The forest and the trees
It’s a dangerous time of the year for those of us who like to be happily lost in the woods.
Away from the known trails, in under the shelter of the knitted spruce trees, there are interesting mushrooms making their once-a-year appearance, all the more obvious as the lowest understory of leaves falls away, nipped by the first frost.
Under wild apple trees — or more likely, under strays that have grown from discarded cores — there’s plenty of windfall now, with the bounty of bruised apples displaying occasional wildlife toothmarks.
All in all, it’s a cooler, refreshing, different time of year, with a whole new set of smells, chief among them the tang of wet leaves.
But it’s another time, too. A variety of hunting seasons are open across the Atlantic region, big game in some, and in others, smaller prey that still involves firearms.
It’s a set of conflicting interests, with safety at the forefront, one where neither hunters nor other woods users claim primacy.
We don’t close the woods to everyone else because hunters are looking for prey, nor do we clear those woods of hunters, simply because some of us want to walk and explore.
Instead, we opt for a shared use, trying always to err on the side of caution so our activities don’t negatively impact the activities of others. We’re aware of others’ uses, and do our best to make sure we’re able to avoid conflict. Bright orange clothing, an awareness of where you’re walking and how you might appear, a recognition of the power and distance of bullets, required training in the use and care of firearms before getting a hunting licence. It’s all part of recognizing the mixed use of wild spaces.
(Just to be clear, I don’t hunt now, though I have in the past. I don’t have guns, but at the same time, the occasional feed of someone else’s hunted moose doesn’t sit badly with me.)
And that mixed use comes with a crucial part: an awareness that others have their own right to enjoy wild spaces on their own terms.
I wonder why we don’t work that way when we look at other conflicting rights. For those, it always seems to gear up to a much higher pitch. Why do, for example, some people’s “right” not to wear a mask during a pandemic outweigh my reasonable expectation that members of a community have a duty to protect the health of other members of the community.
Why does your opposition to abortion, for example, get to reach out into the lives and decisions of others?
It’s one thing to say that people have a right to religious freedom; it’s something else again to maintain that that religious “right” allows the holder to impose their beliefs on others who don’t share them.
If you’re a municipal official who solemnizes weddings, for example, it might be against your beliefs to marry a samesex couple.
If that’s the case, you don’t simply refuse to marry people you don’t approve of, you simply stop marrying people, because you can’t agree with the terms the position requires.
You are welcome to uphold your religious rights, as long as that doesn’t include the expectation that you can impose your beliefs on others.
I’m glad we don’t face the same number of absolutes out in the woods.
I’ll be out in the trees again, aware that there are others who might be hunting in the same area.
I’ll take precautions, they’ll hopefully be aware and take precautions, too.
Mutual awareness and tolerance just seems like a better, safer way.