B&C Member Spotlight — Glenn St. Charles

By PJ DelHomme
Photos Courtesy of T.J. Conrads at Traditional Bowhunter

Modern-day bowhunting pioneer and Pope and Young Club Founder Glenn St. Charles normalized bowhunting and helped shape it into the sport it is today.

When he was just 15, Glenn St. Charles was shooting sand sharks along the shores of Puget Sound with a crude bow of hazelnut strung with meat-wrapping twine. He was shooting willow arrows tipped with sharpened nails. That’s how little boys entertained themselves back in 1926.

When he joined the Boy Scouts, he learned about using wood from the yew tree. He began building bows for other Boy Scouts who ordered them. Then, he taught archery at Camp Parsons, a Scout summer camp on the Olympic Peninsula. His love for archery was born. 

Working at a dude ranch in Wyoming around 1930, he met and married Marjorie Ernestine Kneisel, with whom he started a family. She passed away in 1948, leaving St. Charles to raise their young daughter, Linda.

In the years that followed, St. Charles married Margaret Lorraine Remick and dedicated himself to growing his archery business, opening Northwest Archery Company in 1949. The shop became a hub for bowhunters and archers throughout the Pacific Northwest, known for its custom-made bows, arrows, and broadheads.

St. Charles didn’t just build bows. He knew that if the sport (and his business) were going to thrive, bowhunting needed to become more accepted, more mainstream. As the Vice President of the National Field Archery Association (NFAA) in the 1950s, he played a pivotal role in the establishment of bowhunting seasons across the United States. Frustrated by the lack of recognition and respect for bowhunters, he set out to change the narrative, working to prove the effectiveness of archery equipment and the ethical nature of bowhunting.

"Hunt ethically and in fair chase. You’ll know the feeling when you have done it right." 

Glenn with a Rocky Mountain goat he killed while hunting in Tweedsmuir Park in 1955.

St. Charles and Boone and Crockett 

In 1957, the NFAA decided to keep track of big game killed with a bow. They asked and were granted permission from the Club to use B&C scoring forms. St. Charles took it a step further, asking for help measuring antlers and horns, but he did not get an army of Official Measurers at his disposal. Instead, St. Charles got a copy of the measuring manual, measured a small blacktail buck, and sent the rack and the score sheet to Sam Webb, then records chairman at B&C. Webb’s response was a certificate to St. Charles appointing him an Official Measurer (OM). 

When the NFAA launched the records program in 1958, “All hell broke loose!” wrote T.J. Conrads in Traditional Bowhunter. “Mail suddenly began to pour into Glenn’s office. People finally felt they had a place to hang their hat, something to prove. It was so overwhelming Glenn started to charge .50¢ to enter an animal in the records. From this point on it was all on Glenn. He and his local committee ran the records program by themselves.” 

The awards and records program eventually split off from NFAA, and in January 1961, the Pope and Young Club (P&Y) was formed, with St. Charles serving as its first president. The launch of P&Y helped bowhunters gain national recognition and acceptance. St. Charles had recognized the need for a dedicated organization that could champion the cause of bowhunters and help dispel the negative stereotypes (think “doe killers”)  that had long plagued the sport.

Under his leadership, the young club gained traction, attracting a growing number of members and enthusiasts. Today, P&Y boasts 6,304 members and more than 127,000 records. 

As if starting a conservation organization dedicated to bowhunting and bowhunters wasn’t enough, St. Charles devoted dozens of letters and years to convincing Club members to create a category for Roosevelt’s elk in tribute to his favorite big game animal. Unlike today, prior to 1979, the Club only had a category for American elk. 

St. Charles hailed from the Pacific Northwest, and he admitted in Bows of the Little Delta that “My favorite animal to hunt was one that we in Washington have always called the Olympic elk, otherwise known as Roosevelt’s Wapiti.” Using his position as an OM, instructor, and judge for the records program, he was constantly studying Roosevelt’s elk, their habitat, and their antlers. At every opportunity, he would bend the ear of any member who would listen. On a mission that started with a letter to then-club secretary Betty Fitz stating his case for a new category, St. Charles finally got his new category in 1979. 

LEFT: In 1957 Glenn and Keith Clemmons ventured north into the Little Delta region of Alaska looking for unique bowhunting opportunities. Here Glenn admires a fine Barren Ground caribou he took there. RIGHT: Glenn took this Canada moose while bowhunting in Tweedsmuir Park in British Columbia, 1954.

In 1980, amid some controversy, St. Charles was elected a member of the Club. When his name was brought up for consideration, at least one member protested, pointing to the Club’s membership requirement that all members must have taken at least three male big game species with a rifle. Granted, bowhunting was not on the radar of founding members when they created the bylaws in 1887, but St. Charles helped pave the way for other bowhunting members like Fred Bear, Dr. William C MacCarty, and Dr. Randall Byers. 

"You don’t really know a person until you have hunted with them."

In his later years, St. Charles remained an active and respected figure in the bowhunting community. He was inducted into the Archery Hall of Fame in 1991, and he published the classic Bows on the Little Delta in 1997. In that book, he writes of his adventures hunting with Fred Bear and others, and he also makes some predictions that ring true today. Regarding the rise of technology and industry in hunting, he writes, “Through the years, subtly we have gone from hunting, defined as ‘a walk in the woods’ in pursuit of animals to accepting under the heading of progress, every conceivable gadget and method that the shooting sports industry can devise to kill animals faster and farther.”

When Glenn St. Charles passed away on September 19, 2010, at the age of 98, the bowhunting world lost a legend and pioneer. He was a tireless advocate for the sport, working to dispel the negative stereotypes that had long plagued it and to prove its effectiveness as a hunting method. He helped to establish bowhunting seasons in states across the country, and his writings and lectures inspired countless bowhunters to pursue their passion just as he did. 
 

Member Spotlights

Boone and Crockett Club members have come from a cross-section of famous accomplished people whose lives and careers have written and recorded the history of this country since the late 19th Century. They have been naturalists, scientists, explorers and sportsmen, writers and academicians, artists, statesmen and politicians, generals, bankers, financiers, philanthropists, and industrialists. Their diversity of ideas and activities during their careers have made the Boone and Crockett Club rich in its fellowship and achievements. To read more member spotlights, just click here. 

PJ DelHomme writes and edits content from his home in western Montana. He runs Crazy Canyon Media and Crazy Canyon Journal.