Every Canadian has a right to express their opinion on these matters reguardless of their origin.My direct descendants arrived in the late 1800's but their ancestors were vikings that were in Canada around 1000 years ago.I consider myself just as much a Canadian as any one else reguardless of when their descendents arrived here.

Also, friend MuyG, I have been thinking about George W and your worldly meaning of all. First, I firmly believe that good intentions are justification for selfish reasons.That is natural for people and how the world works. Think about that before taking offense, because it is not a jab at Bush. I have a W04 support sticker on my Jeep, and I live in the Shuswap, British Columbia.I get more heat than crawdads in Lousiana.He would have been my choice between him and Kerry too. Take it or leave it.
Good luck in the NWT. I hope you get double shovels, a huge bez and nice tops. Enjoy the Northern lights.

I absolutely and totally agree with Stubbie, EVERY Canuck and EVERY naturalized Canadian citizen is EQUAL, regardless of race, ancestry or when you or your family came to this country and I have said this here before, more than once.

Pioneer, even if your opinions were based only upon your business interests, so what, that is as valid as my feelings, Canuck's, Stubbie's or anyone elses. It is important that CANADIANS, born and naturalized, decide the fate of this country and although I may/may not agree with you or any other Canuck, I respect your rights and opinions. You are not the type of outfitter that is the problem here in B.C., my comments are not directed to you or people like you.

Anyway, the situation here is going to change to an unprecedented degree, no matter what I do or do not do or what is said on this forum. The final decisions will be made by people far younger than most of us and most of them are not in favour of hunting.

quote:

Originally posted by A. Fleming:
Come on Wooly, when you say stuff like that it makes us Poor Albertans (born in Calgary, raised in southern Alberta), seem like Quebequers. Yes I do believe Alberta is my favorite province, but BC is way prettier, Saskatchewanites are far friendlier, and Newfoundland is like having your own Mexico inside your country. Don't make all Albertans seem like arrogant cowboys.(tongue in cheek[beside foot]).

Sorry, I didn't mean to come off as arrogant. I guess I'm just anticipating the inevitable Liberal attack ads portraying Alberta as manifestation of everything evil in Canada.

There, now I'm sounding paranoid.

quote:

I'm just anticipating the inevitable Liberal attack ads portraying Alberta as manifestation of everything evil in Canada.

Yet they don't hesitate to scoop up those Alberta oil royalties.

Kutenay cracks me up every time I read one of his responses. I never know whether I should praise him, laugh at him, yell at him or plain ignore him. He reminds me of a curmudgeonly uncle riding wild on a deadly mix of steroids, preparation-H and Viagra. Everyone of his responses ends up something like this:

eg.Thread starter: Well Everybody, what do you think about hunting elk in BC?

eg. Kutenay Response:"By golly back in my day, me and Teddy Roosevelt, that protectionist free trade stomping pre-NAFTA yankee foreigner usurping our natural resources and deflowering our BC virgins, went elk hunting in one of the drainages on the south arm of Kootenay lake. So I says, Hey Teddy, how about you and I invade Cuba, get some tail, or build a canal through Panama? So Teddy turns to me and says in his patrician voice, "OK". Well that got me madder than hell, let me tell you. Given that I am expert in Canadian history and the genetic integrity of naturalized Canadians of nordic and British ancestry, and have to daily dodge bullets from the hordes of darky foreigners and peruvian escorts (which I must say I am partial to - even managed to help one of those cute peruvian phillies get landed the other day while getting my big goiter-wracked toe sucked. My 'depends' almost burst, along with my colostomy bag from from the bladder of a canadian sheep. How's THAT for racism, huh? And everybody calls me a bigot! Go figure!), then Teddy just gave me a trite one word answer, quite likely placating us lowly canadians who's ancestors came here 10 000 years ago after the last glaciation. Why Great Grampa Kootenay crosses the Bering land bridge and declares this new world for us Koots and vows to keep all the darkies from infesting it, God bless his soul. And to think me, the great Kutenay, would shame his memory by cow-towing to this darkie, Roosevelt, who wanted to shoot MY Elk? So I proceeded to lecture Mr. Roosevelt on the finer points of Canadian history, that and a few other things as well. By Golly, I taught that yankee a few things about canal building, rough-riding and big stick carrying too. And I gave him a piece of my mind, not a big piece mind you, I can't afford a big piece, believe me. Anyway, I taught him about warfare and of race genetics, and of east indian cooking, and of carpet weaving and of wanking and being home alone and experimenting with Colt 45/Drano shooters. Geez I even told him of my bedwetting issue and how it was caused by illegal immigration and weak-minded economic policies by our liberal politicians and their yankee overlords. But dammit, I looked up and he was gone! Probably off to exploit the land and the people. Needless to say, the bugger stole my brilliant ideas about canals and stuff and goes off to make a name for himself. I should have been the man, me, the great Kutenay. But no, no one cares. This country's going to hell in a handbasket! And that's all I have to say about elk hunting in BC. By the way, anyone who says anything about me to the contrary, well dammit, you and I are going to meet face to face, let me tell you. Merry Christmas, sincerely, The Great Kutenay.P.S I like elk, just not Roosevelt Elk"

A.Fleming, I do not take offense from those expressing opinions, ya know someone much smarter than I once said "opinions are like xxxholes, we all have one". I respect yours, opinions that is.

I like the tenor of the posts that are now coming out, more fun and less venom is always a better work place.

Thanks for the good wishes and the Lord a willin I will have pics up in late September showing off some of your beautiful country. I wish we had more posters on here showing off the great and beautiful country of our Northern neighbors.

Muy, as to your question about my liking Americans/American hunters, the short answer is that I like some of each and dislike others....just as I like some Canadians and, etc.

I keep trying to get it across that this is not about anti-Americanism on my part; it is about the current changes in B.C. in particular and what I want to see happen with our wildlife, hunting and aboriginal-ecoextremist alliance.

I have gone into great detail in order to give the original poster's polite question the most realistic answer I am capable of. While it is easy to mock me, or anyone, on this type of forum as a few have done without making a contribution to the topic, the fact remains that I have been involved in these issues for decades and am fairly current on what's happening.

Nobody can really predict the future and it may be that the sagging numbers of B.C. resident hunters, especially relative to the increasing population may motivate the government to increase non-resident hunting opportunities; there is some indication that this may be happening. Whatever happens, things here will be VERY different in the near future and, if I were an "alien" hunter wanting to hunt in B.C., I would do it as soon as possible, especially for Grizzlies and Sheep.

Good luck on your N.W.T. trip, I have not been there in 40 years, but, was briefly in the Yukon last summer. I would love to hunt in both of those territories, but, it is more costly than I am willing to spend since trophies are not important to me. Anyway, you should have a fabulous time, shoot a big one.

Looked up some data.

Compare the province of BC to my home state of Louisiana.

They have roughly the same population. BC has 7x the land mass. Louisiana have approximately 3x the hunting liscense sales and harvest approximately 7X the number of big game animals (if one can compare a small whitetail doe to a stone sheep )

Limited number of very desireable species + huge land area + a largely non hunting population + politicians = a difficult game management scenerio

To answer some questions. If the legislature passed a resolution stating 1/2 the deer harvest would be auctioned off to Europeans to aid the local economy after the hurricanes, I would imagine the state capitol building would be burned in about a week

Nothing aginst our European friends.

Kutenay, as a couple of posters have mentioned when the hunters' ox is the one taking the goring, hunters need to hunker in the same bunker and stop the bleeding ASAP. Certainly, in the USA we have our share of bickering but have managed to grease the palm of so many politicians, associations, over the years that as the late Chuck Heston liked to say, you may take my rifle but it will be pried from my cold, dead hand or something close to that. I receive close to twice the mail from our NRA as I do from ALL other correspondents. It is unfortunate but at least for those of us south of your border it is the special interests who raise the most money, who grease the greedy DC/Local hands, that are able to receive the benefits of a government that can never get enough. I have a suspicion that ya'll are seeing some of this same political blackmail in BC.

Likewise, our hunting population is declining relative to population growth. Certainly we see tremendous cost increases in our hunts across the spectrum. Just as an example, I know of some elk hunts in NM that will cost as much as my trip to NWT and as you have eluded it is not on the cheap end of hunts. I do not have the numbers but just based on the previous posters comparison of land mass/local residents, etc the hunting pressure has got to be much, much lower across Canada than what we have in our prime hunting areas in the States.

Thanks for your kind words on my upcoming trip to NWT. I will have a good time no matter the animals taken as I plan of caring plenty of camera gear - in my backpack!

Best of luck in your quest to "grease the wheels" in BC.