, musty canvas lean-to, my Mother's prized, wool, Hudson's Bay blanket, dried fruit, jerky, precious few fishing items and my treasured Barlow pocket knife...I bravely presumed I was now ready to confront all that might lurk in the thick, mystical world of the forest. Oh, what incredible adventures I would face...what valued lessons I would be taught and in such a manor as later would be deemed unbelievable. For it was during this vision quest that I would encounter and come to admire the wisdom and character of the Great Talking Wolf of the North Country. Now then...should my hectic schedule permit, I shall continue with said story. Until such time presents itself...I implore all readers to keep open one's mind...dare not discount that which I will reveal to you in days to come. Until then, to each of you, I bid safe passage...

Posted by Justing Jokking on January 24, 2000 at 16:48