My family has been of Wisconsin soil since 1855, when they homesteaded a slice of prolific prairie in the Red Cedar Valley. At large, the halcyon days of living off the land are all but a memory, but the values impressed on me from the toils of my family’s labor is as expansive as the prairie from which they’ve sustained their livelihood. Despite its sometimes controversial and maligned portrait in the public conscience of today, historically, hunting has been an example of fortitude and ethical subsistence. Since peaking in the 1980s, participation in the sport has steadily declined. Photographing this tradition has allowed me to ask questions I’ve had since I was a child, wary of life many Americans were born into living, but may leave in search of another. Dormant Seasons is an investigation of my origins through the regenerative themes of birth, growth, and death. It questions nature vs nurture: who we are and how we came to be through land and culture and is a microcosm of the larger story surrounding the soil, streams, and fields that have fed America for over a century.