No matter where Jim might happen to be, whether on the stream in a birchbark canoe, in the forest, or in his studios or gardens, his mind was constantly upon the subject of nature. In fact Jim devoted much of his life to the helping of nature and the consistent fighting of “game hogs.”
True enough, Jim Curwood did not know all the scientific names for the trees, toads, shrubs and so forth, but he could tell you all about them; all about their life from birth to death. Jim practically knew the day a certain plant or flower would die, so intent had been his study.
CHAPTER NINE
HIS BROTHERHOOD
After long years of successfully hunting and selfishly killing game, James Oliver Curwood had at last ceased, and suddenly launched a campaign by which he hoped to stop “game hogs” from taking wild life from the forests.
This campaign was also an attempt to stop “ordinary hunters for the time being, until the game had ample time to replenish itself.” He founded the first conservation movement in the state of Michigan and remained as its head for several years.
Jim pleaded through his books and his articles for the public to stop the slaughtering of innocent, wild and untamed animals, to preserve the natural resources and not to dynamite the streams in which fish abounded.
Slowly the public began to take heed, but not quite soon enough, for already a number of species had been all but destroyed. Many of those species of animals and birds that were killed off then, have not been able to recreate themselves even to this day. Jim realized that this was not fair to either wildlife or mankind. “It must stop and it shall stop.”
On January 1, 1927, Jim Curwood was made chairman of the “Game, Fish and Wildlife Committee of the Conservation Department of the State of Michigan,” and later was in charge of the activities of the entire conservation commission. He was held in high regard and esteem by many thousands of people who firmly believed and were convinced that he was doing something fine and worthwhile. Others hated Jim with a vengeance. They believed, as there are so many who do today, that James Oliver Curwood, and the so called conservationists, were meddling into other people’s business. Likewise Jim hated the “game hog” who was attempting to destroy the very thing which God had intended to live and to make the world more beautiful for mankind.
Since James Oliver Curwood was born and raised within the heart of the timber country, and lived most of his life in it, he could respect and love it more readily and naturally than people of large metropolitan cities. As a boy he had gone into the deep forests unescorted many times when it was known to be dangerous. Often he did not even carry a rifle for protection, for even as a small boy he believed in a mutual feeling between animals and men. Jim believed that he could make friends with the animals and make those creatures understand him. He did just that. Many of Jim’s friends who have been fortunate enough to accompany him on one of his trips into the wilds, still describe how they saw him make friends with the most fierce of all North American animals—the Grizzly.