Taxidermy That Is And Isn’t
In Seattle, several of our neighborhood bars have chosen taxidermy as the cool du jour. Animal heads watch over hipsters eating (very sustainably-raised beef) burgers and drinking micro brew or Rainier Beer from the can. But the Days Inn in the Thermopolis, Wyoming, outdoes them all. Their Safari Club restaurant is thick with trophy heads (and some very big fish) from around the world. Hundreds of photographs line the walls, taking you back to the days of Roosevelt and Hemingway when men wrestled with large animals from the wilds of Africa to the mountains of Montana wearing short shorts, carrying big guns and documenting it all. If you’re anywhere in the area, I highly recommend a visit. (And if you’re not going to go for the chicken fried steak, the shrimp alfredo is excellent.)
If you’re as lucky as my brother’s friend Doug, you might inherit some taxidermy from your great uncle. (Below, Doug teaches his great-uncle’s deer about the Constitution.) For city dwellers with modern homes (or anyone who likes the animal but not the taxidermy part) you can create your own trophy wall with bison, buck, moose or rhino made out of cardboard. If I hunted, as our friend Raven does, to keep our house in elk meat for the winter, I would hang the racks on our trees, as he does, strung up with lights as a greeting, an honor, a reminder.
