Photo by Staffan Widstrand
Scandinavian parents take their kids hunting all the time. You’re not allowed to shoot anything until you’re 15, so it’s mainly just sitting in the forest watching men with guns, and that’s already the only thing you ever do if you’re from the Nordic forest regions. But after they kill some stuff you get to go to the slaughterhouse, pick a number, and watch the butchering go down. It isn’t gross or scary or anything.
PS: Scandinavia has strict gun laws but lax nature laws. Can you say “loophole”? If you just get your license and join a hunting team, you’re set to shoot at animals all day long.
Anyway, we talked to some kids about which animals they like to hunt…
BLACK GROUSE
Agnete [7]: Hunting these is fun!
Helga [6]: I also liked hunting the black grouse. We didn’t get it. My father fired two shots at it, I guess he missed it. The bird was really big. Like the size of a dog. Our ears are still ringing. The guns are loud.
MOOSE
Agnete: This was alright. I was only six when we did it.
Helga: We had to walk with our parents and a group of other people. We walked for hours. I saw a snake on the hike up to the hunting grounds.
Agnete: A group of animals was walking slowly across the marsh. We sat quiet and I remember I wanted my father to shoot at one of them, but he didn’t cause they were too far away. The other group shot two animals. I helped out with the peeling and everything.
Helga: It’s called flaying. One of the animals didn’t die so they had to kill it again.
REINDEER
Agnete: Lots of walking on this one, and low temperatures. I never saw any reindeer, but somehow my father got to shoot a couple. Maybe he had gone somewhere else. Maybe we where busy playing.
Helga: The meat was first put in a plastic tray and then it was divided between us and some other people. Our meat was carried in a big sack. I remember all the blood on the canvas. On Christmas Eve my father was dressed up like Santa Claus and he had all our presents in that same bloody sack. It had turned brown and stiff and the smell was really bad.
DUCK
Agnete: I slept in the car.
Helga: I don’t think I was there. Maybe I wasn’t born yet.
OLAV BREKKE MATHISEN
