It’s taken my mind awhile to get to writing this post. There has been a surreal poignancy to the world for many months, causing normal activities to seem abnormal, bogged down, and harder to sustain. The COVID-19 pandemic and abysmal government leadership cause enormous stress, as does the unusually high degree of political divisiveness during this election year. Work levels have been high, too, and I hadn’t taken enough days off.

So when September came, and with it hunting season, I looked forward to getting away on a float trip with a couple of friends to hunt for moose. Just getting outside and off the grid would be therapeutic—and it was.

We set out at a civilized hour, meeting at a convenient parking lot at noon and heading out from there. Four hours later, we were pulling out from shore in our boats into the swift, turbid current of the Tanana River. Three people, one dog, two inflatable boats, piles of gear, and two sets of oars. Very peaceful.

 

 

We only floated for about an hour before finding a good spot. We set up our camp in good time and went out to figure out a good way for the three of us to hunt this area, and then we chose different spots and sat for awhile to watch for moose around sunset.

Next morning at dawn we were up and ready to hunt. Kevin May took up a position to call. He can imitate a cow moose in heat very convincingly. Aren Gunderson and I took up sitting positions with views across areas that a bull moose might come to inspect that loud cow. And that’s pretty much how we spent a long series of pleasant fall days.

This teamwork did produce a nice bull one morning, and we spent most of the day butchering it and carrying it back to camp. This was my first team moose, and I have to say that it goes much easier than doing the whole job alone. By evening we had what we estimated to be about 600 pounds of moose meat hanging in camp.

 

There were other moose nearby, including another bull, but he was cagey and never showed himself. So we spent more days calling and waiting. Sandhill Cranes were migrating, and their arresting calls carried long distances. A surprising number continued their migrations into the night. A lot of Snow Geese were migrating, too.

We had cell phone coverage, and I called periodically after dark to check in with Rose. One evening she had to pass along the extraordinarily sad news that Dad had unexpectedly passed away the day before. If there are adequate words to express how news like this affects you, I haven’t found them. I’d been planning a trip back to visit him after this hunt. When I spoke to my siblings the next day and learned the details, I remembered that at about the time he died I was sitting by the river waiting for moose and watching swans migrating east in golden afternoon sunlight. This sad news was made even more jarring by the fact that Mom had passed away while I was on this same trip, a moose hunt on the Tanana, three years ago. On that evening the sky had been alight with one of the most spectacular aurora displays I’ve ever seen. At such times it’s good to be able to sit, think, and watch the natural world go by. And people who’ve meant so much to us still remain close in our memories for a very long time afterwards.

We kept up our daily routine hunting, but we did not cross paths with another bull. One morning I had to get out and walk a little because it got cold sitting for so long, and to my surprise I found tracks showing that a lone caribou had walked along the edge of our hunting area, probably earlier that morning.

On our final night it began raining and didn’t stop at dawn. I hadn’t slept well. First, voles were having a party under my tent, running around and rustling loudly. I’d forgotten this from past fall trips. A nice dry cover over good winter foraging seems to be a magnet to voles in late fall, and they build tunnels and nests and settle right in. My little partiers seemed to be contesting each others’ spaces while they diligently continued to build out their networks. I pounded on the tent bottom repeatedly, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. Then in early morning water started to get in. Ugh.

We slept in past dawn because of the rain. Then we looked things over and decided we’d had enough. The moose had gone cold, with no more signs of our bull—sound and tracks suggested he’d crossed the river to the south one morning. So we packed it all up and headed on down the river. It was about 20 miles to our pullout point—six hours of cool, wet weather. But all went well and we were home by dark.

The meat processor didn’t have any more space, so we teamed up once again and butchered and packaged the moose in our yard. Aren has a nice grinder, and we have a nice vacuum packer. Rose made some delicious moose pozole for lunch, and by evening we had everything done and cleaned up and put away. It’s nice to have moose in the freezer again. And it was nice to get out and commune with wild Alaska, too.

If you haven’t done so yet, get out and vote.