story and images by rebecca dorian

i wedged my feet between a toolbox to keep from falling out the back of mike quinn’s red flatbed truck as he drove us to the highest point on his farm. shouting from the driver’s seat, quinn’s words were barely audible over the sound of the engine, and i felt sorry to miss anything he had to say. i originally sought out quinn because i was interested in speaking with local hunters. growing up outside of atlanta, my dad hunted most of the meat my family ate quail — with a shotgun, and deer, turkey, and elk with a compound bow. weekend mornings were spent with my sister practicing our archery skills in the backyard, and we would occasionally drive outside of the city to shoot clays.

i felt strange bringing my elk jerky to school, and embarrassed when friends would come over and see our taxidermy lined walls. while i don’t personally hunt, i feel pride in this aspect of my upbringing, and wanted to explore the hunting culture in addison county.

after asking around about local hunters, my friend and passionate photographer yahya and i drove 15 minutes off campus to quinn’s farm. we would end up engaging in what would become a conversation about so much more than hunting. 

quinn grew up in hinesburg, vermont in the ’60s, a childhood he refers to as “pretty much continuous hunting, fishing and trapping.” now 70 years old, quinn sports a long white beard, and his bright blue eyes shine from beneath his worn cap. he moved to the middlebury area in 1979, where he runs his small farm and sawmill, “mikey’s mill.”

he spends his time tending to his roughly 30 sheep, which graze brush until he eventually processes them for meat. before raising sheep, quinn sold hay, but he got out of that about two years ago when prices collapsed during the nationwide agricultural depression. and prior to that he shipped milk — that is, up until 2020 when he sold his last replacement heifers. 

aside from life on the farm, quinn is an agile musician who is skilled in both the banjo and concertina. his band, which includes middlebury college professors, is one of the many ways he is involved in the middlebury community.

hunting as a practice

quinn describes himself as a firm believer in hunting, which he argues is “just one step away from farming, which is more managed wildlife.” he sold the exclusive hunting rights of his land to the warner family, friends and neighbors of his. the warners hunt all kinds of game with a variety of tactics, from bow and arrow to muzzle loading rifles. quinn is passionate about allowing the warners’ now roughly 40-year stewardship of his land continue until he “drops dead.” 

quinn’s preferred hunting practice is small game — partridge, squirrel, duck. he told us, “if i went out hunting, i wanted to come back with something.” while hunting used to be more of a food source for quinn, he now does it for animal control, which he explains is “a necessity in an agricultural community.” recent medical operations have limited his mobility, but he still keeps his .22-caliber shotgun propped against the wall by the front door, ready to shoot possums, skunks, and coons from the front porch. 

the relationship quinn describes with hunting on his land is one of true stewardship. he hunts what is needed to protect his crops and maintain the health of his farm, while ensuring that the land continues to provide for others. 

those who are estranged from agricultural communities often view hunting as an evil act, but quinn instead holds the view that killing is a part of his responsibility to effectively care for the land. he also remarks that his instinct for hunting goes beyond just wildlife management, connecting it to a predatory instinct.

he compared the feeling he gets before a successful shot to knowing he has a winning raffle ticket. “the feeling i had knowing i was gonna win is the same feeling i have when i know i’m about to flush, take aim, fire, and be successful […] i recognize that [predator] feeling.” 

my dad has expressed a similar sentiment, claiming that he knows if a shot will kill the animal the second he releases the arrow. the act of hunting seems to intimately connect the hunter to their prey, creating a true connection to and appreciation for one’s food. personally, when i know exactly where my food comes from, i am much more appreciative and less likely to waste it. to be so closely engaged with the meat which we consume, to me, feels like an ultimate form of respect towards the animals which nourish us.

bridging the gap

a main theme of our conversation was division: between the college and the locals, farmers and city folk, liberals and conservatives, and so on. quinn expressed frustration towards the way he feels that mainstream liberal culture views hunting and farming.

in the media, these pursuits have often been depicted as the lifestyle of an uneducated, backwards-thinking, rural population. this stereotype may be partially kept alive by a failure from urban populations to actually interact with hunters and farmers to build their own opinions. 

when discussing addison county specifically, quinn remarks, “it’s like there’s two different populations that don’t know one another.” he continues, “people are not aware […] they didn’t even grow up going home to grandpa’s farm. so they just plain don’t know anything about it […] this is how trump got elected.”

quinn leans forward, his shift in tone hinting at frustration.

“[farmers are] treated like a minority, by an uneducated urban majority, with excessive regulations and so forth. that resentment is what caused trump, which was a very, very bad thing. i mean, it just so happens that all of us agree with that.” 

the sense of disconnection that quinn so eloquently touches on speaks to a greater cultural divide between people whose lives are tied to the land and those whose aren’t. a key takeaway from the conversation that yahya and i had with quinn is that bridging these gaps requires genuine curiosity and conversation between people with different experiences.

engaging with local farmers like quinn, and spending time off campus, can help dissolve those barriers in the middlebury community. it is through those kinds of exchanges that people can begin to replace the kind of schism that quinn so aptly describes. 

the power of storytelling

quinn’s stories often take exciting twists and turns, a characteristic he describes as “[going] off into the weeds.” one of yahya’s and my favorite tales began with him catching a skunk in a coyote trap. “if you’ll cooperate, i’ll let you out of that trap” he recalls saying to the skunk. “but otherwise, i’m gonna beat the heck out and kill you.” he describes creeping close to the skunk, trying to soothe it — “take it easy, skunky, take it easy.”

it’s then that quinn drops his funniest line of the afternoon, “every book will explain that the skunk has to have all four feet on the ground to spray […] well, this skunk hadn’t read that.” he pauses for laughter before finishing the story: “and, of course, when i open the trap, he rolls out of it […] i see this skunk rolling in slow motion, and a stream of yellowish stuff ends up hitting me, right? and then, oh, my god […] i went to the nearest puddle […] i was very disappointed with his manners. […] so the worst thing i can call anybody would be an ungrateful skunk.”

for quinn, storytelling is more than entertainment, but a way of connecting. through his stories, he invites others into his rich and colorful world. sitting in his kitchen, laughing and comfortably switching between conversations of farming, politics, childhood memories, and everything in between, it was easy to see how simple conversation can bridge differences between people who might otherwise have little in common.

in a place like addison county, where divides between locals and college students can feel stark, quinn’s stories remind me that conversation, especially when it wanders into the weeds, is sometimes the most powerful tool we have for crossing those divides. i entered his house nervous about how i may be perceived, if i would ask the right questions, if i was intruding. by the time we left, i felt joyful and assured.  even my face was sore from smiling and laughing all afternoon.