One Heck Of A Ride

68 Author hunted his barren-ground Muskox in much warmer weather than his Greenland Muskox hunt fifteen years earlier. Ellise River, Canada 2004 Canadian barren-ground caribou taken after successful muskox hunt Other North American Game “He needs to be with you for everything you shoot,” he said. I had no intention of breaking any game law, no matter how stupid I thought it might be, so I put my rifle back into its case on the ATV. The wolverine was nowhere to be seen by the time George and his son returned, of course. We saw wolves later that day, and George was with me, but I hadn’t bought a wolf tag before leaving Cambridge Bay. Warmer temperatures were not the only thing that set this hunt apart from my previous trip to Victoria Island. The sunrises, sunsets, and Northern Lights were absolutely spectacular over the Ellice River. Before this hunt, I would have said Manitoba had the greatest light shows. We eventually found a herd with a good bull and used the ATVs to move into range. As had happened on my first muskox hunt, the animals formed a circle and watched us as we circled them on our machines. There was no problem telling which were the best bulls in the herd; they were taller and had horns with good bosses, lengths, and mass. When George agreed I’d selected the herd’s largest male, I dropped the animal with my first shot. Its body was slightly larger than my Greenland muskox, and its head, legs, and saddle were darker. Its horns were officially scored at 76 5/8 SCI, making it a high silver medal animal. After taking the muskox, I found a good Canadian barren-ground caribou and added him to my collection. The river and the streams that fed it had good numbers of arctic char, lake trout, and grayling, and George cooked char on the rocks for several of our lunches during my hunt. I don’t know exactly how he prepared it, but he cooked a whole fish at a time and the meat was delicious. I’d enjoyed this hunt more than my first trip to the island. It could have been because George and the other guides in camp were fun to be with. It also could have been the warmer weather, or the nightly Northern Lights shows. Whatever it was, I lingered awhile and looked around the airstrip before boarding the charter to Cambridge Bay. Along with my gear and George’s, there were boxes of dried fish and muskox and caribou meat aboard that would be given to a school and an orphanage in the village. Six Hunts For A Mountain Lion Many people, including hunters who haven’t hunted with trailing dogs, mistakenly believe hunting mountain lions with a pack of hounds virtually guarantees a kill. Every time the dogs are put on a track, they chase a lion up a tree, and someone shoots it, they will say. This may