MOTLEY, MINN. – The alarm went off at 5 a.m. Saturday, rousting Rick Storck and his three hunting companions from the darkness in their hunting shack.
Another deer season had arrived.
A gas generator sputtered to life outside, and electric lights hanging from the ceiling shattered the darkness, revealing one of the most unusual hunting shacks in a state brimming with them.
Hunting "shacks,'' of course, range from fancy cabins to modest homes, old trailers, RVs, tents and rustic shelters cobbled together.
But Storck and pals have a real novelty: a 40-foot-long wooden railroad car, likely built in the early 1900s. The solid-oak car — once a dining car for railroad workers — is showing its age but refuses to die.
It's tight and dry inside, warmed with a propane heater and adorned with deer antlers, posters, photos and assorted memorabilia.
"We just keep patching it up,'' said Storck, 76, of Greenfield, a retired cop who spent 37 years with the Minneapolis Police Department.
"I really love this place. It's good and solid — and different,'' he said. "It holds so many great memories.''
There's no running water; they haul water in 5-gallon jugs. The outhouse is a large steel fuel tank with a hole cut for a door.
"We got tired of squirrels chewing on the [wooden] outhouse,'' Storck said. "We figured let them chew on this.''
There's a stove to cook on, and a microwave.
"We had a TV for years, but the antenna blew off the roof and we haven't bothered replacing it,'' Storck said.
The car is about 8 feet wide, with a 9-foot-tall ceiling, making it long and thin, but it sleeps up to seven comfortably.
Like other hunting camps, this one is ripe with memories, stories and lore.
Storck bought the train car for $155 in 1966.
"They were phasing out the wooden cars and wanted to get rid of them,'' he said. He went to the railroad yard in Brainerd to have a look.
"They had all sorts of cars, sleeper cars, refrigerator cars. I had always wanted a caboose, but I knew they were a little small. This was a crew dining car. It was like a regular boxcar, but with four windows on each side and a door on each end.''
At the time, people bought the old railroad cars for pig or cattle sheds, tool sheds, machine sheds — or cabins. They became legendary in Minnesota's backwoods but are as rare today as 20-point bucks. The late Minnesota artist Les Kouba immortalized train-car hunting shacks in a painting he called "Boxcar Bush & Deer," inspired by a boxcar shack he spotted near Pine River, not far from Brainerd.
Storck paid $70 to have the 40,000-pound car, sans its steel railroad wheels, hauled by truck to 40 acres he bought for $100 near Motley in 1965. "We put it on railroad ties,'' he said.
Do the math. Storck invested a total of $325 for 40 wooded acres and a hunting shack — a deal even back 50 years ago.
"I was lucky,'' he said.
They have added a side door, bunks, a new roof and a propane stove to replace the original coal-fired one. New knotty pine adorns the bunk area.
The windows, their trim painted red, still have the thick steel mesh the railroad put over them for security. The car's red exterior is faded, and the steel climbing ladders on each end are well-rusted but still solidly anchored.
Hunting buddies gone
Storck relishes telling hunting tales from yesteryear, but the memories are bittersweet. For decades, he hunted with pals Gary Swanson of Hampton and Ed Nuquist of Edina. "We had a lot of fun together,'' Storck said.
But both men died of cancer about 10 years ago. "It made a big difference,'' Storck said. "I have no one to say, 'Remember when.' ''
He feels sad about losing his friends, but he's been making new memories.
This season he was joined by son-in-law George Meyer, 41, and grandson Vincent Meyer, 11, of New Prague, and Dennis Stoltman, 70, of Sauk Centre, brother of Ed Nuquist. Another son-in-law and two grandsons planned to arrive Sunday.
"It's good to be here,'' Storck said while cooking a dinner of venison sausage, potatoes and carrots Friday night in the shack.
George Meyer has hunted at the shack for the past 10 years. "It's definitely one of a kind,'' he said. His son was on his first-ever deer hunt. "It means a lot to spend time with grandpa,'' Meyer said.
A blustery start
Storck, Meyer and son, and Stoltman headed out in the darkness Saturday morning to enclosed deer stands, hoping to get lucky on another deer opener. The camp has had many good seasons, but deer have been scarce the past few years.
"Fifteen years ago it sounded like a war, there were so many shots in the morning,'' Storck said after getting settled in his 4-foot-by-5-foot stand. "It's hard to believe there were that many deer.''
Shots echoed in the woods Saturday, but far fewer than normal. With the temperature at a tolerable 30 degrees and a biting northwest wind that swayed bare aspen trees, Storck sat for nearly six hours, watching the woods for movement. Four ruffed grouse crossed a trail near his blind at 7:30, and two others walked past a couple of hours later.
But by 11:30, he hadn't seen a whitetail, and he climbed down from his stand and headed back to the shack for lunch. I headed to a computer and a motel to write this story, while Storck went back to his stand around 1:15.
"I had my radio on and was listening to some music when I saw a doe come out on the trail to the north,'' Storck reported. "She came straight toward me, and I shot.'' The group's first deer of the season was a nice 140-pound doe. (The group's permit area is "hunters choice,'' meaning each can take one deer of either sex.)
"When I got down and went to find her, I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye,'' Storck said. "There was a nice buck, six points or maybe eight points, running through the brush. I didn't have a good shot, so I didn't shoot.''
But he bagged another story for the deer shack.
Doug Smith • dsmith@startribune.com
Twitter: @dougsmithstrib
