It's what I dream of at night!

It will start out early in the year as an innocent desire to hunt whitetails in the great north woods. it will end with a smile and a memory. The day you write out the deposit check and send it off to the outfitter seems like years before the season opener, yet it goes by in a flash.

I remember searching my computer for my packing list for a rifle hunt, once found I query as to why I have so many things on the list. By the time I've gone through my gear and hunting clothing I've found a bunch of things I'll need that weren't even on the list. As I shuffle through my office guiding through the piles of clothes, boots, ammo and more clothes I begin to think that somewhere along the line I must have went crazy and nobody told me.

The date comes to send off your rifle customs form, you get ready pen in hand and then mull over which rifle it will be. I do it in my own fashion, which rifle has yet to be successful on a hunt and that's the one. Write out a check, attach the form and put it in a envelope, seems easy enough.

About 30 days later you get a letter from Customs that your form has been accepted and your all but there. I have some quirks when it comes to hunting, for some reason I need to leave a day or two earlier than I really need too. I don't know maybe it's my former military service or my desire to get there. I often stay at the motel located at the airport just so I can catch an early flight out. The night isn't sleepless though, you just can't call the 30 or so minutes you'll get-sleepless!

The alarm clock rings as does the phone and like a shot your showered, dressed and waiting in the lobby, I'm not sure why I get to the lobby two hours before my shuttle, it's boring sitting there. Onto the shuttle and it's off to the check-in counter.

Hunting Canada entails passing through customs on each trip there and back. I personally fly out of Newark airport, directly to Minneapolis and then on to Saskatoon. You don't hit customs until you get to Saskatoon and it's about a 15 minute inconvenience should you get picked for inspection. Out of the airport and into the motel shuttle.

Its somehow comforting when you set your rifle and gear down on your motel room floor and take a deep breath, you've arrived. For the most part you'll either be picked up at the airport by the outfitter or in my case the first one's in pick up the rental SUV's and take them to the motel. In the morning other hunters meet you in the lobby and you load up the gear, divvy up the seats and your off for a 5 1/2 hour ride north.

I'm not an unsociable man but somehow the ride is a time of reflection and solitude for me. I just like to sit and look out the window at the miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. The occasional deer or wolf in the distance or crossing the road ahead. The distinct chill of the northern air and the feeling that your slowly putting miles between yourself and civilization as you know it. Once you arrive in camp it all seems to go so fast: get to your assigned bunks, confirm your sights, get a meal and begin to talk smack about past hunts.

After dinner the outfitter goes over the rules and fills out the licenses. Tag in hand and guide assigned your all but sitting in your stand, only a nights sleep between now and then. 5am comes early and the trucks are already gassed and running. The guides are chomping at the bit and ready to go. While you put on your hunting clothes you'll open the door to let some cool air in so you don't sweat in the layers. Your rifle sits outside the door so the optics get chilled and clear up. Ammo clinking in your pocket. A quick breakfast, a lunch bag and your off to the stands.

It's hard to realize that once you climb into your tree or ground blind that your finally there. Months and months of preparation, planning and of course-dreaming; and your finally there.

As the sun breaks through the trees the deer have already shown themselves and are milling around your stand. You can hardly breath as the does and bucks just seem to come and go all day. I don't know if it's the chill in the air, knowing that I'm miles from any human being or that just realizing I'm hunting in Canada that takes my breath away, it's like asthma.....you actually have to make yourself breath!

Hunting in Canada is a 15 second event. From the moment you identify your target, engage and harvest, your entire year had come down to that 15 seconds. I can't tell you how hard it is to sit on stand waiting for your guide to arrive. Your harvest is a mere 100 yards or less away and you can't go see. Funny how your mind plays games with you during that time: It's a 12 point, maybe a 10, probably an 8! Then you think to yourself, good God I hope a bigger one doesn't come walking out!

It's back to the camp, harvest in hand, an opportunity to share stories. I've posted my last Canadian buck on the front page of this blog. I sit most days and smile at the opportunity, the memories and the harvest. It's as if it were yesterday. Whether you take a shot or not, it's a trip of a lifetime.

Yes, there's something about the great north woods for those of us who seldom see beyond the concrete and steel. the paved roads are miles south of your location and most deer you come into contact with have probably never seen another human. It's the kind of wilderness that Teddy Roosevelt would write about, protect and enjoy. Miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles, that's what the great north woods are, miles and miles of the very thing that hunters dream about: big deer, cold days and sleepless nights.

It's what I dream of at night!