The only hunting I did as a kid with any regularity was grouse hunting. Every year. We’d go mid September around my birthday when the leaves were mid-change and the frosts getting hard at night. A few decades later, and I’m hunting grouse with Hank Shaw, at the same time of year. By this time we’d already spent a few … Read More
Squirrel, Grouse, and Everything Nice
Hunting season had just started, and Hank Shaw was going to be arriving in a week or so. I had plans for our fledgling bushcamp prior to his arrival, the most important of which was getting a tent frame built out of the surrounding black spruce. I have an aluminum frame for the tent, but hauling it had proved to … Read More
DOPPLEGANGER MEETUP
So it turns out Hank Shaw and I both eat quickly. We both regularly drink Calvados. We have about the same amount of grey in the beard, both hunt/fish/forage, and generally speaking we see the world much in the same way. Who knew. I told him it’s a good thing we’re not married. I met Hank online about 10 years ago when … Read More
COOK IT RAW ALBERTA – CAMP
Today Cook It Raw launched the first teaser piece from our stay on Cucumber Island – pasting it below. The series will be broadcast on Munchies – the first piece on Sept 15, which happens to be my birthday. The second part is a mid-length piece explaining the project, and providing a glimpse of life on the island, our bison hunt, … Read More
FROM THE WILD – S1E8 – FOUR YEARS
Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. This is unquestionably the longest hunt I’ve ever been involved with. This one’s the conclusion to S1E8, the last of the unplanned multi-part episodes from season one. I’m not sure the story line could better put into question the issue of bow hunting vs rifle hunting, at least for us. It’s a … Read More
FROM THE WILD – S1E6 – REDFIST
This episode was a turning point for me and this series. After quite a few months of talking to TV channels and an american distributor, and concluding that conventional television distribution wasn’t a good fit for this particular project, I finally got shooting to the kind of content I wanted to show – field dressing, harvesting of offal, skinning – … Read More
SLOW FOOD IN CANADA
Back in the spring of 2014, I was approached to produce a video for Slow Food in Canada, with the broad mandate of exploring what Slow Food in Canada ‘is’. It meant trips to Vancouver, Vancouver Island, the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys, central Alberta, Montreal, Vallee de la Batiscan, Lanaudiere, Cocagne in New Brunswick, Toronto, Tatamagouche Nova Scotia, and more, it’s … Read More
FROM THE WILD – S1E5 – DEFLECTION
This trip was intended to be easy. We were supposed to be going into a part of the province where game was rampant and our pockets burst with big game tags. Do a little fishing. Set up camp. It only ended up being a handful of those things. One reality that didn’t make the edit but had a big impact on the … Read More
FROM THE WILD – S1E3 – BEAR
Don’t think I wasn’t apprehensive about tackling this one. When the prospect of bear hunting for From The Wild first came up, I scoffed. I’m now firmly on the opposite side of that fence. Rationale: Spring bear is not in fact fatty at all, which many claim is what makes it ‘gross’. Bear meat is far from ‘gross’, and in … Read More
FROM THE WILD – S1E2 – MEADOW
“the level of excitement when you catch a fish, that could only be measured against the incredible periods of boredom, and the immense amount of struggling – you’re battling the elements, and you’re suffering. Only through that suffering can you know the joy of when you actually get a fish up on the ice” – Jeff Senger, From The Wild, … Read More