Hunts On Outfitting Podcast

Encountering The Untamed North

• Kenneth Marr • Season 1 • Episode 45

Share episode

Send us a text

Ever wondered how a latecomer to hunting can transform a sport into a lifelong passion? Meet Matthew from Northern Ontario, who transitioned from soccer and whitewater kayaking to becoming an avid big game hunter. His journey led him from a small-town upbringing to thrilling elk camps in Alberta with his uncle and friends. This episode uncovers the challenges and triumphs within Alberta's elk draw system, offering listeners a glimpse into how hunting became the heartbeat of Matthew's vacations and life choices, evolving into a year-round devotion.

Brace yourself for tales of adrenaline-pumping moments and close encounters in the wilds of Alberta and Nunavut. From tracing cougar tracks to startling run-ins with skunks, each story captures the unpredictability and excitement of the great outdoors. Matthew also takes us on a vivid journey to Nunavut, where the isolated beauty of Iqaluit serves as a backdrop for hunting adventures. With anecdotes that paint a picture of unexpected encounters with wildlife, listeners will be transported to the untamed landscapes that define these once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Venturing even further into the Arctic, Matthew shares his unforgettable experiences hunting alongside Inuit hunters, navigating treacherous terrains and embracing traditional practices. Discover the delicate balance of preserving wildlife while participating in age-old hunting traditions, as Matthew reflects on the joy of documenting these cherished memories. Through vivid storytelling, this episode captures not just the thrill of the hunt, but the enduring value of preserving these stories for generations to come. Join us as we embark on this captivating exploration of hunting across Canada's diverse landscapes.

Check us out on Facebook and instagram Hunts On Outfitting, and also our YouTube page Hunts On Outfitting Podcast. Tell your hunting buddies about the podcast if you like it, Thanks!

Speaker 1:

this is hunts on outfitting podcast. I'm your host and rookie guide, ken meyer. I love everything hunting the outdoors and all things associated with it, from stories to how to's. You'll find it here. Welcome to the podcast, all righty. Welcome to hunts on outfitting podcast. We're happy to have you tuning in and listening. If you could share us out and leave us a review, that'd be great from all of you all right? So this week on the podcast, what do elk camps in alberta and caribou up in Nunavut have in common? Not too much other than the fact that our guest today has been to both places and hunted both animals, and we're excited to hear all about it. So let's get to it. Yeah, I mean so. Thanks so much for taking my call, matthew, and so you're living in Ontario right now, but you've bounced around a few different places, have you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's correct. I'm a resident of Northern Ontario, now near Thunder Bay, but I've carried driver's licenses in three, four provinces in one territory. So it's been a fair bit of moving around, both for well, some for work, but also just sort of you know, trying to find my way and what I was going to do in some of my earlier years.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely Just going. You know you had time to do that then and do some adventures and scout around a little, I guess.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:

So I mean you were saying you emailed me, me you're gonna get your start you said around 26 in big game hunting. So I mean a bit later. Uh, you know, I guess kind of some people start quite young, but you, uh, you've definitely made up for for that starting a bit later. You've been on, uh, quite a few adventures yeah, I did.

Speaker 2:

Uh, I did start, maybe later than some people do.

Speaker 2:

I have some hunting in the family, but not a lot of serious hunting, and maybe my focus when I was younger was more on sports and adventure, recreation and that kind of thing, and so it wasn't until I kind of got over some of those things, wasn't playing soccer anymore, wasn't doing any whitewater kayaking, and was able to come back and then spend some time with my family, with my father, and start into big game hunting and start into big game hunting, which then kind of took off as my primary directed recreation, as opposed to, as I said, as opposed to taking whitewater kayaking trips. Now I took some hunting trips as I developed after a few years in but yeah, starting in 26, some people grow up in a hunting lifestyle, whether they have property on a farm or something like that, and that wasn't me. I grew up in a small town and spent more time on the soccer football field than out in the woods. Yeah, I mean, both activities can be quite time the soccer football field than out in the woods.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean both activities can be quite time-consuming, whether it's sports or hunting. I mean you have your weekend warriors, but hunting is one of those things I find that it's hard just to dip your toes in. Like if you're going to get committed to it, you try to put in a lot of time, and if you don't have that time, a lot of people just kind kind of it either doesn't come up or it just kind of phases out of their life a little bit sure it can be lots of things right.

Speaker 2:

It can be, uh, one week a year for people going to deer camp or going to moose camp, or it could be um something that if they have time or if they get an invite they come out and do a duck or goose hunt or something like that. Or for others, it can be something that they think about and they plan for and they book their vacations around and sort of work through it all year, whether that's scouting or whether that's different hunting seasons or that kind of thing year, whether that's scouting or whether that's different hunting seasons or that kind of thing. So yeah, it's uh. It developed more uh of a year-round thing for me, um, after you know, after a few uh and um learning to really enjoy it and learning about other opportunities than uh than just uh go to deer camp with my, my father right.

Speaker 2:

And then, uh, in the email you'd sent me to talk about some of your hunting experiences and all that you're saying, speaking about deer camp, is you guys kind of formed like an elk camp, uh, tradition yes, I uh, I my, my dad is a twin and, uh, his brother lives out in Alberta, and so I flip-flopped between Ontario and Alberta through some of those years trying to figure out what I was going to do in life and was able to get invited out with my uncle and he was part of a group of friends that had property and had a cabin, specifically sort of in the mountains right on the edge for elk hunting really, but also a retreat for snowmobiling and that kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, I stumbled into that and when I got in there and got an invite to come back and realize how special it was, it was something that I sort of committed to, despite leaving Alberta, despite moving away, would stay in the draw and in fact travel and fly out. It'd be hard to say, I don't know whether it was eight or nine years, perhaps I hunted there all in a row oh, wow, that's.

Speaker 1:

Uh. Yeah, that's fortunate. So I was going to ask that with alberta. Uh, it is a draw. It's not an over counter tag for residents, is it?

Speaker 2:

even residents have to apply well, it all depends on which zone, zone and the animal and such. The zone that I was elk hunting in was an over-the-counter bull tag, a three-point or better, but the draw system was for a cow. We often hunted late in the season, having actually migrating animals coming up from uh the states and would would be herds uh of elk, but during that time the bulls were not with the cows, normally it was after the rut in the breeding season and so they'd gone off and uh um. So it was quite valuable to try and get a cow tag and and have opportunity. It took a number of years before I was able to take my first elk, but certainly my first bull.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so migrating up from the States, so are they coming in from Montana?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think so. There's sort of a circle migration, yeah, circling back up through southwestern Alberta corner of BC and then up into the Porcupine Hills north of Pinter Creek area.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, that's neat. You were saying two, three points or better. Is that common for most areas there that they have to have a certain amount of points to be able to be harvested?

Speaker 2:

I think it's often three or three or six uh, some some zones are, are more, and I think you don't often see, I don't think of like a four point, but I think it's normally um sort of a three, which would be a um two-and-a-half-year-old animal normally, or, say, a six-point, which would probably be maybe a five-year-old animal or better. Okay, so the zones would often have the point count that you'd have to meet to be a legal animal.

Speaker 1:

Why do you think they do that? Because I, because they don't do that with deer there. Do they Whitetail or mule deer?

Speaker 2:

No, I've heard of mule deer having a point system, maybe in jurisdictions down in the states, but it is obviously similar to a flock system in fishing. You want to keep an age class, you want to allow some of the young ones to come through, sort of that. Let the small animals mature and or just limit the success rate so often, as I said, those herds might come through, there might be, let's say there might might come through, there might be, let's say there might be 30, there might be 50 cows, there might be half a dozen spike bulls in there, but they'd be like year and a half old bulls and, uh, some likely less than three points, and so then you unable to harvest. So you know, if I could shoot a spike bull I probably would have shot a spike bull almost every year. But having to get three points or better limits the success rate a little bit. Wildlife management is different and all over in different jurisdictions, but that's sort of my opinion and my thought process for the point system Makes sense to me.

Speaker 1:

I was just curious. But yeah, no, that makes sense. So was it a fairly challenging hunt? I mean, you guys are in you know kind of the mountains. Are you bugling and going every day? Are the elk quite responsive? Are you guys hunting them during the rut?

Speaker 2:

No, this was always late season and, like late November, Certainly often very cold, Sometimes lots of snow, Sometimes not. But I definitely say in the mountains, Not full on like Rocky Mountains where there's towering peaks above you, but uh, um, when you got to the top, like you're sort of right near the tree line, uh, um, can be left out and that kind of thing. So it was uh, right right on the border with BC, very close, and, yeah, definitely a challenging hunt. If you're trying to hike hills in minus 20, you're going to be sweating going up but it doesn't take you very long to get chilled quite quickly.

Speaker 2:

And the interesting thing about that which was you know from the Ontario boy, originally we weren't the only hunters out there you would see wolf tracks, you would see cougar tracks and we would see grizzly bears. Maybe every other year you could see grizzly bears or tracks and yeah, it's pretty strange to see minus 20 and two feet of snow and a big boar of a grizzly come cruising over the hill. But that's a little intimidating as seeing cougar tracks in a thick forest area, whatever, and the hair starts standing up on the back of your neck. So it was certainly an adventure and exciting to be in an environment there where it was wild space, that's for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, lots of teeth out there. I've talked to other guys from Alberta and they've had like one of those hair-raising moments where they realized they've been being stalked by by a cat, by mountain lion. Had you ever experienced anything like that, or not, that you know of?

Speaker 2:

Uh, not that I not that I felt that I was being stalked or uh, you know turned around and never saw one. You certainly have those fighting sense moments where things are a little uh iffy, have those 50 cents moments where things are a little uh iffy. I had one day where we'd hiked up, had a big day, came back to the cabin and it was, uh, at least, um, a pasture land where the cabin is and, and the night before we've seen some animals come out of the far end of the field, sort of across the valley. I was like I had to walk over there, take a look at the tracks, you know, maybe I'll learn something. And uh, as I was walking through the grasses, I came across a gunk which I wasn't really expecting. Uh, so I kind of gave that a wide berth, you know, obviously you don't want to run into a skunk, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And then I got to the far end where we'd seen these animals come over, uh, the fence, and it was just covered in cougar traps and I was like, whoa, like these are fresh. They were not here last night, uh, when the they're on top of the elk tracks were not here last night. They're on top of the elk tracks that were there last night, I was like, okay, that's enough for me. It's been a long day, I'm going back to the cabin and so I've already kind of got pumped up. I almost walked into a skunk. Now I'm at the far end of the field and there's cougar tracks all over the place and it's like I am ready to sit down, have a beer and just relax. So I look back and I'm like, yeah, I don't want to walk back across the field because there was a skunk out there and I don't know where it is now. But my other option is to sort of follow the tree line and who knows where this cougar is laying on the tree line.

Speaker 2:

But I'm like that's going to be the safer option. I really don't want to run into a skunk and get sprayed out here.

Speaker 2:

So I'm following the tree line and I'm sure pretty much everybody has had this experience. I had a rough grouse blow out right under my foot. Oh, I had the safety halfway up and I jumped and I was sweating. It was like it just, you know, you just got wound up enough. You got that like tension build up and sort of that little bit of fear, and then that spook oh boy, was it heart pounding.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, I've had some good scares from them here and I'm not worried about, you know, a cougar coming at me, so exactly yeah, they just tend to find their way right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just sit so tight until you almost step on them. I mean, at least you had your safety part way off, like you were ready for a battle yeah, I'm certainly glad it was just a grouse, but he could have left me alone that day and I would have probably saved a few years off by the end of my life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, noah, I mean it sounds really interesting hunting there in the wild Well, I mean, it was in the wild but up in the mountains for the elk when you're competing with so many other predators, I guess that are coming at them. I've heard this I don't know if you've noticed it where the elk in some areas have even gone quieter because the wolves have kind of changed their behavior, where if they're bugling and stuff going on more, the wolves are able to pattern them and track them down quicker.

Speaker 2:

I've heard sort of similar things, sometimes more related to hunters being too vocal, and so I'll kind of move away from the noise and turn quiet. But not having hunted them in September, in that rut period when they're really responding and really talking, I didn't notice much of that. You get into the herds and you can hear those cows chirp, which is quite neat. There is a lot of chatter, but I never bugled and never heard a bugle from a bull During those experiences late November it's just past that time of them talking?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. So I got in contact with you through a mutual friend, chris. He was like are you looking for a guy with more hunting stories? I'm like looking for anybody with hunting stories. So he told me about you and we talked and you you definitely. You know you've been quite a few places on some pretty interesting hunts. But one of them that you'd mentioned to me is quite interested in is you've hunted in Nunavut and I I don't know anything about that, what you're hunting there, how you're hunting them, what the weather's like. So I'm curious if you could just kind of walk us through a little bit of your hunting adventures there.

Speaker 2:

Sure. So I lived in Iqaluit on Baffin Island in, yes, the territory of Nunavut, and I spent about three years there. I was there for work and it's an interesting place. I was there for work and it's an interesting place. Calvert's quite a large city by standards. There was about 12,000 people there at the time. It's a full city Grocery stores, mall, recreation center, movie theater, a couple bars. Da is that. However, it's so isolated like you can't go anywhere. You can't drive out of town. You can take a vehicle to the edge of town and then the road just stops and that's it, and it is the capital of Nunavut and the service center to virtually all of the Eastern Arctic. Most of the other communities from there that you would fly to are quite small, a couple thousand people or so. So going up there, I kind of knew enough to be like, wow, I need a vehicle of transportation, of sorts, and so I got myself a snowmobile.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense for up there, for obvious reasons it was intimidating.

Speaker 2:

The Arctic is a really neat place, but it's super remote and different to a lot of countries that I've traveled before, and so it took me a long time to sort of build that confidence, not only with the machine but also like how far I could travel with the machine and how far and how much I would feel comfortable on the land. They do some interesting things up there. One thing that was just amazing is you can go into the wildlife office, bring your GPS in and they will download a whole suite of maps, waypoints and such, and what they would be is traditional travel corridors, not necessarily trails, because it's above the tree line, there's no trees, but it would be like this is the inland route that people would take to such and such a lake, and along there there's an emergency cabin. Here and here's sort of the river crossing, river crossing or, if you go out across the lake, here's where you can get off the sea ice and up on the land and follow along to travel across to the next community or something like that. So that was one thing that was super cool was like immediately you got a lot of information that you could have at your fingertips on your GPS, lot of information that you could have at your fingertips on your GPS, which the contrary to many local people, many Inuit, that they wouldn't even use a GPS. They have done it, you know, they've traveled it with their family or their parents or their friends or whatever, and these routes and locations would sort of all be committed to memory. Per se, sure, but uh, for, for somebody new coming into the area, having having that information was incredibly handy, especially when times that you might go out during the day and all of a sudden the weather turns and now it is complete white out driving back.

Speaker 2:

And so I spent lots of time with the GPS, like heads up mount on my steering wheel not my steering wheel but my handlebars on my snowmobile and like just staring at it, just zoomed in as close as I could and just following a line on the map which I knew was a safe line, sort of no rocks or no cliffs or whatever. If I followed this line it would get me back to town. So, as I said, there was a big learning curve and a big level of confidence to gain to be able to travel on the land and, as somebody that hadn't been up there very long, didn't know too many people. I had a few other friends that were similar situations, that come up for work and were adventurous, so we did some travel together. But I also was able to get out with some Inuit, uh, both for work but also, uh, recreationally, um and uh, and sort of see how they traveled and learn some other things that, uh, that I did there on my own.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, imagine the land there too. I'm sure it's fairly unforgiving to those that are unprepared and find themselves way out in the middle of nowhere and then possibly without a plan or knowing where some of the safety cabins are, things like that.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. The landscape is very, I want to say, nondescript. Often if you're in the mountains per se bang, you can identify individual peaks and be able to figure out your direction or know where the valley is. If you need to head downhill, go downhill. In the winter the tundra is fairly flat and there are hills and rocks and such, but not identifiable enough for somebody like me to be able to navigate that way on ice. Sometimes there's so many sort of lakes and ponds and rivers inland that when it's covered in snow and ice it just all blends together. You've got no idea. So if you end up in a situation where you're crossing one of the major rivers, you kind of want to be on these travel corridors that might be a safe river crossing. Despite, let's say, you're out in February and it's been minus 20 for three months, you can still come across open water and that's kind of shocking. It makes you think you know these are the precautions and the hazards that are out there and be careful. Yeah, make sure you're not just like freelancing it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly. Wow, that's weird how it all wouldn't freeze up, but just nature. So you did some. So they have a lot of snowshoe hair and they have uh, it's a kind of gross right ptarmigan ptarmigan yeah, so it's a gross like we have rough gross here. Is that their version of that?

Speaker 2:

uh, kind of. Yeah, there are places that the species overlap and that kind of thing. A ptarmigan, like Arctic hare, will turn white in the winter and then back to a molted brown or whatever in the summer.

Speaker 1:

Oh, so they'll turn fully white.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, oh, that's neat.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, just like our snowshoe hare here do, but our grouse species don't. That's cool.

Speaker 2:

Most of my hunting up there was in the wintertime. For obvious reasons, I ended up with an ATV, but you still can't travel very far from land on an ATV. You're almost. I used to and I used to say this, this a lot that I would take my firearm for a walk on weekends and whatnot. I would just during, during, let's say, the summertime uh, I just leave the house with my firearm over my shoulder and go for a walk and hope that I might get lucky and see a caribou, but uh, that was very rare caribou.

Speaker 2:

Numbers on Bacchanal at the time were super low, okay, uh, so most of my hunting was by snowmobile in the winter and charming and raffaella fly and flock uh, not much different than than grouse or sharp tail or something like that, except obviously there's no trees or bushes uh, you'd see them scattered out on the rocks. And the Arctic hare were interesting. They're so big. Even after you shoot one of them, it just usually gets bigger and bigger. It's like carrying a big goose. If you shoot a big Canada goose and you're hanging down by the neck, you have to lift it up so it's not dragging. That's like an Arctic hare. I had to hold it up. This thing feels like it could be 12 pounds or more If you were big, yeah.

Speaker 1:

That's pretty cool. You'd get a little bit of a meal if you got one.

Speaker 2:

Oh, totally, man, Like too much of one. I would make rabbit stew and then I didn't want to eat rabbit stew all week long.

Speaker 1:

So a lot bigger than our snowshoe hare.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So are they just hiding out everywhere?

Speaker 2:

yeah, so are they just darker meat? Um yeah, probably about the same size as a, as a gross really. Um, okay, just sort of breast about that kind of thing.

Speaker 1:

So how do you go about hunting the hair? Like, where do they? It's open there and everything. Do they hide somewhere? They like, what are they eating? And stuff, I guess.

Speaker 2:

They're munching on like lichens off the rocks, okay. So yeah, rocky areas were often the the key to those species and again, like I sort of said, they're so big and whatnot. They didn't shoot a whole lot of hair and whatnot. I didn't shoot a whole lot of hair. You probably had more opportunities than uh, than I really wanted, right, but uh, it was still fun to be out. One thing that I always wanted is I wanted to take an Arctic fox uh, wicky color patterns and such yeah, but uh, uh to hunt you needed permission from the local hunting and trapping association.

Speaker 2:

It's kind of complicated. They have a wildlife legislation like a wildlife act, just like virtually any other province, and in there stipulates your bag limits how many ptarmigan, how many hare, car many hare, caribou, da da da. However, because Nunavut was created with the land claim agreement signing with the Inuit, they have almost like they have first right of refusal to the wildlife and so you have to get permission from the local hunting and trapping organization to be able to then exercise your right from your allowance from the Wildlife Act. And in many places that was fairly easy to do. It just depended on what you were after. So I had to write in to the Hunter Trapper Organization and say, yeah, I'm interested in hare and ptarmigan and fox and caribou say something like that.

Speaker 2:

If I lived in another place, maybe I'd be asking for muskox, or even I could ask for seal or walrus. It obviously depended on where you were, what animals were around, and they might say, yeah, we'll give you permission to harvest ptarmigan and hare, but we won't give you permission to harvest caribou, because there's not enough here and we want that to be uh for our local inuit, uh to harvest. I was able to get permission for the animals and the species that I asked for and then, of course, purchase my hunting license and and carry on through there. But uh, as I sort of said, the caribou numbers on on Baffin were super low at the time. I could purchase five caribou tags, but I only ever filled one in the three years that I was there.

Speaker 1:

Oh really. So why were the numbers down? Is there wolves there? Is there lack of habitat? What contributes to that? I guess over hunting.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, all good questions and sort of all play into factors, right? I think everybody recognizes terrible numbers have been in a decline over the last 10 or more years all over the place and that was the case as well on Baffin. Yeah, the population of the Inuit got quite big and you know, if you're given recreational hunters or licensed hunters five tags a piece, it's quite a few and then Inuit can harvest as they need. That could be a lot of animals. But it's more than that. It's more than the hunting pressure. It's the climate change and the predation and everything else that sort of has influenced the decline across the country. In fact, after I had left, they put a full moratorium on caribou hunting from everybody licensed hunters and Inuit across the entire island to go and then do surveys to see what the numbers were like and then try and bring some of the numbers back.

Speaker 2:

I haven't followed too much since this is going back 10 years ago now, but yeah, in some ways it wasn't too long. I harvested my animal fairly close to before I left. I was like, oh, I might have been the last white hunter to take care of my animal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they were like well, we're going to keep the season going, but somebody harvested one of the last cows in the area. So I mean caribou. Here's a question. I didn't know do they have antlers or horns?

Speaker 2:

antlers, okay however, both male and female can have antlers, and normally do. Normally female have antlers as well, and often much smaller and stunted, and they don't always go hard. I don't know all the details of it, and so I wonder if the cows always lose them each year. Sometimes they just have some growth and they maintain. I opened a picture here, I'm thinking, when my I know, when my dad shot a cow years ago, it was still in velvet, uh, but the one I shot was was hard horned, uh and so. But it's just, you know, you think about a caribou antler, while a cow, caribou is sort of like a little white tail, right, it's only maybe got about 10 or 12 inches of antler growth. These little spindly things.

Speaker 1:

Okay so because I was wondering that, where they both have antlers, if it's hard to tell the difference. Are you looking for balls or what?

Speaker 2:

You might get confused. Uh, very young bulls and cows. Uh, later in the year, I don't even know, maybe when that when I was successful, I want to say it's probably march. I'm trying to think when the season ended. It might have ended at the end of March, so going into April.

Speaker 1:

And then too they travel in large herds, correct?

Speaker 2:

They can Much in some of the larger or some of the larger sort of animal groups. They'd be larger birds. These ones were quite small. There's not as much of a migration pattern on Baffin because there's not huge differences in the geography and the climate and such from across the island. So on mainland the migration is Nifkin and then you get large herds all traveling together and then once they get to their area and they'll spread out during the summer and then turn around and come back together and these animals were much smaller groups and they're still very mobile but it's not a large migration from, say, the north to the south part of the island and then the bikes would soon come back.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so are they. I mean, are they quite spooky? How's the hunt work on trying to sneak up on them?

Speaker 2:

Very good question. So the day I was successful, I was out with three other Inuit a co-worker of mine, her brother and her nephew at least and so we were four of us on three snowmobiles and a comatic. A comatic is a traditional Inuit style toboggan that would be pulled behind the snowmobile, just carrying extra gear and whatnot. So the three of us were out, we left town quite early and away we went and the day was poor to begin with. The visibility was quite bad.

Speaker 2:

I remember getting out on a lake Of course I'm here following on my GPS, so I have some confidence I'm following them. But I'm here following on my GPS, so I have some confidence I'm following them, but I'm following along on my GPS and we got to basically a whiteout on the good-sized lake and ended up doing a u-turn and there was, uh, quite a bit of we stopped and there was quite a bit of discussion going on where we were, where we were supposed to go. I actually brought my GPS out. It might have been a bit of a faux pas, but I kind of showed them the track, that we'd done a bit of a U-ey and that we needed to go this way to continue forward.

Speaker 2:

Well, the day cleared up and we traveled over 100 kilometers away from town, which is a long way, not having anything else out there, right, not coming across anything along the way. We were sort of touring up and down these hills along the side of the lake. I was kind of in the middle and the machine stops in front of me and the guy flings off his rifle and starts shooting. And I look up and there's a herd I think there were eight animals in it, seven or eight, and he just started shooting. Of course the other sled comes up and rifle comes out and starts shooting as well.

Speaker 2:

Here I am going like, ah, I get my rifle out and I take aim and I'm able to drop an animal and kind of call it. I'm like, yeah, I got that one there.

Speaker 1:

Like skeet shooting.

Speaker 2:

Kind of and right there out there, essentially there to fill the freezer, and there's three of them and they're feeding three or four or five families and such which is all fine. Yeah, it's not going to waste, just sort of happened right away as opposed to you know, well, here we go. Okay, you know, sort of call an animal or take an animal.

Speaker 1:

Well, it reminds me of jump shooting a pond yeah, yeah For ducks or something right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly right, it was a little bit about that flock shooting. It was a little bit about that flock shooting and so I think in the end there was one that we didn't take in the herd and then after we went back and took it as well, but we scooped them up on the common tick and drove to a spot that was a little bit of shelter than where we were able to break the animals down and obviously got them out and that kind of thing. So, um, it was, uh, it was, you know, quite an experience for me. I wasn't, uh, I didn't exactly know what I was getting into, where I was going, how far we were going. All of a sudden we see some and I'm excited about taking my first caribou, but I'm rushed or I might not have been able to shoot one, and anyways, we get them back. And I don't know whether it was that day or the next day, but my co-worker was like my brother was pretty impressed with you. He thought he was going to have to cut up your caribou for you, for you, and I was, I was like I want to invite myself out. It wasn't like a. This wasn't a guided trip. I, I know what I'm doing enough to be able to handle myself in a hunting situation. Uh, it's just maybe not comfortable going that far out and maybe knowing where to look on the landscape for them, but uh, it was cool.

Speaker 2:

We cut the animals off and I packed it up on the back of the sled and, uh, what was? What was interesting is we were then later into the afternoon and a long way from town, and to get back was quite an ordeal really. It was a very long way and tiring, and we stopped at one of these emergency cabins that I sort of mentioned, kind of right near dusk, and we stopped and made tea and had a bite to eat and and I kept thinking, oh you know, are we going to get on the road soon? We're going to get going. And they waited, and they waited, and they waited and eventually we got packed back up, uh, probably, let's say, an hour, an hour and a half later. But what they did is they waited for it to be fully dark and then it made travel that much easier.

Speaker 2:

Traveling in that twilight hour with flat light on a real flat landscape is difficult. I talked about traveling in a whiteout but just really hard on the eyes and whatnot. So we waited until it was fully dark and then traveled in the headlights. Now they traveled a little faster than I was comfortable doing. I was getting a little nervous. I could see the city lights on the horizon, but I could also the the fuel light on my snowmobile light up and I'm like holy smoke, I better keep up. Here could still be a long walk from here yeah, that's, uh.

Speaker 1:

Yeah that's, that's pretty neat. So they didn't tell you beforehand. Like you know, if we see a herd like get ready, it's going to be like a wild west shooting arcade, like you know. Call your shot and take it. They didn't, they just didn't really want that part.

Speaker 2:

No, because that's just normal for them, right? Okay, yeah, so say caribou, say seals, say even whales, hunting whales by boat, and some people, and even me in some ways, would call it a bit of a shooting gallery and a little bit scary and uncontrolled that way. But the idea is the harvest, right. I think a lot of us attach the recreation part to hunting, the recreation part to hunting, and so it's about seeing the animal and identifying it and then obviously making an ethical shot and that kind of thing. Well, for these people particularly that I was with and many Inuit, it is about harvest and about bringing meat home and so it doesn't matter who shoots the animal right, as long shoots the animal right, as long as the animal gets shot and you're able to collect it and bring it home. So, uh, definitely a different in sort of idea and strategy.

Speaker 2:

Uh, and and then, not understanding the other side, I remember having a conversation later on with another Inuit who I thought should have been knowledgeable enough about sort of hunting laws and such to recognize that I had a hunting season. I kind of got another invitation to come out caribou hunting and I was like I can't, the season's closed and I got a really blank, confused. Look. What do you mean? The season's closed. I was like I am not allowed to hunt caribou after such and such a date because it falls outside the legal hunting season for me.

Speaker 2:

And so, yeah, a different perspective. And you know their way of life is hey, this is caribou season, let's go out and collect as many caribou as we can. Okay, now this is fish season, we'll go and set our nets and get fish and have it and share it. This is the time to go on and get seal, or the community's got a license to hunt a whale. We're going to get a whale together and everybody's going to help in and share in the harvest. So just a bit of a different perspective that I wasn't prepared for. But then they weren't sort of expecting me to want to take the time and, like you know, see the animal and identify it and make a shot and be like really proud that here's my first caribou yeah, yeah, no, it's, that's interesting.

Speaker 1:

You know we're here. Yeah, obviously it's identifying it. Okay, is this the one you know and one everyone knows who shot it and this and that. But it's uh, I mean their way of doing it too. It's not, it's not wrong, it's just different. Where they they're getting it for, for meat they're getting, they just want somebody or everyone to get it and everyone's going to share it yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:

And I liken it to sometimes in deer camp where you're party hunting, say, you're partying, hunting in a group of six and you've got two people dogging and four blockers. Well, if deer come out, the blockers are supposed to be shooting. Oh, it wasn't big enough. It wasn't a big enough block, I let it go. Well, you've got two people with them walking around in the bush working hard, that are likely not going to get a shot at a deer. They want you to take the opportunities that they provide for you by pushing deer out and, uh, and successfully make the kill. Um, whereas, yeah, if you're, if you're bow hunting in your back, in your tree stand, uh, you're probably being very selective and and you're you're identifying either a mature buck that you want or, what have you right, a lone doe or something like that, and so you're waiting for that animal and looking for it to be successful and being selective on the harvest, whether it's for a trophy or whether it's for the betterment of the species or the local animal population.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's interesting just hearing about the hunting in Nunavut and the perspective there that they have and how they're hunting. It's just a different way of our hunting, and I guess I've always thought of we all hunt the same, but some people really do rely on the meat more and it's their way of life and tradition, and it's so much different. It's cool, though, to hear about that. It's unique. Yes, it's unique.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it's similar to what I see here in northern Ontario at the time, with indigenous hunters harvesting moose. Sometimes for them it is just going out and taking the first animal that they're able to find. Sometimes, and because they have a much longer opportunity and able to take different animals at different times, uh, they can be selective and looking for that young bull so they get sort of the maximum, uh, size and amount of return and, and you know, quality of meat. But uh, uh, it is about the harvest, about bringing something home, whereas I certainly find value and it's very important, of what I put in my freezer, but I also am always looking for the experience and the enjoyment of the hunt. That's what's drawn me to hunting is the opportunity to to get outdoors, seeing new places, be in the wild uh, you know, see wild life and and then challenge myself.

Speaker 2:

And I, you know I'm not going to shoot the first little buck that comes out this year, I'm going to wait or I, uh, I got to find that, uh, that five point bowl Cause I just been staring at fakers for the last four years.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, no, exactly, um, I think that's a great spot to leave it for, uh, for this episode, but I'm hoping to have you on again because we've still got your New Zealand and your African hunts and, uh, alberta as well. Uh, it's uh. Yeah, you've said you've had some unique hunting experiences and the Nudavit one definitely was one of them. But, yeah, I can't thank you enough for coming on and I can't wait to hear about some more of your adventures.

Speaker 2:

Sure, I would be happy to do that. It's been fun, it's been interesting to reminisce and go back and look at some of those fine points. I have kept a list, almost like a bit of a diary, year after year, of what I've done, and part of that is because I have hunted in different places and I've moved around to try and keep track and so they're all stories right, I don't have my caribou antlers on the wall, it's just a little cow, but I have some pictures. And then, to talk about it more, I remember little bits of that hunt and the experience that bring back those memories and show why those experiences are so valuable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I could tell when you were telling the stories how you were reminiscing and you know just from what you were telling I could tell you were visualizing all of it and that you had a lot of fun and it was quite an experience.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for your time.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for yours, okay, and yeah, we'll talk again. Absolutely have a good night, okay, bye, bye.