Caribou Hunt

 My First Caribou Hunt in the Arctic

(most photos by Jon Miller)

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The Call

As distracting as it can be, I always enjoy picking up the phone at the Northern Alaska Environmental Center.  Answering our phone is like reaching your hand into one of those mystery Halloween boxes full of noodles or confetti, or eyeballs. I am never sure whether the person on the other line will begin yelling about our efforts to “shut down” a mine or admonish me for my formal “thank you for calling…how can I help you” and invite me to a potluck at their cabin.  On this particular late August morning, I answered the phone and a man named Jon Miller invited me to join him and a friend on a caribou hunt on the border of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Of that first conversation, the only words that I really heard were “go,” “Arctic Refuge,” and “September.”  I said yes before he finished the sentence. 

Getting Ready

            Reality trickled in slowly as I began to prepare for my first trip to this mythical place that has captured my heart, mind, and work plan, since high school.  The unknown is in many ways the essence of adventure, and judging by how little I knew going in, this seemed like a guaranteed adventure.  The hunting agenda, for example, was something that I had not really anticipated.  Desperate to secure my spot, on that first phone call I bragged, “I helped slaughter a pig on my study abroad in Thailand-- I don’t have any problem with killing animals.”  Nothing could have been farther from the truth.  Up until this point, I had never shot anything more potent than a laser tag gun.  When I was ten years old I threw a righteous fit when my dad tried to store a gun in our garage.  A classical product of my expensive liberal arts education, my car back in Michigan’s bumper sticker reads: “bare feet not arms.”  And my role in the “pig slaughter” had been to brace one hand on the pig and the other on my friend’s wrist, nurse-style, and grimace while another classmate stabbed the already unconscious animal in the heart.  When my boyfriend at the time tried to prepare me by taking me to the local Sportsman’s Warehouse and making me face up to the bevy of mounted animals, my toes curled and I retreated to trying on silly coonskin hats. 

To further complicate matters, I was packing for my first true arctic camping trip that was to take place in a month where snowstorms and ice fog were commonplace.  My gear fairies smiled knowingly and prepared me for a blizzard.  Over wine and chocolate, I described the few hazy details I had managed to remember about the trip to my boyfriend’s parents, long-time wilderness guides.  Carol half-smiled at my blind eagerness and Jim decided I was in for quite the trip, and packed me extra-thick socks and hand warmers. 

You know how you’re not supposed to go to the grocery store when you’re hungry?  Well I went shopping for this trip when I was hungry, excited, and expecting to freeze to death.  In this state of delusion canned peas and real potatoes seemed like reasonable pack food and I poured into my drybag enough heavy rations for about three weeks of Oregon Trail-style starvation. 

As I ran around like a squirrel gathering gear for a long, cold, winter, I also reached out to the people around me for guidance.  My friends were clearly jealous.  Aaron wrote: “enjoy the hunt, Miss Hertz.  I hope it is safe, successful, and full of beauty and meaning.  You know: like my outhouse will be.” Kaarle mocked concern, noting that bears are “attracted to ginger (both the color of my hair and the flavor of the chocolate I had stockpiled for the trip), especially before hibernating.”  In that arena, my parents back in Michigan expressed genuine fears about the fauna.  “Aren’t there bears there?” my dad worried, “how will you hang your food on the (treeless) tundra?”  Details I had no answer to.  At least my dairy-free, locavore, roommate was sensible.  Her parting words to me were, “bring us back some meat!” 

And So It Began

I woke up on the day of our departure full of that wonderful sense of precariousness that comes when you place your life firmly in the hands of near-strangers and resign to enjoy the ride.  Jon and Sven picked me up bright and early from the Northern Center in a packed-to-the-brim red Toyota.  I was meeting Sven, a German teacher at the local high school, for the first time and we immediately bonded in contemplating how on earth there was going to be room for any amount of dead animal in the overflowing truck.  “Relax,” I instructed myself as I climbed into the rigidly straight-backed backseat, “its an adventure.”  And so, like generations of slightly crazed settlers before us, we headed north on the only road that goes north- the Dalton highway.  This road parallels the famous trans-Alaskan pipeline all the way to its source: Prudhoe Bay.

Ten hours of snoozing, chatting, and daydreaming, were perforated by gas stops at places like Coldfoot, a town of about 30 founded in 1900 when green prospectors got cold feet and, according to legend, ran away.  I scampered in and out of the all-camo-clad-male truck stops in my long johns, ignoring boring stares and treating every flush toilet as if it would be my last.  We saw quite a few trucks puffing merrily back south with antlers on their roof.  I initially read this roof décor as a particularly grotesque display of masculinity, until I realized that it was practical- there was no other place to put them.  As we passed this parade of army green, I envied their success and wondered what it would be like to trade places.  I watched one particularly camo-fied and rotund hunter waddle painfully out of his car and decided to stick with my team.  As we bumped along, above the Arctic Circle, through Atigun pass, and into the purple Brooks Range, I chewed over the names of the rivers: Yukon, Koyukon, Kobuk, Sagavanirktok, Ivishak, Chandalar.  I felt that odd comfort that comes from moving uncontrollably into a new horizon.  I had few expectations and a lot of trust.

Getting Out:

When we arrived around 6pm that evening, we began the process that would perforate the next week: hauling.  Jon’s truck took the first leg of the work, driving up what is nicknamed as the “Haul Road.”  But once we reached what seemed to me a random spot along the otherwise unmarked Haul Road, the hauling was all human-powered.  Gear from truck to parking area, parking area to staging area, staging area to gravel bar, gravel bar to canoe, canoe to other canoe, in an attempt to balance weight and give Jon, the most experienced paddler, the most precious cargo. 

Our goal for that night was simple: get as far away from the road as possible.  Jon was understandably protective of his hunting grounds and didn’t want to be spotted. And we were all anxious to escape the lights and earth-shaking sensation of being near the highway’s large trucks.  So we pushed our canoes into the river and were quickly afloat.  After an all too brief paddle down the first river, we began lining up the second.  In layman’s terms, lining is pulling a canoe up the river.  And not necessarily by walking along the bank.  Most of the time we joined our canoes in the river, sometimes in water that came up to my chest.  Lining is a slight improvement over a sourdough technique called “poling” in which a person sits in their canoe and uses a large stick to move themselves against the current.  In Jon’s poetic terms, lining is like flying a kite.  Except that this kite contains all of your food and provisions for a week, and you had better not mess up. At first I felt a bit like Benjamin Franklin must have during his early kite and lightning experiments. 

After a few hours of battling the arctic river, we arrived at a sandy bank christened by caribou prints and made it our camp for the night.  We ate delicious caribou heart sandwiches packed by Jon’s wife, Lou, for dinner and sat around the Kelly Kettle (a small rocket-ship like contraption that we used to heat water) consuming cup after cup of tea.  Before turning in I climbed a knoll in the expansive arctic night and sat on its brink in silence for some time.  My heart was jumbled, but in the turning light I felt something stir in my core; I began to feel acutely alive.

The next day brought a fresh round of battling with the river.  Sven and I negotiated and re-negotiated the best way to share our lining duties.  Jon attached a “centerboard” to the bottom of our canoe to keep the boat sailing straight.  We promptly lost ours in the first set of rapids.  We attached a rope to the bow and a rope to the stern.  After another near dump, we figured out that it was best to have Sven in front, providing a slow and steady pull and me in the back, using my line to steer the boat, generally straight into the bank.  I quickly realized the true beauty of a solid bank.  The braided river in front of us presented a constant challenge.  Every moment felt like a calculation: deciding which way to go, when to cross, where the water would be rough, which layer of the looming mountains ahead was the site of our camp. 

I created a mantra, constantly instructing myself to relax and use the flow of the river.  I imagined that the river was like a horse.  My little sister’s warning about how the animal could easily read my level of stress circled around my head. So I strove to create a mutual level of comfort and respect, which is hard to do with a body of water that is constantly trying to knock you off your three-sizes-too-big to fit over waders- tennis shoes. 

As a scrawny kid, I once ditched my slower-than-optimal family on a hike through Glacier National Park in favor of a faster-moving foreign group that passed us.  For the first few minutes it was glorious.  My calves burned, my new comrades clamored in a foreign tongue, the trail sped by.  But after a few more minutes I began to swallow guilt.   I did not stop to examine the incredible rainbow pebbles as my sister would have.  I had given up access to my dad’s stash of trail mix.  I have long since learned to value the journey over the destination.  So on this trip up the river, I savored little moments: the reprieve of flat banks, the evolution of rain and mist swirling around us, frosty dewdrops of late-season blueberries that melted in my hands.  I paid homage to the technological triumph of Stacey’s new chest-waders by sitting down in the river on breaks.  Jon laughed, saying he had never seen anyone do such a thing.  I smiled, reveling in the buoyant resistance of my waders and wool against the playful river.  Leaning forward, I drank like a caribou, straight from the river.

Taking it in

Being a newcomer to this part of the world, I had no concept of how long our journey would be.  So when Jon turned to me with an impossibly large grin that could only mean one thing: “welcome home.” It took me three seconds of disbelief to accept that we had made it to camp and about three more to feel instantly at home in the grassy, unmarked riverbank.  Camp was a little river wonderland.  It was located along a gloriously flat bank, circled on all sides by hills and rises and held in place by a particularly flat and clear river delta.  To my delight, the hole-filled tundra was dripping with blueberries.  I scurried around, picking enough of the sweet treats to clear a spot for the tent and turn my teeth purple. Home for the next week consisted of two tents: an orange dome for sleeping and a blue and white striped tee-pee shaped one for cooking that reminded me of a circus tent.  Sven rigged a tarp in front of the sleeping tent like a covered front porch.  We parked out canoes on the riverbank, tying them in for the night.

 After dinner, Jon and I took a walk in the expansive arctic light.  “This is wonderful country!” he proclaimed, as we sloshed through the marshy field behind camp.  I smiled and felt something inside of me release.  I have spent a good portion of my life nodding along, pretending to see and understand things to satisfy my teachers.  Something about that first walk made me decide to quit the habit for good.  There was so much to learn!  I toted my journal around like a life vest, but I wanted to soak it all in through my skin. 

Looking back I don’t know how we ever managed to walk very far on that trip.  Every three steps I took I stopped, entranced at some new flower or lichen “what’s this one?”  A trained naturalist and nature-phile, Jon was the ideal guide.  He taught me how to walk on the tundra.  How to read the plants to find firm ground.  How to approach knolls with a slow and weary stride.  How to survey with my binoculars like a prairie dog.  What kind of terrain bears are fond of.  He gently lifted the “anchor” I was in the process of tying to a birch bush and showed me how to tie a low, twisted knot to keep the canoe in place in case the river rose.  Being in the wilderness requires constant vigilance.  We were far from help and the awareness of our self-reliance manifested in our every action.  That night we passed what I could only describe as a portal.  It was a tundra pool that had stratified layers in perfect, nuclear green and iridescent blue echoing circles.  Without a camera to capture it, we stood mesmerized at this odd gateway.  “Want to jump in?” I asked.  “Nah, I think I’ll take this world,” he smiled.  We never found the portal again.

Sven and I in front of a tundra pond

The Patterns of Life on a Hunt

Over the next few days we settled into the rhythms of hunting.  It was so gloriously unlike the backpacking and canoeing I had done before.  As we prepared for the trip, I wondered why Jon hadn’t asked me to bring more than one water bottle.  Growing up on backpacking trips in the lower forty-eight, I had come to think of water as a burden: something to bleach with iodine, worry about, carry.  In the arctic, we drank from the river.  This powerful act never lost its amazement on me.  I crouched down on all fours and drank like a lion from a watering hole.  It was pure, cold delight.  Coming from the land of rivers that catch fire, the idea of drinking straight from a river was almost more than I could comprehend.  I thought places like this had disappeared a hundred years ago.  Think of how much care and protection it takes to keep a river that pure.  I marveled at what a wide and complex system of protected land it takes to make that a possibility, and how quickly it can all vanish.

Wonders like drinking from the river became part of my daily routine, as hunting became life.  I began each day by throwing on layers of fleece and Jen’s old wool army sweater doing yoga in my extra-tuffs on the plain above the food tent.  Sven would start the Kelly Kettle and brew up a third, forth, and fifth round of his special green tea and Jon would bring out a bag of his delicious, extra-fatty homemade granola.  I assessed the weather conditions by standing still and staring, judging how thick my socks should be and which layers to pack.  Down to the river!  The patter began: untie the boats, cross the river, walk to a high point, and sit there.  Survey, relax, read, nap, write, capture, be.  That was our agenda. 

Caribou are illusive animals, we would often hike miles in pursuit of one and turn around to see a small herd right where we had lunch.  So the key was to be patient.  Waiting, was part of our task.  Instead of feeling guilty at taking a break as I would on a backpacking trip, I luxuriated in this time. I laid flat on my stomach and explored patches of the spongy, layered tundra world between my fingers.  I was forever investigating the haunting call of a solitary Pacific Loon, the hexagonal pattern, scars from permafrost on a dry field of tundra.   Our lives consisted of these little moments, miniature dramas that held our trio completely captivated. 

Instead of snow or ice fog, we had arrived amidst an Indian summer.  I spent most of the afternoons in just long johns, basking in the unlikely sunshine.  I reveled in tundra naps, drifting in and out of consciousness to find the most beautiful dreamscape possible, cradled between my arms.  We ended days reclining in the cook tent, drinking endless rounds of tea and telling stories.  I asked my companions about everything I could think of- from survival skills to their weddings.  In a rare period of no bugs and no snow, we slept with our heads at the edge of our open tent door.  From this position I could lean back and see the aurora.  Under the light of this strange, shimmering sensation, I had vivid dreams. Ken Brower once wrote, “the wilderness turns you in on yourself with such force.  You’re turned outward and inward, and amazing things start to happen inside your head.”  Twisting in many directions, I too entered a state where I couldn’t clearly discern the difference between dreamed and lived reality. 

The "dreamscape"

Taking Animals

Hunting was like a compound game of ring around the rosy and hide and seek.  Jon was the shooter.  He would spot a good group of caribou and set Sven and I up to spy on them while he chased.  We had to tuck ourselves into folds in the tundra and lie very still.  The caribou were very skittish and could smell us from a great distance, so we took care to remain upwind from them. Although we had advantages in weaponry, the caribou had a knack for keeping us humble.  On the forth day, Jon ran a good mile in pursuit of a herd and watched in dismay as they changed course and nearly ran into Sven and I.  “Sven,” I whispered, “what do we do if they run us over?”  “Stay put,” he breathed.  We held our breath as the click click click of their hooves came within range of a perfect shot.  My eyes fixed on the furry white chests of the two bulls that led the group. The bulls carried much more weight than the cows, and walked with a sway, their chests rising in unison.  The tension was almost more than I could bare.  I felt like a ten-year-old waiting atop a slide, aching for an audience to tell about a great adventure.

Later that day, we caught them at the right time and place.  A clear shot and an old buck fell to the ground in a slow, fluid motion.  Sven rushed and I ambled to the scene to find not one but four animals slowly changing worlds.  I approached with hesitancy.  Tears poured unconsciously down my cheeks as I reached out to touch their still-warm fur.  I was torn between the wonder and majesty of seeing such a complex animal so up close and the hard fact that we were ending its life to nourish our own.  I racked my mind for a prayer, something to say to honor this delicate balance.  But all I could think of was to affirm the goodness of life, as for the first time, I felt myself a distinct part of the circle. 

Processing one animal is a hefty task; disassembling four with two newbies on board seemed hopelessly huge.  My tears subsided as my hands set to work.  I would have many hours of washing, hauling, cutting, and cooking to read the direction of my moral compass on hunting. We had taken these animals, and for a moment my dilemmas were suspended by the knowledge that the best we could do now was use them.  Jon was a calm yet efficient teacher.  We rushed around to each animal, cutting into its stomach to stop it from bloating.  My brain circled on words like “rumen content” and replayed instructions and organs.  It was difficult at first, cutting into the flesh, pulling back the esophagus, allowing my hands to become full of blood and rumen content.  But soon enough parts of the process became oddly soothing.  The act of dissecting.  Making an incision and then gently peeling the skin back, slicing gently into the bubbly fat layers with sharp knives as you maintain the right tension.  Laying the skin out like a tablecloth, a workspace.  The rhythms of taking an animal apart.  It felt a lot like canning vegetables for the winter, making applesauce, or recycled greeting cards. 

As time passed we became a smooth-running team.  The guys put their year building a house together to use in sawing tasks and I became the “gut diver,” assigned with the task of salvaging the liver, heart, tongue, tenderloin, and back strap.  I expected a smelly mess, but was pleasantly surprised at the sweet, earthy scent of the caribou, the planned biological order of their bodies.  The way that their organs were neatly encased, intricately connected yet easily separable.  There was too much work for one day, so we separated the meat out in bags and loaded our backpacks with the best cuts of meat for the trek back to camp.  Only a few minutes into the trek, we were greeted with a sunset that made us unshoulder our hundred-pound packs.

In that classic way, the act of taking life enhanced my appreciation for the cycles of nutrients and life that fuel the earth.  Finding berry-stained antlers intertwined with the tundra reminded me of the cyclical nature of life without humans.  For the first time in my life I was really not afraid to die.  This feeling came not out of bravery, but from a deeper understanding of the circular patterns of life.  I could imagine no better fate than becoming part and parcel of this tundra world.  The power of nature, it seems, is the power of life in association.

John, Sven, and I model our VERY heavy packs

Other Tundra Life

            What about those grizzly bears?  You may be wondering.  I wondered too, but not with fear.  I have never felt so safe anywhere in the world as I did walking by myself in the refuge.  It is the kind of safety that comes from knowing that everything around you is in balance.  In the expansive, treeless tundra you can see for miles.  Binoculars enhance the experience, allowing you to witness nature as it is, to see up close but be at a distance.  How often do we get to see things simply as they are?

            Howard Luke, a much-adored Athabascan elder from the Fairbanks area, discusses luck as something you have to hold.  According to his tradition, luck is not a matter of odds and calculation.  Rather it is something that must be respected and maintained.  You maintain your luck by paying close attention to how you treat others and what animals appear to you as signs.  According to Howard, these animals use to be humans, and must be respected. 

I am still new to the act of reading animal signs, but it was difficult to ignore how our extraordinary luck with wildlife sightings.  Caribou made their presence known immediately.  “It looks like we just missed the caribou convention!” I remarked, after my first walk to gather firewood around the gravel bar of our camp.  One evening during dinner I glanced out of the tent and saw a perfectly framed large brown blob across the river.  “Bear!” I blurted.  “Musk ox,” Sven corrected.  I watched in awe as this giant, graceful cousin-it with horns ambled across the river, as if straight out of the Wisconsin ice age.  The next morning the same animal reappeared and paraded through the field behind our camp, and right into the perfectly framed picture: under a rainbow.  It would never again feel right to me to visit these animals in the confines of their farm in Fairbanks.

It seemed that each morning brought a new visitor.  One of my favorites was a lone white wolf.  It appeared in roughly the same spot, trotting attentively along the river.  It struck me how much this much-vilified wild animal resembled my Alaskan husky, Chandalar and nonetheless, took my breath away.  For a dinner show, we had a magnificent bull moose that strolled- uncharacteristically boldly, across the field, as if for our viewing pleasure.  We grabbed our life jackets and munched on cookie bars as the light changed colors across his 8-point rack.  Eager to practice for moose season, Jon thrashed some twigs together to call the rutting moose to us.  I protested at this idea that bringing a large, sexually charged moose into our camp with the idea that he was about to fight or mate.  Luckily, he seemed too absorbed in his stroll to mind us.  I could scarcely walk from one rise to another without finding a new treasure- blueberry stained antlers, a Short-Eared Owl feather, fossilized coral.  I found a sun-bleached ptarmigan egg, still whole, amidst the tussocks.  Before long I felt like one of those classic tourists, crossing off “wildlife sightings” in my journal.  Jon returned from a walk with a rare wolverine citing to add to my list.  The sky delighted us with Tundra Swans, Pacific Loons, and Northern Harriers.  We nearly hit a lynx driving back.

Not a Bear :)

Changes

            Nearly everyone that I have talked to that has spent a good amount of time about the Arctic has a certain glow in their eye.  It is a place that changes you in profound and mysterious ways.  The overriding sensation that I experienced in the Arctic Refuge was the feeling of being blessed.  It didn’t help that every time I looked down I saw Carol Kasza’s boots and super-warm socks.  I was kept the perfect temperature by Jen Landry’s wool sweater and Pam Miller’s gloves.  When I scanned the horizon for the next source of wonderment, I did so through Kyle’s, and before him, Mark Ross’s binoculars.  I used my dad’s headlamp and constantly collected antlers for my mom, who always dreamed of finding some.  I felt, for the first time the intense comfort of being mysteriously watched over, even if it was by the northern lights.  On one of our last nights, I took a long walk by myself under the stars.  The aurora was out and I couldn’t bear to retire to the tent.  I felt I might miss something.  So I curled up on the riverbank to watch and wait and quickly fell asleep.

A Parting Sign

            One of my favorite of Jon’s sayings was “that’s caribou for you.”  We said this with a mixture of exasperation and wonder at their unpredictable ways.  Some days we would hike miles to find caribou laying on top of our breakfast hill.  On the last day Jon had both feet in his dry suit and both boats packed when we heard Sven’s whistle.  Two bull caribou were literally parading through our camp.  We had one tag left.  Sven had to get back to prepare lesson plans, we apprehensive about the paddle ahead, but some things are too good to be constrained by time.  I smiled at Sven as Jon reached instinctively for his rifle.  We shot our last caribou.  It was the biggest yet. 

Sven models for his Christmas card shot

Bringing It Home

            I have always been of the belief that you should go with the flow of nature.  So my approach to whitewater canoeing with an 800 pound boat full of precious caribou was to go slowly, back paddle, communicate a lot, read the river, and use its tricks.  When he saw how nervous I was, Jon told me a story about the woman who had taught him to canoe.  As we prepared that morning, I conjured the presence of this woman: calm and competent in her mauve canoe.  Sven’s approach, on the other hand, was to build speed and use surges of power to dodge or ram obstacles.  It contrasted slightly with mine.  On the morning of our return paddle down the river both Sven and Jon were grim with worry.  As we tied and triple tied everything in, I tried to lighten the mood and my own growing anxiety with jokes and positivity.  They were lost on Sven.  Jon set the course, standing up to survey the river ahead and choosing whether to paddle or line sections, pointing out large rocks.  After a few hours of tense paddling, we saw a giant plume of dust- the road!  And just like that, our adventure changed.  There was still a great amount of work to do.  After more hauling, driving, and hauling, we spent a week cutting and wrapping the meat at Jon and Lou’s house.  As memorable as those hours before and after work were, something ended with the sight of that road.

The sunset over a tundra lake

Lessons 

            So what did I get out of my first trip to the Arctic Refuge?  A whole new palate of favorite colors.  A growing knowledge of the cycles of light and life.  A journal full of discoveries.  The ability to breathe from a place deeper down near my stomach.  And a big dose of hope- the kind of hope that comes from knowing just how much there is to fight for.

My favorite shot.