Yonder Journal

Words and photograph by Daniel Wakefield Pasley.

Mountain Hunting is the only Sport which requires three days of travel, several hotels, two commercial flights, one semi-commercial twin otter flight, three 4-wheeler rides, the rushed near forced consumption of a chunky bowl of stew made with meat of indeterminate origin and a helicopter flight over the watersheds of the Arctic Red and Cranswick Rivers in the Northern MacKenzie Mountains of the Northwest Territories operated by a pilot prone, rumor has it, to seizures, not to mention weeks if not months of preparation in regards to kit and fitness, as well as some serious cash and a large duffle bag should you be returning to America with a dead animal(s), just to show-up at the start line.

In the rain on a ridge more than eight miles from a gravel landing strip and after an athletic six hour stalk, Jason, two days after killing a fully-tipped classic looking Dall's Sheep Ram¹, sights-in beforing whacking a Mountain Caribou² with “trash everywhere and junk going out in all different directions.”

1. "Ovis dalli is a species of sheep native to northwestern North America, ranging from white to slate brown in color and having curved yellowish brown horns."—Wikipedia [↩]
2. e.g Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer [↩]

Words and photograph by Daniel Wakefield Pasley.

Lying on the western slopes of the Cascade Range the Bagby, Cougar, and Umpqua Hot Springs caress and flirt with the Pacific Ring of Fire¹, a global chain of volcanic and geothermal activity zones. Life of course has been drawn to these portals of the past for centuries. Oceanic and terrestrial hot springs possess the chemical and environmental conditions to create life. And cultures across the world have used hot springs as Lazarus Pits. The Umpqua band of the Coquille people (who the hot springs are named after), drawn to its physical and meditative powers, practiced communing with both the past and the present here.

1. "The Pacific Ring of Fire, or just Ring of Fire for short, is an area where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 40,000 km (25,000 mi) horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements. The Ring of Fire has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes. It is sometimes called the circum-Pacific belt or the circum-Pacific seismic belt." [↩]

Words and photograph by Daniel Wakefield Pasley.

It’s 7:45am in a 4-bedroom basement in rural Alberta. The TV, which TV is always on, is playing through its perpetual loop of rodeo highlights, live rodeo, and various Will Ferrell movies, Semi-Pro and Anchor Man clear favorites. On an ironing board next to a billiards table sits a steaming iron, a crisp still-warm pair of wranglers, and a pink button-up cowboy shirt with SKOAL embroidered down one sleeve in overly large letters. On a wooden coffee table, copies of PSN, American Cowboy, Club, Juggs and Spank lie next to bags of ice, the cloth kind with a screw top, and nearly-empty beer bottles filled with spit.

Ben Londo and his traveling buddies (Blaze, Ryan, Luke and Roy) are bored. In between calls and texts to friends regarding the quality and personality of the horses they’re up-on over the next couple three days, horses with names like Scary Larry, Power Supply, Fearless Warrior, Working News, Sun Devil, etc., they are shooting Praire Dogs, often at point blank range, with sling shots and compound bows.