Dear Editor
I have lived in Saskatchewan most of my life. My father, who is now 71, taught me how to hunt. His father and friends learned from their elders the same way. For close to 100 years our family has hunted for food in Saskatchewan.
One particular area we hunt is between Glaslyn and Meadow Lake in the Provincial Forest. For as many years as we have been hunting, others have been logging for a living. The first cut lines were put in prior to my grandfather's first hunting trip. We used these cut lines to access the various blocks to hunt in. The logging industry changed from horses to machines, resulting in the destruction of several points of access to our hunting grounds. If the loggers choose to use an existing cutline to access their new cutting block, then it was so done. Thinking, oh well, the only ones that used the old cut lines were probably hunters.
Today we continue tobuy hunting licenses, carrying on only part of a lifelong tradition. Yet now we have to spend an additional several thousand dollars to access our old hunting grounds. This is because there is a locked gate with signs stipulating that we now need to own an ATV or set out on foot for perhaps a 20-mile jaunt "one way" prior to the actual hunt on foot. Then we are expected to eat the animal right there on the spot, because there is no possible way to get it back to the truck. We are not to be caught behind the locked gate with our licensed road vehicles.
Not everyone who hunts can afford to buy an ATV to get around, nor should they have to. If you don't want us hunting in that area then don't sell hunting licenses for that area.
Something seems wrong with this picture. The government and logging companies both profit at the expense of the hunter who is trying to put food on the table. Perhaps if they want to limit our access they should give us all ATVs.
I will say sorry to all the old hunters, for some other idiots choices. I wonder why the moose moved to Battleford? Was it because of the hunters or the loggers? Perhaps the Minister of Energy and Resources can explain this to the hunters of Saskatchewan.
Dan Dillabough
Rural Battleford
