Hunting in Denmark

I didn’t grow up hunting, but I did go rabbit hunting with my Uncle once, and I carried the rabbit back proudly. Since moving to Haida Gwaii hunting has become something I do, I enjoy the time outdoor and appreciate the clean, local meat. I find myself missing it and so when I was invited to go hunting in Denmark I was excited and could hardly wait. I looked forward to spending time on hunting grounds and seeing how it was done here.

At home I hunt deer with a rifle and that’s about it. Here we used shotguns and were hunting for anything we saw; hare, ducks, pheasants, deer, you name it (though I didn’t shoot the little song birds that Jesse pointed out all day, ‘Shoot that one Dad’). Going hunting once with one group of hunters hardly makes me an expert on hunting in Denmark (just as hunting deer on Haida Gwaii doesn’t make me an expert on hunting in Canada) but the two experiences were quite different. The hunting party met at a farmhouse on the island of Funen (Fyn) about 1.5 hours drive from where we live. On the drive we were told about the ‘fines’ that result from failing to follow certain procedures; we shook hands with everyone and removed our hats when we were supposed to. Nice to know there are rules and rituals to the hunt, Jesse especially liked the one about kissing the ass of the first duck you shoot and was disappointed that I didn’t get a duck. 

New for me was hunting with dogs, I tried to imagine Ruby as a hunting dog but the only image I could conjure was the sight of Ruby fading into the distance as she chased our prey into the forest. There were 8 of us with guns and we were positioned around an area when the dogs were sent to do their work. I got one shot at a bird but missed it (so did another guy so it’s okay), the one duck we got would never have been seen if not for the dogs work, and though I volunteered Jesse to swim out and get any ducks that landed in the water the dogs did that too.

What will stay with me from the day was eating lunch in the barn, an old brick barn. We sat around a table with the elder seated in the middle; you could sense the deference he had earned with age. This man has been hunting on this farm for 50 years, he is 80, and he was the only one to shoot anything all day. Lunch was one of my focuses when I shared about our day when I got home, Jesse wondered what was so great about sitting in an old barn and why I made special mention of the 80 year old man, but when he remembers this day I think he will remember what it felt like around the table, just as I remember sitting around tables in my youth and knowing who the most important people were, the ones without whom we could not be there.