Paul grew up in Eagle River, Alaska, into a family whose lives largely revolved around playing outside in the nearby mountains and rivers. Hunting with recurves and longbows goes back at least three generations in his family. Paul shot his first moose with a recurve when he was about 12. He has been a dedicated traditional bowhunter ever since. Meat in the Forward household was almost exclusively from Alaskan animals and fish and his family still takes pride in doing all of their own meat processing.
These days Paul lives in Girdwood, Alaska, with his wife Erin and his son, Ren, who was born in 2019, 40 weeks after his parents got back from a sheep hunt that that involved a lot of time weathering out the storm in a tent high in the Chugach. August through November are dedicated to hunting in Alaska as much as possible with special emphasis on chasing sheep and mountain goats. The Forward family also tries to get a least one moose a good sampling of Sitka blacktails in the freezer each year since the meat they eat is exclusively wild game.
Paul splits his year working as a physician, staffing the hospital in the arctic community of Kotzebue, Alaska 10 days per month, and then winters working as a lead heli ski guide based out of his hometown of Girdwood. When not working, skiing, or hunting, he spends as much time as possible whitewater kayaking, another long time obsession.
While he hunts exclusively with longbows and recurves, he still considers himself someone who puts the highest priority on getting high quality meat. He’s really excited to learn new recipes and cooking techniques from the Hunt To Eat crew and is always trying new stuff with his wild game meat. His latest obsession has been making smoked venison ham, but not a week goes by when he doesn’t make a simple grilled (deer, goat, moose, caribou or sheep) steak dinner at least once.