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
Late Season Waterfowl
I’ve been waterfowl hunting the wrong season my whole life. Was always eager come early September to chase the birds that found the first cereal crops knocked down. Error. I did that this year, as always. I spent some special time butchering geese with my buddy Blair, tossing the odd super-lean carcass 20′ away or so to give the swarm … Read More
Oh, Christmas Fawn. I mean, tree.
Umpteen years of getting Christmas trees at IKEA. I’m a serious scrooge when it comes to box stores combined with the month of December [thank you online shopping]. I think at some point one of the kids mentioned this fall that we should cut our own tree from the forest. It was a done deal before they’d finished their sentence. The … 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
FROM THE WILD – S1E11 – MATCHES & TINFOIL
This is the first episode where we get to meet ‘the’ John Schneider – a dear friend who happens to have a former life as a high profile hunting and fishing guide. John also happens to be an organic grain farmer [@goldforestgrain]. John also happens to be a super nice guy. This episode, title included, is a nod to the story arc … Read More
FROM THE WILD – S1E9 – THE LAST TEN YARDS
Some of my earliest memories as a kid are connected to a white, 100+ year-old house with a huge multi-burner wood stove in it, and the smell of grassland sages. My dad would take my brother and I there a few times a year, mostly chasing waterfowl, the odd grouse, and later deer. They’ve been going down there for 40 … 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
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
Whitetail Hunt #2
So apparently fate would have it that last year’s season of harvesting zero big game was to be juxtaposed with 2013’s crazy successful season. First morning out deer hunting, I filled my general whitetail tag. Bought supplemental doe tags because I didn’t think I’d actually shoot my elk. Being as it may that hunting is the new golf for business … Read More