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In Trace of TR: A Montana Hunters Journey

Aadland's prose is as worthy of superlatives as outdoor writing can be.

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Paul Reynolds As an outdoor writer the biggest reward for me is positive feedback from readers. Sometimes, when you really make a connection, a reader will be moved to let you know.


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This a special moment for any writer. For what you the writer have done, with your words, is help a reader express, and perhaps understand, his own feelings or treasured recollection about an outdoor experience. Among contemporary American outdoor writers there is one who really makes that connection for me. A rancher, horseman, and avid hunter from Absarokee, Montana, Aadland has just released another book. His other hunting book, The Best of All Seasons: Fifty Years as a Montana Hunter, is a real keeper! His newest book is In Trace of TR. TR, in case you haven't guessed, is Teddy Roosevelt, our former President and the iconic father of the American conservation movement.

This excerpt from the book's dust jacket outline's Aadland's quest with his new book: One day, on a single-footing horse, lever action rifle under his knee, Aadland set out to become acquainted with TR as only those who shared his experiences could. In Trace of TR documents that quest, inviting readers to ride along and get to know Theodore Roosevelt through the western environment that so profoundly influenced him.

To his credit, Aadland did his spadework and dug deeply into the historical backdrop behind TR's love affair with the West. Aadland, however, did more than dig in the archives in his effort to get to know TR. He personally visited TR's old haunts in the Dakota Badlands. He rode his horse on TR's favorite ground and hunted the same coulees for antelope and elk.

He visted the site of TR's beloved ranch, the Elkhorn. This is a wonderful read. Aadland is hardpan honest, refreshingly authentic, and always thoughtful in his work. He paints pictures of the West with words on paper almost as deftly as Remington did with oils on canvas. Best of all, Aadland overcame his biggest writing challenge, if you ask me.

He did, indeed, connect with TR. And he did so in a smooth, seamless way, crafting a relationship with TR out of common ground and shared avocations - hunting and horsemanship. A century and a quarter is a mere skip in time between hunters' hearts," writes Aadland. Teddy Roosevelt, like the rest of us, was a flawed human being for all of his legendary feats and accomplishments. Because he did so much for American game conservation and preservation of wild and scenic places, we are rarely told about TR's conversion.

For many years, as hunter, TR was a greedy, rapacious guy killing far more wild animals than he or his friends could ever eat! Aadland doesn't let TR off the hook in this regard. In fact, he takes the icon to the woodshed. Morris tallies TR's total take of animals and birds on his forty-seven day Big Horn safari, including those shot on the return trip to Elkhorn, at critters!

In Trace of TR : A Montana Hunter's Journey by Dan Aadland (, Hardcover) | eBay

Toward the end of the book, Aadland gets introspective about the connection he forged in writing In Trace of TR. I suppose this stage is reached when one no longer simply thinks about the person, but begins to feel happiness at his happiness, sorrow at his sorrow.


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His e-mail address is paul sportingjournal. A Montana Hunter's Journey. Selecting, Training, and Enjoying your Horse in the Backcountry. Sketches from the Ranch: In a stocky Danish immigrant cowboy names Magnus Jensen rode into south-central Montana, up a valley recently vacated by the Absorka Crow Indians.

He liked what he saw and staked his future on the ranch he would carve there, on the irrigated fields he would water with ditches he dug, on the spare but protein-rich grass that would nourish his stock on the adjacent rangeland. More than a century has passed, but the nature of ranching in Montana has changed little. Spring still brings the birth of colts and calves, summer the growth, and fall the harvest.

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And in winter, when the snow drifts against the corral fences and the hay supply dwindles, there is always hope for the warm southern wind called "chinook" snow-eater and for that ultimate colt scheduled to appear when the grass turns green. In this book Aadland approaches ranching as Thoreau approached life at Walden, to "front the essential facts" of it, to find its common denominator, to look at ranching as one looks at the yellow flower of the prickly pear cactus, acknowledging the spines while admiring the beauty.

On the framework of one recent year, the essence of ranching is woven in tales past and present, tragic and comic. And through it all, a story is told--the story of the narrator's relationship with a remarkable horse--a once-in-a lifetime horse--a horse, perhaps, too good to be true. Women and Warriors of the Plains: The Pioneer Photography of Julia E. An Eastman Kodak camera became her constant companion when Tuell realized that the Plains Indian culture was changing before her eyes.

She learned the Cheyenne language from the great chief American Horse. Knowledge of the language, along with her empathetic and gentle manner, opened doors barred to nearly all other whites. Tuell was allowed to photograph two sacred religious ceremonies of the Cheyenne and Sioux--the Sun Dance and the Massaum. Julia Tuell photographed warriors who fought Lieutenant Colonel Custer, and women who sheltered and nourished children during the hardest days of Plains Indian life.

In Trace of TR: Perhaps as I go along, I will post some tidbits from the book. It's strange how life in the West has changed the connotation of many words. Here it means several sections square miles of sparse grass of deceptively high nutrition if only it's not abused.

Off the Shelf: In Trace of TR by Dan Aadland

Roosevelt the rancher soon learned a fact that John Wesley Powell tried unsuccessfully to shove down the craws of disbelieving easterners: It takes vast acreage to sustain cows int his country, but the grass is high in protein, evolved for grazing by bovines and elk, and is sustainable if cared for. I did not know this about pronghorn: Antelope, unlike deer, are not nocturnal. They bed down at night like cattle. Across the United States, anywhere deer are abundant and that's nearly everywhere automobile collisions with deer are rampant.

Drive through territory densely populated with antelope, however, and the sight of any killed in collisions with vehicles is relatively rare by comparison. The difference is that at night, while deer are traveling and feeding and playing chicken with oncoming headlights or, at the last moment, sprinting across the highway in front of a speeding car, antelope are bedded down. Often selecting a slight depression to protect them from the wind, pronghorns will bed in a tight group, sheep-like.

It's a great book and I highly recommend it. Maybe a nice Christmas gift. The author does a fine job of blending TR lore with his own western ranch life and hunting adventures.


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  8. I really appreciated the author's viewpoint on hunting, it's all about the quality of the experience and doesn't always have to result in a kill to be enjoyed. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only serious hunter who is more than a little put-off by the current trend toward increasing amounts of gadgetry and the hunting videos featuring high fives and whooping after the kill. To me these things cheapen the hunt. If you are a horseman you will especially appreciate this book and should certainly have it on your bookshelf.

    Like a glass of well-aged whiskey, it goes down smooth and warms you through and through. Aadland's prose is as worthy of superlatives as outdoor writing can be. Paul Reynolds As an outdoor writer the biggest reward for me is positive feedback from readers. Sometimes, when you really make a connection, a reader will be moved to let you know.

    This a special moment for any writer. For what you the writer have done, with your words, is help a reader express, and perhaps understand, his own feelings or treasured recollection about an outdoor experience. Among contemporary American outdoor writers there is one who really makes that connection for me. A rancher, horseman, and avid hunter from Absarokee, Montana, Aadland has just released another book. His other hunting book, The Best of All Seasons: Fifty Years as a Montana Hunter, is a real keeper!

    His newest book is In Trace of TR. TR, in case you haven't guessed, is Teddy Roosevelt, our former President and the iconic father of the American conservation movement. This excerpt from the book's dust jacket outline's Aadland's quest with his new book: One day, on a single-footing horse, lever action rifle under his knee, Aadland set out to become acquainted with TR as only those who shared his experiences could.

    To his credit, Aadland did his spadework and dug deeply into the historical backdrop behind TR's love affair with the West. Aadland, however, did more than dig in the archives in his effort to get to know TR. He personally visited TR's old haunts in the Dakota Badlands. He rode his horse on TR's favorite ground and hunted the same coulees for antelope and elk.

    He visted the site of TR's beloved ranch, the Elkhorn.