Hunting great this year in Sandy Lake

Although Sandy Lake’s Kenny Goodwin Jr. hasn’t had much luck hunting moose this fall, he had plenty of luck earlier in the year.
“This year I got eight moose all together, starting in the spring,” Goodwin said. “But I did not have any luck this fall.”
Goodwin hunted for about two weeks this fall at his camp on the Severn River, which is located about two-and-a-half hours by boat north of the Treaty 5 community near the camps of Sandy Lake Chief Adam Fiddler and Coun. Fabian Crowe.
“I was gone for a couple of weeks,” Goodwin said. “I did a lot of calling during the night and fixing the camp during the day.”
But he didn’t get any moose, although one morning after he returned to camp he heard a shot around the point by his father-in-law.
“We were out all night calling and we go home and he goes out for his 8 a.m. boat ride and boom, there it is, waiting for him,” Goodwin said. “We can’t say it’s our moose, but we were calling in the same area. Lucky guy, I guess. But we got moose; we had moose meat for lunch.”
Goodwin usually uses a standard birch bark moose call when hunting, but other hunters also use a coffee can with a string they rip along the bottom.
“I wish I could go even today,” Goodwin said about his next hunting trip. “It’s nice. There’s only about two inches of snow on the ground. If you go out now, you’ll see where they are walking.”
After a successful hunt, Goodwin gives his moose meat away to Elders, friends or whoever asks him for some.
He and his hunting partners usually split the moose they shoot equally among themselves.
“We make sure everybody gets their equal cut, and then once we get home we give it to our family and then we give away whatever we can,” Goodwin said. “I don’t say no to anybody who wants moose meat. The more people that get it, the more you feel better inside.”
Goodwin did a lot of hunting this summer even though it was difficult to see through the smoke from forest fires throughout the area.
“We were gone all the time, every weekend,” Goodwin said. “When we were out there we could see the smoke and we could see the red glow at night when we were driving by.”
Goodwin said the river system they traveled on while hunting this summer was “just saturated with smoke.”
“Sometimes we had to cover our faces and our eyes just to breathe,” Goodwin said. “Sometimes we had to pull over and go in the bush just to get some fresh air.
“It was pretty bad sometimes, but we never really had fire problems. It was mostly just smoke. It was pretty intense sometimes. Sometimes you couldn’t even see five feet in front of you, that’s how bad the smoke was.”
Goodwin travelled through some areas for about 10 or 20 minutes along the river system where the forest was completely devastated from forest fires.
“I remember telling my brother-in-law Bernie, ‘let’s just turn around now, there’s going to be no moose around, look at it, it’s just black,’” Goodwin said. “And just around the corner, it was just standing right there, and it was black all around, and it was eating whatever it could get, and we got it.”
Goodwin even went hunting with his brother-in-law Bernie Crowe after the community returned from its July 19-21 forest fire evacuation.
“We had a big potluck celebration and Adam (Fiddler) gave us some gas to go for some moose,” Goodwin said. “We got two of them, so we donated those two moose for when everybody comes home from the evacuation and has a big feast.”
Goodwin loves going out on the community’s traditional lands, noting that most people with access to boats usually go out on the land to gather food, medicines or other materials.
“It’s just what we do,” Goodwin said. “I just love being out on the boat. I love being in the bush.”