EatWild Podcast

In this episode, we're joined by Thor Tingey of Alpacka Raft. Jennie P, Celina and I are doing our research on how to best prepare for a 12-day packrafting wilderness adventure.  So we thought we would invite the expert on all things packrafting.  We had a ton of fun hanging out with Thor as he shares the origin story of the packraft, a few adventures, and everything we need to know to prepare and plan for our adventure.  

 

Specifically, we discuss how durable these boats are, and what types of repairs we can plan for?  How much weight can we load into these boats, and how best to load the weight? What should we bring in a repair kit? 

 

Thank you Thor!

 

www.alpackaraft.com

 

Dylan Eyers,
Owner/Operator

www.eatwild.ca   

 

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Wildlife biologist Mike Bridger joins us in this episode to talk about planning for a sheep hunt in Northern BC. As a Provincial biologist for the Northern BC, Mike gets the privilege of overseeing the management of wildlife in the remnant wilderness of North America. All nine big game species thrive in this area and Mike's job is to keep an eye on things. He pretty much has the coolest job in North America.  Mike is passionate about his work managing Stone's Sheep, and he is a self-described elk hunting fanatic. 

 

Celina, Jenny and I are continuing our podcast series planning for our sheep and elk hunting expedition into Northern BC. One of the most important parts of a successful hunt is doing the research on the species that you plan to hunt. We have the opportunity to ask Mike about planning our adventure and how to go about hunting Sheep in Northern BC. 

 

This is a fun episode, I hope you enjoy it.  

 

Thank you Mike for hanging out with us. @bc_bridger

 

Ageing sheep link: https://wildsheepsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Understanding-Sheep-Aging-Andrew-Walker.pdf

 

 

 

Dylan Eyers,
Owner/Operator

www.eatwild.ca   

 

 

I'm getting excited! Safe and successful hunts start with research, planning, practice and gearing up with the right equipment for the trip. It takes time and commitment to pull it all together, but for me, it might be the best part of the trip.  

Jenny P, Celina and I are in the process of putting together what will be an adventure of a lifetime. We are planning to fly packrafts into the Northern Rockies and drift down 100 kms of river through spectacular sheep, elk and moose country.

Join us for the next series of podcasts as we put together our plan for a safe and successful hunt. We will be inviting experts on packrafting, wildlife biologists, and safety and gear experts as we research and get equipped for this adventure. 

And we will have a bit of fun too.

https://www.alpackaraft.com/rafting/

Thank you Jenny P and Celina for doing this! 

Please share and enjoy the podcast.

Dylan 

EatWild 30 - Dylan's first bear hunt - Tips and tricks of the road hunter 

In this episode, I'm hanging out with my hunting partner Jenny P. She's taking me along on a bear hunt. As I learned, bear hunting includes a lot of Truck Huntin'.  Jenny is a bit of a pro-truck-hunter, so we thought it might be fun to break down the tips and tricks of the road hunter.  Along the way,  we recap our hunting adventure and my first ever bear hunting experience. 

 

I have struggled with the idea of hunting bear.  I've had long relationships with black bears. As a park ranger, I've befriended many black bears over the years. I grew up eating moose and deer, so bear meat was unfamiliar.  In recent years, I have been exposed to the culinary opportunities of black bear meat. Jenny P and Chef Mark Perrier have prepared numerous exquisite meals with bear meat. Bear meat has a greater fat content than ungulate meat that allows for some new recipe ideas and cooking techniques that the lean ungulate meat will not allow for. 

 

From a wildlife management perspective, hunting black bears is a sensible way to put meat in your freezer.  Black bear populations are thriving in BC, which affords hunters the opportunity for a hunt with a high probability of success while ensuring the long term sustainability of the black bear population.  

 

Even knowing that black bear makes for a sustainable and ethical source of meat for the freezer, I am still challenged by the idea of bear hunting.  We tell the whole story in the podcast.  I hope you enjoy it!  

 

For more information on black bears and black bear hunting, I recommend that you check out Hunter Conservations Podcast on the future of black bear hunting in BC.  

 

Please comment and share this podcast!

 

Thanks! 

 

Dylan Eyers,
Owner/Operator

www.eatwild.ca   

 

Instagram: Eatwild  I   Facebook: EatWild   I   YouTube: EatWildDylan

"Wow...how do I take care of this amazing hide?" That's what I needed to know when I walked up on the dead Bison in the snow.  Fortunately, my friend Mara was expecting this call from me. 

 

In this episode, I’m joined by Mara Cur of Crow's Nest Wildcraft, a hide tanner, land tender, and community herbalist and teacher. Mara and I connected a while back to offer a hide tanning workshop with the EatWild community.  On that call standing over the massive Bison, Mara walked me through the important steps of taking care of the hide. I have since dropped off the Bison hide with Mara, and we talked about the steps in the hide's journey from the Peace, to it eventually laying around my home in Vancouver.  Join us as we chat about how to take care of a hide in the field, natural smoked tanning methods, and staying connected with the wildcraft and harvesting community during these strange days. 

Mara offers hide tanning workshops, herbal medicine workshops and recently introduced the Limina wild skills webinar series, centred on healing through backcountry and ancestral skills.

 

https://www.crowsnestwildcraft.com/workshops/

 

Find Mara here: https://www.instagram.com/woodland.cur/

 

Please share, review, and thanks for listening! 

 

Dylan Eyers,
Owner/Operator

www.eatwild.ca   

I am connecting with La’goot Spencer Greening over Zoom for part 2 of our discussion on Indigenous rights and title and wildlife management. In our first conversation, we talked about Indigenous approaches to harvesting fish and wildlife throughout the seasons.  In this episode, we get into the sticky bits of a much more complex discussion about the legal framework that reaffirms Indigenous rights and title to manage the land and what that means for current and future wildlife/fisheries management in British Columbia.  Will resident hunters lose access to hunting and fishing opportunities?  What would it look like if First Nations took over land management in their territories in BC?  Will fish, wildlife, fishers, and hunters benefit from over 10,000 years of Traditional Ecological Knowledge incorporated into modern wildlife management?    

 

La’goot is a Tsimshian leader, storyteller and academic. In addition to being a passionate hunter and forager, La’goot is generous about sharing his knowledge around the importance of indigenous knowledge and stewardship of the land. 

 

If you want to dig a little deeper please read La'Goot:s article on Indigenous Harvesting Rights And Practices on  @aprilvockey 's  anchoredoutdoors.com. 

 

You can find La'goot here 

 

Please share this podcast! 

 

Thanks for listening, 

Dylan Eyers,
Owner/Operator

www.eatwild.ca   

 

Instagram: Eatwild  I   Facebook: EatWild   I   YouTube: EatWildDylan

Can we go hunting in British Columbia during the COVID 19 pandemic?  Answer: Maybe, if we all follow the Provincial Heath Orders, guidelines, and recommendations. I am sitting down with Jesse Zieman of BCWF and Mark Hall of the Hunter Conservationist podcast to discuss the recent announcement by the Province of BC that hunting is an essential service and what that means for hunting during the COVID 19 pandemic.  This announcement is good news for hunters, but this announcement could lead to a misunderstanding in the hunting community and unintended consequences.  Hunting as an “Essential Service” means that the Province will ensure that the regulatory infrastructure and services are in place so residents can continue to hunt (buy tags and run the LEH program).  It does not mean that you can ignore PHO recommendations to avoid non-essential travel, stay local and maintain social distancing.   

To many of us, hunting is essential to our way of life, but this announcement does not mean that we can travel to go hunting.  The small communities throughout BC are extremely vulnerable to the COVID 19 virus.  All it would take is for one hunter who is unknowingly carrying the virus to pass it on at a gas station, a Tim Hortons, or picking up a 6 pack at the cold beer store. These communities do not have the health infrastructure deal with an outbreak.  The BC hunting community must not put rural communities at risk.  In the podcast, we discuss our interpretations of the recent essential service announcement, the PHO travel restrictions and COVID hunting guidelines.  

Be patient with everyone. 

Provincial Hunting and Fishing COVID 19 Updates

BC LEH COVID Recommendations

Kai Negata on Potential Impacts of Hunting on Rural Communities 

 

Mark Hall - Hunter Conservationist Podcast 

Jesse Zieman - The BC Wildlife Federation 

 

Thanks for listening.

Dylan Eyers

www.eatwild.ca

 

In this episode, I am joined by La’goot Spencer Greening. La’goot is a Tsimshian leader, storyteller and academic. In addition to being a passionate hunter and forager, La’goot is generous about sharing his knowledge around the importance of indigenous knowledge and stewardship of the land. We got together to talk about Indigenous and resident hunter perspectives on wildlife management and hunting. Over a cup of tea, we ended up talking about the commonalities of our way of life as it revolves around the seasons of eating wild. We are planning a follow-up episode shortly to dig into the politics. But for now, I hope you enjoy a chat about harvesting wild food on the North Coast.

 

If you want to dig a little deeper please read La'Goot:s article on Indigenous Harvesting Rights And Practices on  @aprilvockey 's  anchoredoutdoors.com. 

 

We recorded this podcast during the Covid-19 pandemic.  We met in the cemetery across the street from my house. This peaceful quiet outdoor space allowed us to maintain our social distancing while we recorded the podcast. 

 

Please share this podcast! 

 

Thanks for listening, 

 

Dylan 

Listen to your elders;  it’s storytime with Larri Woodrow.

Success in hunting and fishing, and in life for that matter, is achieved much more easily with the benefit of knowledge. I attribute my competence as a hunter and fisher, and my confidence in life, to the knowledge that has been shared with me by the elders along the way.

In this episode, I’m hanging out with Larri Woodrow. Larri is a grandfather, teacher, conservationist, hunter, fisher, adventurer and storyteller. I’m fortunate to call Larri my good friend. His passion for wilderness has driven him to explore every river and trail in British Columbia. He’s an encyclopedia of the kind of knowledge that I cherish.

 

Larri's been around a while and he has seen the changes to our forests, oceans, and wildlife populations.  Larri takes us back 75 years to growing up fishing on Vancouver Island.   We talk about our perceived baseline of abundance for fish and wildlife in the oceans and forests of British Columbia. The sad truth is that if we don't know what we had, we are unlikely to know what we are loosing.     

I hope this to be the first of a few episodes where elders can share their stories and passion for their way of life.  

Please give me some direct feedback or provide a review. If you like it, please share it too! 

Thanks for listning. 

 

Dylan Eyers

www.eatwild.ca   

 

Instagram: Eatwild  I   Facebook: EatWild   I   YouTube: EatWildDylan

Join us at the dinner table to hear first harvest success stories from the EatWild hunter community.  The First Buck Banquet is an annual event where new hunters are invited to come for dinner and share their first harvest stories. All of the hunters bring something special for the dinner table from the harvest.  This is a fun event and I hope you enjoy the stories.