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Plains mule deer in wheat stubble. Copyright 2018, Chris Madson, all rights reserved. WE HADN’T BEEN IN THE BLIND FIVE MINUTES WHEN HE STEPPED OUT OF THE TIMBER. “Good Lord,” I whispered to Buster. “Look at that rack!” The bases of the antlers were as big around as . . . → Read More: UltraDeer “WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT: THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL; THAT THEY are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The philosophical underpinning of the great American experiment. Words to stir the soul. And perhaps . . . → Read More: Truths in the balance One of my favorite fishing spots, but it’s nearly thirty miles of high-country gravel from the nearest pavement. If I tried getting there in my Prius, I’d leave pieces of the undercarriage scattered over the last fifteen miles of very bad road. (Copyright 2016 by Chris Madson, all rights reserved.) TREASURE . . . → Read More: Conscience A lesser prairie chicken male displaying on a communal lek in the sandsage prairie of southern Kansas. (Copyright 1980 by Chris Madson, all rights reserved.) IT’S NOT A BIRD WITH A BIG FAN CLUB. NOT A POP STAR LIKE THE BALD EAGLE OR WHOOPING CRANE OR EVEN THE EASTERN bluebird. . . . → Read More: Gone with the grass The treeless sagebrush grasslands of the intermountain West trap huge amounts of carbon and provide critical habitat for a host of wildlife species, many of which cannot survive on any other landscape. Photo copyright 2015, Chris Madson, all rights reserved. I CAN’T REMEMBER EXACTLY WHEN I MADE MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH . . . → Read More: Grassroots carbon A great horned owl breast feather, molted in early August, showing severe wear on its margins. Photo copyright 2020, Chris Madson, all rights reserved. HE MAY HAVE BEEN ROOSTING IN THE SPARSE COTTONWOODS ALONG THE CREEK AS FREYA THE BRITTANY AND I WALKED BY at the edge of town, an hour . . . → Read More: A sign “Shooting the Rapids” by Canadian artist Frances Anne Hopkins, 1879. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada. FOR MILLENNIA, THE METHYE PORTAGE CROSSED THE HEIGHT OF LAND THAT SEPARATES THE WATERS OF HUDSON’S BAY FROM THE vast, impossibly remote wilderness of the Mackenzie River drainage. The path was a thoroughfare for native . . . → Read More: Kennicott’s goose The pursuit of elk in the high West leads to some exceptional places at exceptional moments. There is an esthetic to the hunt that has to be lived to be appreciated. Photo by Chris Madson, copyright 2018, all rights reserved. RAY FISCHER HAS BEEN A HUNTER EDUCATION INSTRUCTOR IN KANSAS SINCE . . . → Read More: Never too old Boy on farmstead, Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1936. Arthur Rothstein. THERE’S A POEM THAT’S HAUNTED ME MUCH OF MY ADULT LIFE. Many years ago, my mother sent me a fragment of it— just five or six lines— that she’d found in a magazine somewhere. I kept the clipping on . . . → Read More: The American dream Snow goose migration in central Nebraska. Copy right 2017, Chris Madson, all rights reserved. THE WIND PAUSED FOR TEN MINUTES OR SO— AN UNUSUAL PHENOMENON ON THE HIGH PLAINS— WAVERED, THEN swung into the north. We’d enjoyed three days of spring, but at the foot of the Rockies in the first . . . → Read More: Tides |
