Why do Canadian guided hunts costs so damn much compared to international hunts?

So I'm trying to wrap my head around the Canadian market for guided hunts and how they compare pricewise and level of difficulty to eachother.

If all things are considered equal ie 7 day hunt timeline, how do the costs of these hunts compare?

Bighorn Sheep > Stone Sheep > Mountain Goat > Bison > Elk > Moose > Black Bear > White tail??


Does that look about right? In not actually seeing any prices for brown bear on BookYourHunt but I'm guessing they're up there with the goats and sheep.
 
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They don't have to cost an arm and a leg although I can see why guided hunts do. Me and my daughter did a solid fly in/out hunt and and all said and done was 5k if I had to pay a guy for 11 days and he had the camp and camping gear already there I could see the cost also if I had to pay for the planing and making it happen I can see the extra costs. To have a 95+% success rate takes a lot of work.

Although I have offered doing "accompany Hunter" hunts a few times no one takes me up on it..then it's literally just the cost devided by 2, no added fees.
 
Northern Shooter said:
So I'm trying to wrap my head around the Canadian market for guided hunts and how they compare pricewise and level of difficulty to eachother.

If all things are considered equal ie 7 day hunt timeline, how do the costs of these hunts compare?

Bighorn Sheep > Stone Sheep > Mountain Goat > Bison > Elk > Moose > Black Bear > White tail??


Does that look about right? In not actually seeing any prices for brown bear on BookYourHunt but I'm guessing they're up there with the goats and sheep.
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You’ve pretty much listed them in order of prevalence in game numbers, so that’s likely pretty accurate. If on a budget and looking for a hunt, I’d suggest looking at elk, Newfoundland moose, or pronghorn. If you want to hunt mountains, go for the elk.
 
The location is a big appeal of stone sheep hunting. Always was for me, anyway. Often you are in beautiful country and can spend quite a bit of time without seeing anyone else. A few years ago we spent over 2 weeks in sheep country and never saw any other human activity except for the odd plane flying high above. On the other hand, one trip we peeked over a ridge into a basin and were evaluating the rams there when we saw the outfitter and his client on the other side of the basin. :)
 
geologist said:
In 2004 a guided grizzly hunt with lodging and meals included on the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia was around $10K US. Airfare not included.
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That $10,000 USD, in 2004 ($13,000CAD in 2004) is now worth $16,300USD or $19,600CAD. I'm sure a Kamchatka bear hunt has outstripped inflation, but how much I could not guess.
 
BigUglyMan said:
That $10,000 USD, in 2004 ($13,000CAD in 2004) is now worth $16,300USD or $19,600CAD. I'm sure a Kamchatka bear hunt has outstripped inflation, but how much I could not guess.
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I talked to some of the hunters on the flight over to Petropavlosk and they said that the accomodations and food were very plush.

They had their ammo counted on the way in and on the way out. Russians..................

I met an author on grizzly books on the same flights. Guys first name was Charlie and he was a greenie lefty type. I had heard of him but when he asked me if as a geologist I knew his work I said "No, I've only read Herrero and Shelton and think Shelton is the best."..... He seemed crestfallen................
 
Gatehouse said:
The location is a big appeal of stone sheep hunting. Always was for me, anyway. Often you are in beautiful country and can spend quite a bit of time without seeing anyone else. A few years ago we spent over 2 weeks in sheep country and never saw any other human activity except for the odd plane flying high above. On the other hand, one trip we peeked over a ridge into a basin and were evaluating the rams there when we saw the outfitter and his client on the other side of the basin. :)
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Was that the trip that you fell off Gluestick and broke your leg?
 
geologist said:
I talked to some of the hunters on the flight over to Petropavlosk and they said that the accomodations and food were very plush.

They had their ammo counted on the way in and on the way out. Russians..................

I met an author on grizzly books on the same flights. Guys first name was Charlie and he was a greenie lefty type. I had heard of him but when he asked me if as a geologist I knew his work I said "No, I've only read Herrero and Shelton and think Shelton is the best."..... He seemed crestfallen................
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This lefty.

Talking with Bears is a portrait of Charlie Russell’s philosophy of nature. The book is a narrative story, written as if Russell was speaking to you. The Alberta naturalist died in May 2018 after years of work with grizzly bears, including reintegrating orphaned grizzlies into the wilds of Kamchatka.

Author G.A. Bradshaw also wrote Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us About Humanity and Carnivore Minds: Who these Fearsome Animals Really Are.

Below is the preface from Talking with Bears.

A female brown bear is standing on a grassy bench looking down at a patchwork of snow and turf. Her nose lifts as the wind passes. The air carries the sweetness of blossoms and the quiet growl of a snowmelt river. It is summer in Kamchatka, Russia’s far eastern peninsula. For seven months, the land has rested in frozen slumber.

Now, with the season’s warmth, life bursts into a raucous cavalcade of colour – streams choked with crimson salmon, meadows laughing green and stark sky beaming blue. It is bear time, time to glean every calorie possible in preparation for the coming winter. The subject of the bear’s gaze is a man with tousled grey hair and wellie boots. He is sitting on a pocket of grass nestled between the arms of a snowbank. Two bear cubs are playing near him. Without shifting her gaze, the bear begins to walk slowly toward the man and cubs. There is intention in her pace. Suddenly, an explosion of life disrupts the tranquility. The cubs have caught sight of their mother. They run joyously toward her, their faces open with broad, toothy smiles. The adults – man and bear – exchange silent greetings in the space above the chaos of rambunctious youth. Cub minding duties finished for the day, the man rises and tucks his camera back into its case. As he leaves, he glances back at the mother and child reunion. The female, who would come to be known as Brandy, is lying on her back with her cubs nursing eagerly. Walking stick in hand, the man heads for home. It’s been a grand day.

Brandy was a female brown bear living in the wilderness of Kamchatka. One day she spied a man walking in her neighbourhood. It was unusual to see humans in these parts, and when she did, they carried weapons to kill bears. This man did not. His hand held only the grace of an alder staff.

She began visiting his small wooden cabin nestled in the distant folds of the volcano’s skirts and took to harvesting pine nuts in the stand of trees outside the compound and sleeping on the path leading to the lake where the man collected water for cooking. This was how their friendship began.

There are times when two people meet and instantly connect, not because of any commonality in features or family but because their souls ignite in recognition. Charlie was to meet and befriend many bears to come, but, aside from the parental bonds developed with the ten orphaned cubs he raised and reintroduced back into the wild, his relationship with Brandy was by far the most influential and profound. He would achieve what few or none have. Not only did he forge a deep friendship with a wild adult bear, he was invited into the most sacred circle of brown bear society – the care of young bears. For seven years, he was nanny to three sets of Brandy’s children.

Charlie Russell was the chief architect of the change in how grizzly bears, North America’s counterpart to Russia’s brown bears, are perceived today. Old out-of-step-with-reality regulations are still in place, but they have lost their monolithic power over public opinion. His gentle narratives forever vanquished the myths that have imprisoned bears in the amber of human prejudice.

Built on nine years of conversations together, this book explores the philosophy, methods and sensibilities of Charlie Russell’s science, spanning seven decades of living with bears in North America and Russia. It describes an ontology and episteme, a way of existing and knowing, which he shared with bears and the rest of nature. These accounts provide a unique opportunity to experience an intact universe, the world before humanity imposed its fear-sharpened fences forcing separation from nature.

What Charlie accomplished takes rare courage. Not the kind that held his feet planted in a field of goldenrods as a 600-pound brown bear bore down on him, one day in Kamchatka. That was confidence, the kind that began in the heart and grew with intelligence from years of patient learning and caring. Charlie’s real courage lay elsewhere.

What sets him apart and is truly remarkable is the fortitude with which he weathered social dismissal and outrage for re- fusing to play humanity’s game in favour of revealing nature’s reality. His unyielding loyalty to nature and truth was regarded as an unforgivable betrayal. Although the exigencies were often painful and, at times, even life-threatening, he never wavered. He never forsook his allegiance to nature despite incessant demands and hardship.

The contradictions and controversy surrounding Charlie do not derive from the man, or the bears, but rather from a human reluctance to do what he did – drop all protective guards of human privilege and walk unarmed in the terrain of the soul, in the space of stillness from which all life springs. In this space, where the bears live, we hear voices of other teachers who advocate for the embrace of a new, but ancient, way of being – what Richard Rohr refers to as nondual thinking, Eckhart Tolle, presence, Thich Nhat Hanh, loving kindness, and quantum physicist David Bohm, wholeness. Charlie simply called it love.

The Navajo have a saying, ho?zho?, “May you walk in beauty.” Charlie walked in beauty.

He lives on in the bears and in their children’s children. He must be legend, a hero whose tale is told from one generation of bears to the next. Maybe Brandy wasn’t looking for a cub minder. Maybe she hired Charlie as an excuse to get to know this extraordinary being. Perhaps she knew that he’d be the one who would be able to teach humans how to smell the sweet blossoms and listen to the river’s song the way she did that day when this gentle man walked into her life.

This is what Charlie and the bears teach and this is their invitation to join them.

Excerpted from Talking with Bears: Conversations with Charlie Russell with permission from Rocky Mountain Books, 2020.
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There's some wannebe Charlie Russell's around here.

A guy and his wife I know were big fans of the Charlie Russell School, until he got attacked by a Black Bear in their yard...and she's afraid to go outside.
 
So I've been doing a little digging and it looks like for anyone that wants to hunt Caribou, Manitoba is the place to go.

Guided Caribou hunts in Manitoba are Cheaper than BC/Yukon and even Newfoundland.

MB also allows non-residents buy Caribou licenses without the need for hiring an outfitter.
 
Northern Shooter said:
So I've been doing a little digging and it looks like for anyone that wants to hunt Caribou, Manitoba is the place to go.

Guided Caribou hunts in Manitoba are Cheaper than BC/Yukon and even Newfoundland.

MB also allows non-residents buy Caribou licenses without the need for hiring an outfitter.
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what is the actual situation of mb caribou? having to pay an outfitter doesnt mean success but might help a lot in the case of caribou that may make the difference between seing them or not.
 
rajczak_kashka said:
One deeply concerned about such novel things as affordability, is certainly not the focus group of clients these outfitters court.
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I'd argue that many guided hunts are and should be in the attainable realm of the average man.

I may not be able to drop $50,000-$100,000 on a hunt but $10,000-$20,000 is doable for many of us.
 
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canada is the equivalent of only a few places regarding to international hunting thus for one part of the cost, most of the outfitters are now multi millions operations while in the past 30 to 40 years the cost of purchase the right to operate (not to own the land) was way cheaper. i doubt there are many outfitters operating or taking the risks alone and more than often it is a multi people areas ... some are very good outfits some i will not touch with a ten foot pole despite them having good recommendations even from ex or actual members ...
comparing to bc is an interesting thing as outfitters have a board that give them the tri annual quotas and for grizzly it s a point system and any gb taken by locals (residents) are going agaisnt their points so you do imagine they do not want us there lol ...
the big difference with bc as well is if no resident allowed to hunt non resident with guide or outfitter cant either thus again the outfitters fighting for draws in any areas that will give automatic tags.

on top of that of course of course hunting in africa is cheaper for most species but if you go for any of the big 5 in the wilderness not in a farm the cost will not be too small at the end.

covid has created damages on outfitters as well and canada has not been exempt and some outfitters did not even accepted the payment as in total and requested more money if the hunter wanted to come after the covid situation was cleared that did not help too on the reputation. try to sue as well an outfitter in canada or make a complaint to goabc or yukon outfitters association ...
 
Bfranklin said:
Supply and demand.

Bear in mind 99% of guided hunt pricing is in USD. And there are a lot of US hunters who are booking 2 years in advance.
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This is how it is in my area. Everything catered to US hunters. Outfitters in my area dredd doing work for locals. Most of the time they rather you go hunt yourself and just rent a empty cabin they need filling.
 
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