EatWild Podcast

The face of hunting in North America is prominently white. Is there a place for people of colour in the hunting community?  Can we make the hunting space more inclusive? I think so, but we have some work ahead to make the hunting community more welcoming and inclusive. 

 

In this episode, I am joined by Jimmy Flatt the co-founder of Hunters of Color. Hunters of Color was founded by Jimmy Flatt, Lydia Parker, and Thomas Tyner in August of 2020 with a mission to share a love for the outdoors with everyone.  94% of the hunting community is white. HOC believes that the "Outdoors are for Everyone," and is forging a road ahead to welcome a diverse community of new hunters.  

Jimmy shares his personal journey of being a passionate hunter in a community dominated by people who don't look like him. We chat about implicit racial bias and how we can build awareness through education, with the goal of breaking stigmas and stereotypes concerning hunting.

 

Here is the link to the MeatEater Rebuttal by HOC. 

 

Find HOC here!

 

Thanks for listening. 

In this episode, I am sitting with my good friend Jody Peck of Wild Northern Way, happy that the spring foraging season is finally here. 

 

We are talking about harvesting wild plants from urban settings and the forest in a sustainable and ethical way, the seemingly daunting duty to process them the importance of finding fun ways to prepare them. We touch upon the ephemeral nature of the foraging seasons with the added engagement that brings and, at the same time, the stable nature of discovering your foraging spots and maintaining them through respectful harvesting practices.

 

There are many edibles out right now and many more about to start coming out soon through this foraging season. We are getting excited about hosting a foraging workshop series this spring. 

We are conspiring to teach our guests to ethically forage wild edibles and how to make delicious and beautiful food and cocktails with the harvest.

 

Book your spots for the foraging workshops here.

 

You can find Jody Peck on Instagram @wildnorthernway and through her website wildnorthernway.com. 

If you’re a Vancouver Canucks fan, hunting enthusiast, or a passionate fisherperson you’ll enjoy this episode. I’m joined by Brendan Morrison, 15-year veteran and star of the National Hockey League. Brendan is a local legend from his years centring the West Coast Express line flanked by Todd Bertuzzi and Markus  Näslund that generated some of the most exciting moments in Canuck history. 

 

Brendan Morrison has always been a passionate fisherman which has led him to produce and host the Reel West Coast fishing show in his retirement.  Fishing led Brendan to discover hunting after his hockey career.

 

I invited Brendan on the podcast to talk about the journey to become an adult-onset hunter.  We get into a few great hunting stories and valuable lessons learned.  We chat about the barriers and opportunities for how to get into fishing and hunting. 

 

Brendan shares his passion for scoring goals, catching fish and hunting critters on this episode. This one was lots of fun. 

 

instagram/reelwestcoast

The iHunter App is an essential tool for the new Hunter. Apps like the iHunter tool have changed how I approach hunting entirely. E-scouting, orienteering, checking regulations, and recording where and how I hunted an area have all been improved with the innovations of the app world. The Hunter App brings together multiple essential app tools to make hunters more effective, safe and help hunters stay on the right side of private property boundaries and regulations.

 

In this episode, I'm joined by Mark Stenroos, iHunter App developer, and my hunting partner Jenny P.  Mark breaks down the functionality of the app and the benefits of the tool.  Jenny and I share how we have adopted the app into how we hunt. Along the way, we chat about getting lost and found and our favourite hunts.

 

Join us for our next EatWild E-Scouting Webinar.

 

ihunterapp.com

 

instagram@ihunterapp

 

instagram@jennyp403

 

 

Are we losing our social license to hunt? 

 

Social license refers to the perceptions of the public that deem an activity as socially acceptable. The concept of an activity requiring a "social license" emerged in the 1990's as the natural resource industry realized they needed to build public and stakeholder support for resource extraction projects to be successful. 

 

A recent article published by Chris Darimont in the Society of Conservation Biology Journal applied the concept of social license to hunting. The study suggests that the public perception of hunting carnivores can pose threats to the social license for carnivore hunters and potentially other hunters. 

 

The article kicked off a storm of discussion and reaction within the hunting community.  There has been a call to action across social media platforms encouraging hunters to take action to "defend" hunting rights.  What are we defending, what's the battle, who are we fighting, who started it, what's at risk.... are we just fighting ourselves?  

 

I have a lot of questions and I am confused, so let's have a discussion. 

 

I have invited Jenny Ly with Chasing Food Club and volunteer with BC Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and Jesse Zeman, BCWF director for Fish and Wildlife Restoration on to the podcast to try to understand what's happening in our community.  We talk about our interpretation of social licence and how, as a hunting community we can build our social licence

 

We are living in an era where images and storytelling inform public perception.  

 

What is the impact of the images we share?  Can we do a better job of telling our stories?  

 

Please share this podcast. 

  

Note: In our discussion, I overestimated the number of new hunters. Based on the stats that I have, there has been an increase of 11,000 more hunters purchasing licenses in 2021 than in 2011. 

 

Total BC Hunting Licenses Issued:

2010/11 - 95,000

2020/21 - 106,000

Sandra Riches is the Executive Director of the BC AdventureSmart program and she joins me on the podcast to talk about how search and rescue works in BC, using the AdventureSmart App to leave a trip plan, and the essential gear to make hunting and foraging adventures safer. There's lots of good info in this podcast to stay safe on your next adventure.

Everything is "unprecedented" this past year, including the number of search and rescue calls for people on outdoor adventurers. More people than ever are getting out into our wilderness to take refuge from the challenges that have come with the pandemic. AdventureSmart and Sandra Riches are working to reach folks to help them get prepared for their outdoor adventures so their trip doesn’t result in another call to 911.

Find out more about AdventureSmart and download the trip planning app here: adventuresmart.ca

We survived 3 days of the storm and then another 5 days of being stuck in the tent waiting for the skies to clear.  So that's about 192 hours with 4 guys sharing 36 square feet of real estate.  We pulled it off and we are all still friends. Catch up with our crew as we debrief the Pole Bender Adventure. We reflect back on the decisions and the gear that kept us safe. Also, we share another near-disaster story as we make the flight out of the mountains.  Lots of good info in this podcast if you are planning an adventure hunt this year. 

Thanks for listening!

Cliffed out, rained out, blown out and snowed out: the pole bender adventure. 

In August 2019, I set out with my hunting crew on a caribou hunting adventure in the mountains of the Tahltan Traditional Territory in Northern British Columbia. Idyllic summer days strolling across the mountain tundra spotting caribou and goats, everything was going according to plan.  But our plan took an unfortunate turn, and an unseasonably harsh arctic storm front blasted our camp with hurricane-force winds and 3 feet of snow. We went from hunting to surviving. Taking shelter in the tipi tent, we took turns keeping the center pole from snapping as we held down the tent praying for the storm to let up. Join us for this three-part series on the Pole Bender Adventure. These are great episodes if you're planning an adventure trip in the wilderness. We talk about the logistics of planning a fly-in trip, trip safety plans, emergency communications, and a little bit about sneaking up on goats. I hope you enjoy this.  

You can find the article by Cleston Lee in the 02/2021 BC Outdoors Magazine. 

 

Cliffed out, rained out, blown out and snowed out: the pole bender adventure. 

In August 2019, I set out with my hunting crew on a caribou hunting adventure in the mountains of the Tahltan Traditional Territory in Northern British Columbia. Idyllic summer days strolling across the mountain tundra spotting caribou and goats, everything was going according to plan.  But our plan took an unfortunate turn, and an unseasonably harsh arctic storm front blasted our camp with hurricane-force winds and 3 feet of snow. We went from hunting to surviving. Taking shelter in the tipi tent, we took turns keeping the center pole from snapping as we held down the tent praying for the storm to let up. Join us for this three-part series on the Pole Bender Adventure. These are great episodes if you're planning an adventure trip in the wilderness. We talk about the logistics of planning a fly-in trip, trip safety plans, emergency communications, and a little bit about sneaking up on goats. I hope you enjoy this.  

You can find the article by Cleston Lee in the 02/2021 BC Outdoors Magazine. 

 

In this episode, I am catching up with my friend La’goot Spencer Greening. La’goot is a Tsimshian leader, storyteller and academic. In addition to being a passionate hunter and forager, La’goot generously shares his perspective around the importance of Indigenous knowledge and stewardship of the land.
 
I wanted to ask La'goot about his perspective on ceremony around the hunt. This past hunting season I witnessed a range of ceremonies that hunters practiced after taking the life of an animal. At one end of the spectrum, I overheard what sounded like a new years eve celebration as a couple of nearby hunters got lucky on the road, to being part of Miki's first hunt where her ceremony involved calm moments of contemplation as she processed the experience of taking her first animal.

We start with a question about holding a ceremony after taking an animal’s life and dive deep into a conversation around rituals, that, in some traditions, start a long time before the hunt takes place.

La'goot shares his experience of the role that his community, elders and mentors play in learning rituals and developing the practice of ceremony. We reflect on how having those connections can help new hunters be more present in their actions and have a mindful experience when faced with taking an animal's life.

This podcast goes in a few more interesting directions. I am grateful for these insightful conversations with La'goot, and I feel fortunate to be able to share them with our listeners.

Reading recommendations:

1. Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview - by Eugene Richard Atleo
2. Spirits of our Whaling Ancestors - Revitalizing Makah and Nuu-chah-nulth Traditions - by Charlotte Coté
3. Ecologies of the Heart: Emotion, Belief, and the Environment Hardcover – by E. N. Anderson (Author)

For more time with La'goot listen to episodes 27 and 28 of the EatWild Podcast.

More about La'goot Spencer Greening:

Spencer’s Ph.D. research emphasizes the importance of Indigenous knowledge and stewardship of land in the context of colonial management practices and law. Specifically, it explores how the connections among Indigenous pedagogy, language, and the sharing of place-based knowledge are linked to heritage preservation, identity, and more sustainable environmental management. Spencer is analyzing one of the  Cultural Keystone Places  in his home territory, in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest, where his Elders were born and raised in a life of fluent Gitga’at culture, language, and ecological relationships. By working with their ancestral knowledge systems, he is able to highlight local Indigenous knowledge and its vital role in academic scholarship, Canadian law and policy, and the promotion of environmental awareness. His research is also unique as it is led by his community and rooted in Indigenous research methodologies and frameworks. This ensures its contributions to cultural continuity, self-determination, Indigenous research, and decolonization.

 

You can find La'goot here.

 

Please review and share this podcast! 

 

Thanks,

Dylan