HITCHCOCK, SOUTH DAKOTA. To hunt is to kill is to live.
This concept—this instinct, really—has been intrinsic to our hominin lineage long before our ancestors gained control of fire. With the addition of gathering, it defined survival until agriculture and ownership reshaped our relationship to land. Killing is just a part of nature. It’s neither good nor bad at its core. It existed before us, and it will continue long after. It just… is. How we kill matters. What we kill matters. Why we kill says more about ourselves than anything else.
And maybe that’s what I wanted to confront. Not the brutality of killing, but the honesty of it. Because without wild space to roam, without living ecosystems to witness and participate in, the idea of the hunt collapses into something hollow. At the peak of Autumn, I thought I was going to the Midwest to learn how to hunt. What I walked away with was something closer to a lesson in stewardship.
