Hunters give Big Boost to provincial economy
Hunting drives a $300-million industry in Saskatchewan, where the game is plentiful
Jeff Nason lies on his back in a farmer’s field west of Saskatoon as the snow geese overhead take his breath away.
One of the towering formations that traverse the sky each autumn settles into the stubble amid the decoys and the camouflaged men with shotguns.
Nason, a 47-year-old entrepreneur from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, has paid thousands of dollars to huddle in the field that morning.
Before long, the flat crack of shotgun fire cuts through the honking. It’s an experience Nason will long remember.
“I just looked over at the guys I was hunting with and I thought, ‘This is surreal. I could never have dreamed bird hunting would be like this,’ ” he recalls.
“It’s ridiculous how many birds we saw that morning, and the shooting that we did.”
Growing up on a farm near Lake Michigan, Nason was introduced to hunting by his father. The National Rifle Association pistol instructor has been shooting ducks and stalking deer for as long as he has been able to hold a rifle or shotgun.
While the midwestern states are well-stocked with game, Nason grew entranced by the prospect of bigger bucks and more birds after reading about Saskatchewan in the mid-1990s. About 10 years later, he made his first hunting trip to the province.
Nason is among the tens of thousands of Americans who journey north each year to search for the perfect animal and, in doing so, contribute to Saskatchewan’s multimillion-dollar hunting industry — a business built on firearms.
Rob Manley knows the business better than most. His introduction came when his father, who owned a car dealership in Nipawin, befriended a group of Americans who would fly to the “sportsman’s paradise” each fall to hunt and spend money.
Before long, Manley was taking the Americans out himself. He went on to spend decades working as a conservationist and hunting outfitter.
Today, he publishes Big Buck, a quarterly deer-hunting magazine distributed across North America.
“I honestly believe that a lot of us in Saskatchewan tend to take it for granted, what we have here. And what it takes is for people outside our province, outside our country even, to come here and tell us how good we have it,” Manley says.
And come they do. According to the provincial government, more than 23,000 Americans travelled to Saskatchewan to hunt in 2017. Nason figures those excursions cost, on average, between $4,500 and $5,500, not including airfare.
“There’s Americans coming up here in droves to hunt because we’re a world destination … I think it really puts us on the map,” says Saskatoon Wildlife Federation president Robert Freberg.
Last year, the provincial government sold 205,099 hunting licences covering a wide range of species, including whitetail and mule deer, moose, elk, pronghorn antelope, caribou and various species of ducks and geese. The sale of licences brought in a little more than $8.8 million.
Trade and Export Development Minister Jeremy Harrison credits the industry as a whole with generating around $40 million in direct revenue, much of it from fees paid to several hundred hunting outfitters.
The real money, around $300 million annually, comes in the form of secondary revenue, such as cash flowing to gas stations, restaurants, hotels, sporting-goods stores and locally owned businesses, says Harrison.
While it pales in comparison to the province’s multibillion-dollar mining and agricultural industries, hunting is nevertheless a significant money maker — even if, according to Freberg, there’s a general unwillingness to talk about a business built on guns.
“Let’s face it: Some people think there’s going to be an adverse reaction,” Freberg says before adding that he, like many other hunters, considers firearm use incidental to the real joy of hunting — spending time outside.
While Freberg acknowledges many people are not outwardly against hunting, and so-called “black rifles” are often the target of anti-gun sentiment, Manley speculates that many people simply haven’t had any experience with guns.
There’s a lot of good memories, good moments that come from the use of firearms.
It is important to remember that there are thousands of people across Saskatchewan who use firearms safely every day and take immense pleasure in it, says Manley, whose magazine collects hunting stories from across the continent.
“There’s a lot of good memories, good moments that come from the use of firearms. I wouldn’t have a business without firearms. As long as we continue to use common sense with our gun control regulations, we can satisfy all aspects of society.”
While people across Saskatchewan are frequently fined for poaching and other hunting-related offences, people invested in the industry insist those people are in the minority, and that most hunters respect not only the law but the environment they love.
“I like to think that sometimes in the media we’re portrayed as Billy Bob, missing half of our teeth, we can’t formulate sentences and we’ve got a Confederate flag in the back of our truck,” Nason says.
“Quite the contrary … All hunters aren’t like that. We want to enjoy the outdoors. We’re sportsmen. We’re conservationists. We want to make sure that we’re not taking more game than we’re supposed to.”
Harrison, meanwhile, says the fact that more than 168,000 residents bought tags last year — not counting the thousands more who hunt predators, such as coyotes, for which licences aren’t required — reflects hunting ’s cultural importance in Saskatchewan.
“I think it would be surprising to some folks, anyway, the number of urban residents who participate in hunting and fishing activities regularly. There are a lot of people that do … Without question, (firearms) are important tools,” he says.
“In this province I think that there are a very large number of our citizens who have either grown up around firearms, who have a high degree of respect for firearms, who know how to use firearms. That’s not an unusual thing.”
According to the RCMP, more than 103,000 Saskatchewan residents, or approximately 10 per cent of the population, hold firearms possession and acquisition licences. It is probably safe to assume thousands more are familiar with guns.
Women represent the fastestgrowing segment of Big Buck magazine’s readership. Manley’s daughter and son, meanwhile, have embraced his love of spending time outdoors with a rifle or a shotgun, waiting for the perfect animal.
“This is awakening something within me that is deep-seated, that we’ve maybe tried to push away in our society. All we’re saying is, ‘It’s OK to admit that you get this visceral thrill when you harvest your own game,’ ” says Manley.
Freberg’s experience has been broadly similar. The Saskatoon Wildlife Federation has doubled in size over the last several years due in part to large numbers of women, new Canadians and young people becoming interested in shooting.
“It’s a part of our history,” Harrison says, “and it’s a part of our future, too.”