For Dylan Eyers, hunting has always been about two things: creating a community around food and connecting with nature. It’s a philosophy he picked up from a long line of hunters, and it’s one that he’s proud to pass on to new generations. His maternal grandfather, Wally, was a Métis fur trapper and a life-long adventurer who hunted with dog teams and hand-made birch bark canoes. He shot moose each year and fed all the kids in the neighbourhood, even after he moved from a small island in Winnipeg Lake to Vancouver.

Wally eventually mentored Dylan's father, who never picked up a gun or cast out a fishing line without a gourmet meal in mind. “His favourite thing was cooking and feeding his family and friends and throwing great dinner parties,” says Dylan. “If he saw three moose standing there, a small one, a medium sized one and a big one, he would shoot the middle bull because it would be the most flavourful, but it wouldn’t be too tough,” he says. But unlike his father and his grandfathers before him, killing did not come easy to Dylan. To this day, he is the proud owner of 107 teddy bears and other stuffed animals spanning the entire animal kingdom. His collection now lives in storage (thankfully), but it might explain why Dylan was unable to actually shoot anything during his father’s annual hunting trips until he was 15 years old. “I showed some interest in hunting when I was 13 or 14 but I couldn’t imagine killing an animal at first, that was a big stretch,” he says. The turning point happened when he noticed the ceremony and camaraderie that exists between his father and his hunting buddies. “Every time someone comes back to camp, everyone stops what they’re doing and goes up to the guy to check out his deer and say congrats,” recalls Dylan. “I realized that I wanted to be that guy who comes back to camp, and I’ve been pretty much hooked on hunting ever since.”

Over the years, Dylan has unexpectedly morphed into an ambassador for the craft, and the idea for EatWild almost willed its way into existence. “I always had to defend myself,” he says. “Most hunters hunt for food, but there is a negative stereotype about the motivations of hunters that isn’t justified. For me it’s about mentorship, it’s about family, and it helps me support my community and feed all my friends.” Having benefitted from his many feasts of wild game, Dylan’s circle of friends, and friends of friends, started asking him for advice and guidance. Mentoring new hunters was taking up more and more of his time. “Eventually I realized that there were enough people talking about this that I could figure out what steps the urban foodie community could take to start hunting. I figured out what the barriers were, and decided to reduce them.”

So in 2011, EatWild was born, and the rest is history. “I’m hopeful that EatWild can give people a different perspective of hunting,” he says. With the guidance of Dylan and his EatWild team, all you’ll need to harvest your first beast is a sense of adventure and a whole lot of patience. “The most challenging thing is getting out in the wilderness and getting the skills and confidence you need to figure out how the animals live and how to harvest them,” says Dylan. Developing those skills can take years, but it’s always worth it in the end. “This year, we had a fantastic White Tail hunt. Four new hunters all shot their first bucks, two women and two guys. Mark put in five years before he had his first White Tail buck, so he was over the moon. We didn’t stop talking about that hunt for weeks afterwards. That was a great hunt.”