Yellowknife (Jan 15/07) - For more than 20 years, Gary Jaeb has been taking sporthunters and fishers from around the world into the barren lands to experience its beauty and bounty.

From up-and-coming hunters to integral members of the True North Safaris team, Dan, left, and Malcolm Jaeb are taking outfitting business into the new millennium. - Jason Unrau/NNSL photo

What started in 1983 with two clients has blossomed into True North Safaris, which operates a pair of lodges on Mackay Lake. Located 150 air miles north of Yellowknife, the lodges accommodate upwards of 300 hunters, fishers and sightseers annually.

"What we are is a service industry, we're taking people out to have this (hunting or fishing) experience," said Jaeb. "It's a good lifestyle. You get to be outdoors and meet people from around the world."

Last week at True North Safaris' Kam Lake office there was much activity as Jaeb and his two sons, Dan and Malcolm, prepared to hit the road, bound for the circuit of wilderness adventure shows around North America to drum up business for the coming season.

The sons, both Tlicho, started as fishing guides for the lodge in their early teens. Their love of the outdoors, hunting and guiding soon made them stakeholders in the business; Malcolm manages the Mackay Lake Lodge while Dan is the owner and manager of Warburton Lodge.

"I love the outdoors, and hunting and (the lifestyle) works for a lot of my guides," said Dan. "To me (the guides) are like family."

And the business has had a legacy of local support from guides to residents from whose traditional lifestyles Jaeb learned much.

"There was Johnny Zoe-Chocolate who would take out some string, a knife and his .303 (rifle) and pack out two or three caribou," recalled Jaeb with wonder. "He showed us how to do things the traditional way."

Jaeb, who bagged his first whitetail deer when he was 14, moved to the NWT in the early '70s and met his wife Bertha Zoe in Edzo, where they were working as school teachers.

Though Jaeb knew how to hunt deer, he admits he knew nothing about hunting caribou.

"I got to learn it when I came here and it's not only practical, but spiritual," he said.

With the modern world encroaching on the traditional, Jaeb believes his business helps invigorate traditional culture in the region.

"Hunting is a way of life here," he said. "We are an aboriginal-owned business, we hire 30-plus people from the communities and it gives them an opportunity to stay connected to the land."

But for the next several weeks, the three men will be travelling south as ambassadors of the Northwest Territories outdoors.

The elder Jaeb said with a potential drastic decrease in caribou tags - "our lodges' bread and butter" - the business has had to fast track promoting its diversification.

In addition to sport fishing and guided hunting tours for caribou, wolf and bear, Jaeb said True North Safaris has been offering more wildlife viewing and winter sightseeing experiences.

While Malcolm, the youngest of the trio, prefers taking hunters and sightseers on-the-land to slogging it out on the trade show circuit, he said there were some perks to the latter.

"Seeing former clients at shows, listening to them recount their hunting experiences and knowing you were a part of that memory, that puts a smile on my face for sure," he said.