There was a reason I chose the picture of the Caribou that heads this page. I searched the internet for something that represented how I feel about nature and much of what life means to me. I love the outdoors and pretty much everything in it. This love was instilled in me by my father who had it instilled in him while accompanying the late Bishop Orestes Chornock on many of his hunting trips to Sharon, CT. The bishop was a man who loved the outdoors and a man much in the tradition of the old country. It was his love for nature that my father passed on to his three sons and we are very lucky he did.
Over the years my brothers and I have hunted white tail deer in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and New Jersey. We’ve also hunted black bear in Canada, both in Quebec and Ontario, and many types of small game from squirrels to rabbits to Ringed-neck pheasant. My father has had hunted deer in New Hampshire, wild boar in Pennsylvania and buffalo in South Dakota. He’s pursued caribou in Newfoundland and moose in New Hampshire. In doing so, we have experienced something refreshingly new, adventuresome and total independent from the claustrophobic wiles of society.
Whether it be in Canada or the US, hunting always afforded my family, quality time individually or together. Even my mom, a good sport if there ever was one, has been on the receiving end of this passion of ours. Being the youngest sibling growing up on an Upstate New York farm, she was well disposed to the rigors of the outdoors. She had the rare quality of waking up, brushing her hair and greeting the day with beauty and earthly grace. While she also enjoyed the ‘civilized’ aspects of life, she fully understood and lived the values she wanted her sons to inherit, love of God, country and family. It was the natural familial bond found in camping, fishing or hunting that she, my dad and her three young sons cherished so much, an independence from the rush of everyday life.
I still remember looking up at a star filled heaven, so clear that we followed satellites crossing overhead or seeing a great grey heron on a New Hampshire lake with my Uncle Nick or swatting millions of hungry mosquitos and gnats in the back woods of Canada while fishing for Walleye and Northern Pike. These experiences, big and small, have all contributed to mosaic of our adventures. Each richly filling us with awe and respect for the world that we both know and don’t know. There are many memories, many thoughts and many feelings that rightly accompany our love for nature.
My Caribou represents this. Both the physical beauty found in nature and the beauty found in life. It is my intension to share these here and in so doing share with you one of the great blessings of my life.
SGMJr
9/13/2014
