That’s A Lot Of Bull (Moose)
During the Christmas season it’s nice to have something dripping with common sense to write about. This story isn’t about glistening ideologies or pie in the sky ideas. No, this is a nitty gritty story about real life. It’s about respect and true hands-on education. I have written many stories about corruption and perversion in the public-school systems. Stories where young minds have been poisoned by radical leftists. So, it was encouraging to see an educator make an impression on young lives in a very real, yet out of the box manner.
Brian Mason is a teacher at Chugiak High School in Anchorage Alaska. Earlier this month, his ninth-grade biology class entered their classroom to find a full-grown bull moose carcass. Mason had felled the moose using his educational hunting permit. He then explained to his students that he was going to walk them through the process of skinning, quartering, and harvesting the meat.
Now, depending on where you live, ethically harvesting meat from a bull moose may not be knowledge that you will ever use. However, in Anchorage Alaska, one may indeed use this lesson in the future. In addition, the harvested moose meat could be taken home by the students or some or all of the bounty could be donated to the community.
Mason then proceeded to skillfully guide his students through the undertaking of skinning and harvesting the meat, with the students actively participating in each phase of the process.
The students were interested and had a positive response to the lesson. Mason attempts to conduct the seminar each year, but obviously you have to be fortunate enough to bag a moose to do so. One student, Blaine Wanner related that last year’s freshman class never got the opportunity, so he was elated that his class got the chance. He was, “hoping we did it. But we got one, so we’re happy.”
In Alaska, lessons like Mason offers are not entirely unique. Alaska’s Sister School Exchange program allows students from some urban areas, like Anchorage, to experience life in the more rural areas of the state for a short period of time.
In the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, middle and high school students are afforded the opportunity to participate in educational moose hunts. During which they learn to identify moose they can ethically hunt and then harvest the meat.
These classes allow students to bridge the ever-growing divide between urban living and nature. Alaska is rich in cultural traditions, many of which are centered around the outdoors. The task of harvesting the meat from an animal may seem barbaric to some, but intertwined with that knowledge a great deal of respect for life is learned. Alaska still has many areas that are wild and uncharted. These periods of instruction teach students that the stewardship of nature is valuable for everyone to understand.
Life, when viewed through the lens of nature, can appear rugged at times. Still, the wilderness does exist and it always deserves our reverence and respect.
