The author and his son on a bear trail on Admiralty Island. (Chris Miller/)
Editor’s Note: This has been a tough year for everyone. And while we’ve collectively experienced many of the same events, the changes, challenges, and often outright hardships everyone has endured remain deeply personal. We asked six contributors to look back on 2020 and reflect on how the events of this year shaped their lives, in ways both big and small. We will be publishing one essay each day through the end of the year, on topics ranging from subtle differences at deer camp to the enormous task of parenting during a pandemic. You can find all the stories, as they’re published, right here.
A sooty grouse, colloquially called a “hooter” in Southeast Alaska, hooted from a stand of spruce trees on a steep mountainside. I snowshoed toward it, carrying my 15-month-old son on my back, until I was just above the grouse. The bird, puffed up and bobbing as it called, materialized through a maze of branches. I aimed my .22 and, at the crack of my shot, the bird plummeted from its perch. A few minutes later, my boy clutched the grouse to his chest and began chewing on it. He looked up with a mouthful of feathers and said, “Bye-bye, bird.” At the end of the day, with a sleeping boy and a few birds in my backpack, I stared out at snowy mountains stretching in all directions and thought about how this is as good as it gets.
Like a lot of people, 2020 was kicking my family’s ass. Southeast Alaska’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism—around a million visitors come each year, mostly on cruise ships. This sort of tourism can be overwhelming with the added boat and air traffic. So, when it became clear that there wasn’t going to be a cruise season due to COVID-19, many locals looked forward to having our home to ourselves. My main employment consists of guiding wildlife film crews, but nearly every production I’d been scheduled to work on had been canceled due to the pandemic. I hiked down through the shadowy rainforest with my sleeping boy, wondering how I was going to make ends meet.
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Since I was unemployed, I decided to make the most of it. I spent a lot of May and June in the field, hunting grouse with my son and watching brown bears. I know that other folks spent more time hunting, fishing, and hiking, too. The mountains saw an unprecedented number of people seeking solace in the adventure and peace they offered. I might have been solitary in the wild places I was going, but I wasn’t alone in my reasons for going there.