Home is the hunter ... or someplace

The annual lost hunter stories are now making news. Ninety percent of the guys who donít get home when they are supposed to, survive with nothing more than a small embarrassment over being confused about where their car was parked. A few do end in tragedy; however, here are also those who stop too long at a warm friendly tavern, forgetting what kind of wild game theyíre after. Regardless, the local search and rescue volunteers quickly answer each worried call because the next one could be serious.

Here in 2015, a lost nimrod has a wonderfully organized system at beck and call, including cell phones, helicopters and infrared locating devices. Twenty-nine years back in this column (October 1986) there was a view of this subject which puts it into historic perspective with an unusual twist at the end:

Fifty years ago there were no formally organized search and Rrescue groups in Montana, but there were known men who were above average when it came to finding lost hunters. One I remember best was Blackie Rhodes, a blacksmith who helped build Going-to-the-Sun Road and later worked at the Flathead Mine. Many is the time when worried folks said, ìBetter go get Blackie. Heís found more lost folk than anybody in these parts.î

One of the most dramatic rescues Blackie made was in the winter of about 1940. The missing person was a woman recently married to one of the young workers at the Flathead Mine. Twenty people were looking for her before they called in the old pro. He went over all the available details then took off in the opposite direction from where everyone else was searching and sometime after midnight in a bad winter storm, his flashlight picked up the eyes of a dog lying in the snow. Beneath the half buried animal was the woman, alive but seriously in trouble. Blackie used to say you had to think like the lost person, but when he learned the young woman hunter had her Irish setter along, he had to include thinking like a dog.

I am among those intrigued by the possibilities brought to light by a recent "rescue" over in Lincoln County. Minor details were not available to me but the basic facts were relayed by a Sheriffís dispatcher.

A 43-year-old man set off into the mountains above Bristow Creek with the same motive that sends all good sportsmen afield, trying to get a little food for the family. He was supposed to return Tuesday night, the same day he left, but he didnít, so the Lincoln Search and Rescue boys were up before dawn Wednesday to find him. In the meantime, our hero had spent the night by a campfire "after becoming slightly disoriented as to the location of the road." In spite of the hard ground, chilled air and empty belly, along towards dawn he managed to doze off.

According to what he told his rescuers, at just about shootin' light, the "lost man" opened his eyes and then had to blink ëem a couple of times to be sure he wasnít still dreaming. There was a fat bull elk walking by. The rifle shots did two things, resounded down the canyon to guide searchers in the right direction and dropped the winterís meat. When the first rescue folks arrived our hero was calmly chomping on some fresh roasted wapiti liver.

That's the way the story was relayed third-hand to me and of course that was the hunterís version. Nobody else was around. But! I have this nagging little question,"Could that elk have actually been shot late Tuesday?"

You can not help admiring a guy who just might be smart enough to get his elk hauled off the mountain by a crew that were proud about finding him. Guess we may never know unless he gets old and drunk sometime.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning columnist for Hungry Horse News. He lives in Kalispell.