Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 2 - 2023 i Outdoor Life

OUTDOOR LIFE turns 125 this year. To celebrate, we’ve put together this ambitious digital edition that combines some of the most iconic stories and images from our archive with modern in-depth reporting and feature stories that look to the future of outdoor sports and conservation in America. But on any notable birthday, it’s worth reflecting before looking forward. When J.A. McGuire founded this magazine, in 1898, Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders were fighting the Spanish in Cuba. Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii were all still territories. Bicycling was the hot new outdoor trend (as you can see on our original cover). The .30/06 Springfield was yet to be developed, and magazines printed in color wouldn’t become mainstream for a few more decades. In other words, times were…

By the time this story ran in the March 1901 issue of Outdoor Life, Theodore Roosevelt had been sworn in as the Vice President of the United States under President William McKinley. In this story, he’s still referred to as Governor Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s tenure as the governor of New York State concluded Dec. 31, 1900. THEODORE ROOSEVELT is not only a natural man of the people, and an unassuming, honest, fearless and intrepid fighter for what he considers just, but he is as deep a lover of the hills and streams, and the free and unconventional life of the frontier as Nimrod, Izaak Walton or “Nessmuk.” To meet Roosevelt as a sportsman is to meet him upon the foothold of man to man. There certainly never lived a more rigid…

COMING OUT OF the stern waves, the first big one raced along the surface after the starboard teaser, his fin and tail cutting through the top of the water. The marlin’s long, narrow, purple side fins were extended like the wings of a bird, and his sword almost touched the teaser as he charged, even though Carlos had the boat going full speed and we were pulling in the teasers as fast as we could. The marlin followed the teasers right up to the boat and, when we pulled them out of the water, he kept on coming until his bill was within an inch of the stern. He seemed to think the teasers were bonito and had taken refuge under the boat and might have gone on into the…

IT’S EASY to romanticize the old days. Readers remember our classic rifle columns and come-along adventures but seem to forget how much we pissed them off over the years. When it came to conservation, Outdoor Life was often ahead of its time, and we’d reliably upset subscribers by, say, challenging Sunday hunting bans or advocating for reduced bag limits. We waged a yearslong campaign to convince readers that shooting does would help deer herds, not hurt them. So it’s no surprise that we continue that legacy today by reporting on the issues that will—whether we like it or not—shape the future of our sport.…

IF YOU DIDN’T know better, you may have assumed the fish was dead. You could have easily walked by it, a passing glance convincing you it was just a rotten log. Its dull gray back is the same color as the mud. It camouflages beautifully with the detritus on the bottom of a shallow swamp in early spring before the lilies bloom and inject it with fresh greenery. Look closer, though, and the fish takes shape. It’s lying perfectly still save for the dorsal fin that runs nearly the length of its back. Like the lines on a heartbeat monitor, the fin ripples in undulating waves that start near the head and flow back to the tail. I cast a white tube a few feet past the fish and let…

OUTDOOR LIFE created its own legends. As contributors like former shooting editor Jack O’Connor and humor columnist Pat McManus grew into fixtures of the title, they earned our readers’ loyalty. More than a decade before he published A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold wrote conservation columns for OL. We also printed stories by outdoor greats including Nash Buckingham, Zane Grey, Fred Bear, Arthur Young, and Lefty Kreh. But for this selection of stories, we looked beyond the usual suspects and dusted off stories about (and in some cases by) American icons: Theodore Roosevelt, Buffalo Bill Cody, Amelia Earhart, Ernest Hemingway, and Babe Ruth. Their popularity transcended our world of hunting and fishing, inviting a wider audience to understand what OL is all about. And yeah, OK—we threw in a Jack…

This story, Buffalo Bill’s Last Interview, ran in the May 1917 issue of Outdoor Life. The author reportedly saw William Frederick Cody a few days after they spoke, by which time the 70-year-old had entered a coma. Buffalo Bill Cody died of kidney failure in Denver on January 10, 1917. He was regarded as a hero in his own time by many; a century later, his legacy is more complicated. TO WRITE ANYTHING NEW of Buffalo Bill is almost impossible. The world has known him for sixty years, three generations have admired him, three-generations of children have loved and imitated him the world around, and there is probably not a civilized language in the world that does not contain his name. He was the most famous American. Not only the…

WHEN THE BABE’S in the woods, he’s the biggest thing there, and the moose, deer, and bears are no longer the star performers. He’s always been that way ever since he broke into big-time baseball as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox, years and years ago. As the Battering Bambino of the New York Yankees, he took over the public, lock, stock, and barrel. He has seized the popular imagination and held it as has no other athlete of our time save, perhaps, Jack Dempsey. Three years out of baseball, the big man has lost nothing of his appeal as a public idol. He always put on a great show for the fans. Today he puts on just as great a show, even though his audience may consist of…

I UNSLUNG MY SHOTGUN and army-crawled beneath the barbed-wire fence. Then I got to my feet and hustled along the field edge in the dark. The lights of the farmyard glowed up on the hill, and I walked quickly to create more distance between myself and the neat white house where I imagined a farmer was making coffee and preparing for his morning chores. I’ll admit, what I was doing felt sketchy. I didn’t have permission from the farmer to hunt his ground. In fact, I’d never met him. But I wasn’t trespassing. I was hunting on Turkey Hunter Access Program land, which is privately owned ground where public hunting is allowed—but only during spring turkey season. This is thanks to a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources plan that pays…

IT’S A MUGGY SPRING DAY, and I’m riding on a bench mounted over the bed of an old Jeep—a typical rig in this part of the world. We’ve been looking for a broken-horned blackbuck for about an hour when I see one in a clearing with a group of Thomson’s gazelles. “Broken horn, three o’clock,” I say quietly as four sets of binoculars turn to the right. The buck stands broadside, maybe 130 yards away, as the Jeep rolls to a stop. Setting 9-year-old Landon up on the shooting sticks, Jason Wallace crouches over her left shoulder. To her right, her dad, Mike Bowen, whispers to shoot when she’s ready. But then the blackbuck trots off. The trio hops back in the Jeep, and away we go, driving along the…

WHILE OUTDOOR LIFE COVERS can stand alone as works of art (and make great wall decor), it’s more interesting to compare them. From one month to the next, copies of OL looked similar. The subject on the cover might change—a whitetail fawn, a jumping trout—but the aesthetic was the same. But flip through the decades and you’ll begin to see how they evolved along with hunting and fishing, and our national attitude toward them. Once the editors figured out that OL’s cover should help sell the magazine, they started commissioning unique illustrations for each cover. The last of the Wild West and its mountain men appear on our earliest covers, while midcentury issues were cheerful and relatable to most readers. In the 1960s and ’70s, the illustrations began to depict…

FOR ME, flying and fly-fishing both began in California. The first flight was as a passenger with Frank Hawks, the first fishing as a novice in the Sierras. Then—also on the West Coast, and also in the dark ages of longer ago than I like to remember—a pilot named John Montijo taught me to fly. My husband, not so long ago, undertook some post-graduate instruction in fishing. Whether or not I’m a good flyer is debatable. Whether or not I’m a finished fisherman, isn’t. I’m not. It’s unwise, I suppose, to be married to one’s instructor. The relationship is apt to cramp one’s style—both ways. The “severest critic” serves a purpose, but sometimes the S. C. isn’t wanted at the elbow when the student is trying to master the intricacies…

FOR A WEEK we had been hunting chukars above the Snake River in eastern Washington, my son Chris and I, laboring along those god-awful lava slopes each day and getting back to camp late, bone-tired and rock-sore. We were set up just across the river from Lewiston, Idaho, where Jack O’Connor lived. I’d meant to call him and let him know we were around. But as the week wore on and we wore with it, getting raunchier by the day, we didn’t figure the O’Connor hearth would be much enhanced by our presence. I should have known better. The next time we stopped at Paul Nolte’s Lolo Gun Shop in Lewiston there was a message waiting: “Dammit, call me. O’Connor.” By phone, Jack told me he didn’t give a hoot…

IT’S NOT THE endless daylight that prevents sleep, but the stillness. There is no breeze, no rustling leaves, no buzzing insects or hooting owls. Instead, the emptiness amplifies everything. A small avalanche of rock and snowmelt cascades from nearby cliffs into the sea—not a danger, but loud enough to make you jump. Glaciers groan as they settle. Humpbacks spout in the channel all night long. My sisters and I are curled in bivvy sacks on a frozen beach on the Antarctic Peninsula, surrounded by some 30 other tourists and a couple fat Weddell seals. Besides our crew and the guides, few of our companions have ever camped before. It’s an odd introduction, in part because leave-no-trace practices don’t cut it in Antarctica. In the morning all footprints must be scuffed…

IN CELEBRATION of its 100th anniversary, Griffin & Howe decided to build a small number of rifles worthy of the occasion. As you can see in the photographs, they are stunners—but there’s more to these beauties than meets the eye. These inspired creations commemorate not only the founding of the illustrious gun company but also its special connection to Townsend Whelen and Outdoor Life. That’s a lot to take in, so allow me to dial the clock back to the early decades of the 20th century. Whelen—most often referred to as Colonel Townsend Whelen—was a career Army officer who loved hunting the wilderness and had a deep appreciation of fine rifles, ballistic innovation, and the art of precision marksmanship. He communicated these passions with a clear, straightforward writing style that…