The subject of our hunt was the caribou and while they appeared to take little note of us, the key was to get close enough to make clean business of our intention. All along I found myself repeating the notion that these animals may never have seen humans before and wondered just what their response might be and would that be a factor in the hunt. On the day of our arrival, three larger bulls had walked right past our unoccupied camp just after we set up and never even did more than briefly look up. Were they truly oblivious to man? Like the bears, probably not.
The wind had picked up as we moved to the north and each day brought a harder push, sometimes being sustained at thirty mph. It kicked the boats around, made us fetch the winter gear and slightly compounded the hunt. We had seen three bulls walk across the river in front of us a half mile down river and up wind. The boats were pulled over and we set off to set up an ambush to the west. Ian and I quickly headed across the shallow braids of river, banks of sandy gravel , dodging and acting like real hunters of the north.
The caribou quickly skirted the base of the cut bank on the west side of the Canning River and as we approached, they meandered up the first draw feeding and seeming oblivious to us. We, like good hunters, kept our scent, which by this time I am sure was growing as bathing was out of the question, away from the critters. But before we could get in a good position, they disappeared over the top of the cut. Maybe they were more savvy than we thought. We quickly moved forward on the river bed. I knew I was not about to scale the steep bank some two hundred feet high, so our only hope would be that one of the caribou would just happen to drift back into the shrubbery and offer himself up.
Luck had it that the largest of the three did just that and I had my caribou. That, of course, is when the work began. The caribou managed to walk out onto the upper tundra before it fell, so we all had to climb in order to retrieve the meat and antlers which is required by law. No waste, our policy and State policy. We quietly thanked the animal, the tundra, the land for the gift and set about our work.
Photos by Craig Roberts
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