I’ve made this distinction where I can’t support factory-farm meat anymore and hunting is a way to solidify that ethic.”

Kris Heyting

The archetype of the hunter has been evolving since before mankind even existed.

With those primal ties to predators refined through millennia of civilization, this particular act of killing now spawns a range of opinions.

“The politics of hunting is becoming way more broad now,” said Kris Heyting, who has been immersed in hunting his entire life.

“Some of my earliest memories are of being on hunting trips or processing game animals,” Heyting said.

For the last five years, he’s turned to backcountry hunting, which involves climbing alpine heights in the wilderness outside of the Olympic National Park.

There was a time, however, when Heyting turned away from the chase.

“In my mid-20s I got obsessed with backpacking and mountaineering and hunting fell by the wayside,” Heyting said, describing his philosophical struggle with taking life.

“It’s heavy. It’s really intense taking a deer. I have a storm of emotions every time it happens. It doesn’t all feel good and I’ve been conflicted at times about hunting.”

That difficulty is compounded with negative stereotypes.

“The hunter’s always the bad guy in movies, like Disney villains,” Heyting said.

ETHICS OF EXPIRATION

Heyting has had a number of conversations with people who themselves eat meat, but question why he would hunt when he could buy his meat at the store.

“There are people who really don’t realize what eating meat means,” Heyting said. “You’re killing it with your debit card and you’re probably supporting horrible factory farming at the same time.”

“You’re paying for animals to be tortured their entire lives.”

Heyting points out that he only takes a buck that has had a chance to breed and lead a full life.

The animals he kills live literally on top of the world on mountain ridge lines.

Beyond the issue of factory farming, Heyting also noted that hunting funds conservation efforts.

“A lot of people haven’t made the connection between conservation and hunting. Hunting is largely what pays for conservation,” he said.

According to the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, sportsmen and women have contributed more than $14 billion to conservation since 1937. Annual payments to state fish and wildlife agencies have resulted in the recovery of deer, turkeys, and many non-game species, with benefits to hunters and non-hunters alike.

There’s also the thought that a hunter taking the life of an old buck might be the best way for it to go.

“It doesn’t die in a bed of moss with its deer family gathered around it making amends,” Heyting said. “It gets ripped apart by predators, it dies of starvation because its teeth are worn down, or it dies of disease. Those are basically its choices.”

“If I shoot a deer with a high-caliber rifle, it’s dead in seconds. It’s not cruel.”

Below, the vistas of the Olympic Mountains are all part of the backcountry hunting experience in the areas around the edges of the national parks.

A RETURN TO SOURCE

Heyting’s odyssey with hunting brought all of these realizations together, but the path there involved some strange turns.

“When I was in my mid-20s and stopped hunting, I started eating mushrooms and doing a lot of backpacking and I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep hunting, but I still hadn’t made the connection that I needed to eat ethically sourced meat,” Heyting said.

Though it didn’t happen right away, his use of psychedelics, however contentious, did eventually bring him back to field sports.

“I feel like psychedelics are not nearly as controversial anymore, but hunting still is for me,” Heyting said. “People get upset when you kill animals, even people who eat McDonald’s have gotten mad at me for hunting.”

An experience with ayahuasca (a plant-based psychedelic) allowed him to see the ethical ramifications of eating meat with a new depth.

“It highlighted how everything is connected. I would have visions of ancestors in harmony with the land and I would see how in my life I was making all these hypocritical choices, not caring where the food I was eating was coming from,” Heyting said.

“I’d been giving my money to these companies that were doing terrible things to the Earth.”

While he can’t hunt all the meat he eats, he makes sure to shop as ethically as possible.

“We’re super spoiled here. We have so many local farms. There’s no excuse to shop at Safeway if you live here,” Heyting said.

He now uses hunting as a way to make firm his beliefs.

“I’ve made this distinction where I can’t support factory farm meat anymore and hunting is a way to solidify that ethic,” he said.

He does have one place where he bends this ethic, however: Waterfront Pizza.

FIGHTING FORWARD

With his new mindset well in hand, and after listening to a number of podcasts on the subject of backcountry hunting, he put his mountaineering and hunting skills together, though they were truly never apart.

“The hunter never left me; my eyes were always scanning the ridge lines and distant meadows for game,” Heyting said.

Struggling with the elements is where he finds himself at home.

“I am the most happy when life is reduced to its basic elements,” he said.

“I get scared, I get tired, I get cold. You can’t hide from your essential nature.”

His experience upon killing his first deer at age 14 outlined well those juxtapositions of life with death.

“It was all these emotions at once,” Heyting said. “Tremendous relief, and sadness that he was dead, and gratefulness; just profound gratitude that I had procured my own meat.”

For Heyting, it’s important to note the difference in what he experiences and what others might interpret in the act.

“When you see hunters smiling next to the dead animal, it’s not because they’re glad they killed something — like bloodlust or something — it’s because they’re so relieved that it’s over. There’s so much nerve and skill and struggle and failure leading up to getting your animal. You just feel this profound relief that you have it.”

There’s also a clear difference between alpine backcountry hunting and what he did in his younger years on logging roads.

“The high country deer are different animals,” Heyting said.

Though he may only travel between 2 to 6 miles from his vehicle on foot, there are intense elevation gains and harsh environments with his trips lasting an average of four days.

To survive the alpine wilderness alone, everything he needs must be carried on his back and thoughtfully selected for its weight, including using a specialized lightweight rifle.

If he’s successful, which he has been three of the last five years, he then bones out the carcass and removes the hide before making multiple trips back down the mountain. One trip carrying the meat, hide, and head; then another after heading back up for his camping gear.

Multiple trips are required to first bring down the meat and hide before Heyting returns to his site to pack down his camping gear.

PASSING IT ON

The knowledge and skills all of that strife has honed in him are in high demand.

“I have so many people who are asking me about hunting, young progressive people, because they care about their food. They care about ethically sourced food,” Heyting said.

“They’re making the realization that if you eat meat, you should be able to kill an animal.”

The call to pass on his knowledge only seems fair to him since he’s had the help of mentor Kurt Nicpon’s
30 years of backcountry hunting experience to guide him.

“It’s kind of like passing it on because it’s kind of dying out,” Heyting said.

He also realizes that not nearly as many people today are growing up the way he did.

“I want people to be educated about it and I want people who are interested in it to be able to have a chance,” Heyting said.