Friendship has been at the core of our deer camp traditions. Life takes us in many different directions through each year. Each generation’s children have grown and started their own families; we may only see them at deer camp each year. After watching them grow up, it’s good to see them.

For a number of years, we all talked about buying hunting land and building a place. We often joked that BH didn’t tell us about any good deals on land because he wanted to keep deer camp just the way it was. Everyone staying at the cabin and hunting together in mornings. It certainly has been easy to do, our families get along so well.

Our family’s friendships has been about more than hunting though. The 3 families from central Minnesota have known each other since high school days. Each of the 3 couples have been together since high school. We all got married within a year of each other. Our first born sons were all born within roughly a year of each other. We’ve all stayed living in the area where we grew up and our kids attended school together. Yeah, that’s pretty cool.

The up north family fits right in with that. There have been years we see them only twice a year, but we always have picked right up where we left off. Their kids are the youngest of that generation but they are not ‘kids’ any more; there have been graduations and now a wedding being planned. Through the milestones, graduations and weddings, we’ve always included each other.

Learning from each other is easy. When we were new hunters at deer camp we had plenty of others to learn from. As our kids started hunting, we knew that whatever the drive or plan for the day, any of the adults the kids (and now grandkids) got paired with would be watching out, teaching and guiding. Story telling – “remember when” – has been part of our tradition. My grandson has said many times that he wishes he could have met F [great-grandfather] – he died long before J was born. I know F would be proud. J has heard some of the ‘remember when’ stories so often that he knows them well.

In a world that keeps changing so quickly, there is something so perfect about having long standing friends and looking forward to time together.