From the moment Larry Baesler came to work for the Elk Foundation 10 years ago, he was a formidable force of good. Larry had a heart as big as elk country and his courageous battle with cancer inspired thousands of us in the RMEF family. He passed away on September 7. We miss him dearly, but his lasting legacy will endure in the wildlife and wild places he loved. Larry’s longtime friend, hunting partner and colleague, Mike Mueller, pays tribute to him here.

—David Allen        

Larry was always there in a pinch, ready to lend a hand or an ear, always looking on the bright side. That made him a great hunting buddy, the kind of guy who set up camp before anyone else arrived and brought homemade meals ready to heat and eat after a long day’s hunt. But Larry was well known for experimenting with his recipes, so it paid to be careful about what he set in front of you—especially if it was one of his stews. Those things might contain just about anything that moved. One morning we were hightailing up a mountain, chasing a bugling bull, when I had to make an emergency stop behind a tree.

“What in the world was in that stew last night?” I gasped.

As Larry headed off up the mountain after the bull, he said over his shoulder, “Yeah man, that was alligator tail!”

I also remember a September night on a mountaintop, lying under the stars in our sleeping bags after hiking for hours to get closer to the elk, imagining getting a shot at a big bull, when a flying squirrel sailed overhead from tree to tree. It was the first one either of us had ever seen, and I know Larry was already calculating what seasoning he would throw into the pot with that critter if he could catch it.

Larry came on as our North Dakota regional director in 1998, and just in that first year he launched four new chapters, all of which are still going strong. Every time I attended a North Dakota banquet and scanned the list of auction items, I found a donation from Larry—another of his awesome handmade hunting knives: the blade forged from tractor spring steel, the handle carved antler, with a rattlesnake’s rattle embedded in it. Even a rattler wasn’t safe on the Dakota prairies when he was around!

In 2004, Larry became our Black Hills Conservation Initiative director, and that’s when his passion was truly unleashed. He became a man on a mission to conserve the country he loved. Larry completed 19 permanent land projects in the Dakotas and Wyoming, forever protecting almost 20,000 acres of prime elk country. By the end of this year, we hope to wrap up five more conservation easements he was working on, securing another 1,359 acres of Black Hills habitat. Larry took pride in every one of those projects, but the crown jewel for him was a place called Wildcat Canyon. Wildcat lies directly between Wind Cave National Park and the Black Hills National Forest. Developers would have paid a fortune for these 2,400 acres—an incredible mix of native grasslands, springfed creeks, ponderosas, oaks and ash, where more than 200 elk and a wealth of mule deer roam. Home to both mountain lions and bobcats, the deep, twisting canyon more than lives up to its name. It’s just one of those spots where you feel the magic.

I had the humbling privilege to sit with Larry and his family in his last hours. He taught me how to live and die with grace and dignity. The next evening, a few of us went out to say goodbye to him in Wildcat Canyon. Hoping we might hear a bull bugle while we toasted Larry, my son Ben sent a call out into the canyon. The night was clear, all the constellations were showing off, and a shooting star streaked beneath the half moon.

Presently, Larry showed up with all the boys. Bulls started bugling above us, below us, to our right, our left. By the time we finally headed home, eight different bulls came in and sounded off. We’ll never really know if Larry was with us in Wildcat Canyon that night. But I know for sure his spirit will always be there where the bulls will forever roam wild, free to serenade anyone lucky enough to listen on a September night. God bless him.

— Mike Mueller, Lands Program Manager

For a few of our favorite images of Larry, along with a wonderful note from his son-in-law Matt Hager, click here.