Maine Sportsman November 2025 Vermont Column “Deer Camp”

          My buddy Dan and his brother Ryan went in together to buy a camp tucked into VT’s Northeast Kingdom. There’s some risk since it’s on leased land, and that isn’t a sure thing, but overall, I rate it as a good idea with kids that are 11 and 14. I got to check it out and do a little bird hunting nearby; it’s in a nice location. Beyond being just a good spot to hunt from, there is a romance to deer camps that makes me excited to see these two good fellows and their families get a deer camp of their own.

            The camp has been around a long time, originally one of the camps the timber company used in the area. The previous owners had it for decades and started to age out of being there, so decided to sell. It’s basically one room, heated with a woodstove, no plumbing, no electricity. It has a couple of sets of bunks and a table with a few chairs. The kitchen has cabinets and shelving, with a counter to do a little work. The ceilings are low, which in my experience leads to a top bunk that will be wildly hot when you go to bed at night and is exactly the opposite in the morning if no one got out of their sleeping bag to keep the fire going.

Romance

          The best camps I’ve been to are like this one. A touch rough around the edges with the comfort baked in. They exist for a purpose and provide what is needed for that. Entertainment, rather than on a screen, usually comes in the form of a deck of cards or a conversation debating the finer points of scrapeline versus rubline hunts, among other important topics. There is usually a hint of stale wood smoke with a touch of mouse in the air. These places require some work to stay, work that is best done by everyone pitching in to gather water, keep the wood box full, and collectively accomplish the basics. I’ve come to realize, and appreciate, that there is a romance to these places and the things we do there. Lost in the glare of social media chest-pounding and YouTube heroes tracking bucks and shooting bulls on camera, I feel like there is a generation of hunters who have not experienced the romance of the simple life of being at camp and hunting from there.

My father and I rode into a backcountry wall tent elk camp in WY more than a decade ago and the guide spoke proudly that someone from a century ago could ride in there and recognize everything that was happening. A generator is handy, but the quiet hiss and snap of a wood stove in a darkening camp will sooth the soul. A four-wheeler may get you there faster, but a horseback ride in front of a string of mules will be a dream come true. That cell-phone trail camera picture will let you know he’s in your food plot, but that won’t replicate the skill it takes to still-hunt into his bedroom. Sure, there are often better places to hunt, and more effective ways to get something done, but I’m less and less convinced those things add any real value. To some degree this is a case of shifting baselines, and I acknowledge that what I consider an old way of doing things was a new way of doing them 50+ years ago.    

Hope

          Aldo Leopold said that, “There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.” I think the same dangers lurk in not being a hunter. A deer hunter without a camp to make memories in is only slightly less spiritually fraught; there is a whole side of the hunting way of life missing. In our modern society, we need anchor points that hold us in place as things drift toward what is called progress. Mr. Leopold’s quote urges us to understand the depth of a thing and appreciate where it comes from. Hunting camps have deepened my understanding of what it takes to exist in the world as it is, without the technological crutches that both support and suppress us.

          The November woods are gray and stunning. The days can be short and the miles long. We’re lucky to be out there, in it, seeing and doing things a large chunk of our society simply has no idea about. If you’re lucky enough to have a camp, I urge you to strike out from there on foot and leave some of the trappings of this messy modern world behind. While we wander to fill our freezers, it is my hope that we each take a moment to lean into the full romance of our pursuit and feel the wonder fill our souls.