The Caribou Hunter

Apparently people don’t hunt like this much anymore. Michael said that most Newfoundlanders go out on atvs or stay in their trucks. They dart out for a little detour through the woods on their way to work and wait for the animal to come to them. Nobody in their right mind walks this far from the road when they know they’re going to have to drag the carcass out on foot. Not many hunt for caribou, either — you get more meat from a moose.

At ten o’clock, we saw a big stag in the distance. It was my first sighting, thrilling and a little eerie. The stag simply emanated out of the background — beige and grey and white. It moved quickly, but I couldn’t really tell it was moving until I noticed it was somewhere else. And how big it looked in proportion to the marsh.

That was all we saw that day.

The next day, we saw nothing until the afternoon, when we followed a good-sized female with small antlers across two connected barrens. She was 200 metres away, and we bent forward at the waist and lifted our feet high, and rushed as quietly as we could in our plastic rain pants. She moved like a spirit — soundless and without effort — and we couldn’t gain on her.

On our fourth day out, we saw a magnificent stag. He looked magical, something out of Norse mythology or a child’s Arctic fairy tale. He had a rack of antlers like a huge, inverted wishbone, and a yoke of white fur. His back must have been two metres off the ground. He pranced out of the woods like a prince and sniffed the air. The stag turned and went back into the trees, then walked out again leading four does and two calves. They started to graze, but he was skittish. He knew something was up. I was using the rifle like a spyglass. “I have to get closer,” I said. We were downwind and managed to get within 150 metres of the group.

I had him in my scope. That stag walked right across it, but I had to admire him, so I lost the shot. He turned away and never gave me another chance. He must have caught a whiff of us, because he lifted his head and froze. He gave the signal, and they all trotted off nervously, except for one adolescent calf who lingered, who kept looking in our direction, curious and rebellious, defying his father waiting patiently at the edge of the forest.

A few minutes later, we heard splashing as they crossed a shallow pond out of sight.

That day, I learned that you had to be quick, that there might only be a fraction of a moment when the caribou is in the right position. You want it side on. Then aim right behind the front shoulder, through the lungs and heart. My greatest fear was shooting one of them in the ass and having it run off into the woods injured. I wanted a clean kill. But we were running out of time. I had to stop thinking about the consequences and the beauty of the animal. All I was supposed to think about was that spot behind the shoulder and the trigger of my gun, and matching those two things.

At about four o’clock, we saw a piece of fluorescent tape across the marsh. We walked the half-kilometre to have a look. The tape marked the end of an atv trail that led back to the woods road, close to where we had parked. If we could get a caribou near this trail, it would make the job of lugging it out so much easier. There were caribou tracks all over the marsh where the trail led out. “It’s Caribou Highway,” Michael said, confident that if we came out even earlier, sat quietly and waited long enough, a caribou would pass.

The next morning, we got up at 4:30. It was cold in the cabin, and I was stiff and sore. There was frost on the car. We agreed that if I didn’t get my shot today, I would hand the rifle over to Michael. We had a return flight booked in six days and needed to let the meat hang for at least three days before butchering it. Then it needed twenty-four hours to freeze for the flight back to Toronto.