I
drove slowly through the log ranch-style gateway of the Grousehaven Hunting
Camp that day in 1988 in Ogemaw County,
Michigan with apprehension in my
heart. I didn’t know how I’d react to being back there under the circumstances.
I had flown from Gainesville to Atlanta
to Detroit and
then on to the Midland-Bay City-Saginaw (MBS) airport. This was the airport
Fred and I and the other Bear Archery traveling people generally drove to from
Grayling on all of our business travels.
On this particular day I rented a car, put my suitcase on
the back seat and set a rectangular black plastic box on the dashboard. I drove
the quiet trail roads through Grousehaven, which had been our Bear Archery
hunting camp for decades. Here, each fall, we would gather with our salesmen,
selected customers and some of the people from the factory to enjoy one
another’s company, to bowhunt the whitetails that came out of the surrounding
swamps, and to introduce our folks to our new products and advertising for the
coming year. Grousehaven was about an hour’s drive southeast of Grayling, just
a couple of miles southeast of Rose City, Michigan.
This is how I’ll always remember Papa Bear, strolling along a trail road in Grousehaven in the fall looking for deer sign.
The Bear Archery Getaway
We’d have groups in for a week at a time, and Bear Archery
would spend tens of thousands of dollars to host its guests for the month of
October. We paid rent on the property, travel for our guests, licenses, food,
incidentals, etc. And we did not skimp on the food. Although Fred wasn’t a heavy
eater, he wanted to make sure his guests were well taken care of. Matter of
fact, one of Fred’s favorite meals in camp, other than fresh deer liver and
heart, was asparagus soup. I think it reminded him of his boyhood days in Pennsylvania cutting the
asparagus in his Mennonite maiden aunt’s garden and then taking it to market
with them early in the morning in their horse-drawn spring wagon. Often, Carrol
Wert, our camp cook and Grayling area portrait photographer, would make up a
pot of the asparagus soup just for a treat for Fred.
Carrol had owned the Lone Pine Inn in Grayling for quite a
long time and was an excellent cook. He’d always get things going for supper
and then slip out to a nearby tree blind just east of the main lodge at the
edge of one of the grass runways for the evening’s bowhunt. That way he could
be back to finish preparing the meal when the rest of us hunters returned. I
often hunted out of his blind when he didn’t want to go out. Never shot an
arrow there, but saw a lot of does and young deer. Never a buck. But it was a
“golden blind” from which to hunt, especially since it was within walking
distance of camp in case of rain or heavy snow.
Ray “Hap” Fling, our Bear Archery sales manager was the
“Huntmaster” of Grousehaven during these hunts in the later years, and his
ever-present smile and laugh brightened up many a hunt for all of us. Fred
often said that the white-tailed deer was the most difficult big game species
that he hunted in any of his world travels. And when one of us was lucky enough
to score, Hap always saw to it that we had help tracking, field dressing and
bringing in our venison for the buck pole next to the main lodge. We’d often
have three or four deer hanging there aging in the cool October sunshine
against a backdrop of colorful fall foliage. Those of us who wanted meat for
the freezer were not above hanging a tender doe on the buck pole, either.
We generally hosted about 100 hunters each fall at
Grousehaven. And after our customers and salesmen left, Fred always let those
of us from the factory—supervisors, foremen and managers come over for a nice,
long hunt. A wonderful bonding experience for us all. During those times, I
generally came over and enjoyed doing some of the cooking. I especially got a
kick out of fixing Larry Bland, our head maintenance guy, instant grits for
breakfast! That always was a light-hearted moment between Larry and me during
the hunt. He was a great guy, with a wonderful manner and smile.
Military Muscle at Grousehaven
Grousehaven was a 3,000-acre prime hunting area adjacent
to the Rifle River Recreational Area in the forests of northern lower Michigan.
The roads in Grousehaven were named after famous people who had hunted there.
There was Arthur Godfrey Drive,
Hoyt Vandenburg Circle,
Munger Alley, Boutelle Circle,
Curtis Acres, Alger Road,
Everett Circle, Harley Earl Road, Remington Road, Winchester
Drive, and, of course, there was Fred
Bear Circle.
This was property owned by Harold R. “Bill” Boyer of
Grosse Pointe, Michigan,
a former General Motors vice president who had been in charge of their GM
Cadillac Cleveland Tank Division and the architect of GM’s Air Transport
Division during World War II. Mr. Boyer helped manage the nation’s aircraft
production during World War II and the Korean War. In the Korean War he was in
charge of all aircraft production. His official title was Chief of the Aircraft
Manufacturing Branch of the U.S. War Production Board from 1941 to 1943, and
Chairman of the U.S. Aviation Production Board during the Korean War.
He had also been the GM vice president in charge of the
Defense Systems Division and in the early 1960s he supervised tests on
experimental vehicles for possible use on the moon. General Motors later built
the lunar rover that the astronauts used on the moon during the Apollo 15, 16
and 17 missions.
It was at Grousehaven that Fred taught such people as Gen.
Curtis LeMay (who would later run for president of the United States)
to shoot the bow and arrow. At the time Fred first met him, Gen. LeMay was the
Commander of the Strategic Air Command and later U.S. Chief of Staff. Others
who were among the regular Grousehaven gang were television personality Arthur
Godfrey; Harley Earl—head stylist at General Motors for 35 years whom you might
have seen portrayed in Buick television commercials; Dick Boutelle, the head of
Fairchild Aircraft; Larry Bell of Bell Aircraft; Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg (for whom
Vandenberg Air Force Base is named); and four-star Gen. Hank Everest, head of
T.A.C. The current president of GM at the time would also join in the annual
hunt.
Fred’s friendship with Arthur Godfrey led to several
appearances on his national television program and a trip to Africa
together in 1964 where Godfrey took some trophies with his bow and arrow, and
Fred took a 4-ton bull elephant with his bow. All this news was sent back to
the U.S.
on tapes recorded around the campfire by Godfrey and Fred and later heard by a
national radio audience. This really put bowhunting on the map! I can remember
listening to them on the radio before I went to work for Fred.
Gathered here at Grousehaven during the early 1950s were
some of the biggest names in aviation on their annual deer hunts where they
could let their hair down, hunt during the day and help plan out strategy for
the war going on in Korea
at the time in the evenings over a libation.
When Arthur Godfrey visited the area again in 1977 he told
the local Bay City Times
newspaper that, “If people only knew how many Washington
decisions were made at this Rose
City (Grousehaven) cabin
... they would be shocked.”
