The Flying Dust First Nation is a Cree First Nation band government located adjacent to the city of Meadow Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Hunting in a reserve is different. It's spiritual. It is the way of life here. We hunted moose for an entire week in September of 2022. While only bringing home one, the experience of the hunt with these people is an adventure of its own. Everything is used down to the bone. We distributed meat from the moose to the local community and saved some for ourselves. There is absolutely no waste.
We start before sunrise and end after sunset. There is something special about this place; the sounds of wolf calls echoing through the flat plains, the massive paw prints of black bears in the mud and the crisp, clean air sweetened by the poplar buds. The skies at night light up with the green & purple hue of the Aurora Borealis and stars twinkle as I walked back to my ATV every night with a rifle slung over my shoulder with no light to see other than my headlamp. My exhales fogging my view of the starlit path home. A round loaded in the chamber of my 30-06 just in case a bear caught my scent.
A feeling of complete isolation amongst nature. No sounds of the highway, no cell service. The instant adrenaline rush and heart throbbing moment where a moose walks into my crosshairs. Where everyday I watched an eagle hunt in the same spot, in the same oat field. Deer graze calmly yet still aware of the surrounding danger and freely gallop through the forest. Nature is the boss here. When the sun gets hot and the animals find safety and rest, our time is spent reading, eating, sharing stories and fixing countless things around the property. We built bridges for the trails, fixed up and re-deployed blinds in farmers fields, and did maintenance on a Toyota 4Runner with 1.8 million km.
Hard work and patience. Left alone with all your thoughts. Saskatchewan is the land of living skies.
This project is on-going.
