Hunting and cooking squirrels is in Yia Vang’s blood

Yia Vang whispered to his friend and squirrel hunting guide Chang Her as flakes drifted from the sky. The crunch of snow under their feet echoed through Sand Dunes State Forest, northwest of the Twin Cities.

The squirrels were hunkering down in their nests, like many other Minnesotans that day, Yang said. While the squirrels never came out, his childhood memories did.

“Everything I know about my dad was kind of either from the woods or from the river or the streams or the lakes we went to,” Vang said as he sat on a log, waiting for a squirrel to venture out. “He would give me nuggets of wisdom and he could never just tell me a story. It had to be while we were doing stuff together.”

The middle child of seven siblings, Vang started hunting as a kid with his family and cooking what they caught. His passion for cooking grew into a career that has included opening the restaurant Vinai in northeast Minneapolis and food stand Union Hmong Kitchen at the Minnesota State Fair.

In 2022, Vang leveled up his hunting skills as host of the Outdoor Channel’s “Feral.” On the show, which aired for three seasons before concluding last year, Vang captured and cooked a range of animals, from the conventional, like deer and catfish, to the unusual, including Burmese python in the Everglades and alligator gar in Texas.

Part of what made the show popular is that people have grown more accepting of eating different types of foods, he said. When he was younger, that wasn’t the case. Vang was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and immigrated to the United States as a child. His family lived in central Wisconsin and Pennsylvania before settling in the Twin Cities.

“When we were kids, we never told anybody that we would shoot and eat squirrel. We thought ‘the kids at school would probably think that we’re poor and we’re a bunch of hicks,’” he said. ”Today, things are different."

Q: How did you get into squirrel hunting?

A: I’ve always done it. Hmong families grew up doing it. The thing is you always have to have a crazy uncle who knows a spot. As kids we’d go once or twice a month during the season, and it was always on dad’s schedule.

Q: What have you learned about yourself from squirrel hunting?

A: My dad, at the age of 12, became a soldier, so he didn’t have much of a childhood. He wasn’t grabbing a gun to go [recreational] hunting, it was to go and fight. My dad would tell me these snippets of his life as a kid like, “We’d hunt for sparrows or lizards and this is how we’d cook them.”

I think there’s a part of me that goes, “I can see a glimpse of what that was like for my dad growing up as a child.” It’s my way of connecting back with them.

A: This was during my college years. The first time I went pheasant hunting was with my buddy Ryan and his dad. We went pheasant hunting around Oconomowoc [in eastern Wisconsin]. I’d never pheasant hunted before and never hunted with a dog. It was a whole new experience.

I think that one of the things that I took away from that was I grew up in a place where hunting and the outdoors was for white people. There was a lot of fear of, if you’re the Hmong guy who goes out there, something can happen to you.

But it was one of the most incredible moments I had, where it was like this family that didn’t look like me, comes from a whole different world, but they were so welcoming. And it was through the lens of the outdoors. That had a profound change on me.

Q: Worst day?

A: On “Feral,” we were bow hunting, north of the Twin Cities and it was snowing hard — it was a blizzard. And we were sitting in this little tent thing. It was made for two, but we had to fit a camera guy in there. So, it was the three of us and we were out there before light and it got really cold. I think we were out there for a total of eight hours. All we saw was one deer that came out and then went away. I was so cold. After I left, no matter how much I was warming my body up, it just felt cold. I jumped in a hot shower and I’m like, “Why am I still cold?” But you know, we look back on those days, me and a few of the crew guys, and we just laugh about it.

A: The North Shore, that drive all the way up, who doesn’t love that? I would also say, I’m a huge fan of the river. Like, the St. Croix area there. That’s always super fun, especially for fishing.

[My favorite spots are] just as simple as like, in the metro, we have so many lakes, you know? It’s as simple as going on one of those trails and walking around.

Q: Is there an outdoor activity you wish you knew how to do?

A: There’s so many. I’m just a naturally curious person. ... I am totally OK not knowing something and go, “Let’s find an expert, and I want to learn from them.” Anything from, it sounds super dorky, survivalist skills to being better at canoeing, kayaking, and even fishing and learning all the different types of fishing.

Q: Is there an outdoor activity you think is overrated?

Q: You’ve been given the chance to go on your dream outdoor adventure: What is it? Who would you want to bring with you?