The Core Sound Decoy Festival brings heavy traffic to a quiet portion of Harker’s Island, North Carolina. This weekend I spent some time exploring the festival with some friends. We had a much longer attention span for wooden ducks than we ever imagined. Although I have never spent more than a moment considering the quality of a decoy before the festival, the rapid exposure to hundreds of ducks made for a quick education in craftsmanship. We found numerous varieties of ducks and other shoe birds, whittled in a range of style choices. It became clear fairly quickly which carved decoys, and their vendors, had true character: the finest decoys had beautiful carved details, such as feather lines and a precisely shaped beak, while the most interesting vendors shared stories about the history of the decoy or the carver.
Decoys at the auction.
At the festival I also tested my skill shooting a full quiver of six arrows with a modern bow. This brief introduction was a lot more challenging that I anticipated. The tension of the bow as you draw your elbow back is quite strong. The instructor, a friendly, round gentleman dressed all in camo-gear, insisted that I use good form, and press the taught bow-wire against my cheek, so that I could easily look through the ‘peek-hole’ at my target, a pockmarked styrofoam fox. Although my arm was shaky by the last arrow, the instructor complimented my “nice grouping” of arrows in the fox’s shoulder.
Introduction to archery at the Decoy Festival. I shot that styrofoam fox!
After several hours perusing the beautiful carved birds at dozens of vendors, I started to wonder what it meant for a small part of local culture focus so much energy and money on the industry of making and collecting wooden ducks. Most of the people perusing the decoys for sale appeared to be duck hunters – older gentlemen wearing camouflage – or their wives looking for holiday gifts. The festival did have a few beautiful (living) ducks on display outside – most memorably, a beautiful Canvasback, which has a roan head and neck, a black beak and chest, and a creamy, canvas-colored back and wings.
Redheaded duck. Photo by Just Chaos, found on Flickr.
Seeing the living originals, and their likenesses re-created with infinite variation at the festival, helped me to appreciate the finer craftsmanship of several vendors. Although I do not personally agree with hunting for sport, I hope that the celebration of the art of decoy carving is in a way a celebration of the beauty of dozens of species of birds. I also hope that this energy at the festival could be harnessed and turned towards conservation efforts for the hunted and beloved birds. With this in mind, I would suggest that the festival would be a good outreach opportunity for Ducks Unlimited, a wetland habitat conservation organization founded by sports hunters. Even without an environmental message, I am optimistic that an event such as the Decoy Festival would at least inspire visitors to spend more time looking for the birds that sit replicated beautifully in wood on their bookshelves.
Pair to be auctioned - not sure if they're redheaded or canvasbacks, but they're lovely.
