Elephant Hunting

Elephant Hunting is one of our favorite past-times. We haven’t shot an elephant yet but we shoot almost everything we see and if we ever see an Elephant – we’ll shoot it too.

Eeegggcellent!
Originally uploaded by Krowster.

Our first hunting trip was to Banff National Park. Both Xtina (my daughter and hunting partner) and I shot the same squirrel about a dozen times. We really wanted to shoot some big horn sheep and were keeping our fingers crossed that we might get a chance to take a few pot shots at a Black Bear cub but we had to settle for miserable old Elk who thought it was appropriate to block the Emerald Lake access road.

We pulled up to the Elk and it wouldn’t move. I was afraid to move the truck further forward out of fear the crazy animal might charge and damage my vintage beauty. I honked a couple of times and it just stood there and stared. It looked like it would charge if I came any closer. I wasn’t sure what I should do. So I put my truck in park, rolled down my window – took aim and took three shots. What else could I do?

Johnston's Canyon
Originally uploaded by Krowster.

We went hiking up to Johnson’s Canyon that day too. We saw the odd bird but no elephants. We took a few pot shots along the way and I even resorted to popping a few off at some of the tourists. Some of those shots were dead-on but we were never caught. Heck – we even got so bored that we ended up taking a few shots at each other.

Xtina is a much better shot than I am. I am both proud and jealous. Her ability to get the job done with one well thought out, brilliantly planned shot allows her to get better results with an old straight shooter, than I can get with all of the latest high powered, low light optimized equipment.

Dorothy2
Originally uploaded by Krowster.

Our second elephant hunting trip was to the Bad Lands near Drumheller Alberta. We were hoping that we could shoot a coyote or a fox, maybe an eagle or a snowy owl but none were to be found. Luckily, we came across a little ghost town called Dorothy, Alberta. Dorothy consisted of a few abandoned buildings on the prairie. Our hunting was put on hold but we were able to have a lot of fun playing “Western” and jumping in and out of the buildings shooting everything we felt like.

On our way home that day, I mentioned to Christina that we should really have a "tag" that we put on our photos from our photos hunts. We thought about "hunting" but thought that that would cause all of our photos to be grouped in with a bunch of dead animals so then we thought of "Elephant Hunting" - can't be too many photos tagged with that.

No animals have died on any of our elephant hunting trips. (Well there might have been a gopher crushed under the wheel of my 1978 Dodge D100 pickup – but they hardly count). Our next Elephant Hunting trip is going to be early in the new year and we will be scouring the city scape for signs of the elusive Alberta Pachyderm.

Click here to see all of Xtinas Elephant Hunting photos
Click here to see all of my Elephant Hunting photos