CP90062.E12 Chenise SASKATOONEXPRESS - May 12-18, 2014 - Page 1
NEW LOCATION 1702 8TH ST & LOUISE
Volume 11, Issue 18, Week of May 12, 2014
Saskatoonʼs REAL Community Newspaper Cam Hutchinson Saskatoon Express anielle Bergen is waiting in a bear stand. At any moment a black bear could be within yards of her. It is quiet except for the rustling sound as the wind passes through the trees. Thoughts race through her mind. Her bow is close. So is a pen. She wonders if there will be time to write a poem. Bergen is an extreme hunter. Truth be told, she is pretty extreme in most of her endeavours. Bergen is one of 20 finalists — worldwide — for the six spots in an American television show called Extreme Huntress. She has packed a lot of hunting into her 20 years. She knows she went out with her father, Al, when she was three or four years old. “I don’t really remember a whole lot of it, but my dad has shown me pictures and told me stories about it.” She does remember her first brushes with bears. The little girl and her dad would be in the bear stand. These magnificent beasts would be walking in close proximity. It is a game. The bears don’t want contact with the humans. And the humans don’t want to be seen by the bears. “Black bear can kill you,” she said somewhat matter-of-factly last week. “If they get mad enough and angry enough, they can kill you. Most of the time they are trying to stay as far as they can away from you, but the fact I could be that close to a predator — they are out there to kill something for food — is literally what got the adrenalin going.” Bergen lives in Drake, where life centres around hockey in the winter and hunting in the spring and fall. She was a darn good hockey player. Midget AAA teams came calling and colleges were taking notice. A number of concussions forced her to leave the game. Hunting became her passion. Make that hunting became her passion when she wasn’t snowboarding in unmarked mountain terrain, wake boarding, riding her Honda CRF150R motocross dirt bike and participating in three Red Bull Crashed Ice events. She finished sixth in the world in 2013. Concussions be darned. She said racing down the steep Red Bull track is similar to hunting. “When I was standing at the top of those start gates, I get the same adrenalin rush as when I am sitting in a bear stand or even walking into the bear stand. It is one of those adrenalin rushes where it is kind of like hunting. It’s unknown. When
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Going to Extremes
Hunting bear gets the adrenalin going
Danielle Bergen is one of 20 finalists for the six spots in an American television show called Extreme Huntress (Photo Supplied) you go down that track you don’t know there at 200 yards and I could just drop it. say that is when I changed from being a what’s going to happen. So you could be driving along, see some- hunter to an extreme hunter and really “I like to say I am adventurous, love thing out in the field and go, ‘I want that,’ enjoying it. When you are hunting deer, a challenge and I live for the extreme to and shoot it. There was no real challenge when you are hunting bear, no matter the extreme. There are not many people I to it, at least in Saskatchewan where it what animal you are hunting, you have have met after watching me do (the Red is wide open and flat. You can see a deer to be in that certain distance away. For Bull race) that have said, ‘Oh, I would that is 600 yards away and walk up within me I like to be 20 yards away from the love to do that.’ People look at me and go, shooting range and shoot it.” animal when I shoot it. That’s my ideal ‘You’re crazy!’ ” When she was just 13 she picked up a shooting distance. Most people don’t Hunting has been a constant in her life. bow. want to get within 100 yards of a black “For the first couple of years I used a “My dad has been an archery hunter bear. To be that close is an adrenalin rush rifle,” she said. “It was kind of exciting ever since he was young, so he introlike nothing else.” except for the fact the animal could be out duced me to a bow and arrow. I would (Continued on page 4)
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