king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Hunting Illustrated - October/November 2007 - Index

a moment to reminisce. November
20, 1987. This was the time of my
first excursion to the Arctic Circle
and it would prove to be one of the
most extreme of hunts. We had -38
to -40 degree temperatures and 70 km
winds for the duration of that hunt. If
extreme hunting is your game, you
won't find hunting more difficult than
late-November caribou hunting on
the Arctic Circle. Our hunting party
of three all worked on the same crew
at the mine and consisted of myself,
big John Hayes and Trevor Harding.
All of us were new to the Yukon
within the last couple of years. We
had heard the tales of this Northern
realm and the humongous herds of
caribou contained therein. We were
going to the Arctic Circle to hunt
for Barren Ground Caribou. The
Richardson/Ogilvie Mountains of the
North Yukon Territory - the winter
range of the Porcupine Caribou herd.
This herd numbers up to 200,000plus
individuals. They range in all
three Alaska, Yukon Territory and
Northwest Territory areas, the latter
two being winter range, the former
being summer range and calving
grounds.
John, Trevor and I had
gotten off work at 7:00 a.m. and had
packed all the gear into the 4x4 for
the trip the previous night. We were
immediately on our way. The road
north proved to be wicked, indeed.
The road was iced over and falling
and blowing snow was piling up
steadily as we traveled north. By
the time we reached the Dempster
The author braved intense cold temperatures
to connected on this nice caribou
Highway, the fresh snow was 30 cm deep
and drifting badly on some of the more
exposed portions of the road. Crashing
through one meter high snow drifts, some
of which were probably 30 meters across,
definitely added to the extreme conditions
we were already faced with. We soon
began second-guessing our very sanity;
the anxiety in the cab of the truck was as
thick as the accumulating snow outside
the cab. But, undaunted, we continued
our journey north. Some fifteen hours
after leaving Faro, Yukon, we finally
arrived at the Eagle Plains Lodge, our
destination. The Eagle Plains Lodge is
located about 20 km south of the Arctic
Circle, perched high on a mountain top
like some lone sentinel watching over the
Eagle River in the valley below. Upon
entering the lodge, we instantly caught
sight of a beautiful, full-mount, double
shovel, 400-class Barren Ground caribou
of the
5NORTH BORDER5
bull which was the centerpiece of the
common room. With much ooohing
and awing, we all but forgot about
our ordeal at just arriving here at the
lodge. We once again commenced to
go over our weekend hunting plans
for the thousandth time. Having
finally awoken the manager, Stan, we
got signed in and received keys to our
rooms. As wiped out as we were, we
still unloaded the truck and got our
gear to our rooms to thaw out and
then crashed soundly in our beds.
In November, in this frozen
north country, the first shooting light
is not until around 9:30 a.m. Last
light is around 3:00 p.m. To say
that hunting time is at a premium
would really be an understatement.
Fortunately, by sheer numbers of
caribou alone, hunting is generally not
difficult. Finding a trophy class, 350plus
bull, however, can be difficult
and challenging. One can observe
a great many caribou before finding
that sought after trophy. The largest
bulls drop their antlers first, generally
by the middle of November. Big
bulls are very plentiful, their antlers
unfortunately are not! November
21st, and my birthday to boot, we
each packed two caribou tags and
we literally had thousands of caribou
to choose from. Within a couple of
hours we had six fat, young bulls
down and gutted, awaiting the drag
October/November
37