BOW

You would think, being the daughter of a bowyer, I'd have grown up with a solid grounding in outdoor activities–and it's true that I did fish and camp as a kid (car camping anyway, and reel fishing in ponds), but my outdoor education was otherwise quite stunted and regulated to whatever they taught us in Girl Scouts. To be honest, my father's interest in archery was mostly architectural. He solved engineering problems; he didn't hunt.

When I moved to New York, I was afraid of the hills. Absent the plains–the endless sky and horizon lazily stretching miles before me–I felt claustrophobic. My go-to strategy to cope with anxiety is to immerse myself fully into it, so I spent eight months apprenticing with an herbalist, spending free weekends camping on the land, learning to walk in the dark, in the woods, nestled in the valleys.

I learned a lot, but mostly I learned how much I loved it. Later, my partner and I would spend summers exploring the Adirondacks. The special places became our special places. I haven't seen much of the world, but I say bury me in the ADX and I mean it. We tread sacred ground when we step into the Adirondack Park.

One of my favorite perennial activities has been attending the fall Becoming an Outdoors-Woman (BOW) event in New York. This year it was at Silver Bay YMCA in Silver Bay, New York. I'd never been there, but gosh is it lovely.

At a BOW weekend, women have the opportunity to learn and try a variety of outdoors-related skills, crafts, and activities. Instructors are primarily women, which helps with the security and vulnerability it takes to try something new (I will say, the men who teach at BOW are also amazing). At BOW I've gotten to learn about firearms, including shotgun and shooting clays, trapping (and I took and passed my NYS Trapper Education course to obtain my license), and other fun skills like cooking with dutch ovens and learning about falconry.

This year, I chose workshops around fly fishing. I have gone fly fishing before with a guide, and it was super fun, but I never felt confident enough to go out on my own. After this year's BOW workshop, I purchased a rod and reel, along with some supplies for fly tying.

A highlight of the weekend was the taxidermy course. Yes, you read that correctly. I had seen the taxidermy at previous BOW weekends and was always curious to try it, so I was stoked to get the opportunity to attend that workshop. It was definitely one of the weirdest things I've ever done! Would I do it again? Maybe, maybe not. Probably not. But now I have a taxidermy rat that my kids can fight over after I die!

Super weird, right? 😅

Before I left, my partner joked that I was going away on a Hunting Wives weekend (the show is ridiculous and fun and terrible if you don't know the reference). I told him yes, if Hunting Wives were actually about women doing fun things together in the woods. We try new things, we inspire each other, we laugh–a lot.