This is big bear country
Saskatchewan is the home of over 100,000 lakes, and all of the creek, river, and swamp systems in between them. Our area-specific boreal fringe is the perfect spot to pull big boars year after year. We've got high yield crops, dense forest, water systems and swamps packed with beaver and fish. Find a better place to hunt black bear, we may be biased but in our mind, it doesn't exist.
Rare Company
This is boreal transition country, the same rolling mix of aspen, willow, spruce, and water systems that shelter places like nearby Bronson Forest, one of the few pockets left where the old northern bush still runs unbroken. It's rare enough terrain that it holds Saskatchewan's only wild horse herd, animals that have survived here for the better part of a century on nothing but what the land provides. Whitetail and black bear share that same undisturbed ground, which is exactly why it hunts the way it does.
Rest between sits
This is not about the cabin. It's about five and a half days of true quiet, running creek water, that twig snap that may be the big one, or that chocolate, or that cinnamon, and a camp built so the sit is the only thing on your mind.
Private rooms and home-cooked meals between long evening sits, with camp quiet enough to actually recover, and a table that has fed hunters here for decades.
Trophy care happens in its own building, separate from the lodge and built for exactly one purpose, with a walk-in cooler and freezer so your bear is handled right before it ever leaves camp.
Mornings are unhurried, most of the work here happens in the last hours of daylight, which leaves the rest of the day for rest, coffee, a bit of fishing, and the kind of stillness you came north for.
Ask us what a week here actually looks like →
The People
A small, hands-on crew. You are not one of many guests moving through a season, you are hunting alongside the people who know this ground.
Walker
Walker shot his first whitetail with Ken at nine years old and guided through his teens before eight years in the Canadian Army Infantry. He came back to camp in 2017 as head guide and partner. Off season, he works as a diesel mechanic in the mines.
Kathy
Kathy has hunted since she was young, taught by a father with an uncanny sense for where the game would be. She built Makwa River alongside Ken starting in 1990, running it full time alongside a career in finance and the family's farming and spray business. What she loves most is still meeting the people who come through camp.
Randal
Randal has hunted since he was twelve. Before joining Makwa River in 2019, he guided moose, elk, and bear in northwest Alberta and ran a hotel and restaurant with his wife in northern Saskatchewan. He works as a telecommunications technologist in oil and gas the rest of the year.
Real Hunts, Real Hunters
A few of the guests who have sat this ground with us.
What Hunters Say
“I have done a lot of bear hunting, in many locations. I have seen a lot of bear. I have taken 15 bear. I never dreamed that I would see something this big walk out of the forest in front of me. I wish everyone would have the opportunity to see a bear like that come out of the forest. You just don't see that.”
“I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for running a first class operation, it was all that was advertised and more. I have hunted with a number of different outfitters at different camps and yours is in the top echelon. A lot of outfitters boast of hunters coming into camp as strangers and leaving as friends, but my experience is that is a hard bar to reach. You did achieve that.”
“I just wanted you to know that it looks like my bear will make the Pope and Young record book. I am really excited about that. I have to have it officially scored by a P&Y representative, but it should make it easily. I really enjoyed my time with you guys.”
Every Detail, Already Settled
The Investment
The cost of a week here covers more than a sit. It's bait sites tended twelve months a year, a guide who knows every bear working this ground, and five and a half days built around the one hour of daylight that actually matters.
Build Your Hunt
Answer four quick questions and we'll come back to you personally with dates and pricing. No deposit, no obligation.
