Alan Liere: The Nature of Treasure

When my grandchildren were younger, I took them on walks in the woods surrounding my home. This was not because I was a particularly energetic grandparent, but because if they didn’t burn off some of their energy they’d drive me nuts.

We’d gather coats and boots, free the dogs from the kennel, stuff our pockets with grocery bags and head out. Our destination was nebulous. It could have been as far as the high rock crest separating this valley from the next, or a mere 200 yards from the front door where a little creek runs through the pasture. In either scenario, we’d set about to fill the bags with treasures.

I always got a kick out of documenting the stuff the kids would find and keep. At the end of the walk, Claire would always have more wild flowers than Walker, and he would have more animal parts.

I think if Walker had a larger bag, he would have kept every deer bone he found. Both collected rocks, fir cones and feathers, and had I let them, both would have filled their bags with animal droppings. Fortunately, I was able to convince them the droppings needed to stay on the forest floor to nurture the wildflowers.

Most folks would have scoffed at the “treasures” my grandchildren collected. I didn’t, because I knew collecting treasures in The Big Outside was an inherited trait, a reflection of me. Their grandfather was a collector and hoarder of outdoor treasures all his life. Still is.

If I had to pick my favorite “treasure,” it would probably be the almost-petrified buffalo horn I found in Wyoming several Septembers ago while crawling on my belly, trying to get in range of a very nice antelope.

At the time, I had been camping by a dilapidated Pony Express station that had probably been used by Buffalo Bill Cody when he briefly carried the mail some 150 years previously. It was a spectacular find, though not quite as spectacular as the buffalo skull a friend once found with an imbedded obsidian arrowhead.

Second on my list of picked-up treasures is an empty Royal Crown whiskey bottle completely encased in barnacles. I found it on a beach near Barkley Sound the first time I ever took my boat onto the ocean. That was 25 years ago.

Next to it is a can of Pepsi I found as it rolled along the bottom of the Little Spokane River the day I caught a 23-inch rainbow trout under the Dartford Bridge. The can was mostly without color – stressed aluminum with a logo I hadn’t see for years. I’m tempted to open it and drink the contents – antique Pepsi. Okay, maybe some of my treasures are a little dumb.

As I paw through the accumulation on top of my file cabinets, there are several large agates from the banks of the Wilge River in South Africa.

There is also a moose tooth, a guinea fowl feather, a rusted pocketknife, a waxed canvas duck decoy, a porcupine skull, the dried tail of a very large salmon, a turkey egg, a bird’s nest and a couple of interesting pieces of driftwood from which hang an assortment of found fishing lures.

It’s an inventory of memories.