Explore the vast mountainous terrain throughout B.C. as Lloyd Antypowich takes you on hunting adventures in search of what drives his passion and motivation.
Lloyd Antypowich, author of A Hunting We Did Go, describes events in a diary-like style as he tells his hunting stories.
Rewarding and challenging events unfold as two men, the author and the late Leo Morrisette, load up two packing horses, Dally and Tess, to hike up mountain trails in search of wild game. After Morrisette’s passing, Antypowich saddles up and returns to the mountains. Thunder, lightning, rain and snow do not prevent devoted hunters from pressing on in search of wild game.
Antypowich’s writing is full of detailed imagery. For example, he describes meals made with homegrown potatoes and onions planted by the cabin, prepared in a cast-iron pan over an open fire. Each morning begins by rising early in peaceful solitude and drinking freshly percolated coffee. Antypowich piques the reader’s curiosity as he glasses the mountains—what will he spot next? Hunting journeys are described in detail, making you feel you’re travelling right along with Antypowich, Morrisette and others.
“Going up into the mountains to hunt or fish is just like recharging my batteries,” writes Antypowich.
I learned that sheep have vision about 10 times better than a human. “The secret is to spot them before they spot you,” Antypowich notes in this book.
I also discovered that wolves are heard but rarely seen. “They are like ghosts of the mountains,” according to Antypowich.
And when hunters invade cougars’ territory, the hunter can quickly become the hunted. “But, I guess when you live in an area that they call home you can encounter them anywhere, at any time . . . you can be fair ‘game,’ ” Antypowich writes.
The author also advises that staying in cabins requires unspoken hunting etiquette—you clean up after yourself and you leave more than what was there when you first arrived. “This was known in the old days as a kind of backwoods code of conduct,” Antypowich notes.