'Extreme Huntress' title in Cranbrook woman's crosshairs

It's not quite the Hunger Games, but a B.C. woman has been shortlisted to become the planet's "Extreme Huntress," as part of a skills competition designed to get women around the world involved in hunting.

Nikita Dalke, 26, is a mother of two from the Kootenay community of Cranbrook who stocks her freezer with nothing but wild game.

"It's a lot of work. It's very challenging just being outdoors. And I love the meat. I don't eat beef or anything that is bought from the store," says Dalke.

It's not an unusual for Dalke to hump a pack into the Rockies, bag a deer, gut and quarter it and hump it out.

And sometimes she and her husband bring their two kids on hunting trips.

"We take them out frequently and teach them about the outdoors, then they have an understanding of their food. We show them everything from in the field to dinner basically."

Role model in 'camo'

In some urban centres an armed woman dressed in full camouflage would draw looks, but in Cranbrook where there's as much venison as beef in freezers, she's a role model who makes no apologies for her passion.     

"My nana was the only woman in the family that hunted so I kind of got the interest from her," she says.

So far Dalke has hunted for mountain goat, elk, mule deer, whitetail deer, cougar, black bear, wolf, turkey, coyote and small game.

Now Dalke has taken her passion for hunting and entered a worldwide competition known as Extreme Huntress, an online reality show and contest designed to get women involved in the male-dominated pursuit. 

She's already made the shortlist of the final 20 with huntresses from South Africa to the Czech Republic and she gets enough votes she'll be invited with five others to Dallas for a skills competition.

"It was a mixture of excitement and shock. A little bit of disbelief," she says about making the list.

Voting for Extreme Huntress goes on for the rest of the month. There are two other Canadians in the final 20.