8/21-23/19, Whitefish Mountain Range, Montana

Site of first data collection point.

Look, there’s the love of God! Can you see it? It’s in the flapping wings of a flock of geese flying overhead at twilight. It’s in the rays of the sun beaming through shallow waves creating waves of their own underneath the water. It’s in an old town pub, a gathering place for friends and family, reminding each other that they’re not alone.

On many downtrodden occasions sprinkled throughout my freshman year of college, I questioned my decision to attend college in Montana. I regretted leaving people behind wondering what could have been. I often thought of my friends I spent the last eighteen years of my life sharing laughs with, wondering if they would also be a part of my future. Different career choices flushed through my mind telling me I had chosen the wrong path. Who was I kidding? I chose to study wildlife biology, because it sounded cool to say when friends and church members asked what I was studying in college. When locals in Montana started asking, “What brought you all the way up here”, I started to believe “to study wildlife” wasn’t a suitable enough reply. I didn’t have what it takes to make it through tough classes like organic chemistry or cellular and molecular biology. I didn’t really know an astounding amount of wildlife knowledge. I didn’t even deserve the shot to study wildlife in Montana. Who would ever take on a guy with no real wildlife experience to assist in wildlife research? Let me tell you a story about the guy who did and the opportunity I was given.

It was July 19th and I had just finished writing my perilous mountain biking story. As usual after finishing a story, I opened my email to send the story to my editor (my mom). Upon opening my email, I noticed a message sent from the Wildlife Society, a club I haven’t attended more than twice. Within the email contained the words, “looking for volunteer to assist in mule deer study”. I immediately replied to the email showing my interest. That same day I received a call from the grad student running the study and we scheduled to meet the very next day. The job was simple, take some plants out of some crunched up lunch bags, weigh the material on a scale, and record the weight. I accepted it gladly!

For the next few weeks before I went to my summer job at the airport, I locked myself in a little room with no one but me and YouTube music. Every other day I would spend at least an hour treading through worship music and an average of 15 lunch bags full of biomass. The job was somewhat relaxing, because of its simplicity, but it wasn’t the sort of summer wildlife gig worth bragging about in the school year. After about 10-15 total hours of weighing biomass, the opportunity to do field work finally presented itself.

Collin Peterson, the grad student I volunteer for, invited me to the Whitefish Mountain Range to collect plant samples with him the last week of summer. Accepting this opportunity meant only sleeping in my bed once that entire week, a trade I was more than willing to make.

We drove about three hours up to Whitefish arriving in a small town called Trego. We stopped at a local pub and had dinner courtesy of the state government’s financial resources. Our final stop for the night before a full day of hiking was the trailer we would be spending the night in. The trailer was cramped, contained a slight funky smell permeating through the air, and had no usable bathroom. It was just the kind of place I pictured a true wildlife biologist would be staying if not in a tent. I wiggled into my sleeping bag and had the feeling I was fulfilling a distant dream that became ever so close. It was just one night away.

Collin’s alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. that next morning and we started our day with some crunchy cereal and the best awful instant coffee. Collin’s technicians drove off to their wilderness areas of study as Collin and I took a quick stop at the Forest Ranger station to pick up gate keys. We spent the next two hours dodging ginormous semis on a narrow dirt road and unlocking gates that no ordinary citizen can pass through. Once we reached a certain point high enough, we immediately left the dirt road and set out into the mountains hiking towards destination points where we would gather our plant samples.

Collin set a quick pace that I’m sure he has gotten used to after a summer of bushwhacking. I kept up by hurdling over logs and keeping an eye out for the clearest path to take. Our collection points were a mountain away, so Collin developed a plan to hike up to the ridgeline and follow it instead of trying to bushwhack through valley or sideline the mountains. This plan led us straight up the first mountain until we would reach the ridgeline. The shrubs grew thick and taller covering up fallen trees determined to undermine my footing. My speed walking transformed into forced bear crawling by every shrub that required me to swim through it. I think Collin was totally unaware of my frantic situation, because he kept the same pace leaving me in a thickly vegetated forest with him out of sight. Of course, I had too much ROTC experience walking through the woods to ask for him to slow down, so in moments of doubt I would keep on pushing forward losing all caution to catch up with Collin. From time to time Collin would stop to point out a mushroom that was supposedly delicious or almost deadly poisonous giving me time to catch up. I was able to keep a close distance behind Collin the last half of our uphill bushwhacking and we reached the ridgeline that would lead to our first data collection point.

The rest of our hiking was graciously less full of bush covered tree traps making the scenery easier to enjoy. We reached our first point and immediately stretched out 40 meters of measuring tape, which would be our area of plant sampling. Collin explained the process and different tests to be conducted, which I adopted a better understanding of at the next point. Part of the process was identifying what kind of plant species were in our one-meter plots we would be sampling from. I looked down at our first plot and guessed there was about three different kind of plant species lying in the plot. Collin then knelt down and rattled off about eight or more. In that moment I understood that attaining a C in Rocky Mountain Flora might have been a passing grade, but it sure wasn’t good enough for field work. After identifying the plant species, the easy part of just plucking the plants and placing them into bags to be weighed later came next. Our sample area was located on a gradual incline creating a perfect opportunity to lie in the sun and pluck plants. As I was acquiring samples, it reminded me much of picking grass out of the lawn as a little kid. Much of this experience made me feel like a kid, besides the actual scientific side of it. I sat on the mountain side with my feet outstretched wondering how many people get to say that their office is outdoors. Sure, it was a challenge to get out there, but that was just another part of the fun. After two years of suffering through prerequisites, I felt like I had finally made it. I looked out across the mountain range and there I was living a dream, a dream that had been patiently waiting for an opportunity like this since my sophomore year of high school.

Once we finished our sampling, we moved on further to our second point. To reach the second point, it required a bit more of mountain sidelining, but ultimately, we reached our destination with little difficulty. I was able to assist Collin a bit more in the process as the reoccurring species became more recognizable. Collecting data from both of these points took longer than expected, so instead of setting out for more points we determined it was wiser to hike back to the car to make it back by 5 p.m.

This decision proved to be the correct choice, because after a long while of hiking we found ourselves shoving our way through the thickest Spruce forest imaginable. We fought through it as the forest hit us as hard as it could with sharp needles and densely cluttered trees just wide enough to squeeze through. After every couple minutes of plowing through repetitive Spruce trees, we would encounter a small patch of open grass giving us a small break before the next wave of cuts. I would say that this part of the trip was the only non-poetic piece of my wildlife dream. We broke through more of the forest, which seemed endless until we both heard the sound of a large mammal moving in the distance. There was no room to run, we would have to stand our ground. Collin remained calm figuring it was an elk, while I whipped out my bear spray fully prepared to do battle with one of North America’s fiercest creatures. The moment passed and it was time for us to move on. I had a slight urge to go towards the noise out of curiosity to see if it was an elk, but with the other possibility of it being a 500-pound grizzly bear it was probably the better choice to steer clear. We went back to a few more minutes of scrapes and cuts and then the road finally appeared like a light at the end of a dark tunnel.

Our wildlife truck was indeed a cheerful sight, letting my legs know that rest was coming soon. We arrived back at the trailer and chowed down on pronghorn and elk meat burritos. A perfect outdoorsmen meal for a perfect day working outdoors.

That next morning, I had the privilege of driving a wildlife and parks vehicle from Whitefish back to Missoula. The drive was three hours and the music on the radio was doing the trick of entertaining me, so I gave my brother Garin a call. We lost connection once or twice, but eventually I was able to make out that he might have an opportunity to serve as an Army chaplain upon graduation from seminary, a dream he has carried since he was a child. He was excited to tell me about this coming fulfillment of a life-long goal and I was excited to hear it. While Garin was explaining the recent unfolding events in his life and the coming fulfillment of his dream, I couldn’t help but think back to the start of my dream.

My first career dream was to fly for the United States Air Force. Garin often poked fun of me, since it was his duty being in the Army. My parents bought me a flight simulator and even helped me get some experience flying, but this dream came to a quick crash for the reason that the Air Force isn’t fond of letting color blind folks fly their planes. With the Air Force out of the picture, small freshman in high school Caleb was out of ideas.

My hopes for a bright future were dashed away, but I wouldn’t let that stop me from enjoying a four-week vacation visiting Garin at his first military post in Alaska. We spent a good deal of time in Fairbanks, but my family made a point of camping out in Denali for two days. This was my first trip out west making every mountain a brilliantly sculpted statue to be admired. Mt. Denali itself was breath-taking, but even the great height of that 20,308 ft. peak wasn’t the highlight of my two days in the park.

The first trail we hiked in Denali was Savage Trail. The name itself made it worth the hike. In the initial ascent of the hike you come across huge rock formations, which no young boy could refuse to walk past without attempting to climb them first. After ascending the rock formation, the switchbacks began. I ran up each switchback and after a few I would look back, amazed by the elevation I had gained in the past couple minutes. Once my whole family reached the end of the switchbacks, we stopped for a lunch break. I was hungrier for the mountain peak, so the PB&Js couldn’t hold my attention that day. The family pack was taking the trail at a nice leisurely pace forcing me to split off. My destination: the summit. I ran up the mountain as fast as I could. The run turned into a fast walk, because my strength was dwindling. I reached a false summit, which was satisfactory, because to reach the real summit it required more extensive rock-climbing abilities. I sat down on a nice rock and simply gazed at the beautiful landscapes ahead of me. My mind flooded with awe-struck wonder of God’s creation and it was in that moment I knew that’s where I belonged. I could have sat there forever, but I knew my family would be waiting for me. The rest of my Alaskan adventure was no different. Every mountain was a playground to be explored, every creature a complex creation to be studied, and every misty lake a hidden treasure troth of dark uncharted territory.

I might not have extensive wildlife knowledge or years of volunteering experience, but one thing I do have is a God inspired dream. From that dream flows passion: passion to create, to feel, and to know the love of God on an ever-deepening scale. My dream in the end is to serve God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and I believe wildlife has something to do with that. I said that this volunteer trip to Whitefish was the fulfillment of my dream, but really it was just the cherry on top, because for the past two years I have gotten to soak in the beauty of God’s good creation. I’ve been able to write stories on how God uses His creativity to just tell me one more time that He loves me. I’ve laughed more times in a single week than I ever did in Florida. I’ve made great unreplaceable friends and still keep in touch with my closest friends from Florida. My freshman year of college I questioned if it was God’s will for me to be in Montana. Now I know not only was it His will, but a part of the destiny He placed on my life from the moment I became a thought in His head.

God has given each one of us a unique destiny. A story written out through the years if we choose to read it. Only God knows your potential, so what if yours is greater than you think? What would happen if you chose to have faith? Faith to move across the country. Faith to trust that God’s plan is working out for your good even when you can’t see it. God has written your story and I promise He is a good storyteller.