The pursuit of those experiences forces Vincent to undergo extreme hardship and deprivation in the wild. And he wouldn’t have it any other way. “If I’m laying in my tent in the morning and [it] literally feels like it’s gonna blow over, and I can hear the rain, and I know all my gear is already getting wet, and I have to get up and hike to the next location—even at those times, the lunacy of the uncomfortability is comforting to me,” he says. “The suffering, the understanding that I have chores to do, that there’s no one here to save me, that I get these wide open landscapes to myself, is just really inspiring to me.”
Lessons From the Wilderness
Vincent’s thirst for adventure, challenge, beauty, and the outdoors was stirred early in his life, when he was growing up in Connecticut. His father owned hunting gear and would occasionally go hunting, but Vincent’s introduction to a life in the outdoors actually began indoors: through reading. Speaking to American Essence, he recalled the beautiful books about the outdoors in his father’s library, such as the works by Jack O’Connor and Aldo Leopold. The wonderfully illustrated volumes told of adventures in the wild. Vincent knew early on that he wanted to spend his life in the world those books described—and he has.Among the trophies Vincent collects from around the world, here’s the most intangible one: the new perspective on life he gains from roughing it in the wilderness. When relying on yourself in the wild, he notes, you have to focus on the essentials—food, water, warmth—which lends a deep lucidity and simplicity to one’s thoughts. The basics of survival focus the mind. “There’s something very precious about just worrying about those elements and understanding that all of those elements are your responsibility [to deal with],” Vincent explains.
By contrast, in a world full of modern conveniences and security, where we don’t have to think about the basics of survival, our minds wander to other worries, becoming more distracted, diffracted, and haunted with anxiety. “We worry about many different things that are poisoning our minds and bodies and stealing our resilience,” he says.
Recognizing the little things, being grateful for them, and living in the moment—time in the wilderness teaches all these things. Vincent recalls an episode while surveying a valley, searching for caribou, when his eyes alighted on a grizzly bear eating blueberries. He “wasted” his morning simply watching the grizzly eat because he found it so fascinating and wanted to just rest in the joy of the present moment. Such an attitude—though honed, perhaps, in the wilderness—isn’t restricted to remote valleys, windswept arctic plains, or silent northern forests. “It’s a state of mind. It’s not a place that we’re going,” Vincent says. “It’s how we’re living our lives.”
Vincent believes we can all benefit from spending time away from technology and in close contact with nature. “If we could all do that—let’s say it was mandatory in some weird, strange, fictitious world—the mindfulness that you would come home with would serve you tenfold.”
He strives to be mindful in his hunting practices by using his skills to help, not harm, wild populations. Hunting is a form of compassionate conservation when it’s used to thin an overpopulated species that risks eating itself out of house and home. Killing a single doe can reduce a deer population by 250 members over the next 10 years. That’s an important step to take when an overcrowded deer habitat makes deer hazardous to themselves and their human neighbors. Vincent has been called in to urban areas on a few occasions to remove does for this reason.
Many hunters, fishermen, and other outdoors enthusiasts keep their finger on the pulse of the natural world. They know what conservation management steps need to be taken and when. This drives a lot of dollars into conservation efforts. As one example, the Pittman–Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937 instituted an 11 percent tax on firearms and ammunition. The proceeds from this tax go to the management and conservation of wildlife.
The Greatest Gift
Far fewer people spend time outdoors today compared to in the past. Even fewer practice the endurance and resilience of Vincent’s lifestyle, and he thinks we’re worse off for it. Resilience, mindfulness, endurance, perspective, and self-reliance “are all things that we have lost as a people, and thus we have weakened ourselves an unbelievable amount,” he says.
What’s the ultimate benefit of enduring hardship, according to Vincent? To learn how to contribute back to society, to give to others, to sacrifice self—whether as a husband and father, a soldier, or a hunter. Too much comfort can make us turn inward, make us selfish and unwilling to give for the good of others—and ironically, in so doing, we deny ourselves the greatest gift we can experience.
Not long ago, he hiked out of the mountains carrying a 130-pound backpack. Walking up a mountain with that kind of weight is a daunting prospect for even the most seasoned mountain man. But Vincent did it to bring back meat for his family, a reality he finds deeply fulfilling. His sense of community extends beyond his family; he has a vision of a society where neighbors selflessly give of themselves and their provisions to one another.
“Nothing by ourselves is meaningful. Nothing. We have to contribute. Being a warrior, being a soldier is fighting for your community,” he says. “When I go hunting, it’s far less serious than that, but I see the same values of [providing] and I get the same feelings.”
