Fetch; The Jardstroms.

May 19.

Dan took me to friends of theirs, Arnold and Janice Jardstrom. In driving over he told me Arnold is a successful fisherman as well as a hunter and has this huge log house somewhere in the trees. He apparently started as a teenager rowing to catch fish and worked his way up to make a good living from it. We get to this nice and good sized log house and saw Arnold walking around, just as his wife came home as well.

 

 

They invited us in and I couldn’t believe my eyes, there were game trophies everywhere on the walls. All kinds of goats, deer, caribou, elk, moose, bear skins etc. It looked like a museum. The house inside was beautiful with tall vaulted ceilings, a huge stone fireplace and big pavers on the floors. Tall windows showed trees all around the house. The animal heads were amazingly alive looking as far as their posture, their eyes etc. Apparently he has traveled all over the world to ‘take’ the game as it’s called and collected many awards for doing so. Russia, Siberia, Afghanistan, New Zealand, Switzerland, Arctic Circle etc. etc. Not a cheap hobby, but as a successful fisherman he had time and recourses to arrange for his extraordinary hunting trips, always searching for the biggest animals. Animals, he said that are past their prime and don’t necessarily breed anymore but make good trophies, because they are old and big. The carcass that stays behind apparently gets fully used for its meat and such and a good chunk of the steep fees often goes toward conservation of wildlife.