I have always wanted a bunch of friends I could go hunting, fishing, or adventuring with. I never would have imagined I’d have friends across the country as ready and wild as me.
Especially so many wonderful women!
The last few years I have joined in on as many all women hunts and trips as I could, while also hosting multiple myself. I’ve raccoon hunted, squirrel hunted, ran hounds, bowfished, grouse hunted, crane and duck hunted. I’ve pheasant hunted, fly-fished, trapped, rafted, hiked and canoed with all women just in the last 3 years…and something powerful happens on those trips. Every. Single. Time.
Squirrel Hunting in Tennessee with Artemis Sportswomen
I first came to this “ah ha! moment in the Summer of 2019. When two of my best girl friends and I went on a canoeing and portaging trip up in the boundary waters of Minnesota and Canada. We have been friends since High School. We have a strong bond built already. We have been in each others weddings, kids birthdays, group chats, you get the picture. But although we are all individually pretty adventurous, outdoorsy ladies, we really hadn’t done anything like this together before. A lot of our time together since High School was built around Busch Lights and bonfires.
If you aren’t familiar with what a boundary waters trip looks like. You are carrying everything you need with you in a shared canoe while you row and portage (hike with all your gear, while one of you carries the canoe, and btw the pregnant one carried the canoe most of the time) from campsite to campsite. So the idea of carrying Busch Lattes or anything extra was a no go.
One of the nights of our trip I had this realization. We had rowed about 11 miles that day, portaged, made camp, cooked dinner, and we were all sitting on a log, two of us journaling, and one reading and I remember thinking, I couldn’t love my friends more. I was so proud of them, of us. This trip without a doubt made our friendship closer.
Since then, and at all the adventures I previously mentioned, something so profound happens. When people get together based on a common passion, and most definitely if it is outdoors related. It doesn’t matter if they are strangers, life long friends, or complete opposites in every sense. Common ground is found, and connection and community are made.
Common ground is how we connect with one another. It allows us to lower your defenses, it allows us to trust. When we uncover common goals and passions, we form deep bonds (sometimes with complete strangers). We begin to care for the humans across from us that maybe moments before we weren’t sure we had a dang thing to even say to them.
Trapping in Missouri with WildHERness
I have been around bonfires, on boats, in the woods, with people who at first meeting have obvious and different points of view. And somehow when the subjects that they always say you shouldn’t discuss (you know what I am talking about) come up. There is no fighting, yelling, or disrespect. They listen, they seek to understand, they come together.
Friendships are made, it can become a safe place for someone who needed it most. Healing happens.
I am not saying a canoe trip or tromping through the woods, or casting some lines with strangers or your buddies will solve all the worlds problems but…it will make a dent.
Women’s Bowfishing with WildHERness and Woods and Waters Project