I was never much of a hunter. I guess I loved watching wildlife too much and marveling over its beauty. However, if there was a hunting camp to go to, I was usually there. I loved hunting camps almost as much as fishing camps.

Of course our hunting camps were usually centered on Clear Creek, and most of the ones I went to were in the Bear Paw School cabin, an old one room log building built on a little rise just above where Henderson Creek dumps into Clear Creek.

However, my uncle Al went elaborate for several years and had his hunting camp in the Missouri Breaks at a place called the Cable Place. That was an old log house dug into the side of a hill if I remember correctly.

The rest of the family laughed at Al heading to the Cable place to hunt deer for everyone knew that the deer in the Missouri Breaks were not nearly as good eating as those raised in Clear Creek Alfalfa fields.

At that time there were no elk to speak of in the Breaks and certainly no season.

What I remember about Al and the Cable place is that Al’s wife Jan would prepare an entire turkey dinner for the crew to heat up and eat when not hunting. I got into to one of those meals and the turkey heated up on an old Majestic wood stove, well it was wonderful to say the least!

Hunting camps I went to on Clear Creek were also known for their food. Often my father was enlisted as the camp cook but whoever it was, their meals were wonderful. Three meals a day, a large breakfast usually with some brook trout, for lunch many and various kinds of sandwiches and maybe a casserole or some baked beans, and then after hunting a late dinner of something like chicken and dumplings and the like or even spaghetti and meatballs. This one was a favorite of my father as he had learned how to cook wonderful spaghetti and meatballs from the old Italian grandmothers in the east end of Havre.

After supper there was always time for a little poker but the hunters were tired so it was early to bed, lulled to sleep with a ball game broadcast by KFBB in Great Falls or maybe a football game coming from Green Bay.

I didn’t go to sleep dreaming of sugar plums, but I probably went to sleep dreaming of that prime rib that father was going to cook up tomorrow night.

That was living. Never been anything like it since!