I bring you an electronic post card from the edge of America. This particular edge is located in the town of Gardiner, Montana, at the 45th Parallel; half way between the Equator and the North Pole.

The town of 500 people is nestled in a valley on the North side of Yellowstone National Park, just below the snow capped peaks of the Absoraka Mountains. The parking lots are full of pick up trucks hooked up to horse trailers. The horses are corralled behind the motels which stretch out along the river. Here and there a gutted elk carcass rests in the back of a truck. The recently killed critters are tied up to create bizarre bondage-like trophies. Heads with giant racks of antlers poke up from the trucks like some larger than life hood ornament. Legs and hooves stick out in strange angles like frozen contortionists.

They're still warm to the touch - the last thing they saw still blazed across their frozen eyes. This is not an animal rights rant; fact is that Yellowstone has so many elk on its range that the herds are overgrazing, destroying the ecosystem.

Every fall and winter the herd must be culled; or as the biologists like to say, "harvested". Yet the reality of these management hunts creates a surreal scene. The whole town has blood on its hands. The carnage is everywhere, like a battlefield after war - the dead and dying litter the field and the victors celebrate. You can smell the blood in the air.

These hard-core hunting enthusiasts ride horseback in sub-zero weather into chest deep snow to bring down a 800 pound animal. They gut it on the spot, hopefully before grizzly or wolves come to claim it, and then drag it back to the road behind their horse. Gardiner at this moment is a town full of people who do this. Its a Nascar race for people who shoot big animals - hog heaven for the big boys. At night they drink pretty hard, resting their beer on pot bellies, and drawing smoke across their big yellow teeth and spittle encrusted facial hair. Tiny women giggle and fawn over them like they knew where their next meal was comin' from - Not Safeway, these guys are gonna kill it for them!

As I sit in the bar I'm embarrassed by drinking a nice Chardonnay. I think about returning to my room and swapping my turtleneck for a plaid shirt. I leave the bar after dinner; you guessed it, steak, medium rare, and head into "town" and another bar. This one is peopled by a jovial but smaller crowd who are here too, for "winter elk". There's a welder, and a retired park employee, and the editor of Gardiner's only newspaper, (the "Howler - All the news that's fit to scream about") published once a week.

By the time I arrive the place is rockin' and we start talking. The hunt, I learn, is lousy this year because its so warm and the elk are staying up in the park, the snow just hasn't driven them down. Most years the hunt is more like plucking lobsters from a tank. Locals joke that the winter elk hunt in Gardiner doesn't require a rifle - just a loaf of Wonder Bread and a ball-peen hammer. Before I know it, one of the old timers has produced a dozen eggs and starts cracking them on the side of the glass and plopping them in to his beer. The scene is now complete; drunk hunters, dead elk and a chicken embryo in my beer. They all know I'm an outsider and watch me navigate their peace offering. All eyes on me as I sneak up on the glass. Jokes about what the consistency reminds them of going down and how the quality of the egg can be determined by the fact that it sits in the middle of the glass; doesn't sink to the bottom, doesn't float to the top.

As I stare at the yellow orb I'm reminded of an edible lava lamp. I'm also reminded of the fact that I detest most eggs, soft boiled eggs make me wretch just eyeing them from across the room. This due to the fact that my mother, may she rest in peace, force fed me soft boiled eggs from the age of three until I was seven. I mean, pushed my face down into the gooey platter, or held my mouth wide open and shoved them in with a spoon. So here I was in a town of killers with blood on the sidewalks, drinking egg in my beer. Perfect. I drink the beer, wretch silently and imperceptibly as the egg slips over my palette, and receive a standing O from my new friends when I slam the empty on the bar. I leave the smoky noise of the Wapiti Bar and slide out onto the cold, desolate street where I can hear the single electric sign blinking ON and OFF almost a block away. I cross the bridge above the Yellowstone River and return to my motel where more icy dead stares greet me from the back of trucks. I go down to the corrals to see the horses, perhaps a subconscious need to see and touch a living animal.

As I stroke the muddied mare I think about what a harrowing day she must of had; walking through hip deep snow with a 300 pounder on her back, standing perfectly still while a 30 ot 6 cracks out a shot. Riding over to the warm animal and watching while it is butchered, splattering the snow with blood.Wondering how long it would be before the bear and wolves arrive.In the cold of this very early morning I could feel all those thoughts in the heart of that mare while I stroked her mane. Skittish at first, then slowly calming down. I fed her some grain and she got quieter still. Then it hit me - I doubt she felt any of those things - she was happy to be eating grain - and hunting was simply life and death - simpler than my own life -much simpler.

David Vassar, a long time friend of mine, is a brillant film director. This essay was written during a film project on Yellowstone. This is where the first of our National Parks has been compromised by the roaring of as many as 2000 snowmobiles a day. Animals are no longer free to roam, that's for sure.– Richard Blair, editor.