Elk

Elk occupy the uncertain edge between survival and disappearance in Hig’s account of the mountain woods. He has never clearly seen one during his outings, yet he finds tracks, insists that they may still be there, and keeps returning to look. Their possible survival matters both as a source of food and as evidence that the damaged landscape has not been emptied of everything he remembers or hopes to find.

Identity and Evidence of Survival

Hig’s knowledge of Elk is pieced together rather than secured by frequent sightings. He tells Bangley that he saw Elk sign on an earlier trip and describes tracks he believes belonged to a large cow. For a long time, however, the tracks are his evidence, not a confirmed encounter: he says he has seen plenty of Deer but has never seen an Elk. Bangley doubts that Elk remain. Hig answers with conviction, but his confidence is qualified by the gap between what the tracks suggest and what he has personally observed.

The most specific sign comes from the previous fall. Beside a creek, one set of tracks descends from dark spruce, marks the summer silt, and disappears again over smooth, dusty stones on a gravel bar. Hig reads the prints as those of one large cow. Their brevity gives them unusual force: the tracks are a trace of a living animal, but they also end before they can lead him to it. He calls the animal a ghost, holding together the possibility of its presence and the expectation that it may already be gone.

The Search in the Mountain Woods

Hig’s search for Elk takes place within a landscape he approaches cautiously. Before going into the woods, he flies over the area twice, once by day and once at night with night-vision goggles, then makes a wider circuit before returning from the north. On foot, he crosses eight miles of open ground to reach cover; the empty sled takes him about two hours to drag. The return journey with a Deer is harder, and open terrain leaves him exposed. His excursions therefore depend on preparation and on Bangley covering him from a distance with a rifle and handsets that recharge from solar panels.

The mountain front is also the pair’s western perimeter, their nearest substantial cover and a boundary Hig helps watch. He goes into greener woods when he can, although the trip is dangerous and his reason is not solely hunting. He has seen Elk sign there and wants to look again; he also describes going into the woods to breathe and to be among the trees and creeks. The possible hunt sits inside that broader purpose. Elk make the journey a practical expedition, but the search also draws Hig toward a place he values apart from what it can provide.

Hunting, Food, and Disagreement

Hig presents Elk as a possible source of substantial food. When he tries to explain why he wants to return to the mountains, he points to the tracks and imagines what obtaining an Elk would mean for him and Bangley. The prospect is especially appealing in a life where meals can consist of rabbits and sunfish, and where Hig sometimes brings a Deer back on a kayak hull converted into a sled. His desire is therefore not detached from survival: a successful hunt would provide meat in a world where food and safety require planning.

Bangley’s outlook makes the difference between them visible. He treats hunting chiefly as a calculation of protein against the risks of a trip, and he does not accept Hig’s evidence as proof that Elk remain. Hig, by contrast, wants to go back even when he cannot give Bangley a reason that will satisfy that calculation. Their disagreement is not simply over whether a hunt is feasible. It concerns what the woods are worth when the immediate yield cannot be guaranteed. Hig’s attention to Elk sign keeps open a purpose that is at once practical and personal.

Ecological Loss and Narrative Significance

The uncertainty surrounding Elk belongs to a larger pattern of loss. Hig recalls the disappearance of Trout from warming streams and names Elk among the animals he believes have gone, alongside species such as tigers and elephants. Even fish that occupy the streams afterward do not restore what has vanished: Hig describes the Trout as gone and worries that changing water conditions are affecting other fish as well. His concern is not limited to whether a particular animal can be eaten. The changing creek and the missing species register as losses in their own right.

Against that background, Elk tracks become more than hunting evidence. One set of prints does not establish that a population has recovered, and Hig’s own account does not settle how many Elk survive. It does, however, resist a simple declaration that the mountains are empty. Later, Hig recalls having watched a royal Elk step out of aspen, an image of rare grandeur that he uses as a comparison for a moment of awe. That recollection gives the animal a presence beyond the tracks: Elk remain part of Hig’s remembered encounters with the living world, even as their future in it grows doubtful.