More Than The Hunt: Arctic Tundra Fishing and Hunting with Jay Siemens and Alex Flaherty

Imagine, if you will, a trip to a walleye fishing camp in Canada, a place where anglers gather for some of the best fishing action in North America and camps where no good day on the water goes by without fireside chats and toasts being made at night following a day of piscatorial success.

But mention to the group of weary anglers during such smoky sessions under the Milky Way’s glow that you have recently spent some time hunting as far north of the border as possible in the country’s snow-covered Arctic region, and the conversation might grow confused and a bit quiet as everyone thinks about a region that is quite unfamiliar.

After all, an Arctic adventure is something many dreamt of in their younger days, tales straight out of Jack London’s “Call of the Wild.”

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On this edition of Can-Am's original series, More Than The Hunt, follow along as fishing guide Jay Siemens heads to the Canadian tundra for a unique Arctic hunting and fishing experience. But it's not musk ox that Siemens is seeking, but instead piscatorial critters caught through the ice along with some Ptarmigan, a snow-white upland bird of the Arctic tundra. Along the way, Jay will experience a meal fit for a king and learn how guide Alex Flaherty uses Can-Am Outlander and Defender vehicles to help him teach and pass on Inuit hunting traditions to younger generations living near the Arctic Circle.

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Somewhere in the conversation sure to follow, a keen observer familiar with Canada’s Arctic might ask to see the photos of your hunt, something like a musk ox brought home, a big game animal that along with the polar bear, rules the forbidden tundra few people ever get to venture to.

Former fishing guide turned cinematographer Jay Siemens knows that question well, and he also knows the curious smiles that follow as you explain that your Arctic adventure didn’t involve large caliber rifles designed to dispatch big game weighing a proverbial ton, but instead smaller caliber offerings that took aim at smaller game even as the shaggy beasts might have methodically roamed in the distance.

When Siemens journeyed from his Canadian home where he chases walleye and such, the target species became something that few hunters ever get to see, let alone hunt. Because an adventure for the Arctic’s lone upland bird species is rare indeed, as rare as a May snowstorm in Kansas.

Filmed for the Can-Am original series, “More Than The Hunt,” Siemens’ journey to the region for a unique Arctic hunting and fishing adventure might not have been the stuff of legends, but it sure was the stuff of an outdoors enthusiast’s dreams.

It certainly was a dreamlike setting as Siemens ventured about as far north as he could go, hoping for a unique field-to-table experience as he sought the snowy upland birds and the region’s piscatorial critters pulled up from frigid waters lying below the ice. Such table fare is unusual, right there along with musk ox backstrap, but also familiar in a way, wild protein provided by creatures that make themselves quite at home in the cold and snowy terrain.

In finding such a rare outdoor adventure, Jay was guided into his unusual and world-class experience—not to mention a meal fit for a king—by guide Alex Flaherty.

But along with introducing Siemens to his unusual hunting and fishing trips offered to a curious world below in southern Canada and the Lower 48, Flaherty also uses Can-Am’s Outlander and Defender series vehicles to help him teach and pass on Inuit hunting traditions to younger generations living near the Arctic Circle.

As the pair explored the frozen Nunavut countryside, the 30-something Siemens couldn't help but smile at where his journey to present some of the globe’s best YouTube fishing content has taken him. Launching his online digital show Uncut Angling a while back, the original dream found the angler armed with a rod in one hand and a camera in the other as he sought the catch and landing of the muskie of a lifetime, or the ever-elusive 12-pound walleye.

But in his digital angling effort that began in 2011, Siemens' 200,000+ content subscribers have grown to expect the unusual from Jay, a trait that when combined with a superb storyline crafting ability and exquisite video has led to more than 45 million views on YouTube as the Kenora, Ontario resident continues to push across boundaries in filming some of the outdoor industry's most unique and compelling storylines.

"My passion for fishing can't be, you know, labeled in one category," said Siemens. "I'm not just a bass fisherman or a fly fisherman (because) I like doing it all. Ice fishing is a big part of what I do and I'm excited to do it up here."

Flaherty, for his part, was excited to share the adventures of the part of the planet he calls home.

"I love the outdoors, I love what I do," said Flaherty. "It's everything."

But what turns out to be everything for the owner and operator of Polar Outfitting, an Iqaluit, Nunavut-based outfitting operation that has maintained 100-percent Inuit employment is not only guiding others to unique Arctic outdoors adventures but also passing along traditions that have been handed down for centuries.

"Living in Nunavut, the communities are small so we often know everybody in the community," said Flaherty. "And we help each other out."

For Flaherty, that means teaching the Nunavut youth about the region's culture and the pastimes of generations gone by, ancient ways of life that remain relevant and important in today's modern world, even on the Arctic tundra.

In that setting, which contains rough terrain and snow-globe conditions as far as you can see at times, outfitted groups ranging from two to 100 bring about unique demands that cause Flaherty to rely on the rugged and legendary off-road vehicles built by Can-Am, tough gear that can survive the worst conditions the Arctic can deliver.

"We only have limited amount of roads here, so we often use this equipment to make our own roads," he said.

Siemens didn't mind road-less wandering in a place he found endlessly fascinating as they chased ptarmigan and landlocked char beneath the hard water's surface.

"The first word you think of when you think of the Arctic is just vast," he said. "Every time you take a step, you're like 'Oh, maybe someone's never taken a step here before.’"

But as Flaherty patiently explains, even as vast as the region's terrain is and as remote as it might seem, actually, many others have taken steps here in the millennia before.

And thanks to his unique work in the Arctic, those ancient steps will be remembered and passed on to younger generations who will then do in kind in the years to come, ensuring that even as the Arctic wind blows, the whisper of timeless tundra wisdom and culture never fades away even in a land often besieged by gathering snow squalls.

With a little help from outdoors adventurers like Siemens and Flaherty, Can-Am's desire to show that there's "More Than The Hunt" will ring true once again, even in the vastness of the Arctic country where the wind blows, the snow flies and the ptarmigan steadily goes about making itself at home in a winter wonderland few will ever see.