Unless you are part of a deer camp and have been going there year after year, for as many Novembers as you can remember, you can not really know or appreciate the experience — the fellowship, the enduring friendships and the remarkable tradition of it all. This is not a criticism of those who don’t deer hunt, or an expression of arrogance or superiority toward those who have no taste for the trappings of deer camp. 

Deer camp is a social phenomenon. It is just the way of it.

As written on the dust jacket of Robert Wegner’s wonderful book, “Legendary Deer Camps,” “Tradition is the core of deer camp. It’s the smell of damp wool coats hanging across chairs. It’s the heat radiating from old wood stoves. The smell of firewood and the aroma of frying venison tenderloin mixing in the air. It’s the camaraderie, the legends, the old storytellers and the new story makers. Deer camp is a place steeped in memories, folklore and family histories.”

So when a member of deer camp is taken by death,  those fellow hunters left behind know that the camp won’t ever be quite the same.

Jeff Black, 57, who was a member of an old, established Maine deer camp called the Skulkers of Seboeis, passed away July 4 after a long struggle with cancer. Like so many cancer victims, Jeff left us long before his race was run. Recently retired from his career with Verizon, he had just this year put the finishing touches on his camp at Farrow Lake in Topsfield. This was to be his retirement escape, a place to enjoy his later years. It is often said that a cancer victim  fought the good fight. Jeff did, in spades. He dug his heels in against the silent, insidious enemy. Valiantly, he battled to live, taking all the harsh chemicals that they could dish out. His zest for the hunt was with him almost to the end. As his Dad, Averill Black, said, “Jeff deserved a medal for performing above and beyond.”

As camp life goes, a deer camp is an intimate setting. There aren’t many secrets. You get to know each other. Jeff was a can-do guy, a manly person, and a perfectionist of the first magnitude. A job worth doing, was worth doing well. Jeff lived this mantra in everything he touched, especially when it came to the hunt. His approach to the November pursuit of whitetail deer was methodical, thorough and done with a razor focus. Thus, he brought home the venison more than the rest of his fellow Skulkers. A consummate deer hunter, Jeff  was always mindful of the adage that hunters are part-time predators while deer are full timers, well schooled in predator avoidance. His nights at camp were spent — not at the card table or with the bottle — but under the gas lamp studying topo maps and reading books on whitetail strategy.

He had his quirks like the rest of us. Sleep did not come easily to him at deer camp. The snorers grated. His loud midnight tantrum in the midst of a choral cacophony of classic snorers is, and will always be, part of Skulker folklore. He was inordinately fond of fried onions. During the Skulkers’ tailgate lunch breaks from the hunt, when hot dogs and sliced onions were fried in the skillet, Jeff was the self-appointed Onion Man. He always did the slicing and dicing.  (This way he knew there would always be enough for him).

At deer camp, or wherever people enjoy each other’s companionship, it is the quirky characters, isn’t it after all, that lend gusto to the whole affair? Jeff did that.

A fictional character, this time in a Cormac McCarthy novel, said that “Every man’s death is a standing in for every other. And since death comes to all there is no way to abate the fear of it except to love the man who stands for us.”

Jeff stood for us, the Skulkers of Seboeis. We’ll miss him this fall at deer camp.
                       
The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WQVM-FM  101.3) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected] and his new book is “A Maine Deer Hunter’s Logbook.”