The nearly constant artic wind rattled the glass in the camp door while the generator hummed out near the meat shed. Sixty some odd miles west of Kuujjuaq in the sub-artic or Northern Quebec, this outpost sat alone on the tundra. A couple of man-made structures dotting the map of a massive landscape barren and beautiful beyond description. Inside Snow Camp it was warm, the room was full of smiles as 20 of us relaxed around plastic tables. The aroma of the homemade bread and Caribou stew Mona, the camp cook, had prepared for dinner hung in the air as Joe and Jim finished up the dishes. The atmosphere was a testosterone-enriched blend of levity and contentment.

I sat off to the side by the stove nursing a beverage and playing spectator amid the laughter and conversation. Like everyone else in the room, I was filled with feelings of deep enjoyment. I was traveling solo, visiting several Caribou camps in the Safari Nordik network over a 12 day period but having been at Snow for several days now I was far from alone as every member of this camp had become part of an extended family. Aside from Randy, another solo traveler and the guides, the rest of the group was dominated by fathers and sons. Most of the boys were between 25 and 35, good hunters all of them. They were a proud and not particularly quiet bunch. They laughed out loud and slapped each other on the back. They were boys being boys. Its funny how youth is contagious, and for Dave, Andrew and Jim whose combined offspring made up the majority of the group; well, they were boys again as well. Being completely absorbed in this dynamic I found myself drifting between my parental role as the proud father of a 16 year old and the son of the man I call Dad. For my four brothers and myself, he was a friend and teacher whether in the woods or the back of a charter boat.

I can remember as a youngster waiting anxiously for my Dad and older brothers to return from camp. Peering out the window in the dark waiting for the station wagon to pull in the drive more often than not, with deer tied to the luggage rack. A few years later I became old enough for induction into the opening weekend ritual of our family camp. My recollections of what it was like in those early years seems similar to the environment here at Snow Camp. I can still see my father and brothers with assorted friends playing cards by lantern light laughing and joking with each other around the kitchen table. Fathers and Sons… Remembering when it was Dad and I pulling in the drive with my first deer slung over the front fender of a '44 Willys Jeep. As the years rolled by one of life's constants had been a family of boys led by a man who regardless of age, was youthful in the woods, or in camp with his sons. In more recent years there had been a trip to Anticosti, three of us and Dad. Fishing trips to the Quebec wilderness and Caribou hunts on the tundra.

The pride on the faces of the fathers gathered here in Snow Camp reflected in detail the joy of parenting sons. My thoughts shift to that role. My son Travis has come of age and will be at deer camp this fall. He has been my favorite fishing partner since he could lift a rod and with this, only his second year in camp a new chapter is starting. Just this past summer we went on a fishing trip to the Alaska and the memories of that experience are still fresh. In my mind I can so easily revisit our experience, wading snowmelt swollen rivers for Rainbows and Salmon and sharing a tent under the star blanket of cool Alaskan nights.

My Dad is 82 now and I seem to be rolling the years up at a pretty good clip however, the future holds the promise of many more adventures in far away camps and fishing lodges for Travis and I. At the same time my memory maintains treasures of trips with my Dad.

So as I step outside of this caribou camp to catch another glimpse of the northern lights before turning in, I am at peace with my role as both father and son and the unique way that bond is amplified in wild places under starry skies.