Urban Huntress: Feeding Her Soul

Meet Jenny Ly. She is a young woman living in downtown Vancouver. She loves food and loves to eat healthy, that is why, with little prior knowledge, she embarked on the challenge to become a hunter. This is her story.

Why I hunt: To serve others through my obsession with food.

I’ll admit I associate most memories with the meals I’ve had during periods of delight, despair, and victory.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been searching for that one thing that fueled my passion. I have always felt admiration for, yet envious of people who can shed blood, sweat, and tears for that “thing that makes them tick.” During my short time on earth, I’ve attempted to establish interest in a handful of musical instruments, drawing, poetry, rugby, wrestling, woodworking, leatherworking and even computer coding. While I value these skills, I’m more enthused over a plate of pasta than a paintbrush or HTML code. At one point, I felt I had no talents beyond eating (albeit doing it well).

Harvesting my own food always seemed natural to me because of my family’s hobby farm in Vietnam. I would go stay on our farm every summer as a child and I would help in the farm tasks that would put food on our table. I think this experience is why hunting has always been at the back of my mind, it was just shoved into retirement with the bustle of city life. What propelled my curiosity for wild meat was after my first taste of Elk, prepared raw as a tartare. I couldn’t believe how sweet and clean the meat tasted. It didn’t have that store-bought funk.

My city-living-oblivious-self was also shocked to learn about the fish, wildlife and habitat conservation efforts made possible by hunters and anglers.

I think this realization was when I finally found my calling.

My motivation to hunt was triggered by my obsession with food. The horrors of factory farmed meat drove me to become a vegan but that didn’t last long. Buying organic, grass-fed, hormone-free meat would have been a much more reasonable route to go about things, but I’m not known for being practical.

Not to mention, as a modern woman I was not going to depend on any man to bring home the meat. Really, my only option was to go out and get it myself.

Heeding to the call of my inner wild has awoken a primal instinct from its deep slumber I never knew existed. The adventure that lays ahead makes me feel uncomfortable, challenged and leaves me restless on most nights before a hunt. But I’m addicted to the adrenaline, the uncertainty, and the challenge of it all. The fact is, I don’t necessarily enjoy sitting for hours out in the rain or bug invested woods, but I can’t stop and to be honest, I’m in too deep to turn back.

Hunting has motivated me to train harder. I can run faster, hike higher, and lift more weight than ever before. Reconnecting with the source of my food (fur, bones, guts and all) has been the most liberating adventure I’ve pursued.

It’s not just hunting but also finding delight in the microworlds in a handful of soil. Attempting to grasp the wildlife around me has made me fall in love with my Canadian heritage. I finally feel like I’ve found my purpose in life.

I hope through my experience I can start a movement of mindful eaters, erase the stigma of hunters, and encourage you to do what you love and do it often.

This September, I will be hunting woodland caribou, the largest herd in BC. To conserve the population, the hunt was a LEH hunt. I’m going with 2 other rookie hunters from Vancouver, and we’re all beyond excited to have this be our first fall hunt.

Having been involved in several wildlife conservation campaigns to preserve the woodland caribou in other parts of BC that are endangered, I’m honoured to be able to have the opportunity to even have a glance at these iconic Canadian symbols in the wild. I get a lot of confused looks from folks when I explain I’m fighting to conserve caribou but going to hunt them at the same time. I want to clarify the herd I’m hunting is healthy and thriving, while the herd I’m working to protect is located down south; they are in no way associated. It’s a strange paradox that is hard to grasp and believe me, I’ve had many internal conflicts with myself. Know that we are a group of food-focused hunters who are grateful for any animal we harvest and there will be zero waste. We plan on processing the whole animal ourselves from nose- to-tail, using everything from the bones, organs and hide.

I’m restless from excitement from being able to fly around Itcha on a floatplane and see the volcanic mountain range from up high! Regardless if we’re successful or not, it would be one heck of an adventure and there will be stories to tell.

You can read more from Jenny on her blog Chasing Food.

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