My lynx jinx
Darn! So much is in the roll of the dice. Talking here about getting that “one-in-a-thousand” photo of wildlife.
It is necessary for me to write a brief report on the tens of thousands of miles I’ve driven and walked in the wilds, ten years in the Forest Service, and 81 years visiting Glacier National Park. Spent over four months alone in the Bob Marshall and neighboring wilderness. Also taken well over a hundred thousand photos along the way.
I have never seen a lynx in the wild, but a newly hired reporter for the Hungry Horse News shows up with a nice photo of one of those big sneaky cats in last week’s issue. Cutline says it was taken “near Two Medicine Lake.” Do I feel happy for Lily Cullen? Yes. Do I feel sorry for myself? You don’t know how much.
This is not the first time that sort of thing happened. Few years back a man called me from Memphis, Tennessee, to say he’d never been to Glacier Park but had read my first Glacier’s Secrets book in a barber shop, and wanted to hike with the Over Hill Gang. Said he’d fly up on Wednesday, hike Thursday, and fly home Friday. I told him that was not fair to him or the Park, so he agreed to come a couple days early.
Riding with us over to our hike up Cutbank Creek on Thursday, he spent most of the time talking about his Tuesday at Many Glacier. Going up Lake Josephine on the tour boat, they had stopped to watch a grizzly bear above the shore, attacking a mountain goat on Grinnell Point. The injured goat had gotten loose and struggled up a cliff, where the frustrated grizzly had a hard time getting around. The battle went on for almost half an hour before the bear was able to finish things off. It had to be a one in a million adventure and that character from Tennessee thought it was a regular thing. He seemed fairly normal otherwise.
Yes! There have been a few other incidents like these two discussed here, but it is distressing for me to talk about them, especially a couple involving wolves and one with wolverines.
In other matters — it is always good to hear from a fellow columnist, except for letters like Larry Wilson’s a few years back, telling me about getting dozens of “really close up” shots of a big lynx eating a deer up the North Fork.
Heard last week from Jerry Smalley:
“George - I, too, enjoyed meeting Ed Zern at the OWAA meeting in Kalispell many years ago. I gave Ed the honor of signing my new fishing net - the only other worthy signatures on the net are Uncle Homer Circle and Patrick McManus.
If I remember correctly, there were over a thousand people at the Kalispell conference. Fewer than 300 attended in Billings last summer. Times change.
I enjoy your columns.
Fishful thinking, Jerry Smalley.”
(Ostrom note - OWAA stands for Outdoor Writers of America. Patrick McManus is probably the only other outdoor humor writer who reached the height of Ed Zern. He and his wife had dinner with Iris and me one time and he got me laughing so hard I choked on my mashed potatoes.)
Life is good.
G. George Ostrom is an award-winning columnist from Kalispell.