The Hunter and the Buck: A Wild Struggle near Port Crescent
A local man's desperate wrestling match with a wounded buck turns into an endurance test.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Last week, Mr. Matt Wasaukari shot an immense buck near Port Crescent. He dropped his gun and approached the deer when it showed signs of being quite lively. He seized it by its immense horns, when it jumped up and fought him viciously. He was alternately under and on top of the deer, holding on to its antlers like grim death. The fight was getting unpleasant and the hunter was becoming badly bruised up. Like Pomp with his hold on the bear's tail, Wasaukari waited for somebody to help him let go. Finally, after hurling him violently to one side, the buck disappeared. The following day the three Wasaukari brothers resumed the hunt and, after several fruitless efforts, they secured the troublesome buck, which was so heavy that it took two strong men to carry the carcass. The antlers were unusually handsome.
“He seized it by its immense horns, when it jumped up and fought him viciously. He was alternately under and on top of the deer, holding on to its antlers like grim death.”
While hunting remains a staple of the Olympic Peninsula, stories of hand-to-hand combat with wildlife are rare today. This account captures the raw, physical reality of survival in the dense forests surrounding the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the 1890s.
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