Just Another Jim's

Alaska Journal

Ch. 11: Caribou Hunt

Posted November 16, 2006 by James E. Nelson

In the fall, a couple of months after we arrived in Alaska, Jeff, one of the members of the congregation stopped by and asked if I was free to leave on a caribou hunt later that afternoon. He explained that it was actually a rescue mission for a boat that was stranded on the Susitna river and we would probably be gone two or three days. I said yes and began to pack my gear.

Caribou are stupid animals. They survive and thrive because they live in big herds. This combination makes them a fairly easy mark for hunters and because of this, the state of Alaska has limited the hunting grounds to areas that are well off the main highway and are therefore difficult to get to, except by four-wheeler or boat.

One of the approved hunting grounds is the great plain south of the Alaska range between the two major highways in Alaska. Just to the south of the mountains a gravel road goes east and west from Paxon to Cantwell. About half way across the Denali Highway (yeah, even if it’s minimally maintained in the summer, it’s a “highway” according the Alaska Dept. of Transportation), the Susitna river crosses the Denali Highway flowing south from out of the glaciers of Mt. Hayes, Mt. Hess, and Mt. Deborah. There, at the Susitna Lodge, many hunters drop their boats into the water and head south into the caribou’s feeding ground.

The Denali Highway is below the foothills of the Alaska Range, but it is still very high country. Even though it is a long way south (by Alaska standards) most of this area sits on top of permafrost, due to its elevation. Permafrost is a condition where the ground several inches below the surface remains frozen year round. The top soil, on the other hand, freezes and thaws with the seasons. Because of the permanently frozen ground underneath, the melted snow cannot soak into the ground. It creates something similar to a swamp everywhere except on the top of hills. The ground is spongy and difficult to walk on. This is not immediately apparent, though. There are very few trees—only black spruce and scrub cottonwood can grow on the thin permafrost soil—and from a distance this land appears to be a level plain or rolling hills. Up close one can see that the ground is terribly uneven. Typically it is made up of a series of approximately basketball sized knobs of ground that stick up like tiny islands. These knobs of ground are spaced very close to each other with deep (twelve to sixteen inch), swampy micro valleys in between. No doubt this is the only way the water can effectively drain from the soil trapped by the permafrost underneath. The mounds are slick and the swampy space between the mounds are filled with cold mud. Trying to walk across the stuff is torturous work.

To the north of the highway this spongy ground gives way to rocky foothills that begin to gently slope toward the mountain peaks. In the higher, hilly ground, the black spruce make their last stand before the tree line proper, so there is a line of very dark and scraggly trees further up the slope. The thin line of scraggly trees serves to emphasize the utter emptiness of the land below. Driving from Paxon to the Susitna Lodge, there is an overwhelming sense of barrenness and loneliness up here near the top of the world.

At the same time there is an amazing variety of things to see. The south side of the Alaska Range is truly majestic, especially from this close vantage point. As both the sun and the truck move east to west the light plays off the glaciers and rocks in constantly differing ways, creating an ever changing kaleidoscope of beauty, punctuated by the clouds weaving in and out of the mountains. On the other side of the road the permafrost plain stretches almost forever. Depending on the clarity of the air, mountains can sometimes be seen far to the south.

As we drove toward the Susitna River the sense of foreboding outweighed the sense of awe. Somewhere out there in those thousands of square miles of permafrost there were thousands of caribou. Since it was hunting season there were also hundreds of hunters out there on that great plain. Since this was the current location of the caribou herd, the caribou’s constant companions—wolves and bear—were no doubt near by. But as we drove through that region for mile after mile after mile, we saw absolutely nothing but mountains on one side and seemingly empty plain on the other.

When we arrived at the lodge I realized that the Susitna looks a lot like the Delta River, which flows northward off the other side of the Alaska Range. The river is so full of silt that it looks more like a milk shake than a river. Because the river is so shallow most of the boats have impellers rather than propellers. Impellers provide thrust by shooting the water through jets on the motor. They can run in shall water, but the silt in this water quickly ruins the impellers and many boaters get stranded down the river. The Susitna Lodge owns several air boats and they patrol the river like vultures in search of dead boats. For an exorbitant fee they will get you up and running again. The overwhelming hugeness and loneliness of the region combined with the challenges of transportation and basic survival created an edge to this trip that I had never experienced previously.

It was mid afternoon by the time we reached the stranded hunters and their disabled boat. The others began to work on the disabled motor. Since I knew nothing about boat motors and was therefore in the way, I told them I was going to go pick blueberries for breakfast. (Permafrost plains are almost always covered with blueberries and cranberries.). A half hour later Jeff came puffing out to where I was picking berries, handed me his .38 caliber pistol and chewed me out for leaving the campsite unarmed. “The brown bears (ie, Grizzlies) like blueberries more than you do and with both your faces in the ground, you’re not going to notice each other until its too late. Watch for bears and be ready to shoot if you see one!” That little lecture was quite disconcerting. After another ten minutes I decided I had enough berries for breakfast. I picked up the berry bucket, pocketed the pistol and returned to the boat.

About the time I was getting back the others decided they couldn’t fix the motor, so they were cooking some supper (spam and potatoes) and getting ready to tow the disabled boat back to the highway. After dinner we headed back up the river, disabled boat in tow. When we came down the river the sun was blazing brightly against the mountain peaks and rapidly melting the high mountain snow, but the sun had begun to set while we were working on the boat. By this time the temperatures were well below freezing up in the foothills and as a result the river level was dropping precipitously. Getting the disabled boat back up the river without damaging it proved very challenging. We scraped bottom several times, had to get out and push the boat off a sandbar three or four times, but finally managed to get back to the pickup.

Jeff had taken a few days off work and I didn’t have to be back until Sunday morning, so we and Irwin, an old Athabascan who was a member of the church, got in the boat and headed back up the river to do some caribou hunting. By this time the sun was barely above the horizon and the air was golden with its rays. A mile or two down the river three swans rose gracefully off the river and disappeared over the hill. Far beyond the swans, but still golden in the sunlight, Denali stood its sentinel watch over the great Susitna River plain. Jeff turned off the boat motor and we floated down the chalky river, deep into the permafrosted emptiness in silence. Tomorrow would begin with blueberry pancakes. This was turning into a truly marvelous adventure.

The next day was not nearly as glorious as the evening portended. Instead of glowing sunshine we were greeted by an overcast sky and a bitter wind, but after a wonderful breakfast of blueberry pancakes and Spam we headed farther down the river in search of caribou. I was on the nose of boat while Jeff and Irwin were in the back. I had my Carharts (insulated coveralls) on and was buried under blankets, but I was still freezing as the boat sped down the river in the frigid air. We eventually spotted a small caribou herd and Jeff managed to get a very nice sized buck. Jeff had to stalk it quite a ways so it lay about a mile from the river. Blood attracts predators so I stood guard on a nearby rise with one of the rifles while Jeff and Irwin cleaned, skinned and quartered the animal.

We then had to carry everything the mile back to the boat. That is some of the hardest work I have ever done. As I said above, permafrost is spongy and uneven. Ideally one would walk on the tops of the bumps, but when carrying 50 lbs of meat, that was easier said than done. By the time we got back to the boat with all the meat, skin, antlers and bones, I was hot, sweaty (above my knees), and utterly exhausted. Below my knees, my feet were wet, cold, and caked with slimy mud. Caribou are a lot smaller than moose (and about the same size as a mule deer) and I decided then and there that I was never going to become a hunter in Alaska. Nothing is worth that much work.

I began this particular adventure with a sense of foreboding. This country is unbelievably and indescribably huge. There are also a hundred different things that can go wrong. At the beginning of the trip it seemed lonely and desolate and I was aware of everything that could go wrong. I saw things in a very different light after spending a night on the river. The Lodge owned a number of air boats and those boats ran up and down the river twenty four hours a day. Air boats use airplane engines to power their prop, so they are obnoxiously loud. It was hard to sleep with an air boat bouncing past your campsite every hour or two during the night. The next morning the air boat traffic had dropped dramatically, but we could always hear distant 4-wheelers and the pop, pop of rifles as hunters shot at caribou. For being a desolate land where you couldn’t see anything but distant mountains and endless plains, it was amazingly busy and noisy. It was certainly relatively easy to get completely away from everything when in Alaska, but if you were doing any popular activity, such as hunting or fishing, it seemed that there were always people in close proximity. When I mentioned this to a long time resident he said, “Yeah, the only time you find yourself completely alone is when you’re stuck in the mud and need some help.”

Fortunately for us, nothing unexpected happened on the way back up the river. Several hours later we were back at the lodge where we loaded the boat onto the trailer and the caribou onto the pickup bed.

The trip home was dramatically different than the trip out the day before. Certainly part of that was the overwhelming fatigue that goes along with a day’s hard work. The other dynamic was the scenery. Traveling west, toward the Susitna Lodge and eventually Cantwell, the gigantic peaks that make up the Denali portion of the Alaska Range are always in the far distance beckoning. Going east, the scenery is dramatically different. There is still the Alaska Range to the north with the three jewels of this region, Mt Hayes, Mt Deborah, and Mt Hess. But to the east, where the Alaska Range disappears to be replaced by the Mantastas and Wrangells, the mountains are much less dramatic, and much lower elevation. The distant mountains were mostly tree covered and as the sun began to set, dark and foreboding rather than offering the welcome golden glow of the high mountains above the tree line. It was a scene that called for silence and introspection.

At Paxon we stopped for dinner and swapped tales with the other hunters who populated the place. But the meat needed to get processed and refrigerated, so it wasn’t long before we were back on the road, climbing up toward Fielding Lake and then back down the Delta River Valley toward home.

Upon reflection, the most amazing thing about the trip was the realization of how much “personal infrastructure” is required to do the things Alaskans consider fun. For that trip we had two boats with two motors each, a half dozen firearms, camping equipment, food, water, and lots of heavy clothing. Back in Delta, Jeff also had a four wheeler, two snow machines, a small fishing boat (like a bass boat), a canoe, a trailer with a big winch on it (to pull moose or broken machines up on the trailer), a pickup and camper. Jeff was pretty poor, so his stash of toys and equipment was pretty minimal by Alaska standards.

A boat, four wheeler, and snow machine were simply necessary if one was going to play like the majority of Alaskans play. There are very few roads and it’s too far to walk, so the machines become a necessary part of life. We were on a minimal salary and weren’t there long enough to afford the toys, so there’s a sense that we never got to participate in the Alaska that most Alaskans know. By the same token, I’m not particularly sorry that we missed out. On that trip, out beyond the Susitna Lodge, I discovered just how hard work it is to have that sort of fun. There’s a lot of heavy lifting, tugging, pulling, strapping, covering, uncovering, etc., before the fun ever starts and then again after it’s done. And the fun itself requires a lot of tugging, pulling, strapping . . . well, you get the idea. By the time I arrived back in Delta I realized that I probably didn’t want to spend the rest of my life having that sort of fun. Maybe once a person gets into the swing of things it’s not so bad, but with only one caribou hunt under my belt, I never longed to be burdened by all the Alaska toys that were so much a part of that culture. I was quite happy with my four wheel drive truck, camera and binoculars. They provided as much entertainment value as I could handle.