News that my friend Mike Strandlund had died came unexpectedly yesterday. Like me, Mike lived in Minnesota. The fact that he died in an “accident,” so far from home, in the Philippines, by drowning, left me empty.
Mike was the long-time editor of Bowhunting World magazine. We had a serendipitous 23-year friendship, formed in the strangest manner.
In 1990 I had just left an editor’s position at Bowhunting World magazine to take a managing editor’s position with the North American Hunt Club. At that time, I had a sweet 20-acre plot of private bowhunting-only land with some really good deer on the edge of the west metro of Minneapolis. Of course, I posted my hunting area with No Hunting signs to keep it undisturbed. I decided to scout the area from the outside-in one evening just before bow opener. As I glassed from a nearby church parking lot, I couldn’t believe my eyes. A guy was walking through the area, accompanied by a dog that was obviously hunting up and flushing pheasants. Since he was coming my way, I hustled out to meet him, and to ask if he could read and why he was trespassing. He played dumb, “Uh, oh,” he said. “I was just working my dog.” Then, after apologizing, he began asking me about my deer hunting. He seemed more than casually interested in the bowhunting aspect and said he had just taken a job as an editor of a bowhunting magazine…”with Ehlert publishing.” I about fell over. Here was the guy who had taken the job I had just left! What are the odds.
And that was the start of our friendship. A couple of years later, I ended up as an editor at Petersen’s Bowhunting, and would stay with that publication for the next 15 years. Mike and I were competitors, but only on paper. We stayed in touch, not frequently, but regularly, shared hunting stories, compared industry tales, talked about our dreams, our relationships and most anything else friends talk about. Since I had moved to California to take the job with Petersen’s, Mike inherited some of my good hunting spots in the west metro of the Twin Cities for deer and pheasants, including copiously hard-earned details about how and when to access and hunt them. There were few people that could have earned that kind of trust, but Mike deserved it, and he always made a point of sharing tales of adventure about those memorable spots when we got together.
As little as I saw Mike (at trade shows mostly), we found time for each other when the phone rang and one of us needed to compare notes on some industry dilemma or personality or any other part of our job that needed sharing and comparison. Somehow, we each seemed to be able to ground the other with information or advice–after all, we faced many of the same day-to-day challenges for those many years.
Mike and I seemed bound together by so many odd events. One year we were both asked to have our heads publicly shaved bald as a fundraiser to benefit cancer research. I well remember sitting on stage with Mike next to me and enjoying the crowds’ laughs and catcalls as our hair dropped to the floor. Whoever cut Mike’s heir left a crest at the top that made him look like some strange breed of chicken, a view that had everyone around him in stitches. Two weeks later we rendezvoused to compare heads at another show.
We nearly worked together at one point. Mike lobbied his employer, Grand View Media, to find a place for me when I left my position at Petersen’s Bowhunting and Wildfowl magazines, but things just didn’t fit at the time and I was already deep in the planning stages of starting my own magazine.
The last time I spent quality time with Mike was at a trade show “Shooting Day” event. We spent most of a day together knocking around the event, lingering over a long lunch and comparing notes on our jobs and sharing very personal stories about our relationships and our families. I’m not even sure how much we really saw of the event, because we were so embroiled in really deep conversations. That’s what was possible with Mike. He offered a real level of trust and honesty that I’ve found in few others. I think a lot of people found that in him.
I’m going to miss the guy. Check that. I already miss him. I wonder what really happened down there in the Philippines and I’ve already fantasized gong down to research the story myself, picturing an “Outside Magazine” type of adventure/mystery that’s worth solving. I know Mike was crazy about fishing and I wonder if his death had anything to do with some fishing adventure that went awry.
It’s a tough way to say goodby, with no goodbye at all. All I know for sure is Mike trusted me–what a compliment from someone you respect. I now have to trust that he knew what that meant to me.
Thanks Mike Strandlund, for unquestioned friendship. It’s been a good journey. RIP.
Mike loved to hunt, AND FISH.
Not sure if fishing had something to do
with his drowning.
Photo courtesy of Patrick Meitin.
