Lessons from the field: Nothing in nature is dirty

Before there were birds and bird dogs in my life, my experience outdoors was rather dirt-free. I worked as a court reporter at the time and clerked a criminal trial in which the defense called an expert on dust to the stand. He wore a bow tie and his field of experience was called "microspectrophotometry."

When asked how he came to the field, instead of listing his course of study and degrees, he told the jury about being a young boy sitting in a sunbeam and his first realization that dust contained "a piece of everything in the room."

I kept the record of the proceedings throughout the trial and cannot remember the case or the outcome. But the words of the man in the bow tie stayed with me.

He reminded me of my 5-year-old self when I wondered if the dust coming in the window came from the sun or if the sun only revealed the dust. Was inside the house dirtier than outside? Was it true what the boy at school said about dust under the bed being "dead people"?

Covered with bugs?

My mother provided no help. When I brought her wild poppies from outside, she screamed that they were covered in bugs and threw them out the front door. She was right; bugs covered my handpicked flowers. I stopped picking flowers.

Other lessons in apparent disgust taught me not to eat orchard apples that might have worms or farm eggs that might have a drop of blood in them.

When I was 8 years old at a fishing camp, my cousin dropped something large and wet down the back of my shirt. He then ran a distance away from me and stopped to watch my reaction.

I felt a warm sensation against the small of my back. Then I felt a pulse. I screamed in horror and untucked my shirt. I imagined a live squirrel or a bird. The object turned out to be a still-beating king salmon heart.

"Their hearts still beat even when they're out of their bodies," his sister told me. She held the heart while I vowed never again to touch a bloody, dying thing.

Without realizing it, the idea that there was something dirty about bugs, worms and blood became an indisputable fact of my life. Meanwhile, sterile paper and ink filled my grownup work days.

Antibacterial soap and signs reminding me to wash my hands seemed to imply I was a walking public safety hazard despite my best efforts.

I went home to an energy-efficient and hygienic house surrounded with technology and security.

Duck flats mud

At the time, no dog or dog hair graced my furniture, not so much as a plant required water, and no messy fire warmed my house. My work, home and car were all equally devoid of nature. On weekends, I hiked into the mountains and stayed on the trail. I had never been hunting — or even considered it.

My first journey out onto the duck flats to hunt waterfowl came with the understanding I was well out of my comfort zone. As an adult, my goal was to open my eyes to the unavoidable reality that the cost of my existence required that creatures die so that I could live, whether they died in the harvesting of vegetables, the manufacturing of hiking boots, or at my hands.

My first hurdle — before learning about animals, habitat and firearms — was overcoming my dread of dirt. One morning that first season, my hunting partner scooped up river mud and put it on his face while we were in the duck blind and suggested I do the same. My white face was causing the ducks to flare.

I hesitated. Surely, he was kidding.

"Think of it like the mud you'd get put on your face in one of those women's spa things," he said. At the time, I thought the comparison far-fetched, but I pulled off a glove and took two fingers' worth of mud and ran it down my cheeks, across my forehead, and wiped the last of it on my chin. The cold mud stuck to my skin and dried quickly in the wind.

My expression must have revealed that I felt like microscopic bugs were crawling all over my face because he assured me, "Nothing in nature is dirty."

I wasn't so sure.

No ticks, but there are lice

While my partner still maintains that nature gets us clean and prefers to avoid gloves unless absolutely necessary, I can't help but research the dangers of dirt as well as unseen parasites and diseases carried by wild game or found in nature.

Alaska does not share the Lower 48's predicament with ticks or chronic wasting disease, but there are flies and lice to worry about, as well as trichinosis and tularemia, among other diseases well-described in fact sheets available from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

The first time I shot a rabbit, we had to "air out" the fleas on the roof of the car on the drive home. Admittedly, I was not excited to eat well-cooked rabbit stew that night.

It took time to relax my learned squeamishness and field dress game. Caribou, moose and deer look about the same on the plate as USDA-graded beef. But my appreciation for wild game is based on finer details than fat and marbling, mostly due to the care involved.

There is a place for appropriate precautions regarding cleanliness and proper care of game — wear gloves, wash hands, freeze and cook meat properly. I just wonder if well-intentioned parents or teachers don't encourage a misplaced fear, as mine did, of the great outdoors being dirty and dangerous compared to a clean and safe indoors.

"Nothing in nature is dirty" is something I "get" now, although my partner's comment seemed ridiculous to me the first time I heard it. How could dirt not be dirty?

What's dirty is well-handled money, the remote control, cellphones, keyboards and the buttons on a vending machine.

Nature offers cold mountain creeks, windblown grass, steep rock faces, shorelines and swamps teeming with life — beautiful, dirty and dangerous. It's a continuously self-cleaning environment that provides a calling for us to return to our nature.

When someone mentions the objectionable blood, guts and dirt involved in hunting, I can't help but think about the man with a bow tie describing a dust particle as containing a "piece of everything in the room."

If there's no escape from dirt, my preference is to experience it in the biggest room possible — the great outdoors.

Christine Cunningham of Soldotna is a lifelong Alaskan and avid hunter. On alternate weeks, she writes about Alaska hunting. Contact Christine at cunningham@yogaforduckhunters.com