Why I will always hunt, trap and fish.

I've been surrounded by hunting, trapping and fishing since I can remember. Some of the first memories I have include standing beside our old Jimmy while my dad shot popcans with a .410 and wanting to shove my sister in the lake when she started shrieking because a pike got off the hook and was flopping around in the bottom of the boat. I've been surrounded by hunting, fishing and trapping since before I knew what it was - from the many furs hung up in my grandparents basement to driving to Ivanhoe Lake to see if anyone had a moose hanging up it's always been a part of my life. 

Tiny Kaileigh and my Nonno circa early 90's. 

Since I was a kid, hunting and fishing (and eventually trapping) became a normal part of life. In the summers we'd go fishing at the cottage - I would get chewed alive sitting on the dock with the dogs watching that stupid little Snoopy bobber (and there were a few versions of Snoopy as I learned to actually cast) float until a pike got bored enough. At the cottage it was totally common to have eggs, bacon and pan friend pickerel for breakfast - something I've been a fan of since I was a kid. The fall was partridge and moose hunting if we were lucky enough to get tag (we never were). Most recently came the addition of trapping which took up the later part of fall and straight through the winter. 

I made the choice to get my gun and hunting license when I was 12 (the earliest you could) because hunting was something I found important. After missing about 20 birds, many tears (and a few tantrums) and finally one very badly bodied bird (as per the direction of my mother - I feel like her exact words were "just hit the fucking thing") I got the hang of it and have been hooked ever since. Trapping has come along as a passion of mine, stemming from hunting, in the past few years. 

Hunting gets a really shitty name. A lot of people view it as a bunch of blood thirsty heathens running around the bush shooting off shotguns all willy nilly. I was always brought up and taught that you respect what you kill, you take only what you need and you don't waste anything. I have to be really honest - I get really excited come fall and winter because I know that my really tight budget isn't going to get a bit of a break because I can put some meat in my freezer without buying it. Not only that but in a world of over processed meat and meat products I feel better knowing that my food never saw the inside of a commercial barn and I cleaned and prepared it myself. 

Now I've been called cruel for hunting by both people who eat meat and who don't. I always bring up the fact that (to my meat eating friends) that unlike the chicken, beef and pork they buy in the store my dinner had the chance to run away. More often than not that's exactly what ends up happening. I think that I've gone home skunked as often as I've gone home after catching something.

Regardless of your views on hunting, fishing and trapping and it's cruelty these are my top five (5) reasons I will always hunt, trap and fish.

1. It puts food in my freezer. 

I don't have the luxury of a having a huge budget to play with. Hunting at it's very core started from a necessity to provide food - it's still no exception. It makes me really happy knowing that come fall I will be able to supplement my meat purchases with meat I've shot. This holds true for trapping as well. Many people just assume I see a cute, fuzzy creature and think of it in terms of a fur coat - nope. I am just as happy to utilize all of the animals that are trapped as well. 

On top of that I can guarantee that the dinner that I shoot is free range, organic and hasn't been near a commercial meat farm. 

2. Hunting/fishing and trapping keeps me grounded and puts things into perspective

There is not too many things in the world that make you feel small. It's less so the act of hunting/fishing and trapping but more the time that I spend doing these things that puts things into perspective for me. There's something completely different about unplugging and going off the grid for an entire day. 

When you're in the middle of the bush with just a shotgun and a dog a lot of things get put into perspective and it truly is a major part of what keeps me grounded. It's also one of those precious few moments when I can actually think, or not think depending on my mood and just be somewhere. 

Also I can bring puppies along...

3. Conservation

I get a lot of shit for this being one of the main reasons that I hunt and trap - a lot of people thinks it's total bullshit. Here's why hunting and trapping are so important to conservation:

- I help maintain the populations of predators on my trap line by trapping a certain amount of them per year. If we're having a low rabbit (prey) year then I know to take more animals that year, or at least try to. This means that throughout the winter there will be less strain on the prey populations and come spring there will be more of them to reproduce and rebuild those numbers. 
- I remove animals from areas that they will not survive through the winter. I know that a young beaver who builds a house in a pond isn't going to survive the winter. There is no feed bed and the water will freeze solid and he'll end up either starving to death or freezing to death. These are the animals that I humanely trap and kill instead of letting them slowly wither away and die over time.
- I am committed to be part of the solution - not the problem. Over-trapping and over-hunting can cause extreme damage to an ecosystem, but so can suddenly stopping taking any animals from an area. There's a balance in these systems and like it or not we are a part of these systems. 

4. I like to know what's going on with these animal populations

It's one thing to read studies and reports written by people, it's another thing to actually see if with your own eyes. 

I know when we're having a really bad rabbit year on my trapline. I know when we've had a really great hatch of partridge through the spring and summer. I know when we're going to start to have issues with wolf populations because a pack is getting larger than it should. 

A huge example of this was the giant explosion of the lynx population in Timmins. For years local trappers were asking to extend the lynx quota from 6 to 8-10 for the year because rabbit populations were decreasing and the lynx kept growing. The MNR would not allow the increase of a lynx quota and finally two years ago Timmins began having major nuisance lynx issues. This was because the yearlings were starving through the winter because there was not enough food. This is something that we're still feeling the effects from and proves totally that you can't manage wildlife solely sitting behind a desk or in an airplane. 

5. I will totally be okay in the event of a zombie apocalypse. 

Seriously guys. 

It could be a thing ;) 

"You Look Disgusting"

I don't wear makeup. 

I mean, I own makeup and on special occasions I may throw on a little bit but for the most part I don't wear makeup. It's not a political statement, it's not a giant fuck you to people who wear makeup to feel good about themselves; I just don't like wearing it. 

I know that I've, not come under attack, but had comments shot my way that, while seemingly well-meaning, aren't. 

"You know concealer would cover that right up?" 
"You're never too young to start thinking about wrinkles.."
"You can cover up the fact you look really tired really easy."

I used to slap on makeup to cover up zits and cover up when I got way too little sleep but eventually (and mostly out of the want to get some more sleep in the morning) I just couldn't be bothered. I honestly abide by the thinking that I wasn't put in this world to impress people with my looks and in the grand scheme of things I have more important things to think about than what's going on (or not going on) my face. 

I think that people are really quick, especially with women, to jump down their throats for everything. There's a beauty blogger, Em Ford, who went without makeup for three months and it that three months was at the complete mercy of how crappy people can be when they see things they don't like. When she did start wearing makeup again she was privy to the shit storm that was the opposite end of the spectrum. 

Basically, it came down to she was disgusting to look at without makeup on and had 0 self-respect when she did wear makeup. 

Makeup is this giant polarized issue that seems to always dictate what political agenda you have and is basically up there with choosing not to shave. On one hand, if you're someone who likes wearing makeup you're obviously fake, an anti-feminist and hate women. On the other side, if you don't wear makeup you've given up, you've let yourself go or you're a radical feminist. What if I just am too lazy to get up 30 minutes earlier to put on my face? What if, and this is a big one people, I just don't want to wear makeup?

What the fuck is wrong with people? Seriously, in the grand scheme of things who gives a flying fuck whether or not someone wears makeup to feel good in their skin? In what way does the someone wearing/not wearing makeup affect you, your life or your existence? It doesn't! The simplest solution if someone else's appearance bothers you is to look away and continue to live your life, which a lot of people seem absolutely incapable of doing. The way that someone else looks literally has the smallest impact on your life because you are entirely in control of just not looking at them. You are responsible for your own happiness and if the way someone looks is impacting your happiness it's sure as hell not their fault! 

Basically, what I'm trying to get at is stop making physical imperfection the pinnacle of someone's existence. They weren't put in the world to be pleasing to your eyes. Don't point out their flaws first, if I have giant dark circles under my eyes please don't point out the fact that I look tired. I know I look tired, it's because I am tired. We know we our faces are breaking out, we know we look tired, we know we have wrinkles. Our acceptance, my acceptance of my physical flaws in no way impacts your life, happiness or perception of beauty. 

Durham's Epic Bucket List Adventure

For all of you who haven't seen my emotional photo/post vomit on my Instagram and Facebook, I recently had to make the tough decision to put my 13.5 year old Golden named Durham down on June 2nd. The decision came after a diagnosis of cancer a year ago and thanks to my absolutely amazing vet we were able to get him through an entire year. 

Durham was an amazing dog - for anyone who hasn't met or known him, he's been my best friend for 11.5 years. He's a rescued Golden Retriever who was on his fourth home by the time he came to us. He was a runner, completely food obsessed and just a crazy dog. Over the years he mellowed out (and honed his food stealing skills). He was well-known for his sweetheart attitude and stomach of steel. On top of making friends wherever he went he was also a Therapy Dog with the St-John's Ambulance Therapy Dog program.

When I came home from my work rotation it was obvious that he wasn't doing great. A tumor had started to come out in his eye which was very painful and it was only growing. I booked the date at the end of my time off and set out making up a bucket list of things to do before June 2nd. 

On the bucket list we had:

- Go to the cottage
- Eat a whole steak
- Share ice cream with mom (but light on the sharing part)
- Spend a whole afternoon napping
- Car rides with the windows down
- Eat a whole McDonald's burger
- FaceTime with my friend Laessy (and the weird small one)
- Go sit by the lake
- Eggs for breakfast
- Sit in the backyard in the sun

I'm really happy to say we got to do all of the list and more! Here are some pictures from our Bucket List Adventure:

We spent a lot of our two weeks taking some pretty serious naps. They were awesome.

We also hung out with the cats - even the screamy weird one.

Had to go out for ice cream - before mom could get a spoonful I made sure to thoroughly drool on all of the ice cream. Surprisingly she didn't want to share after that.

It was gorgeous throughout the week so we spent a lot of time outside in the backyard. 

Mom went out and bought a lot of good food for the whole two weeks - including Beneful! She kept saying something about how I was eating better than she was most of the time.

I got to go to Tim Horton's every single morning for Timbits. This is mom's pre-coffee expression - this is my pre-Timbit expression. 

We went to the cottage for a little bit. I walked around in the lake while the two fast ones ran around like idiots. Mom got some great pictures and I was pretty damn happy about it - even with the bugs.

I also got to Skype/FaceTime with my really good friend Laessy from New Brunswick. We woke her up and she didn't look impressed at all but I had fun! 

The best part by far was the night I got an entire steak for dinner. It had ketchup and was garnished all pretty - and I licked that all off and tried to swallow the steak whole...

Mom said I would choke myself to death if I swallowed this whole...I don't agree...

My last night mom brought her bed into the living room and we had a giant sleepover - I ended up stealing most of the mattress, don't let my taking up only a small corner fool you.

On my last day we had a really really special day. It started with an entire breakfast of eggs and beggin (beggin strips) with a whole hamburger bun on top. I grabbed the hamburger buns and ran and then came back from the eggs. 

I spent the rest of the day napping and hanging out with mom outside in the backyard. 

Before we went to the vets office mom brought me to McDonald's and ordered four cheeseburgers. We went out and sat around Gillies Lake and ate our cheeseburgers and sat in the sun for a bit. 

 Durham passed away peacefully on June 2nd, 2015 beside myself, my best friend and our amazing vet Dr. Millson. In addition to being my best friend Durham was also an amazing Therapy Dog and expert counter surfer/cake pan opener. There aren't the words to describe how much he'll be missed. 

Trying to find meaningful work and settling into a new job

As a few of you may know I started a new job this week, and, in an epic whirlwind I was whisked off by Air Creebec to the De Beers Victor Mine - 90 km west of Attawapiskat. 

I work 90 km west of the orange dot

I'll be honest, I was absolutely terrified at the thought of trecking all the way up here. I'm someone who likes to be driving distance from my home so this remote fly-in and fly-out type of work is really new. It also scared the bejeezus out of me to have no comfortable place to retreat to once I started to feel overwhelmed or burnt out. This place is crazy, in a great way, and the only thing that I could compare it to would be a bee hive. This place feels like the city that never sleeps - it's got this constant buzz of positive energy that just never stops. There's always people working and milling around - shifts are split into days and nights which effectively means that the work never stops. 

I started working as a Tutor/Trainer at the mine site. In a quick description I am a resource available here if people need extra help with reading, writing, math, computers and basic communication skills. It's only been a couple of days but already have popped in who are looking for tutoring which has been awesome. It's still a new job but this definitely feels like meaningful work. 

I think that was the biggest stresser when my previous work contract was coming to an end, not the fact that I needed to find another job, but that I needed to find something meaningful to do. As I was applying for jobs, some of them just jobs-for-the-sake-of-making-money jobs, I really started questioning how important doing something meaningful was to me. 

I don't want to just work, which I think was a major reason why I was starting to hate my last job. Yes I was working, I was accomplishing things but I didn't feel like I was doing anything. I didn't feel like what I was contributing was making any kind of impact and I want to make an impact. I didn't realize that impacting people was such a major factor in a job feeling meaningful to me until that part of me wasn't being fulfilled. 

I'll be honest, I was totally trying to lie to myself for the last four months or so of my last job, trying to fool myself into thinking that my job wasn't that bad. One of those - if I think positively about it enough maybe it will be enough. It wasn't. At all. 

When I went to post-secondary I always thought that my path should be graduate, find a perfect (or almost) full-time steady job and then buy a house, get hitched, have kids and all that white picket-fence themed trajectory. Needless to say that hasn't happened - I'm turning 24, I've graduated University (with the loan to prove it) and have been exploring my career options with contract jobs doing various things. I'm quickly realizing that maybe a really important step that I need to take is to start letting go of that cookie-cutter dream because it may not be for me. Not (and please don't read into it this way) that it's a bad dream, but my choices and decisions are pushing me in entirely other direction. 

I think though, for right now anyway, that although it's totally outside my comfort zone and not necessarily what I went to school for - this job is going to be extremely rewarding. 

I am fat and happy

I've had this post in unpublished status for awhile, mostly because I wasn't quite sure how to end it off or where I was going with it. That was until the total babe Tess Munster AKA Holliday took the world by storm being the first size-22 model to make it big. 

When I first read about her success as a model I was super excited. There is someone who doesn't fit the typical thin, pretty, flat-stomached model mold. While I'm all about the plus sized models and diversity in body types, plus size models seem to have a very similar body shape - very hourglass, flat stomach. For lack of a better term or explanation the modeling industry has now gone ahead and created an "acceptable" amount of fat that is still considered attractive. 

Enter Holliday - not flat stomached, rocking the non-conventional hourglass who is blowing up the modelling world. 

And the world is pissed.

Why? Because this woman is happy with her body. She thinks that her size 22 body is glorious - and it is! She is the embodiment of what makes people uncomfortable and unhappy. She's a size 22, successful and happy woman breaking the conventional mold of happy women. 

I was reading through some of the comments and filtering out the blind hate one notion or theme kept coming up. People are ticked off and think that this woman is glorifying obesity and being unhealthy. I feel like many people (although this seems to be starting to shift slowly) still live by this Biggest Loser/before picture mentality. If you're not skinny or "appropriately" curvy you are a before picture. You should automatically feel the need to change the way that you look because you can't be happy with the way you are.

I've had this idea reinforced in many places of my life. The most memorable was actually when I was going through the sign up process to go to a gym in Toronto. The trainer there kept busting out the "you'll look better, you'll find love because you'll look better, you'll love going to the beach and wearing bikinis" sales pitch.

I felt the need to shut him down right there - Excuse me, but I am confident. I am already deserving of love looking the way I do and I already love going to the beach - in a bikini - because I love my body. I got the polite almost "yes yes dear" brush off which frustrated me. I just couldn't understand why this person couldn't understand that I was at a gym to increase my fitness level - not decrease my waistline. My want to just get fitter physically had me whitewashed as a before picture because I didn't fit this person's mold of a confident person. 

I think it makes people who buy into this confident, perfect body type pissed when someone doesn't put in the work (dieting, working out, limiting to maintain the perfect body) and gets the result (loving their body, accepting their body). It makes people really fucking pissed when that happens and in turn they lash out with negative comments about glorifying being unhealthy.

The thing is - happiness, self-respect and self-love don't glorify anything. My shameless self-love doesn't glorify anything but body positivity. It doesn't glorify health issues, it doesn't glorify being unhealthy. You don't have to hate your body to want to improve it you can still absolutely love yourself while changing your body. Because my body doesn't fit the traditional perfect body image it's automatically assumed that I hate it, and that makes people feel better. They work hard for their socially-accepted looks, of course it makes them feel better when we hate the way we look.

It makes people angry, it makes people upset, it confuses people, but the thing is - my body is not responsible for anyone's happiness but my own. 

My body and I are not responsible for your personal happiness.