JAN-A-4
NANCY’S FANCY, CUMBERLAND ISLAND
TOUR FOR THE FIRST-TIME AND RETURN VISITORS
AND WE ALL PREPARE FOR THE HUNT—
WITH ONE EXCEPTION, WHO IS FOCUSED EXCLUSIVELY ON HIS GI TRACT
FOR REASONS OF A PREEMPTORY PROBLEM
Jan. 5—6, 2002
From the guided tour of Cumberland Island’s features, natural and historic, to the opening day of the hunt, the story is not of the hogs on Cumberland but the pork chops from the Huddle House. No slain hogs were hauled out by us on the opening day, but the residuum of the Fernandino Beach dinner laid one hunter low. And that one was the tour director and huntmeister. Despite this explosive “inconvenience,” the show, and the hunt, did go on.
We had scrambled in the morning to get a couple of items before leaving—a 6 gallon “bidon” for gasoline, which we filled before we found out it could not be carried across with the passengers. Chris Swartz insisted that this was just the pilot’s way of saying it was a company policy, but if one of us slipped him ten bucks, we would be on our way with the fuel. I insisted otherwise, and drained the gas into the Bronco, wrapping the new gas can that Paul wants for his boat in a trash bag—probably another item that will have to be lashed to the roof rack on the Bronco’s round trip
There were a couple of interesting people on the Lucy Ferguson as we crossed, and I talked with a couple of them. Despite the brief and benign passage, I felt very queasy, for reasons unclear. One was an elderly sun-leathered woman named Cindy Mc Laughlin. She seemed quite knowledgeable about the island, its leases, its history, and lives in one of the Greyfield Inn Buildings. She was telling us about a young NPS tour guide who was showing off the buildings and giving a spiel. Lucy Ferguson would invite over orchestras and give these grand balls with dancing and elegant soirees in the grand manner. Cindy said, “you know, I don’t remember Mother doing that; she was quite deaf, you know.”
I had told Chris Swartz about Carol, the recluse who lives off roadkill and the one who is the activist of the “Friends of Wild Cumberland” that is pushing some of the changes in the hunt. He wanted to meet her and talk with her, which would probably be about as dangerous as having him as a loose cannon, discussing his views of inherited retained rights with Cindy, whom I am glad he did not meet.
ISLAND TOUR IN WHICH EVERYONE BUT I IS A FIRST-TIMER
Since I had bought gas at the Greyfield Inn’s usurious rates, we could afford a brief look around the island at places only I had been. None of the other hunters, even those who had been here multiple times, had seen either the southern or northern ends of the island outside the confines of the wilderness areas of our hunts. So, we unloaded our gear at Nancy’s Fancy as we had a welcome stroll on the beach, and then sat for a lunch—eaten by all but me. I had felt queasy since the Huddle House pork chop, even on the smooth crossing of the channel. So, I skipped lunch, and then loaded everyone in to take a quick ride up the main road to see Plum Orchard (which, now designated a historic site, is getting scraped and painted rather than undergoing its designed rot implosion.)
I drove north, spotting several batches of turkeys along the way. They seem to be making great progress on the island despite the hogs. We came around Carol’s place at the upper end of the island, and Chris spotted her, although no words were exchanged, perhaps because of the intimidation of the “keep out” signs she had posted. My purpose for going to this area was to show them the old slave chapel, which none here had seen but me, and that when it was a rough clap board simple chapel before it got painted and gussied up for JFK Jr’s wedding. I like it better the way it looked before, but if you are going to be an edifice vaulted into fame on the cover of People magazine, I guess you need makeup. I feel I have a new vested interest in the shrine of JFK Jr material publica, since his demise preceded that of his magazine, but not by much.
I rounded the bend to show off the high bluffs on the intracoastal passage part of the island and abruptly turned the tourists loose to suggest they go down to the beach. We had once gathered a bunch of driftwood along here, and each constituted the centerpieces for Christopher Gibbs’ wedding rehearsal dinner. All but Paul had gone down to the beach, and so it was Paul who blew my cover. I had sent them away to go as quietly as I could into the woods and get violently sick. I repeatedly vomited, so Paul had figured out that I was ill, and probably from something I had eaten.
When the crew came back to the Ford Ranger, I drove back to Nancy’s Fancy, and tried to sip a bit of water, and tried to get some potassium back in me with orange juice. While they fixed a dinner I would not be able to eat, we played Trivial Pursuit—me against them all. Even so obtunded as I was, I overwhelmed them with Trivial Pursuit, a game designed for me, even though I have not played it, as I have not spent time with any parlor games. While they ate, I returned to much more visceral vigorous pursuits. Paul Gibbs said he had not seen such ceramic adoration since he was in college. This trip also marks a unique historic landmark---I carried five cases of beer onto Cumberland Island and never sipped or sniffed one, and had no liquor but orange juice and flat coke.
I went to bed, knowing I would be hard put to entertain anyone. We could sleep in for the only morning we are here, since I would pick up Richard Reinert, Gene Curletti and Craig and David Schaefer at mid-morning. It rained all night, dampening my interest in trying to catch some sea trout off the Greyfield Inn dock. I put on the foul weather gear just to pick up the new joiners and their gear. I gingerly walked the beach with the first-timer Gene Curletti, to beachcomb and show him the unexpected things that can be discovered, like conch egg shell cases—almost universally mistaken for some from of plant—and the fossilized shark’s teeth.
When the next crew had lunch and they had commiserated with me about their enjoying themselves in a hearty lunch as I was sipping tea, the sun came out. We piled everyone on the truck and I drove down to Dungeness Mansion where no one of the group had ever been except for me, so I took them around the ruins, and also over to the now-much-more deteriorated old cars of the Carnegies—Studebakers and Packards, and there all around the mansion ruins are herds of feral pigs rooting around, disturbing a flock of turkeys also looking over the acorn crop. I took photos of this wildlife cornucopia, the one being unsustainable and foreign.
I still felt very rickety, with a need for some facilities, so I did not go out on a major scouting expedition. Besides, I have known and hunted the island often now, and planned to deploy the group around Oyster Pond Trail at the morning hunt, and then drive the intradune meadows off South Cut Trail later on opening day—that is, if I could still stand up, as dehydrated and crampy as I was.
We all went over to the hunter orientation and signed in. AT first Rene had said I was the only one who had not paid for my permit, but later it was found that the record keeping had been turned in late from the park manager. We heard a whole lot about the changes that are coming soon to the hunts, driven by folk who want to see them eliminated, despite the act of Congress that crated the park requiring hunting be permitted. For starters, next year, there will be NO game animal pick up by the park rangers. They are attempting to eliminate the camp at Plum Orchard, and destroy the facilities that hunters have built, including the cold room and cleaning table, water taps and the showers. They say this is wilderness, and there can be no wheel or road, but there are retained rights users of these roads whose turnover of their property made the park possible and not resembling Amelia Island or Hilton Head. I seem to be fighting off developers in Derwood and on the barrier Sea Islands!
Since the park rangers cannot really comment on the proposed changes (they are just worker bees, and resent the changes as much as the hunters) a few spokespersons passed out handouts of the proposed changes, essentially requiring no facilities and hunters to backpack in daily over ten miles starting at sometime after midnight. Making the hunt impossible or extremely difficult is one way of crushing the hunt off the island on which it is mandated, but it will cause havoc among the habitat and native creatures since the hog population will explode—something those proposing the end of hunting have not considered. Whomever I have tried to rotate this hunting privilege around through in the last years, may not quite realize that they have missed the golden window, since it will certainly change big time and soon. In fact, this next year may be the one single time in which our group (which will have to change to allow those who have not yet had a chance to experience this unique hunt, and cannot be committed again to anyone who—for whatever good reasons—takes up a non-exchangeable spot for a no-show) is in the ideal privileged position. Not only will we still have the “retained rights” but also will have the ONLY vehicle that may be used to pick up game and carry it—since the park Rangers will no longer be permitted to touch the game animals, even for the data that they obtain from the hunter’s harvest. It seems that this one last shining moment is here for next year, and then everything will change to a distant small campsite without water or facilities like electricity, or cold room, all of which are standing and functioning, but will have to be destroyed, like the road, to comport with someone’s idea of what an ersatz wilderness looks like.
I contemplated this as I clutched my writhing belly, thinking more of the last pork chops from the Huddle House than the next ones from the wild hogs of Cumberland.
OPENING DAY
I did not have a pleasant night. But, duty called, and the huntmeister was up at 4:00 AM and out at 5:00 AM, and everyone was in their designated spot before dawn to the consternation of a few guys who hiked in much later trying to get to the spots we were already in. It was cold as I sat in a large live oak. I saw nothing—no armadillos, horses or hogs. No one else saw anything t shoot at either, so we came in to the truck at ten in the morning, and moved up to the South Cut. Along the way, we saw two hogs standing out in the salt flats on the Bay side, and we got out to see if we could shoot that far. Three of us shot a single shot, and after Craig’s shot a “thump” was heard, but the hogs ran off. Only later did we hear from one of the guys we offered a ride to after dark that they found a dead hog, which they did not shoot, and they tagged and bagged it. I do not know who had it close enough to the 180 some yards range, but ideally, Gene Curletti could have used his flat shooting .280 on a rest to see if the two hogs were in danger.
We put on a bit of a drive, but did not flush anything we saw. We worried that we may have lost a few of the guys as we tried to cut through the cane breaks, as high as African elephant grass. But there were four of them back at the truck when we returned. I was weary and whipped, and not likely to be either eating dinner, or getting up all wild about plowing through the intra-dune meadows the next morning, so I commissioned Craig as the huntmeister for the following day, and planned to rest easy, with an abdomen so crampy and distended that I could not put on the big pistol belt.
So, I have sat in some favorite trees on Cumberland on the opening day. The closest game I encountered was a seven-point buck with a basket rack that suddenly materialized within a few yards of me noiselessly in the dusk. I watched him through the scoped, and then the crackle of my water bottle in the back of the blaze orange vest sent him off snorting in alarm. So, I had a close call in deer hunnish g, and had seen scores of hogs, and dozens of turkeys, but that was before the hunt and they were uprooting Dungeness lawn, not scurrying around the wilderness in line of ambush.
It is wonderful to be carrying a rifle through a unique national Park, trying to do something to help restore an imbalanced natural gem that is getting torn apart—first by damaging feral hogs and then by the official stupidity of rule makers who do not understand that preservation of Cumberland means preservation of the hunters, the only “pinnacle predators” in this amazing ecosystem.