In Search of a Lost Icon

I’m a metal detectorist (yes, like you see on TV), and I love finding coins. My all-time favorite coin to find in the ground has always been the Buffalo Nickel. I have my reasons, but one is that image of the buffalo on the reverse, its standing profile nearly busting out of the borders of the coin. In fact, I love the coin so much, I purchased a belt buckle in the shape of the Buffalo Nickel, an item that is now my “lucky buckle” that I wear on those especially long detecting days.

And now you know more about me than you’d ever care to know.

These terribly loose ties to the bison are what drove a friend of mine to recommend this book to me, and I’m super glad he did. I thoroughly enjoyed this intimate look at an animal that’s long been considered one of America’s great shames—for our hand in taking it from abundance across the land to near extinction. The book not only details a great deal about the animal itself, scientifically yet in layman’s terms, but also describes the role it played in the author’s life.

Steven Rinella first fell in love with the buffalo when he stumbled across a skull buried in the Western dirt. Lugging it home, he was fascinated by the animal and spent a great deal of time and effort researching it and the forebears it represented. This book is the fruit of his efforts, and yet it’s also a touch autobiographical in that Rinella frames his story of the American Buffalo amidst his own experience of winning the right to hunt one in the wild.

Having gained such a close tie to the animal, Rinella applied to the lottery for one of 30 (I think it was) licenses to hunt and kill a buffalo in Alaska. He won, and the story of his hunt and success fill these pages. As interesting as the backstory of the animal was, the killing, dressing, and hauling out of the cow he shot was my favorite part, for even in this section, he relates the process to how hunters have done the same for thousands of years.

I especially like his point that yes, the Native Americans used every part of the buffalo, but they did not use every part of every buffalo. Native and white hunters both could slaughter a herd just for their coats…or tongues…leaving the rest to rot. It’s a dreary picture, but it’s history and it’s insightful to read.

This type of informative memoir reminds me a bit of, say, Peter Hessler‘s books about his experiences in China that he also peppers with Chinese culture and history. Steven Rinella is not a biologist or an historian (as far as I know), but a layman with a vast thirst for knowledge on a single topic due his intentionally close-knit relationship with it, making him a prime candidate to write on the issue for average Joes like me. It makes me wonder if I might ever be able to write a book about butterflies, though I’m just a butterfly hunter not a lepidopterist, or Wisconsin state history, though I’m just a detectorist and not an historian.

This was a well-written and fascinating book, fit for hunters and conservationists alike, for those interested in animals or in pre-American history. Enjoy.

©2022 E.T.