Alaska's beauty opens up during the hunt

Last autumn, I learned that the basics of life can be pretty basic -- stay dry and warm and well-fed. Such is the dictum of hunters; we stay-at-home moms have a slightly longer list, including, but not limited to, diapers, appointments, gymnastics lessons, nap time, string cheese and Cheerios. When my husband asked me to accompany him on a hunt in the tundra of western Alaska, I was just excited to get a break from my routine; I didn't know the simple ruggedness of hunting life would be so ful-

filling.

Our hunt began with a commercial flight to Dillingham. Unfortunately, one of our packs didn't make it with us on that flight from Anchorage or the next. By the time it did arrive, our pilot was already flying out another hunting party, and it was too late for us to go out that day. As we waited those long hours in an unheated garage, watching a couple of other parties come and go, our motto was "And the adventure continues." We flew out in gorgeous weather the next day.

The colors of the mountains and tundra and lakes of Alaska are phenomenal: Reds, bronze, gold, green, granite and browns. Rivers and creeks wind in crazy patterns, shimmering like tinfoil. Glacier-fed lakes and pools are iridescent shades of aqua and green, looking like pictures I've seen in travel magazines of tropical islands. We scanned the ground for caribou -- it was easy to spot their creamy-white manes and rumps. We finally settled on a certain lake and set up camp on its northern shore.

My husband, Randy, said you never see half as many caribou from the air as there are on the ground, and he was right. From our camp, we could, at any given time, usually spot at least one or two herds ranging in number from five to 80. We watched that first afternoon to see their pattern of migration. Our spot was ideal, at the edge of a long valley that had several other valleys leading into it. We could glass as far away as two and a half miles, and of course we looked for the biggest bull: Widest and heaviest rack, deepest mane, and largest body

Right behind our camp, on the low slope of the mountain north of us, was the "shooter" Randy watched most that first evening. We called him Old Gray Beard. When we went to bed that night, we could only hope he'd still be there the next morning. But a gale began to blow across the lake from the east, and the wind howled and the rain beat down all night.

In the morning, Randy donned rain gear and proceeded to spend about three hours further tying down the tarp he had stretched across the tent. When he finished, it was fastened in 30 or more places to alder stakes he had cut and driven into the soft tundra. He also cut armloads of alder branches and stacked them around three sides of the tent, forming a natural barrier of sorts -- alder bushes have been the bane of many a fishing trip for me; they always seem to grab at my boots. I never saw their usefulness until that storm. The tarp was held up by two tall alder stakes at the tent's door, forming an overhang where we did our cooking. It was cramped, but it was mostly sheltered from the wind, and it was dry.

At all times I wore two layers on my feet (not including boots or waders), legs and upper body; usually I wore three layers, and sometimes, four. Temperatures ranged from the mid-30s to mid-40s during the day, and only once when the sun was out long enough did it get that high. I slept with a scarf or ski mask on my head. We did go out hunting in the rain that first day, and although I felt rather stiff, I was warm and dry.

Randy was camp cook, having plenty of experience, but I sometimes helped make coffee or clean up (having plenty of experience). I was intrigued by the natural sponge he showed me: Tundra. We just pulled off a hunk of it and wiped the skillet or pot clean in the lake. Randy insisted we eat three full meals a day, hot ones, if we were in camp. We ate well -- oatmeal or pancakes and sausage, tea and coffee, spaghetti, tacos, fresh caribou tenderloin with mashed potatoes and noodles, and plenty of snacks. All of this was intended to help us to face the harsh climate and potentially long packs. It did.

Our goal was to harvest four caribou, and the first was the biggest. We were stalking one herd. I completely followed Randy's lead, as I had never even seen a rifle up close before marrying my hunter-husband, and had Old Gray Beard in sight but still a long way off. Suddenly, we saw a different herd bearing down on us from behind. Randy got his rifle in position, resting it on his pack, and he whistled -- medium pitch, sustained -- and those caribou stopped and looked. Curiosity helped kill more than one caribou on our hunt! Later he told me that, when he shot and the bull went down, I shrieked "You got him!" like I was surprised. Well, I guess I was; it worked! It turned out I didn't like to shoot, so even though I had a rifle and had done some target shooting, I enjoyed just tagging along.

By the time I helped Randy clean our fourth caribou, I had learned the ropes. During the butchering, I held legs or skin, positioned game bags, and lifted quarters into bags. I also was on "Bear Lookout Duty," but, thankfully, never saw one until the day before we went home. The grizzly was at least a mile from camp, playing with an old caribou carcass, literally tossing it up in the air with its teeth.

It took us two trips to get each caribou back to our meat stash, about 100 yards from camp. No pack was longer than 20 minutes, but that seemed plenty long enough to me, as I staggered around the hummocks of tundra or through the alders, carrying at most 30 pounds. Randy's largest load was around 100 pounds. We kept one rack on the skull, intending to bleach it and have a European mount for our wall. The others we cut off the skull, and they now grace our garage and cabin.

We cautiously approached the dead caribou from behind, until we made sure they were dead. Those great, majestic creatures were always a sad sight to me, with their bodies fallen and their muzzles crinkled against the tundra. Caribou fur is soft and incredibly thick, and I always stroked their ears and thought of how American Indians used to pray to the spirits of the animals they killed; I could understand why. We thanked God for each animal He helped us get, but I said quiet thank yous, also, to the caribou.

I wish you could come with me to my memory: Step out of the tent -- it feels so good to stretch! Straighten up and feel the cold wind on your face and hands, add another layer over your wool coat. Look out across the lake to the slope beyond, then scan to the right in a great arc, looking for the tiny dots you've come to recognize as caribou. Maybe the wind is blowing toward us and, as we watch a herd mingle and graze several hundred yards away, we can even hear the clack of antlers as young bulls spar. We see some of the "scouts" stand still, heads turned directly toward us, trying to catch our scent on the wind. If we wrestle our way through some alders, we may frighten some ptarmigan and hear their cackles and then the whirr of their wings. Pretty soon we'll come to the open tundra and walk on the ancient caribou paths, cut deep from thousands of years of migration.

But best of all was the mass exodus we were privileged to witness. On the afternoon of the day before we left, we watched as hundreds -- then, it must have been thousands -- of caribou streamed across "our" valley, heading east and disappearing behind a mountain. They kept pouring over the low rise at the west end of our vision and they marched, steadily, for almost two hours. In some places they walked single file and in others they were 10 abreast. It was amazing.

I agree with the poet Robert Service: There's something alluring, even addictive, about the land of the caribou. Even though I didn't see my own skin for seven days (and was surprised to find, after peeling off all those layers of clothes, that I hadn't gained 10 pounds), I look forward to the next time I get to live the simpler life of hunting on the tundra.

Meghan Bowker is a Valley resident.