Sarah Keller’s description of her journey to use hunting as a way to center herself does not surprise me or many other hunters (“Hunting for myself,” November 2020), though I faced no reality even remotely comparable to hers. I first hunted and shot a rabbit, which my brother and I cooked and ate, about the same time that my age went into double digits. I finally gave up hunting two years ago, at 81, but every fall I think about my younger colleagues who experience the hunt. Those memories are at the core of my being.
I have long thought that, however rewarding the kill, the real genius of the hunt is the time in camp. Hunting camp is a too-long-overlooked sociological phenomenon with many rich stories.
I would urge Keller and others with extra obstacles to a full life to dive deeply into the richness that the hunting camp pours over all who experience it. It will make you a much more secure, happy person.
Wally Brauer
Denver, Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Hunting camps.
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