Giving Thanks for the Sacred Stories of the Hunt

The signature Thanksgiving tradition dish is elk slow-roasted in coffee and whiskey. It will be served with a side dish of hunting stories. Some of the stories will be old and polished like a riverstone. Others are like new flakes off a block of obsidian. Either way, the tales are as nourishing as the elk roast itself.

My group of about a dozen friends has gathered together on Thanksgiving for more than 30 years. Some of the kids now have children of their own. Some of the group has passed on and join only as memory.

The whiskey-blackened elk roast recipe does not vary, even though the menu’s creator, Mary, is in her 90s and is no longer up for the six-hour preparation. The meat will be offered by whoever was lucky enough to get an elk this year. There will be a story behind that—and stories from the rest of us about our respective hunting seasons ladled out like the gravy on the garden potatoes.

This seems to be a perfect mix for Thanksgiving: friends, food, gratitude, and stories.

Hunting and stories are woven so tightly there is barely space between their threads. Both are parts of what makes us human. Human beings are genetically wired for stories. It is how our species shares information, as instinctive for us as howling is for wolves or bugling is for elk. Likewise, we are genetically wired to collect our nourishment from the land, and share it with our loved ones.

Every human culture has stories. No matter where you go around the world, people tell stories, and all the stories have similar elements. They have a place or setting. They have characters. They have a problem to be solved (a plot). The story’s action rises to a climax, then drops off in falling action and summary. This is called the “narrative arc.”

When you think about it, the narrative arc is the same as the arc of a hunt, no matter if the hunt was prehistoric or last weekend. There are people, a clan of hunters. They pursue wild animals. The moment of truth gets closer and closer. Finally, there is a point where the spear thrown, or the rifle fired. The animal is either reduced to a meal or escapes. There are lessons to be learned, gratitude to be expressed, life to celebrate.

While we no longer live in fear of starvation, our instinctive drive to hunt and share hunting stories remains. And there is no better time to remember that than Thanksgiving. After all, gratitude is the light that makes life glow. I’ve endured my share of loss and tragedy, as you probably have as well. I still have so much to be grateful for.

I am grateful for the outdoor stories I lived out this year: catching summer perch with my nephew; hunting elk with my 90-year-old dad in Idaho; a bumper huckleberry crop, where the bushes simply sagged with fruit; the time I spent in a stare-down with a mountain lion while we stalked the same mule deer last week.

We have so much. And I am hungry—and grateful—for it all.

The Patriarch of our Thanksgiving clan is Robert Love. Bob is a master mule deer hunter, a retired logger, and a published poet. We entrust him to give the blessing. Sometimes he reads from his own poetry. Here’s an excerpt from his poem “Big Hole Afternoon.”

I thank the Creator for this elk Sustenance for family and friends May her spirit shine in our eyes.

I thank the Creator for this hunting ground Its forests veined with bunchgrass and sage, And the morning breeze, scented with whitebark and granite.

And I thank the Creator for this good day, And friends like you To share it with.

Poem from Pathfinder, Selected Poems and Essays, Bob Love, Shipwreckt Books, 2024.

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