This spring I finally got to go caribou hunting. It was super late in the season, so we weren't even sure if there were going to be caribou but I wanted to go anyways. The drive up was gorgeous. It was a beautiful blue sky day. We stopped quite a bit a long the way to chat and look around. It was almost all new territory to me. The first 13 miles or so I'd driven a lot for the trap line. The sun brought out the seals. Here's an oogruk (bearded seal) that decided to work on his tan.
There were a couple really long stretches of just flat... stuff. Tundra. Ice. Really not exciting and the ice had some funky wind drifts that were miserable for my little machine. Gregg's rig is pretty much a cadillac to my beater. Okay so that map is really rough but you get the general idea of where we went to find caribou. The ice and the little spit of land were the flat parts that I was talking about.
We got to the hot springs cabin in the evening. It was still light enough to see caribou through our binoculars up over on the hillside, but we decided we were pooped and wanted to get into the hot springs and soak our aching bones instead of wrastlin' with caribou. Not the best idea. But we couldn't really predict the weather. The next morning it was white out. We could barely see to the other side of the hot springs. So we spent a whole day pretty much in the cabin. We napped 3 times, went into the hot springs and tried to go out twice but were so afraid of getting lost that we didn't really get far. The hot springs were nice and toasty though.
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| mah sleeping bag |
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| This is what Gregg looks like when he's been stuck in a cabin with me for two days. |
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| I look considerably more cheery. Yes there's whiskey and water in that cup. |
The next morning was kind of the same. We still ventured out, trying our luck. The wind was brutal and had the ground storm going strong. We were about to give up when we found a little valley that was clear! Whaa?!?! It was raging all around everywhere else except for this one area. And lo and behold there was a teensy herd of caribou. They were way up on a ridge but if that was the only caribou I was gonna see I was gonna shoot and hike if I had to. I shot. I missed. The herd came down off the ridge through the valley and up the other side which was a hill that we could drive on. We followed them up and I shot this guy:
Right in the butt. Not a great first shot but at least I got him. Then I shot him in the head, but it was a little too low. :( So I had to walk up to him and ping him with my .22. He was a tough bull. I'll spare you the pictures of him in pieces.
Here's Gregg on his cadillac. The fox up near Koyuk are much more tame than the fox around Unalakleet, probably because people aren't out trying to shoot and skin them all the time. This little fellow came right up and hunkered down by us. He even let me walk back to my rig and grab my camera and walk back. I took a bunch of pictures of his cute little self. He was quite blonde from all the spring sunshine. This was my favorite:
