Adam Foss is a renowned photographer, filmmaker, and ambassador of outdoor and hunting brands, including Montana Knife Company. We’re proud to have his support, and we’re excited to tell his story today.
From Humble Beginnings
Adam grew up in Cochrane, a small town in Alberta, Canada, between Calgary and Banff. His father and older brother first took him bowhunting at age 12 — nearly two and a half decades ago.
The Fosses bowhunted mule deer, whitetail deer, elk, and moose on the shoulders of the Rocky Mountains. Eventually, they looked further west to bigger mountains and adventures, like hunting bighorn sheep. Adam and his family still hunt sheep internationally to this day.
Around the same time Adam began hunting, he took a black-and-white film photography class at school, in which he learned to develop photos in a darkroom. Soon after, he started bringing his camera on backpack sheep hunts. Adam tells me the effort it took to capture 30 high-quality photos was a “pretty good teacher” in patience and preparation.
“You’re only as good as your accumulated mistakes and how you’ve learned and progressed from them,” he says. “Bowhunting and photography teach you valuable things you need to learn about yourself and the world.”
At that point, photography was just a hobby. Adam was much more interested in playing lacrosse, boxing, and hunting.
Eventually, Adam became the youngest hunter to kill all four species of North American wild sheep with a bow — a title he held until a few years ago. While Adam says this title opened doors for him in his career, he also says it’s not about the accomplishments, but the journey.
Adam views bowhunting as being about deep connections: “It connects you to iconic animals, beautiful landscapes, yourself, and others.” For Adam, these deep relationships are where the rubber meets the road.
Where Is He Now?
Fast forward to today. Adam and his wife, Frankie, run a successful photography and production business, where they’re surrounded by talented people they can cultivate relationships with both professionally and personally. They work with a team of contractors and freelancers who help elevate the vision for their efforts to a level they wouldn’t be able to achieve on their own.
Adam is proud his work has maintained a level of integrity from a storytelling perspective. Many of the brands he collaborates with support and communicate the importance of conservation organizations — one of Adam’s core values. He believes it’s important to “carry on the torch of hunting opportunity and wildlife conservation” to protect wild places for future generations.
Why Montana Knife Company?
Adam was introduced to Montana Knife Company by close friends Sloane Brown and Cole Kramer. He appreciated that MKC makes a reliable, long-lasting product that can be passed down through the generations.
Something Adam loves about MKC, as well as other brands he chooses to work with, is the focus on making the best quality products possible, knowing that the right customers will come, instead of making cheap knives to please the average consumer. He thinks of gear in the same way. You put a lot of time, effort, and money into planning a hunting trip, so investing in gear that won’t disappoint you is crucial. It’s much better to pay for top-quality equipment up front than to “pay the price” when low-quality gear malfunctions on a big (and highly anticipated) backcountry trip.
Adam’s two favorite MKC knives are the Speedgoat and Mini-Speedgoat. He also loves MKC’s culinary knives, which he used to make 120 pounds of bison sausage over Easter weekend.
What’s Next?
In the spring, Adam says he and his team will be in “editing mode” preparing for the summer. Come June, he’s taking his camera to the Northern Territory of Australia to bowhunt Asiatic water buffalo.
Sheep season starts in mid-July, so on August 1, Adam leaves for a Dall sheep hunt in the Northwest Territories at Arctic Red River Outfitters. Adam will be hunting with a gentleman who won a membership drive with Wild Sheep Foundation. The winner got to choose their own outfit, and Adam will tag along to film and photograph the hunt as part of the package.
No matter where he ends up down the road, Adam will carry with him his values of sustainability, conservation, and good old-fashioned hard work.
by Josh Smith, Master Bladesmith and Founder of Montana Knife Company
