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ENLARGE
For almost 80 years, Pete Serafin hunted and brought animal mounts and artifacts from his adventures back to his rural Roseburg area home. Here Serafin, a real estate broker by trade, sits in his trophy room.
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ENLARGE
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Craig Reed
Out There
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Pete Serafin was ram tough.
I don’t mean the four-wheeled kind that rolls along over the ground. I do mean the four-legged kind that climbs ragged, rocky mountains and peaks. I’m sure he hunted in some places around the world where no other hunter had previously been.
Serafin at 5-foot-7 was short on stature, but the barrel-chested man was tall on toughness. He ventured into many wildernesses in pursuit of big game, hiking into the harsh cold at over 20,000 feet in the mountains of Afghanistan to bring down a Marco Polo ram and into the heat of Africa at sea level to take a lion.
His passion was hunting. Because of his success as a hunter for 80 years, he’s a hunting icon in Douglas County, and his name and prowess are also known in international hunting circles.
Age hardly slowed him down. A couple years ago, the 90-year-old tagged a mature bull elk in Alberta, Canada. He was probably quietly planning another hunting trip for next fall, but finally his vitality and stamina came to an end. Last Tuesday morning, at age 93, he died.
Serafin lived most of his adult life in the Roseburg area. His home was on his ranch in one of the small valleys lying between Roseburg and Glide. His profession was real estate broker, and he was also involved in Roseburg city government.
I didn’t meet Serafin until about 15 years ago. Being an Outdoors page reporter, I interviewed him about hunting. He was pushing 80 then, but he was still traveling to wild places and still seemed very much in his prime as a hunter.
At that time, I could only wonder and marvel at how physically and mentally fit he was for his hunts.
At his home, he pointed to a 70-pound round millstone tied to a backpack and to the steep hillside across the narrow valley from his house. He explained that with the weight on his back, he went up and down that 200-yard hillside many, many times through the years to physically and mentally prepare himself for the next adventure.
His stamina and ability to keep up on trips and not be a straggler earned him respect from the locals and natives wherever he ventured. While other foreign hunters gave in to altitude sickness or to cold or heat, the compact Serafin was always at the front or near it when hunting.
While there are those who differ with Serafin’s passion of pursuing big game, his hunting and shooting talents allowed him to be an ambassador for his homeland. While others from the U.S. have traveled and shared such talents as athletic, musical, carpentry, medical and farming, Serafin shared his skills as an outdoorsman. He traveled and hunted six continents and most of the world’s major mountains, deserts, rivers and jungles.
His destinations were always more remote than those of most ambassadors. With his soft-spoken, humble approach, but git ’er done attitude, he was easy to like even if he was a rare foreigner to the locals.
In most cases, the money he spent on buying tags was used to manage wildlife in those areas. Local guides, packers and cooks also earned some money, a rarity for some of them, and when he filled tags, the meat went to the locals in his hunting camp, who took it home to their villages. They were appreciative of the meat taken with a high-powered rifle rather than with the less modern firearms or weapons they had for hunting.
As he showed me head mounts, artifacts and souvenirs on my visits to his home, his memory was as strong as his stamina.
He could remember details of each trip, every hunt and of the people who helped him along the way. He explained that one of his keys to success was to read about and study about the country and the people he was going to visit in advance.
He then earned the respect of his hosts by being knowledgeable about his surroundings.
Serafin was never boastful to me or to others that I know of about his hunts.
He loved to share them, but always in an educational manner, giving as many details about the country and the people as he did about the big game.
Thankfully, Jeff Mornarich of Roseburg was persistent enough to talk Serafin into recalling his stories for a book. Mornarich said he couldn’t fathom allowing all of Serafin’s experiences to slip away.
When Mornarich, a hunter himself, first proposed meeting with Serafin to record his hunting history, Serafin asked, “Why?”
Mornarich was persistent and finally it was decided the two would meet once a week for as long as it took to record Serafin’s stories. With some interruptions, it was a five-year project, beginning with the storytelling and finishing with the release in late 2007 of “Itchy Feet: The Life and Hunts of Pete Serafin.”
It’s a perfect tribute to one tough hunter.
• You can reach Features Editor Craig Reed at 957-4210 or by e-mail to creed@nrtoday.com.
I don’t mean the four-wheeled kind that rolls along over the ground. I do mean the four-legged kind that climbs ragged, rocky mountains and peaks. I’m sure he hunted in some places around the world where no other hunter had previously been.
Serafin at 5-foot-7 was short on stature, but the barrel-chested man was tall on toughness. He ventured into many wildernesses in pursuit of big game, hiking into the harsh cold at over 20,000 feet in the mountains of Afghanistan to bring down a Marco Polo ram and into the heat of Africa at sea level to take a lion.
His passion was hunting. Because of his success as a hunter for 80 years, he’s a hunting icon in Douglas County, and his name and prowess are also known in international hunting circles.
Age hardly slowed him down. A couple years ago, the 90-year-old tagged a mature bull elk in Alberta, Canada. He was probably quietly planning another hunting trip for next fall, but finally his vitality and stamina came to an end. Last Tuesday morning, at age 93, he died.
Serafin lived most of his adult life in the Roseburg area. His home was on his ranch in one of the small valleys lying between Roseburg and Glide. His profession was real estate broker, and he was also involved in Roseburg city government.
I didn’t meet Serafin until about 15 years ago. Being an Outdoors page reporter, I interviewed him about hunting. He was pushing 80 then, but he was still traveling to wild places and still seemed very much in his prime as a hunter.
At that time, I could only wonder and marvel at how physically and mentally fit he was for his hunts.
At his home, he pointed to a 70-pound round millstone tied to a backpack and to the steep hillside across the narrow valley from his house. He explained that with the weight on his back, he went up and down that 200-yard hillside many, many times through the years to physically and mentally prepare himself for the next adventure.
His stamina and ability to keep up on trips and not be a straggler earned him respect from the locals and natives wherever he ventured. While other foreign hunters gave in to altitude sickness or to cold or heat, the compact Serafin was always at the front or near it when hunting.
While there are those who differ with Serafin’s passion of pursuing big game, his hunting and shooting talents allowed him to be an ambassador for his homeland. While others from the U.S. have traveled and shared such talents as athletic, musical, carpentry, medical and farming, Serafin shared his skills as an outdoorsman. He traveled and hunted six continents and most of the world’s major mountains, deserts, rivers and jungles.
His destinations were always more remote than those of most ambassadors. With his soft-spoken, humble approach, but git ’er done attitude, he was easy to like even if he was a rare foreigner to the locals.
In most cases, the money he spent on buying tags was used to manage wildlife in those areas. Local guides, packers and cooks also earned some money, a rarity for some of them, and when he filled tags, the meat went to the locals in his hunting camp, who took it home to their villages. They were appreciative of the meat taken with a high-powered rifle rather than with the less modern firearms or weapons they had for hunting.
As he showed me head mounts, artifacts and souvenirs on my visits to his home, his memory was as strong as his stamina.
He could remember details of each trip, every hunt and of the people who helped him along the way. He explained that one of his keys to success was to read about and study about the country and the people he was going to visit in advance.
He then earned the respect of his hosts by being knowledgeable about his surroundings.
Serafin was never boastful to me or to others that I know of about his hunts.
He loved to share them, but always in an educational manner, giving as many details about the country and the people as he did about the big game.
Thankfully, Jeff Mornarich of Roseburg was persistent enough to talk Serafin into recalling his stories for a book. Mornarich said he couldn’t fathom allowing all of Serafin’s experiences to slip away.
When Mornarich, a hunter himself, first proposed meeting with Serafin to record his hunting history, Serafin asked, “Why?”
Mornarich was persistent and finally it was decided the two would meet once a week for as long as it took to record Serafin’s stories. With some interruptions, it was a five-year project, beginning with the storytelling and finishing with the release in late 2007 of “Itchy Feet: The Life and Hunts of Pete Serafin.”
It’s a perfect tribute to one tough hunter.
• You can reach Features Editor Craig Reed at 957-4210 or by e-mail to creed@nrtoday.com.
