IN A TINY hotel room in Smithers, British Columbia, sorting gear for a two-week hunt that would begin with a bush-plane flight the next morning, I felt like a lottery winner who hadn’t yet claimed the prize.
I kept stealing glances at my hunting licenses, just to ensure they were still there and as real as I remembered. There they were, next to the mini coffee maker, official British Columbia paperwork; licenses for moose, caribou, wolf, plus grizzly bear. Winning tickets, indeed.
The next fortnight promised to be epic but also a little lonely. Most destination hunts of this scope have a patron, a sponsor that foots the bills and sends a representative to accompany a writer like myself. There’s generally a high-profile product to field test, and the sponsor…