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Ghosts of Deer Stands Past
March 16, 2025 Buck Happy St. Urho’s Day!
I went out to the hunting property today and sat in my deer stand for half an hour. A cold breeze suddenly caught the back of my neck. Memories from old deer stands started to flood my mind. It jogged thoughts of a last day of deer season sometime in the middle ‘70’s. I spent the remaining hours of that season along the edge of a flowage that came from a little lake near the Henry Island farm and wound its way to the beaver dam on the corner of our back forty. The day was one of those raw, nasty days that saw a temperature in the mid-twenties and a blustery wind pushing snowflakes along the swamp and right up my back and down the neck of my wool hunting jacket. It wasn’t much of a stand. I don’t know who made it. A short, scrawny jackpine held a single board for a seat eight feet above the ground. No steps except for half a dozen branches that had been sawed off ten inches from the trunk whose dead stubs might hold your weight, and then again, might not. I had my collar turned up and my cap pulled down and yet it was not enough to keep me warm.
I sat there until the bitter end.
No deer showed up and I had plenty of time to let my mind wander. Questions flooded my brain.
“Who made this stand”.
“Why here?”
“How long had it been here without me knowing about it?”
“Had anyone shot a deer, let alone seen one from this vantage point?”
Times were so much different then. You and I lived in an area where public land was either state or county. No federal land existed in our part of Itasca County. The countryside was sparsely dotted with private parcels. Not being suited for agriculture, most properties were ten acres, twenty acres or forty acres. An eighty was huge and I know of no landholdings of even 160 acres. A “farm” was a fenced in rocky pasture that might be ten acres in size with room for a large vegetable garden and a barn that would hardly count as a garage these days.
With all that public land between homesteads, anyone could put up a deer stand anywhere. I’m sure there were state and county laws that gave lip service to some control, but if there was, no one was following them. There were no commercial stands that I remember. Oh, there were some structures that were elaborate, but most were put up with a few boards for steps and enough of a platform to stand or sit. Many were nothing more than a single board nailed to a couple of branches from six feet to twenty feet above the ground.
Of course, we were lucky to have forty acres behind Snaptail Lake and spent most of our energy building stands on our own property. From the time I can remember, putting up stands meant a late fall picnic for the whole family. The folks would pick a pleasant day, and it was an outing that I looked forward to every year. Dad would hook up the trailer to the F-12 tractor. Mom would pack a lunch and there would be enough room left over in the trailer for us kids to ride along with the scraps of lumber, coffee cans of nails and saws, axes and hammers. We would bump along on old logging roads singing songs and harassing each other as most siblings do at that age.
Mostly the work would entail repairing old stands but every year a spot or two would see a new structure going up. In the early years our destinations seemed to be random. As I became old enough to join the hunt, I began to understand why my dad chose the spots he did. Deer trails decades old, creeks, swamps, property lines and the lake all determined the likeliest locations a hunter might find success.
All our stands had names that were meant to identify. Some were named after trees – the Jackpine Stand, the Willow Stand, the Birch Stand and the Maple Stand. Others were identified by a geographical location. The End of the Lake; The Beaver Dam; Gobber’s Nob; The Ravine Stand; Moose Country; Newton’s Road; The Rutabaga Stand; The Birch Hill; The Survey Line; The Food Plot. Others had a moniker that described some attribute of its structure – The White House, The Basket Stand, The Taj Mahal, The High Stand, The Garage Stand, The Ladder Stand. A few even had names given to them – Matti’s Stand, Beth’s Stand, Jessi’s Stand. I even had one named for me. Kenny’s Stand only stood for a few years after it was built for me the first year I hunted. I spent opening morning of my first season atop an old cut off popple stub with a board for a seat nailed on the top. In the fifty-two years I hunted behind the house, I remember deer being shot from every one.
Stands on public lands were often identified by the neighbors who built them. Bobby’s Stand; Bill’s Tree (west of our property) as opposed to Bill’s Stand (east of our property); Gary’s Stand; Janoy’s Stand. Sarge Hoffman lived on the west end of Snaptail and built a series of stands that were unique to him. He would find a clump of three birch trees and make a triangular platform of smaller birch logs to stand on six feet off the ground. Additional birch logs would make the steps.
We always called these “Ollie’s Stands”. Ollie was his wife, but she didn’t hunt. Never did quite understand that one. Willie Reinen’s Stands – his always had steps four feet apart.
Other public land stands were named, again, for geographical locations. The River Bottom.
Behind the School. Behind the Ball Field. The Cedar Swamp.
Across from Branstrom’s.
Ranowski’s. Rose Lake. Cameron Lake. Across from Waisenens.
Behind Chris Spoo’s field. The Gravel Pits. Many of these were built by persons unknown. By the age of the boards or cuttings, I’m sure several had been there for decades.
There are several stands that have special meaning to me. Of course, “Kenny’s Stand”, where I was the first time I hunted.
“Janoy’s Stand” where I shot my first deer. “Newton’s Road” when I outsmarted a spike buck – that didn’t happen very often.
“The High Stand” where I shot the biggest deer I ever got – a twelve-pointer. The Stand Across from Branstrom’s, where I first saw the signs of aging in my dad when he needed help getting down after I made a drive to him.
He was in his late ‘60’s. “The Ladder Stand” where I spent the last hours of many deer seasons, and from which my son shot his first deer. “The Taj Mahal” - built specifically for mom. It was the only stand dad erected that was totally enclosed and with a little wood stove. Many of my family have spent time in that one, out of the elements and having much success. “Newton’s Road” again, where I shot the last buck taken by us from the old homestead in 2016.
Deer stands in this day and age have changed a lot. Most are commercial stands, and many are enclosed with all types of amenities. Laws and policies are now enforced on public lands.
Permanent stands are not allowed. Boards and spikes are no longer brought into these areas, but store-bought ladders and platforms and tents are necessary that can be removed once the season is done. However, on private land the old traditions still live. Much of the old romance is returning to me. New locations and stands are determined every year. New traditions are being made and I’m hoping that our younger hunters will have the same kind of nostalgia forty years down the road that I have now. Indeed, names are evolving and developing their own stories. “Grandpa’s Stand”, “Evan’s Stand”, “The Rock” and “The Bullpen” are already in place. Memories are being generated each year such as “Benny touching the Unicorn” from “The Rock”, to my harvesting of a ten-pointer this past season from “Grandpa’s Stand” to Evan getting his first deer – a four-pointer from “The Bullpen”. Many are concerned that old traditions will be lost due to lack of interest. I don’t believe that. I am confident that the ghosts of old deer stands will touch and hold all who wander the Northwoods forests in the month of November.
St. Patty’s tomorrow. You know what they say, “On St.
Patrick’s Day everyone has a little Irish in them. Except the Finns – we’re still Finnish!” Have a great day!
Hoops
