Elk Hunt on the Canadian Prairies - Two Night Road Trip

Best Bits

• Sleeping under the stars in the field and waking up with the sun.
• Nothing beats a spontaneous adventurous road trip with great friends.
• Watching the harvest moon rise. It goes so fast you can literally see it happening.
• Woken up by a double rainbow at sunrise - without getting rained on!
• Cooking our own dinner at a restaurant!

Worst Bits

• Not seeing any elk (but that’s hunting sometimes).
• The mosquitoes found us on night two. Hard to sleep while they buzz your face.

Trip Dates and Comments on Timing

September — usually we hunt in colder months so this was fantastic!

Arrival Logistics

We drove from home directly to location. We planned where to stay based on where we had permission to hunt.

General Overview

Sleep - hunt - eat and drink as necessary - repeat.

Main Activities

Adventure, nature, hunting

Food and Drink Highlights

Eating dinner at the Steak Pit in the Patricia Hotel. When we all placed our order (everyone ordered the T-bone steak meal) they handed us paper plates covered in giant, raw steaks. Then they pointed us towards a grill and said “cook it yourselves.” It turned out to be quite the feast. We cooked steak, garlic toast and fresh local corn on the cob (Taber Corn). They provided baked potato, soup & salad. All this was washed down with cold beers and tall tales.

This unique dining experience was the icing on the cake for an awesome road trip.

Essential Packing for this Trip

Binoculars are essential. A mosquito net for the face would have made our second night a little more comfy.

What Curtis got up to…

My brother had an elk tag so four of us friends decided to make a 2 night road trip hunting adventure out of it. We piled in his truck and left home at 10:30PM on Thursday nights. By 01:30AM we had arrived at our location for the morning hunt. In the middle of a pasture, next to a miltary base about 30 miles from the nearest town.

The base had been closed to hunters for decades so the elk population flourished so much that they began spilling out of the base and damaging neighbouring farmer’s crops.

We rolled out our sleeping bags onto the dirt road to catch several hours sleep before our hunt began. We woke before 6AM to the sounds of elk bugling in the distance and knew it would be a good day. Off we went and hunted hard from 6 AM - 8PM. We saw antelope, whitetail deer and mule deer….not a single elk.

We headed for supper to the nearest known restaurant which was a 45 minute drive away. On our way there we were treated to the Harvest Moon rising in the east which was a sight to behold. I still don’t know why but the harvest moon seems to be several times bigger than an ordinary moon. It is larger than life!

We arrived to the restaurant close to 9PM and were hungry. Only then were we informed that we were responsible for cooking our own food! What a unique dining experience!

After supper we headed back out for another night under the stars. Again nature was on our side and the timing for things in the morning was serendipitous….The rain was about 10 minutes away from us as the sun started to rise. This caused a massive double rainbow which had us all in awe.

We hunted hard until noon before we headed home. Empty handed of elk, and full of memories and camaraderie.

About The Traveller

Gender & Age Range
Male, 26 - 30

I’m from
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Occupation
Self Employed

My favourite trip as of late
Hiking west of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Backcountry in Kananaskis.

Travelling Style
Book the important stuff, but leave some flexibility in the schedule.

I like to go on the following types of trips
Adventure, Food, Beaches, Hiking, Culture, Wine, Scuba Diving, Camping.

It’s a dealbreaker when
Accommodation is dirty and/or the food quality is poor.

Continent I know the best
North America