We’d been having a gorgeous fall this year—lots of sun, warm, but with enough rain to keep the risk of fire low. As 1 September approached, I found myself wishing for some cooler temperatures and some cloudy weather so that when moose and crane season began the chances of the mighty hunter would be improved. Last year we’d had similar weather—clear blue skies and bright sunny days had the cranes flying too high, and bright nights near a full moon seemed to have kept the moose from ambling about during the day. I’d hunted a lot, but hadn’t done much more exciting than lock myself out of my truck at a remote hunting spot. More on that later. In sum, our weather was nice for humans but not very good for bringing wild friends home for dinner.

Together with a less-than-auspicious weather forecast, I had deep piles of work to do, and nobody else was going to get that done for me. Shoveling the proverbial job manure around by day (there’s a lot of it at this time of year) had me making steady progress on the piles. But I practiced with my bow in the evenings and got excited about roaming the woods in search of my wild friends. It feels good to come home after a full day at work and fire arrows into a target with pretty good accuracy. And to my surprise I won one of the permit drawings and got an antlerless moose permit for an area I knew pretty well. I’d hunted there a fair amount, but had always failed to find a bull during the season. It was a rifle zone, too, so I decided to give that a try. Watching the weather carefully, at the last minute I decided for moose over cranes. The latter would be flying too high on opening day. And with an antlerless permit and a lot of space in the freezer crying out to be filled with MEAT, it was a pretty simple decision to get out and stake out a good camping and hunting area.

I felt like this was the least prepared for a hunting trip I’d ever been, because I’d had so little time to focus on hunting. For example, I had not read this year’s regulations (Alaska hunting regulations are remarkably complex), and I had no idea what I might need to buy to be fully equipped. But years of such exercises do pay off in experience, and on the night before I was to go I just had to touch base with a number of critical things (i.e., ask Rose where I’d put this, that, and the other thing) to feel prepared enough to just go. So on Friday evening I packed up the camper and left to camp in close proximity to a good hunting spot so I could be out at dawn on the Saturday opening ready to take advantage of any moose that also happened to be out. Having a camper, or just a vehicle to be based out of, makes preparing for a trip like this relatively easy, because you can just toss in all the stuff you think you might need with little thought. It’s organization and paring down for light travel that takes time. I arrived at my chosen spot with an hour of daylight left, so I went out and scouted quickly for a good place to sit at dawn. Then I went back and got my equipment ready so that I could pack all I needed for hunting and butchering in my day pack and not be too encumbered.

And that’s where the dictionary comes in. Among my piles of work was the second set of proofs for “The Ornithologists’ Dictionary,” of which I am a coauthor. I thought I’d go quickly through it and mark it up with ideas for the second edition, but once I’d started I’d found that it really needed more proofing than I’d thought it would. So I really had to focus and spend some time with these 294 pages. The hunting season and proof deadlines conspired to produce an odd combination: Here I was on opening day sitting on a stump marking up proofs. Yes, I packed them into my day pack with sharp knives, a tarp, game bags, etc. so that I could multitask. It was not my usual hunting modus operandi. But much of moose hunting for me (or indeed most hunting that I do) is done by ear, so it was easier than it sounds. And the weather was glorious. For proofreading, that is. For hunting it pretty well sucked.

It was another blue-sky day, warm and sunny, and although shrews scurried around by my feet and Hermit Thrushes (Catharus guttatus) and Varied Thrushes (Ixoreus naevia) sang quiet whisper songs in the woods, nothing moved that would fill that screaming void in the freezer back home. Eventually, I walked for a couple of miles slowly and carefully through the woods about a mile or so off the road to see if I could come across a hapless moose that could do something about that gap in the freezer. There was sign, but no moose crossed my path, so by mid-afternoon I returned to the camper for some more proofs and a little nap. And in the evening I reversed the process, walking carefully about for an hour or so before finding a good stump and using the last of the daylight to listen for moose while reading dictionary proofs. Nothing showed but errors in grammar and punctuation. I was mildly annoyed all day by the level of motor traffic on the main, dirt road through the area. Having the hunting season start on the first day of the three-day Labor Day weekend was proving to be a coincidence that had seemingly every hunter from Fairbanks with a truck and a four-wheeler out zooming around. But, despite the noise, I didn’t see anyone off the road.

So early on Sunday morning, well before dawn, I crawled out of bed, read some more dictionary proofs over a cup of tasty coffee, then headed out to see what I might come across in a slow walk up and down logging trails. To my delight, it was cloudy and light rain was threatening. I knew a nice walking loop that peaked out just short of a mile or so (walking distance) from the road, and I ambled along that enjoying the morning. Very near the point where I had to bushwhack across some light woods to another logging road, I stopped for a couple of minutes. And while I was standing there enjoying the morning, I heard something big walking noisily through the woods I was headed into, just a little off to my left.

My adrenalin immediately shot up to very high levels, and I popped the lids off my rifle scope. I couldn’t see a thing, but something large was very carelessly walking through the woods. After about two minutes of craning my neck to try to get a glimpse into these woods to see what the heck it was, I decided that by the regular nature of the sound it had to be a person. Heck, I’d walked through here myself the day before, and, while I can’t imagine I made a tenth of this amount of noise, there was a lot of human activity around and maybe someone had actually gotten off their four-wheeler and walked into the woods. So my adrenalin levels dropped back to the level of a disappointed hunter and I stood carefully and quietly in full view with my blaze-orange vest showing prominently. Actually, I did take a few more steps forward to see if I could see what this was, but no luck.

And then I glimpsed two legs through the woods—moose legs! But they were hind legs, and it was going to go right by me behind a thick patch of alders. There was nothing I could do. But then to my surprise it took a right and came through the alders straight into the clearing—and saw me standing there 35-40 yards away. This is when a superior brain pays off. Faster than it takes you to read this, I thought—damn, second-year bull—pushed off the safety while raising my gun, glancing briefly at a heart shot, decided from the angle to take a lung shot instead, and Bang! Unfortunately, he was still at “What’s that?” And that’s how you bring wild friends home for dinner.

He tore off into the woods, out of sight again in an instant. I was glad I wasn’t bow hunting, for although the distance was excellent, I could not have taken a shot because of the angle. There was very little window for a kill shot, and only my trusty 30-06 made it a sure thing. My heart hadn’t even had time to accelerate, and I continued the sound part of the hunt listening to his crashing progress largely stop while I noted the time (0708) and settled down to wait for 20 minutes to be sure he had time to settle down and quietly slip away from blood loss. This part of hunting is one when you think hard about your prey (at least if you are human—I doubt wolves think about this much at all). You think how you probably wouldn’t want to be shot and bleed to death while someone waits patiently for your demise so they can bring you home for dinner. But that’s why we’re careful in practicing and knowing our skills; so when we do take a shot we can be fairly confident that death will come relatively quickly and painlessly.

This guy didn’t have much time to have a thought. The shot was perfectly placed, and he didn’t make it 30 yards. I won’t go into the details, but lung shots are fast. I happily unloaded my daypack and got knives, tarp, rope, and a sharpener ready for a good morning’s work. I took one picture before beginning and set to. A few years ago when Dad had come up and we’d gone moose hunting together, he’d brought a very helpful video filmed in Alaska showing how to butcher a moose. Now we’d done more than our share of butchering at home on the farm, but this method was geared toward low-tech, in-the-woods butchering, where you don’t have things like hoists and tractors to help move a large dead animal. We’d watched it together before going out, but we hadn’t had a chance to practice it. And two years ago when I got one with my bow, I went by memory but nicked an intestine when disarticulating one of the rear legs. So I had watched it again this year to refresh my memory. It helped immensely for my packing effort, more than anything, but it reminded me of a hollow point in the pelvis where you do have to be careful, and I narrowly missed another intestinal piercing for being more aware of it.

Four hours of steady work later I had the animal butchered and the meat in cloth bags ready to pack out. I put too much on my back for the first trip back to the truck—a hind leg over the shoulder and the daypack full of future moose burger—and hoofed it on out. I paced it off on one of the return trips to learn that it was about 1,300 yards. It was a hard carry, but mentally enjoyable because of the tasty proceeds. Back at the truck I got my frame pack and used that for the remaining hauls. Having heavy loads of meat tightly packed onto a frame pack makes carrying them much easier, and I was able to get all the meat out in just four very heavy trips. This took four and a half more hours. The day had cleared and warmed up, and I must have drunk two gallons of water in the back-and-forth hauling trips, but I felt good and well capable of hauling out a fifth load if that had been necessary (e.g., for a larger animal or one with a rack worth keeping). I was happy, though, not to have shot one in the evening.

Enjoying the meat

It was a short drive home, and I arrived in time for dinner, which was moose tenderloin lightly fried in olive oil with salt, pepper, and garlic. Oh, man. It is so good to have that void in the freezer filled once again. In speaking with Mom and Mary on the telephone during the previous couple of weeks we’d touched on various recipes that got Rose and I fired up to get the water smoker out and cook up some “worth the wait” meat. This smoke-cooker doesn’t work well in colder autumn temperatures up here, but it’s great in August and September, and the week before we’d found that, while we don’t have the patience or schedules for the six hours or so to do a turkey, a chicken only takes two hours and is unbelievably good. You inject the meat with a mixture of garlic-flavored oil, beer, and cayenne pepper and rub it over and under the skin with a garlic, pepper, salt, and oil paste. Then you just pop it into the smoker and make sure you keep wet wood chips on the element until the food is done.

Well, with piles of moose meat suddenly on hand, the next day we packed up chops (backstrap) and tenderloin ourselves and got most of those into the freezer after I dropped off the rest at the butcher’s. We can handle a caribou easily, but a moose is a big animal to butcher in your kitchen, and we love moose burger but don’t have a grinder. With that off our hands life is much easier after the hunt. That night we enjoyed chops cooked the same way we’d done the tenderloin the day before and got things marinating for a smoke-cooked meat-fest the next day. The next evening we loaded up the water smoker with half a moose heart, the tongue, and a pack of chicken legs just to fill the thing out. Two hours later we were digging into some of the best heart and tongue we’ve ever tasted. With the injection and water smoke it was the moistest heart we’d ever had, and the tongue was so unbelievably good that for the first time ever I didn’t peel it before eating. I’d been reluctant to sacrifice the whole tongue this way, because tongue is so good when it is beer boiled and served on sourdough with horseradish and capers, but this water smoked recipe may be better. It is so good to have brought a wild friend home for dinner.

A Poor Man’s Slim Jim

I mentioned that last year’s moose hunting included my foolishly locking myself out of the truck (Old Blue). Groggily, I’d driven out from home before dawn to arrive at a good spot before shooting hour (half an hour before dawn). I pulled my gun out of its case, loaded up, clicked the door lock, and slammed the door. It was only then that I contemplated which pocket I should put my keys into and realized that I didn’t have them in either hand. Doh! There they were on the dash—clearly visible through the window but completely unreachable through the locked doors. I could not believe it!!! I’d never done this without a spare key close at hand! What a total bummer! I tried the other door, wiggled the handles, and made sure I couldn’t get through the windows in any way. Suddenly I had visions of one of the most hilarious moments of my advisor-hood, when I’d received a call from Matt Miller, who, with Mersee Madison-Villar, had been at the post office (after they’d closed) and had accidentally locked his truck with the windows closed and the engine running. I will never forget how delighted Mersee was to have had the chance to smash out the window to regain entrance to the vehicle. I did not want to have to smash out my window to get home. I wish Mersee had been there for me, too. I cursed, looked at how light it was getting, and decided to at least get some good hunting in before I figured out how to get out of here without walking ten or fifteen miles (or smashing my window).

Within ten minutes I was standing peacefully at the edge of a large clearing watching dawn progress. Ravens came off of their roosts and began their daily routines, and a coyote meandered through the large clearing, totally oblivious to my presence. It was a good day. My blood pressure continued to drop until I was nearly comatose and freezing. No moose. It was time to walk. And so I spent a couple of hours slowly moving through the area in search of moose and thinking about how one could gain access to a locked truck.

I kept thinking about those Slim Jim door unlockers that tow truck guys have with them. They just slip it down between the window and the door panel, wiggle it around a little, and pull it up when they hook the locking mechanism in there. I didn’t have one, but I thought maybe I could try the principle out before resorting to more extreme measures. So as I walked back I looked for a good, tough birch branch with strong but narrow rear-ward projecting branches. I found one that looked good, cut it off and trimmed it, and went back to the truck with a tiny bit of hope. My birch branch was a bit thicker than a real Slim Jim, so it was hard to get it between the window and the seal, but in it went and in less than 30 seconds I had the door unlocked. Unbelievable. No moose, but I’d had other luck that day. And I’d learned an important lesson. A locked vehicle door is far less secure than I’d thought. At least if a good birch is growing nearby.