Intruder
By Lawrence Doe
When I drive my truck down our 2,000-foot driveway through the boreal forest, I am an intruder. I have cut down old trees, bulldozed the earth, laid culverts and gravel to make the long driveway to our cabin. When I turn off the county road onto my private driveway, my relationship is one of dominion over the land. I don’t belong to the forest and, despite legal ownership, it does not belong to me.
However, that relationship changes if I put on my hunting clothes. When I pick up my rifle and enter the boreal forest on foot to hunt in the deer woods, I must become part of the forest. Due to the presence of other large predators, I also become part of the food chain. Questing for sustenance is what all living plants and animals must do. While hunting deer or wildcrafting plants, my relationship to the forest is one of need and dependence, not domination. I need it; the forest doesn’t need me. I need the deer; the deer doesn’t need me. I must learn about the ancient forest and its community on their terms, not mine, or I will go hungry.
In the boreal forest, there is no predictable pattern to the movement of deer. In farm country, deer food, water, and shelter are separated by human influence on the land, so the deer become predictable as they adapt to human modification of the natural order. But in the ancient, primal forest, the deer’s food, water, and shelter are everywhere and commingled. Deer are free to wander over their land in less predictable ways. So I have to find them, follow them, enter their ways if I am to eat. This is what our ancestors did in following the mastodons over the ancient land bridge. My relatives followed the buffalo herds and migrating caribou. My ancestors and yours were led in their travels by food that walked, ran, flew, and swam.
Then, our ancestors planted grains, and domesticated some wild animals to build a buffer between themselves and uncertainty, with its sometime hunger. This began the long, slow slide into security, order, economics, and politics. The man-made world is laid over natural creation so successfully that we forget our biological origins and need for clean air, water, and food. Our forgetfulness allows us to damage that very same air, water, soil, and climate that sustains all life on our planet. Deer hunting in the boreal forest reminds me of our foolishness. I need it. It does not need me.
Humans were made dependent on the natural world so we would safeguard the fecundity in Creation that keeps us all fed. But modern humans’ belief in dominion and control means we can have power over food production without due concern for consequences. Dominion plus stewardship is better, but does not fully substitute Life’s need of the natural systems in original creation.
I need the forest. It does not need me.
