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Life Adventures in the Canadian Arctic

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Last Caribou hunting trip of the season

Yesterday I was invited to go caribou hunting with a few people. Today is the last day of hunting season for non-Inuit people.  I’m really glad that I decided to go because it was a lot of fun. It was definitely a full day. We left Chester around 10am and we didn’t get back until just after 6pm.

We hadn’t gone very far when we came across our first sign of wildlife. A few Ptarmigan. I’ve never seen them before. It was really cool to see. We stopped and some of the people we were with hunted a few. They got 4 in total before we decided to continue on our way. Shortly after that, one of the machines broke down. We left that machine there and continued on our journey to find Caribou. A few miles out of town the landscape totally changed. Around Chester it is very flat. Here is where it actually started to become more hilly. We even stopped along the way so a few of the kids could slide down the hill. At that point we also saw wolf and wolverine tracks along with some old caribou bones. That was as close as we got to seeing wolves or wolverines. Quite a ways after that, we came across someone that had found a few caribou, so we knew they were close. A few minutes after that we found about 7 that were sleeping up on a hill.  After they got a few, cut up the meat, we were on our way home.  We stopped at an even bigger hill than the first time and a couple of the kids slid down it. We also picked up the machine that broke down and towed it closer to town.

I have to say that I was absolutely exhausted when we got back. In total we drove just over 100km’s round trip.  Overall it was a really good day. I’m sad that I probably won’t go out on another trip like that until next winter, but I do look forward to going out on the honda and doing some fishing!

Below is a picture of where we went during our journey. The box is Chester and all the “pins” are the places that we stopped along the way

Couple of Ptarmigan

Can you see them all flying away?

A quick stop to slide a bit

A view along the way

I believe this was a Wolverine track

Checking out the machine that broke down

There they are!

Found an even bigger hill to slide on

This entry was posted on Friday, April 30th, 2010 at 17:53 and is filed under The Experience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Last Caribou hunting trip of the season”

  1. April 30th, 2010 at 20:03

    Curtis and Anj says:

    Very cool, Carly! Thank-you for sharing your experiences.

  2. April 30th, 2010 at 21:18

    Pat says:

    So many new experiences!!! Enjoy them.

  3. April 30th, 2010 at 22:34

    Ana says:

    I love the map … great idea… cool to see where you guys went!

  4. May 2nd, 2010 at 08:23

    Melodie says:

    You say it’s the last hunting trip for non-inuit? So does that mean that Inuit can continue hunting? I’m just curious. Anyway, cool pics and those are some BIG hills!!!

  5. May 2nd, 2010 at 08:35

    Carly says:

    Yes, Inuit have no restrictions on hunting. They hunt for food, and they can hunt as many as they need throughout the year. (Or so I understand). There are restrictions on a few animals, but i’m not 100% sure which ones. Polar bears I do know that communities get a certain number of tags/year.

  6. May 5th, 2010 at 14:51

    Mom says:

    Okay they must have been trick pictures because I didn’t see anything flying away. I did however sort of see the caribou. You still have a lot of snow there. We now have lots here too we had a bizzard yesterday with about 3″ staying on the ground. Just WONDERFUL ! ! !

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