Going Feral: The 2026 Resolute Edition:: From last year: The 2025 Resolute Edition. I posted elsewhere that I was going light on New Years Resolution posts, and I basically, kind of...
This blog has a completely different theme, rather obviously. So what I'd normally do is post some personal and more universal items. I'll just do both here, in the worried sort of way both of the above posts are.
This blog is heavily invested in the concept of Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic, which is:
The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land... In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.
Aldo Leopold.
We also have a very holistic view of things, in the true meaning of the word. That is, everything is connected. And we also, as people here know, have a very Agrarian, Wendell Berry, view of the world. We are part of nature and we need to acknowledge that, and be true to our natures.
We haven't been acting like that for quite some time. And both the political left, and the political right, are guilty of that.
The populist right, of course, just came into power. And much of its political ethos is based on ignorance combined with the love of money. At no point in American history since 1860, when the Southern wealthy lead the Southern yeoman into a fight to preserve something that benefited the rich, and not the poor, has one class so fogged the intellect of another such that those who stand most to be hurt by developments are fully backing them.
Nearly everything those who love the outdoors, use the outdoors, or depend on the outdoors will be under full out assault in the next four years.
Sportsmen, agrarians, conservationist, farmers, ranchers and environmentalist will have to be very much on guard the next four years. Sadly, many in some of these categories vote for the very forces that stand to hurt, or even destroy them.
Why would I repeat that?
Well, everything I said last year is still true, and even more so.
We have there member from this state in Congress who were ready to completely screw public land users in spite of an overwhelming protest from Wyomingites. One of the three, Harriet Hageman, is now running for the Senate. This is the chance to retire her and send her back to the state and family she cites as her guiding lights.
It's also a chance to get rid of Californian Chuck Gray, a figure who washed up on shore here some time ago to try to advance his political career and who has proven that Wyomingites have a rampaging inferiority complex. He needs to go, and by going, I mean he needs to go back to California and be deprived of family money and busy work and find out what its like to actually have to work for a living.
Lots of people who have washed up in Wyoming, I'd note, and ended up in the Freedom Caucus fit that exact same description .They need to go back to where they're from. We can wish them well at the Natrona County International Airport and play Dixie for them as they depart, and then adjourn to the bar for drinks thereafter.
The sooner the better.
In short, we need to start living, behaving, and acting like we actually value the things we claim we do.
The truth of the matter is that there isn't a big game rifle on the market today that is any better than the Mauser 98, introduced in 1898, and if you insist on going with a non Mauser action, the 721 action, used in the 700, was introduced in 1948.
Optics, however, have improved. But even at that, for hunting purposes, not as much as might be supposed.
And finally, if you can't hunt with an iron sight (not that you must, but that you are incapable of doing so), you need to retrain yourself as a rifleman until you can. Then go back to the scope.
Going out the door, elk hunting, with my medium sized Alice Pack. You can see a comealong, an Australian fanny pack for additional storage, a Wyoming Saw, a small carrier for a gmrs radio, a first aid kid, and two canteen covers. No, I don't pack all this stuff around with me while I'm hunting. I'm pack this to the truck.
I used to date teenage queen
Now I carry an M16
I used to drive a Cadillac
Now I carry an Alice pack
1980s (and maybe earlier) Jody Call.
I have a long history with backpacks. In spite of that, I'm very clearly not up on the latest and greatest backpack.
Indeed, in this category, I find myself in the same situation as other people who sometimes baffle enthusiasts, in that I use them, but I don't know that much about a topic for which there's a lot to know. I'm that way, for instance, when I meet a hunter who doesn't know anything about firearms, really. I meet these people semi regularly, they enjoy hunting a lot, but their rifle or shotgun is a mere tool, and often a cheap one.
Fishing, upon which I'm frankly less knowledgeable, equipment wise, is the same way. I'm not up on the latest and greatest fly rod, for example, but I do know a little about them. Occasionally I'll meet somebody, however, who brings up fishing, but actually knows nothing at all about their equipment.
They almost always only use a spinning rod.
Anyhow, I'm sort of that way on backpacks.
Enlisted man in he U.S. Army just before World War Two, wearing denim fatigues in the field so as to not dirty the service uniform. He's equipped with a M1910 Haversack.
The very first backpack of any kind that I had was a M1910 Haversack, the Army issued backpack introduced in 1910, as the name would indicate. That piece of equipment, shown fully packed above, was adopted that year and soldiered on into World War Two.
What a miserable piece of equipment it is.
They were, in my assessment, an awful pack, or at least they had no ability to be used outside of the service. The reason for my dim opinion of it is probably demonstrated by this video:
The Army must have had a similar opinion as they introduced a new set of backpacks during World War Two, none of which I'm going into, as this isn't a history of military backpacks.
Anyhow, as a kid I obtained a M1910 Haversack. Without knowing for sure, my recollection is that an uncle of mine had purchased it right after World War Two, probably just as a thing to play with, and I got it from him. That's a long time ago, and I could be wrong. Since that time, as an adult, somebody gave me a second, completely unused, M1910 Haversack which was made during the Second World War.
That one remains unused, but the first one I did try to figure out as a boy. It was pretty much hopeless.
Because I have always been really outdoorsy and wanted camping gear, my parents gave me a backpack of the full blown backwoods type when I was in my very early teens, or nearly a teen. I don't know if its the correct term or not, but we called that sort of backpack a "frame pack", as they had, at that time, a lightweight aluminum frame. I no longer have the pack, I think (although I might somewhere) and I feel a little tinge of guilt when I think of it. My father, though an outdoorsman, was not a backpacker and he didn't have much to go buy when looking for a pack for me. And it was the early 1970s when everything was bicentennial themed. It was a nice lightweight pack, but it had a really prominent flag motif to it and I found that a little embarrassing. I'm embarrassed now to admit that.
I did use it, although not anywhere near as much as I had hoped. In your early teens, you can't drive, and that meant I didn't have that much of an opportunity to go places with it. The number of years between age 12 and age 16, when you can, are very slight, but at the time they seem endless. By the time I was 16 it didn't seem that I had much of an opportunity to backpack either.
I'll note here, although I'm taking it out of order, that later on a friend of mine gave me a sued Kelty backpack, which I still have somewhere. It's like this one:
I have used it, but again, not nearly as much as I'd like, and not recently.
I still have, and will get to that in a moment, the frame from the first frame backpack that I noted in this thread.
The backpack I've carried the longest distances is the LC-1 Field Pack (Medium), or as it is commonly known, the "Alice Pack".
The Alice Pack came into U.S. military use in the late Vietnam War period. As I haven't researched its history, I'll note that it appears that the Alice Pack was developed from the Tropical Field Rucksack. The pack it started to replace one that had come in during the 1950s and was really pretty primitive, just being a big pen pouch rucksack about the size of a modern book bag that hooked into a soldiers webgear.
Given the history of Army packs, I guess it isn't too surprising that the Tropical Field Rucksack was regarded as a huge improvement and Alice came along soon thereafter. I don't remember anyone being hugely fond of Alice Packs, however, when I was in the service. Having said that, I don't remember anyone being enormously opposed to them either.
The entire time I was in I never saw one being issued with a frame. Frankly, without a frame, a long march with Alice is a miserable thing. I've marched as far as 30 miles with one, with no frame, and that didn't cause me to love Alice.
It did cause me to look for another pack, however, and I found a great one in the form of a REI nylon backpack.
This is the same model of REI backpack that I own. I'd post a photo of mine, which I still own, but the pack has been appropriated by one of my offspring.
While not a full-blown expedition frame pack, the REI pack is and was great. It had internal metal stiffens that operate like a frame, and a belt, which makes a big difference. The side pockets, moreover, are slotted to accommodate skis. I've used it like crazy.
As noted in the caption, it's so useful that its been appropriated, probably an a permanent basis, by my son.
At some point while I was at UW, and it may have been when I was in law school, I obtained a "book bag" for the first time.
How everyone carried school books up until at least the 80s.
It's odd to think of, but book bags just weren't a think until then. As I had a lot of books to carry while in law school, it became sort of a necessity as I walked to school and back, probably a distance of about two miles, I needed something to carry them. I didn't want to buy a book bag dedicated for that purpose, so I bought a surplus German Army rucksack. It was the same size and nearly the same configuration as the Alice Pack, but without the padded shoulder straps. They were just heavy cotton webbing. I figured that after my time in lawshool was over, I could repurpose it, which in fact I did. I used it for a game bag, brining home a lot of rabbits with it, but even affixing it to my old frame to haul an elk with. With hard use like that, it eventually blew out.
Some years ago, a sporting goods store here in town carried some surplus items, including Alice Packs complete with frames. I bought two.
I wish I'd bought a couple of more.
I wasn't a huge fan of Alice back in the 80s, but with the frame, I am now. I keep one packed with stuff for big game hunting, and another with stuff for bird hunting. I've rucked into the mountains with Alice on my back so that if I shot a turkey, I could bring it back without having to carry it via armstrong. And with the Alice frame, I can take the pack off and use the frame to haul meat, if I don't have equine assistance available.
All of which made me think that I sure wish I'd gotten a couple more of them.
Alice Pack I use for fishing and bird hunting to carry equipment.
Same Alice Pack. This is a later one after the service had adopted the Woodlands Pattern of camouflage.
But that sure isn't a popular opinion.
I have two Alice Packs that I use for outdoor stuff today. One I use for waterfowl hunting and fishing. I'll probably start using it for upland birds too. That's all because, over time, I've found that I'm packing quite a bit of gear around and I need an efficient way to to do it.
This is the first posts I've ever put up on a gear topic. I'll get into this more later, but basically, what I'm talking about here, is gear I take with me every time I go. When I'm bird hunting what I take, besides my shotgun and shells, are gmrs radios and a knife. That's about it unless I"m waterfowl hunting, in which case I often take my waders. Not a lot of gear, actually.
When I'm big game hunting, however, I take is my gmrs radios, binoculars, some food, water, often some soda (I never take beer hunting, fwiw), game bags, knives, saw, and a come along. And I need a pack with a frame, in case I have to use the frame to pack something out.
At one time, I carried my radio gear and some binos in an outdoor bag. But I still took an Alice. Now I find myself transferring everything to the Alice as I don't want to carry too many things if I can avoid it.
So I thought it would be handy to have another one. I posted something on reddit about it and what I found is that Alice's are hugely unpopular with the outdoor community.
Well, I can see why. It's not a modern camping backpack. . . but I don't want to drop a couple of elk quarters into my nice backpack.
My good backpack. It was a gift from a friend who was concerned that I didn't have a good, modern, backpacking pack.
And frankly, with a frame, I'm finding that old Alice isn't so bad.
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