Massey teen’s story featured in American hunting magazine

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Montana Brandow, born and raised in Massey, has always loved the outdoors. Ice-fishing in the winter, camping, hunting, boating and shooting have always been her lifestyle and that of her family.

A few months ago, she wrote her own personal story and submitted it to Safari magazine, an American publication part of Safari International (SI). Her story has been published in the November/December issue of Safari.

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An event last spring changed her life and prompted her to write the story and send it in to the hunting magazine. Brandow found herself on the runway of a regional pageant last May competing with 42 beautiful contestants for the title of Miss North Ontario, something she never anticipated.

The young woman who prefers to wear blue jeans and cowboy boots or steel-toed work boots, suddenly found herself competing on a runway in a formal gown, something she never would have guessed she’d be doing, she says.

She titled her story, ‘From Treestand to the Glitz & Glamor of the Runway’. Her lifestyle has always been rural and agricultural, growing up in the town of Massey. At a young age she became a member of the local 4-H Club and discovered a love of working on a dairy farm. She has been around dairy farms for about eight years, she says and especially loves looking after the newborn calves.

She remembers catching her first big largemouth bass at four years-of-age, using her little Scooby-Doo rod & reel. Brandow says there is a photo of her barely holding on to the bass.

The 19-year-old Cambrian College graphic arts student learned to shoot a hunting rifle before she was even 12 years old. She enjoys hunting and has participated in the Women’s Hunting Association Range Day, an event that introduces and educates women who have never held a gun, let alone shot a gun.

“They experience and learn how to handle the various types of firearms, rifles as well as shotguns for skeet and trap shooting,” said Brandow.

When she was approached to be a possible contestant in the Miss North Ontario pageant that is held in Sudbury each year in the spring, she didn’t think it was for her at all.

However, after researching the pageant she found that along with being a beauty and talent contest it was more about encouraging young women to participate in their communities and fundraise for the Northern Ontario Families of Children with Cancer (NOFCC).

After she submitted her entry, she was contacted by the pageant officials who wanted to know more about this young woman’s outdoor lifestyle. Brandow decided it would be a wonderful way to help the NOFCC and champion her own love of the outdoors and promote hunting for women.

With the help of local businesses in the township, Brandow became Miss Sables-Spanish Rivers and competed in the May 2019 pageant. Her platform of promoting women’s sustainable hunting and fishing, and the importance of natural food sources was key to her success in the competition.

“Hunting and fishing is a delicious and nutritional renewable food resource to feed families,” says Brandow. “Healthy living means eating well with no by-products, GMOs, steroids or other chemical injections in our food.”

Brandow will be competing in the 2020 Miss North Ontario pageant this spring and has already begun finding sponsors to help her raise funds for NOFCC. Any businesses who choose to sponsor her will have their business names printed in the pageant program and on social media.

She looks forward to continuing her studies and working on the local dairy farm this summer, along with her other summer job at Chutes Provincial Park in Massey. She intends to continue promoting hunting and fishing for women and the importance of nutritional food for everyone.

For more information about being a sponsor contact Montana Brandow on Facebook.