On Monday morning Ryan
Woodruff (the HS's new math teacher) and I left
Unalakleet at 6:00 in the morning to go in search of moose. We were at the top of White Alice just in time for the sun to rise. We rode out a little past the end of the road to look out in one of the open fields. We were just getting ready to move on further down the trail when we heard some people coming down the trail behind us. We waited and saw Conrad
Woodhead (Janelle's Vice Principal), Perry
Corsetti (a former teacher at the school who is now in the DO), and Joel
Oyoumick (a son of the Covenant Church's Pastor here in UNK). We sat and talked for a minute before heading down the trail a little further. Conrad, Perry, and Joel stopped off at a little knoll not far from where we met up at while Ryan and I headed down the trail a little further. Ryan and I stopped at another good vantage point and we thought we saw something moving down in the
meadow. We started walking down the side of the hill. When we got most of the way down the hill we realized that our possible moose was just a big stump. While we were standing there looking around a huge bear came running out of the trees about 600 yards from us. We stood still and just watched it. The bear stopped in the middle of the
meadow we were walking down to and started eating berries. I looked up at Ryan and we gave
each other a high five as we started sneaking up on the bear. We climbed down into a little creek bed and started following it to the bear. The closer to the bear we got, the more excited we got. When we got within 300 yards of it I
laid down on my stomach and took my time taking aim and working on getting a clear shot. I had my scope on the highest power as the bear walked into my line of fire. I squeezed the trigger and the Bear sat right down. It started to move again and I fired again. This time the bear sat again. I then tried aiming above the bear and fired again. I ended up firing 8 times at the bear and finally it ran off into the trees. Ryan and I walked up to where the bear had been and we looked all over the place for a blood trail and we couldn't find anything. We didn't realize that while Ryan and I were
stalking this bear, Perry and Conrad had been sneaking down the hill towards us. They came down and joined us and Conrad told me that he thought I had hit the bear at least 3 times. We kept searching and searching, but could not find any sign of it (I was told by Willa
Eckenweiler that her and her husband saw it alive and well again in the same spot Thursday night). After Perry and Conrad gave us a ride back up the hill we decided to go our own way and head back home. Ryan and I were planning to just go right back to town and look for some spruce hens to shoot along the way; Perry, Conrad, and Joel were going to explore one more road before coming back to town.
Ryan and I stopped one time to check the readiness of the cranberries when we heard Conrad and Perry shooting. We almost headed back up the road to see if they had shot something and needed any help. After hearing a lot of shots we decided that they were just messing around, so Ryan and I started back to town. Just after I crossed the bridge I saw a huge moose off to the left-hand side of the road, just walking slowly towards a big group of willows. Ryan had just finished taking some pictures of the bridge and pulled up behind me just as I got my gun reloaded and ready to go. We started following this moose through the marshy area it was in and had gone about 30 feet from the road when it disappeared into the willows. We tried to think of the best way to stalk it when it walked out of the willows broad side to us. (I'll post some pictures of the moose
before the first shot when I get them from Ryan.) I dropped down to one knee and took careful aim and fired. The moose stopped walking and just stood there. I knew I had hit so I fired again and it was another hit. I was down to a total of 3 shells left in my rifle and knew I had to make them count. I started walking around to get another clear shot of the moose and shot it again. Still it didn't go down. I shot one more time to try and hit it in the head to finish it off. I missed and the moose started running. It didn't go very far when it finally fell to the ground. Ryan and I started yelling and shouting (he even knocked me to the ground and it reminded me of trying to block Nate Simmons at basketball since Ryan is also 6'7"). We started to walk up to the moose slowly when it started to get up and I fired my final shot into its head. I then
laid my rifle down and drew my pistol. When we got to the moose I fired two shots into his head and we left to go get the 4 wheeler and cart. We ran into Perry, Conrad, and Joel at the road, and they drove out to the moose to give us a hand. We were so thankful for the help they gave us. Ryan and I would have been there forever it wouldn't have been for them.
After we got back to town there was even more work to do. Janelle had Adrianna, Shelley, and
Karis there waiting to help Ryan and I to cut, process, and package all of the moose. Adrianna has posted some pictures of this process on her blog, so you should all check it out.
Today the swelling from my bug bites has finally subsided. (I got bit by gnats so bad that my arms and hand swelled up to the point where I was taking 2
Benedryl every 4 hours all week long 'til Thursday night.) Because I could finally use my hands and arms again, I was finally able to cut the antlers off the head this morning. They measured 58" wide and it took me about an hour with a hand saw to cut it off. So now the antlers are bleaching and we can finally get rid of the smelly head. We have now given away most of the meat that we'll be sharing to people in the community. (It is Eskimo tradition to give away most of the meat from your first catch, and we have many people in the community to be thankful to for their generosity to us over the last 6 years, so we have shared with many people.) We ate fresh moose heart during the week, and enjoyed our first moose roast last night - yum!
More picts and posts to come. We've been crazy busy since returning to UNK the first week of August, and have gotten behind on our blogging. Take care. Love you all.
Jake
Daniel had a lot of fun yesterday for his 3rd birthday. -Wish you all could have been there with us.
