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Much of the success of the Alberta Outdoorsmen comes from our talented outdoor writers. Each of our writers lives and works in Alberta so their knowledge of this province and its outdoor resources is first-hand.
Following is a short biography on each of our regular columnists. |
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Father and Daughter Team Together
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Bob was born in Turner Valley and grew up on a Stump Farm near Edson. As a youngster, Bob spent every possible minute in the outdoors, hunting, fishing or trapping. His boyhood passion for the outdoors has never diminished, and after a brief stint with both Forestry and the RCMP, he began a career as a Fish and Wildlife officer. As a district officer, he served in Brooks, Strathmore, Hinton, Calgary and briefly in Peace River. In 1980 he was appointed to the position of Director of Enforcement for the Division, a position he held until his retirement in 1993. During this period Bob was very active in law enforcement internationally and was the president of: The Association of Midwest Fish and Game Law Enforcement Officers; The Northwestern Association of Fish and Wildlife Officers; The Chairman of The Law Enforcement Technical Committee of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, and for his work as acting chair of the Western Association itself, was awarded an honorary lifetime membership.
Bob began writing humorous, non-fiction short stories in his retirement years. To date, he has written eight books: The Stump Farm; Beyond The Stump Farm; Horse Cop; Fish Cop; The Elephant's Trunk; The South Road; Skunks & Hound Dogs; and In The Shadow Of The Rockies. His books, all national best sellers, are very popular with readers of all ages and from all walks of life.
Bob lives in Edmonton with his wife Martha where he continues to pursue his love for the outdoors and work on his writing.
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Kelly, an award winning writer and director, was born in Calgary where she spent most of her adolescence.
After graduating from high school she attended both the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary and graduated with a Bachelor of Education. She embarked on a career teaching English and Drama that took her from Fort McMurray to Stony Plain. Her creativity and high energy led to numerous awards at the zone and provincial levels.
In 1999 Kelly left the teaching profession and undertook the challenging and demanding roles of publisher and editor-in-chief at Megamy Publishing Ltd. where she works with her father on his national best selling books - true stories from the great outdoors. Kelly lives in Edmonton with her husband Bill and her two daughters, Megan and Amy, where she continues to oversee the daily running of Megamy Publishing. |
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Brian Bildson has spent his entire life exploring Canada's wilderness. He was raised in the Northwest Territories where hunting, fishing and trapping were a natural part of his life.
After moving to Alberta in the 80's, Brian began trapping along the Kakwa River and can now be found running his trapline in the Willmore Wilderness Park.
When not trapping Brian can be found at his back country lodge on the edge of the Willmore. Visit www.sheepcreek.net for a look at this beautiful piece of Alberta. |
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Brad Fenson is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys hunting, fishing and unique adventures. His passion for the outdoors pushes him into the field for approximately 100 days or more each year. He has traveled across North America hunting and fishing along the trail and collecting incredible photographs and story ideas from unique locations.
Brad has been hunting since he was four years old, when his dad used to take him along on excursions in western Canada. Since those early days his love for the outdoors has grown into new challenges to find quality outdoor experiences. Brad likes to hunt with a bow and arrow, muzzleloader, shotgun and center-fire rifle for a wide variety of Alberta game. He pursues his passion for fishing just as hard as hunting and holds a special place for the days when he can include his family. |
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Backyard Ballistics columnist Richard Mellon has lived and hunted in northwestern Alberta his entire life. The outdoors, hunting and fishing were a natural part of growing up in the north and the meat killed was an integral part of feeding the family.
Married to Sandi, his number 1 hunting buddy, the two have raised 3 kids in the outdoors tradition and are now empty-nesters.
In May 2001, Rich joined ranks with well-known outdoor writer TJ Schwanky and the two started producing The Outdoor Quest TV series. The show focuses on hunting across North America with a strong slant on adventure and how-to information. Rich has always been an avid hunter and serious shooter, the advent of the TV show brought muzzleloaders into his life - a new area of the shooting sports. Rich was promptly gripped by the new sport and has become immersed in the long range/high performance niche, already taking a whitetail buck at over 220 yards.
Now Richard and TJ are working on a multi title DVD project that will include sheep, elk, deer, moose and caribou titles.
Richard respects all forms of hunting but admits that his eyes really light up when something goes boom and the smell of gunpowder is in the air.
Mellon is a charter member of the Professional Outdoors Media Association. |
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Born in Los Angeles, California, Don Meredith was soon dragged northward by the “call of the wild”. He eventually ended up in Alberta in 1970 where he finished his studies in wildlife biology, worked for a while as a consulting biologist and finally settled down as a writer, biologist and communications consultant. He spent 13 years with the Alberta Fish and Wildlife Division as its Coordinator of Information and Education. Don writes the column, “Rubs, Scrapes and Tangle, signs along the way” for the Outdoorsmen. He has won several awards for his writing, including two first places in the 2000 Outdoor Writers of Canada National Communications Awards for articles that appeared in the Outdoorsmen — best magazine column, and best magazine feature article on hunting.
As a consulting biologist, Don worked on various projects for both private industry and government in the High Arctic, northern Alberta and the Rocky Mountains. He drew upon his experiences in the North to write his first young-adult, adventure novel, Dog Runner (© 1989, 2004). The novel won the 1990 Writers Guild of Alberta Award of Excellence for Children’s Literature, and has also been published in Dutch and German.
His second novel, The Search for Grizzly One (© 2005), is a story about a teenager searching for his grandfather lost in a bush airplane over northern Alberta.
Visit Don’s website (www.donmeredith.ca) |
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Claudio Ongaro, the Seasonal Targets Columnist, started his working career as a schoolteacher in 1988, at the age of 22, after graduating from the University of Alberta. He taught full time for six years and part time for six years while building his outfitting business.
Currently, he outfits fulltime for waterfowl from the Ongaro Lodge in the world famous prairie pothole region in central Eastern Alberta and outfits for trophy whitetails and mule deer in Alberta's remote Western foothills.
Claudio has been published in several outdoor publications since 1989. Feature articles have focused primarily on his areas of expertise, which include hunting for Whitetail and Mule deer, angling for Walleye, and hunting for waterfowl.
Claudio's personal hunting has taken him from the wind swept cactus strewn prairies to the muddiest muskeg bogs of the lowlands and as high as the snow covered peaks of the Rocky Mountains. His latest venture, Northern Giants Outdoors Video Collection, produces hunting and fishing related DVD titles where pursuit of trophy animals is the main focus.
Claudio and, wife, Linda have enjoyed a wonderful married life together since 1990. In March of 2005, their daughter Aspen was born and in June of 2006 another daughter, Sierra, graced their home. |
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Duane was born in Blairmore, Alberta in the Crowsnest Pass, and grew up in Bellevue where he started hunting and fishing at an early age. He went to grade school in the Crowsnest Pass, and completed high school in Calgary. Duane attended the University of Calgary and the University of Manitoba where he completed his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in zoology and biology. He has been certified as a Fisheries Scientist by the American Fisheries Society. He worked as a Regional Fisheries Biologist, Regional Director and Fisheries Director for the Alberta Fish and Wildlife Division. He is a recipient of the Order of the Bighorn Award - Alberta's highest award for fish and wildlife conservation.
Duane currently resides in Edmonton where he works as a free lance writer and photographer. He writes for various magazines in Canada and the United States. He’s an award-winning member of the Outdoor Writers of Canada. He shoots photos for Lone Pine Photo, a quality Canadian stock photo agency in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He’s a member of the Alberta Fish and Game Association and the Edmonton Trout Fishing Club. He is a Honourary Life Member of the Great Plains Fishery Workers Association. Duane is a field editor for The Canadian Fly Fisher magazine, and an Alberta Outdoorsmen magazine columnist. Be sure to purchase his award winning cookbook: Fish and Wild Game Recipes – From the Field to the Table. He co-authored the award winning book Conservation Pride and Passion with fellow columnist Don Meredith. |
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Duane was born in Calgary, now lives in Edmonton and has lived in Alberta all his life. His day job is in the tire industry and much of his spare time is spent in the bush or on a lake with camera and/or gun in hand. He hunts most everything but especially enjoys November deer hunting. Interested in nature and photography as long has he can remember, he has combined the two into a hobby and sideline as a nature photographer.
Over the last 15 years Duane's images have been used throughout Canada and the US in Outdoor, Nature, Train and Farming magazines. His photos have also been used in calendars, brochures, websites etc. Duane also sells canvas and paper prints of his favorite images and is represented by Quebec Stock Images stock agency. www.drosenkranzphotography.com |
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Bob Scammell, a born and raised Albertan, has been fishing and hunting here and elsewhere for more than 50 years and writing about it since 1966 in a weekly outdoors column that continues to appear in various Alberta newspapers. He has freelanced to many of North America's major outdoors magazines.
For 37 years, until 1998, Scammell practiced law in Red Deer, Alberta. In the early '70's he served two terms as president of the Alberta Fish and Game Association, the province's largest association of anglers and hunters. In 1976 the AFGA awarded Scammell the Fulton Trophy, its highest award, and early in 2000 the Alberta government inducted him into the Order of Bighorn, its highest honour to a conservationist. The Canadian Wildlife Federation also honored Scammell with its Roderick Haig-Brown Award in Winnipeg in June 2005.
In 1987 Scammell "fished for his country" in England as a member of Canada's first team in the World Fly Fishing Championship. His 1995 book, "The Phenological Fly", presents a natural method of predicting Alberta's major aquatic insect hatches.
Scammell's current book, "Good Old Guys, Alibis and Outright Lies", a collection of his outdoors humour writing, won the 1997 Book Award of the Outdoor Writers of Canada. His first book, "The Outside Story", a collection from the first ten years of his newspaper columns, won the OWC Book Award in 1983. |
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Spike Camp Musings' Columnist, T.J. Schwanky is one of Canada's most prolific outdoor writers. Additionally, he is a regular seminar speaker at sportsmen's shows across North America and he is host of Thompson/Center's Outdoor Quest on the Men's Channel in the U.S.A. and Wild TV in Canada.
A self-confessed walleye addict, T.J. also admits to being a closet fly-fisherman and rates Alberta's Ram River as his favourite destination. He spends a great deal of his time in the high basins of the Rocky Mountains in search of bighorn sheep and is the holder of several Longhunter Society Records for big game harvested with a muzzleloader. There is no place he'd rather spend his days than in Alberta's great outdoors.
Visit www.theoutdoorquest.com Official Website. |
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Born in Brantford ON, I have lived in a variety of places in both Canada and the USA. While living in Newfoundland in the mid 1970’s, I learned to fly fish and tie flies as that was the only legal method of fishing in most nearby streams and rivers. What began as a simple hobby has become a lifelong addiction now spanning 35 years.
I served in the Canadian Forces for 26+ years as a Medical Technician across Canada with several postings in Alberta. In 2000, I returned to Alberta and retired here in 2006 from the Canadian Forces. I am an avid outdoorsman who prefers to fly fish with my own flies in smaller creeks and streams. I try to keep my fly fishing and fly tying from being taken too seriously, yet still respect the traditions attached to it. As well, I enjoy hunting big game, upland game and waterfowl. My wife and I and our family reside in and around Redcliff AB as I pursue a career in the outdoors.
I am a member of the Outdoor Writers of Canada, Rocky Mountain Outdoor Writers and Photographers, AFGA, AHEIA and Delta Waterfowl. |
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J.B. Struthers is retired in Edmonton. He carried a game warden's badge from August of 1964 to May of 1997. During those years he was stationed in Athabasca, Whitecourt, Edson, Evansburg, Calgary, Edmonton, St. Paul, Edmonton and Red Deer before doing a third and final stint in Edmonton as Chief of Enforcement - Field Services. Much of his second sojourn in capital city was spent redrafting Alberta's wildlife and fisheries legislation.
He writes regularly for Alberta Outdoorsmen and a quarterly publication. His short fiction appears sporadically in various publications in Canada and the U.S.A. |
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Neil Waugh brings over 25 years of political and outdoors writing to Alberta Outdoorsmen. As well as being the Edmonton Sun’s provincial affairs columnist for over a decade he also contributes his weekly Out There column to the publication.
His Covers and Riffles column brings an outdoors perspective to the political activities under the Dome.
Neil was literally born with a flyrod in his hands and raised in the West Country both on the Coal Branch and later Drayton Valley. He received his education at the University of Alberta.
A recipient of several Outdoor Writers of Canada communications awards both for writing and photography, Neil has a passion for Alberta’s lakes, rivers and wild places.
When not covering the legislature, Neil can usually be found up a foothills trout stream or in ruffed grouse cover with his yellow Lab Ginger. |
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Tips for the Outdoorsman Columnist, Kevin Wilson is an award-winning outdoor writer. An avid sportsman, Kevin lives the outdoor lifestyle as a professional outfitter and big game/bird game guide in Alberta (see venturenorthoutfitting.com).
With a passion for hunting bighorn sheep, trophy whitetails, and waterfowl, he’s taken several record-book specimens with bow-and-arrow. Although a committed bowhunter, Kevin enjoys all outdoor pursuits from fly-fishing to ice-fishing, freshwater and saltwater angling, as well as hunting with muzzleloader, shotgun and centerfire rifle. He’s fished and hunted across North America taking many different species from the exotic such as caribou, grizzly bear, and sheep to wild turkeys. |
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