TLDR: Matt Raney was born in Anchorage in 1982 as the youngest of Marty and Mollee Raney’s four children. He grew up in dry cabins without running water, electricity, or central heat, learning subsistence hunting, heavy timber framing, and stone masonry from childhood.
As The Hunter on Homestead Rescue, now in its fourteenth season, he has quietly become the show’s most physically essential cast member.
Marty Raney gets the speeches. Matt Raney gets the sawmill running.
That division of labor has defined Homestead Rescue since the beginning, and as Marty approaches his late sixties, the show’s physical weight has shifted increasingly onto his youngest son. Matt has not complained about this. Complaining is not particularly his style.
Dry Cabins and Pack Mules: Growing Up Raney
Matt Raney was born in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1982, the fourth and youngest child of Marty and Mollee Raney. His childhood was not merely rural.
It was a daily engagement with an unforgiving sub-Arctic landscape in structures that had no running water, no electricity, and no modern heating systems.
These were called dry cabins, and surviving in one required a relentless daily routine of hauling water, splitting firewood, and maintaining structural integrity against extreme weather. Matt grew up doing all of it from the time he was small.
He was integrated into the family’s construction business, Alaska Stone and Log, from early childhood. Under Marty’s supervision he learned traditional log home construction and heavy timber framing on actual job sites, not in classrooms.
He learned to drop massive spruce trees, handle heavy machinery, and secure structures against seismic movement and snow loads.
Summers he spent on his aunt and uncle’s farm, learning soil management, animal husbandry, and agricultural fundamentals. Between construction seasons and farm summers, he covered both sides of the homestead equation before he was a teenager.
His hunting and tracking expertise came from necessity. To feed a large family through long isolated winters, the Raneys lived by subsistence harvesting.
Matt learned to read game trails and identify predator patterns alongside his father and a team of pack mules, which the family used as their most reliable transport in roadless terrain.
He and his older sister Misty worked alongside each other through their teens, and their skill sets diverged naturally. Misty gravitated toward agriculture and greenhouse systems.
Matt went deeper into the wilderness, developing expertise in predator behavior, wild food preservation, and game processing that eventually earned him the title of The Hunter on the show.
Along the way he also accumulated serious masonry skills. Decades of hands-on work alongside Marty gave him a practical mastery of stone construction including thermal mass engineering, fireplace draft mechanics, and mortar chemistry designed to withstand extreme freeze-thaw cycles.
Katie, Ruby, and the Yukon River
In 2016, Matt married Katie Bird. Katie grew up deeply rooted in Alaska’s cultural and musical life, beginning to perform at the Anchorage Folk Festival at age eleven and releasing a debut acoustic album at sixteen.
She and Matt share an affinity for folk music that fits naturally with the broader Raney family tradition. Marty plays a guitar shaped like the state of Alaska. Matt plays mandolin in local folk ensembles.
They have two children: a son named Indy, and a daughter named Ruby, born August 21, 2021.
Ruby is named after a remote town on the Yukon River in the Alaskan interior, a community of fewer than 200 residents. Katie’s father, Michael L. Bird, spent a significant portion of his career working in and around Ruby and spoke of the town and its people with deep affection throughout his life.
Michael L. Bird passed away on July 2, 2020. His family scattered his ashes in the Yukon River, returning him to the waters and villages he loved.
When Ruby was born the following year, Matt and Katie chose her name to keep that connection alive. She is a living memorial to her grandfather.
The family lives on the Raney family’s 40-acre property in Hatcher Pass, known as “The 40,” near Wasilla, Alaska. For years Matt and Katie lived in a creative temporary structure: an old commercial mechanic’s shop that Matt transported to the property and remodeled into a wood-heated barn-house with a gravity-fed well.
He is now constructing their permanent off-grid home on the same land, built with heavy timber framing, advanced thermal insulation, and stone foundations sourced from local riverbeds.
Owen Bird and the Next Generation
As the physical scale of Homestead Rescue rescues has grown and Marty has stepped back from the most punishing labor, the family expanded the on-screen build crew. The most significant addition is Owen Bird.
Owen is Katie’s nephew, the son of Katie’s sibling, and the grandson of the late Michael L. Bird. He grew up in the Alaskan outdoors with the same natural affinity for wilderness labor and woodworking that defines the Raney operation.
He joined the build crew in recent seasons and has developed from a quiet apprentice into a confident independent builder capable of running operations when Matt and Marty are occupied elsewhere.
The working dynamic between Matt and Owen is built on seamless communication. On sawmill operations, Matt designs the layout while Owen executes the precision chainsaw work and assists in raising structural bents.
On predator mitigation builds, Matt maps the animal pathways and Owen’s structural speed turns that knowledge into perimeter fencing, elevated smokehouses, and fortified livestock shelters.
Owen’s presence is the clearest visible signal of the show’s long-term future. He ensures that the Raney family’s building legacy has capable hands to carry it forward.
What The Hunter Actually Does
The title of The Hunter undersells the role considerably. Matt’s responsibilities on each rescue span food security, structural defense, and construction in roughly equal measure.
On the food side, he teaches struggling homesteaders how to identify, track, and harvest local game, then process the meat without refrigeration so nothing is wasted.
He builds elevated log smokehouses with metal flashing to prevent climbing and precise ventilation to cure meat while keeping it isolated from bears, wolves, and mountain lions.
On the defense side, he assesses a property’s layout, clears sightlines, installs deterrents, and constructs predator-proof livestock pens for homesteaders living in constant anxiety about apex threats.
He has designed custom heavy-duty hog traps for properties overrun with feral swine, turning a destructive pest into a protein source. He has established electric fencing grids and bear-proof food storage areas on properties plagued by repeat bear intrusions.
On the construction side, his stonework training surfaces in rocket mass heaters, safe hearths, and foundational retaining walls that give homesteaders efficient heating sources requiring minimal firewood.
In a single Alaskan summer, Matt has harvested and processed over 1,000 pounds of wild fish, moose, caribou, and sheep, distributing the meat across the extended Raney family for winter. That is not a television statistic.
That is how his family eats.
Season 14 and the Shifting Weight of the Show
In Season 14, the transition in physical responsibility is clearly visible. Marty increasingly serves as the structural designer, coordinator, and emotional anchor for the homesteading families.
Matt executes the heavy physical work: the high-altitude rigging, the sawmill operations, the demanding builds in extreme environments.
In the “Lone Wolf” episode, Matt led the physical recovery of a homestead after a local plane crash destroyed the property’s river crossing, managing the logistics and heavy construction independently. When Marty was forced to leave the California wildfire episode early, Matt and Misty completed the rescue without him.
That is the succession the family has been building toward. It is happening in real time on screen.
The Quiet One
Marty Raney is a natural showman. He tells stories, delivers speeches, and expresses genuine emotion about the poetic side of wilderness life. Matt does not operate this way.
Matt is quiet, intensely practical, and disinterested in romanticizing the off-grid lifestyle. He grew up shivering in dry cabins. He approaches homesteading as survival mathematics rather than philosophy.
His stated objective is straightforward: fill the freezer.
He maintains no public social media presence and does not engage in brand endorsements or influencer activity. His life is organized around his family, his land, and his seasonal harvests.
On set he leads by physical example, preferring to let the finished structure speak for whatever needed to be said.
His net worth is estimated between $300,000 and $500,000, built from his television salary, Alaska Stone and Log equity, and seasonal wilderness guiding services in the Alaskan interior.
He has been building things by hand in Alaska his entire life. The television show is just the version of that work with cameras attached.
What is Matt Raney’s role on Homestead Rescue?
Matt Raney serves as The Hunter on Homestead Rescue, specializing in subsistence hunting, fishing, predator control, game processing, and elevated smokehouse construction. He is also an accomplished stone mason and heavy timber framer, making him the most versatile builder on the crew after his father Marty.
Who is Matt Raney’s wife?
Matt Raney married Katie Bird in 2016. Katie is an accomplished Alaskan singer-songwriter who began performing at the Anchorage Folk Festival at age eleven. Together they have two children: a son named Indy and a daughter named Ruby, born August 21, 2021, named after a remote town on the Yukon River in honor of Katie’s late father Michael L. Bird.
Who is Owen Bird on Homestead Rescue?
Owen Bird is Katie Raney’s nephew, the grandson of her late father Michael L. Bird. He joined the Homestead Rescue build crew in recent seasons and has become a regular on-screen presence working alongside Matt and Marty on heavy construction projects. His integration into the crew represents the show’s next generation of builders.
What is Matt Raney’s net worth?
Matt Raney’s net worth is estimated between $300,000 and $500,000, derived from his Discovery Channel television salary, his participation in Alaska Stone and Log, and seasonal wilderness guiding services in the Alaskan interior.
Where does Matt Raney live?
Matt Raney lives off the grid on the Raney family’s 40-acre property in Hatcher Pass near Wasilla, Alaska, known as The 40. He and his wife Katie are currently constructing their permanent off-grid family home on the property using heavy timber framing and stone foundations sourced from local riverbeds.
Why is Matt Raney’s daughter named Ruby?
Matt and Katie Raney named their daughter Ruby after a remote town on the Yukon River in interior Alaska. Katie’s father, Michael L. Bird, spent significant time working in and around Ruby and spoke of the community with deep affection. He passed away on July 2, 2020, and his ashes were scattered in the Yukon River. Ruby was born the following year and named to honor his memory.
