The Making of a Huntress

By Lucy Trejo, Artemis Ambassador, huntress and conservationist.  

I wasn’t raised to be a huntress. I grew up in El Paso, Texas, in a traditional Mexican household. The outdoors wasn’t always accessible to us; we didn’t have parks or public lands nearby, and most of my childhood was spent helping my mom, playing with my sisters, and visiting family in Chihuahua, Mexico. I still remember the first time in nature truly took my breath away. I was standing in front of a waterfall called Cascada Basaseachi in la Sierra de Chihuahua during one of our summer trips to Chihuahua. I didn’t know it then, but this moment planted the seed for everything that came later.  

My first “real” outdoor adventure didn’t come until high school. When my friends and I decided we were going camping, we meant to go to the Catwalk but ended up sixty miles away at Lake Roberts. We were freezing in July, wrapped in blankets we didn’t pack enough of, while birds ate our only food. We were lost, unprepared, and yet completely in love with the experience. It was at this moment that I realized, this world is for me too.  

Later on, at college, friends from Hatch introduced me to fishing. My love for the outdoors then deepened. And when I became a single mom, I made a decision that changed my life. I bought a kayak before I even owned a truck. It sat in the middle of my little apartment, but I didn’t care. I was determined to build my own way into the outdoors.  

Once I finally had the truck, I started driving to a nearby lake with my daughter. Just the two of us fishing, exploring, breathing in a different kind of peace. Eventually, after meeting my husband, I stepped into a hunting and backcountry experience I never imagined growing up. But everything truly shifted when I found Artemis.  

For the first time, I was surrounded by women who hunted, fished, hiked, and cared about conservation. Women who shared knowledge without ego. Women who talked about gear, terrain, and safety in ways that felt empowering. These women showed me that I belonged in these spaces. Not because someone brought me there, but because I had earned my place.  

Some of my favorite memories come from teaching other women just like me. I once took a group of friends camping and led them on a Razor ride through public lands. When darkness fell, and they couldn’t tell which way was back, I used it as a teaching moment. This wasn’t to create fear, but to show them how to pay attention, navigate, and trust themselves. Watching them learn felt even better than learning it myself.   

The same thing happened with my sister. She had never fished before, and seeing her face light up when she felt her first bite is something I will never forget. She went from a five-day license to a full annual license because of that one experience that changed her.  

This is the power of women uplifting women, the power of showing someone what is possible. Today, I am a huntress, an educator, a mother, and an Artemis Ambassador. I hunt ethically, only taking what I eat. And, I raise my daughters to respect wildlife the same way I do. But one of the things I am most proud of is helping other women step into the outdoors. Especially those who didn’t grow up believing it was for them.  

If you are curious about the outdoors, go for it. Learn what you need to learn. This is what it means to be a huntress. It means stepping into a legacy I didn’t grow up with and making sure other women don’t have to wait as long as I did to find it. It means learning the land, honoring the harvest, and carrying a deep responsibility to protect the places that have given us so much. But most of all, it means bringing other women with me. That is the power of being a huntress.