Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/742011
100 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S barrels of my double. The bag split. A billed head poked through and two vibrant red eyes glared back at me. The bags were stuffed with blocks, cans and bluebills mostly. Evans maybe. Masons, probably. It was too dark to know for sure. And though I had read about various wooden decoys and handled a few over the years, I was no expert. But I knew enough to recognize their glass eyes, their relief- carved bills, and the detailed feather pattern of their paint. They were high grades, and the vintage blocks appeared to be little used, if at all. A sudden chill raised the hair on the back of my neck, a part of me expecting the ghost of the farmer to catch me tampering with his "dekes" and call me out on the larceny I had in mind. Potholes and small marshes dotted the prairie landscape for miles around, but these were big-water blocks. I wondered where the prairie farmer hunted them. Given the impressive stature of his cedar-shake Victorian house with all its gingerbread, he obviously had money to hunt ducks in grand style. But perhaps the plans he had for his expensive decoys ended as abruptly as the Roaring Twenties, and were blown away during the decade of dust storms that followed. He may have bet wrong on the markets and Mother Nature, but his decoy investment remained in defiance of both. There were no signs of modern life on the isolated farmstead. No "Keep Out" warnings, no metal grain-storage bins, no empty plastic fertilizer or herbicide containers. Carpeted in thick prairie grass, the farmstead was cut off from the outside world, surrounded by an endless sea of wheat. The closest town of any size was 200 miles to the east. With most of the region farmed by large agribusiness operations, locating the current owner would be futile. I didn't want to take someone's property, but those beautiful old blocks deserved a far better fate than what the prairie weather had in store for them. Guilty conscience or not, I was determined to rescue those birds. But the burlap bags that held them were too rotted to carry. Even if I could haul them out, I was miles from my truck, and the sun was setting. I made a mental map of the place—the layout of its buildings and the arrangement of its rusted farm implements. I searched the horizon all around for landmarks to help lead me back another day. The narrow dirt road that once led up to the property had been plowed-over long ago. As far as the eye could see, the land was flat and featureless, interrupted only by other abandoned dwellings. Swept by a relentless prairie wind, the remote farmstead felt like the loneliest place on earth. Counting steps, I headed back in the direction of my truck. High up, the eerie calls of migrating sandhill cranes gave a surreal feel to the gathering dusk. Except for the sandhills and a wisp of a moon, I was alone on the prairie during the B locks. That's what the old-timers called them. Hewn from blocks of white pine and cedar. Some solid, others hollowed, all with carved wooden heads. Each shaped, painted, and weighted to resemble wildfowl on the water and to endure the rigors of rough use and rougher weather. Deceivers. Clever forgeries. Made in America from the mid-1800s through the first half of the 20th century by individuals and small factories, all for the same purpose—to bring wild ducks in close for market gunners and waterfowlers. They mingled with live callers for a time, before the laws changed. Between the wars, they soldiered on until man-made materials ended their tradition-steeped reign. From the wild-celery-laden Chesapeake Bay to the Great Lakes and Illinois River bottoms, to the expansive wetlands of Cajun country, the prairie potholes and marshlands of Canada, wooden decoys, heavy and cumbersome, were tools of the trade for a continent of work-hardened duck men. Replaced after World War II by pressed paper and plastic decoys, they became a folk art unique to North America, their predecessors fashioned from tule reeds centuries before by Native Americans to fool canvasbacks and other migrating ducks. Once a necessity for attracting wild ducks to the gun, today, wooden decoys lure people with their iconic shapes and collectability. They rest on fireplace mantles, sit on bookshelves, and decorate dens. Rare ones are sequestered in private collections and behind museum glass. D ripping sweat, I stood in the tilted threshold of a dilapidated out-building of a long-abandoned farmstead. A gnarled Russian olive partially blocked the entrance. An equally beleaguered Victorian farmhouse, some yards distant, stood in proud defiance of the harsh elements and hard times that evicted its once well-to-do occupants many decades ago. The ancient edifice was just one of many such vacant structures still standing vigil on the sprawling Saskatchewan prairie where I had spent most of the day hunting Hungarian partridge in unseasonably hot September weather. Scattered on the dirt floor just inside the shed were several mason jars reflecting slivers of light glinting through cracked and shrunken boards. A few rusted oil cans with strange brands mingled with Depression-era calendars that chronicled days and dreams that would never be again. Along with its discarded relics, the musty shed was filled with a palpable sense of melancholy, a forsaken vestige of a bygone era. As my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, I saw a couple of bulging burlap bags wedged onto the warped rafters at the back of the long shed. I slowly poked one of the bags with the As my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, I saw a couple of bulging burlap bags wedged onto the warped rafters at the back of the long shed. I slowly poked one of the bags with the barrels of my double. The bag split. A billed head poked through and two vibrant red eyes glared back at me.