April is always a very busy month for me. I’m done winter trapping for the season so I have traps to put away, extra bait to haul away from my camp and any skinning of animals that I didn’t get around to during the winter months. I’m also busy with getting my spring hunting gear ready for my favorite time of year which is wolf hunting, grizzly hunting and my favorite, spring geese hunt. As busy as it gets, I always make time in my schedule to head out and do the spring hunts but with a lack of available tags it was looking like I might not have the opportunity to hunt grizzly this spring. I was busy skinning some lynx last Thursday when the phone rang….It was my cousin Butterhead on the line and he said something that made me reconsider my weekend plans. I was supposed to bring more lynx in the house to thaw out as well as haul some lumber to my geese camp, pick some martin boxes up from one of my traplines, set up my bear fence and get some spring cleaning done outside of my house and in my warehouse but Butterhead was holding the 1 available bear tag for the Aklavik band and I wanted to go! I told him I would be over on Friday and a plan was made for a grizzly hunt in the Richardson Mountains.
Fiona, our son Bobby and I drove over to Aklavik on the ice road but our daughter Morgan decided she wanted to stay in Inuvik with her grandparents for the weekend.
Our plan was to leave Aklavik Saturday at 9am sharp to get the most out of our planned day trip. I was tired and ended up sleeping in for an extra 2 hours but eventually we were on our way.
From Aklavik we travelled to the Husky River and from there we climbed Red Mountain before making our way south to Black mountain then west up Willow River. As we travelled along I thought of our last trip together the weekend prior and the heartbreak we felt from seeing 19 wolves and not getting any chance at them because of the steep terrain in the spot we seen the large pack, but hey we were here for a bear and that’s what we needed to concentrate on. The day continued and we found some bear tracks but it looked like a young bear and we didn’t waste much time with it because we were after a big male grizzly only. As we travelled along I started getting a nicotine craving so I waved to Freddy to stop but he just pointed to a distant ridge and kept travelling. We’ve hunted together a lot and I knew he was planning to make it to the ridge before stopping for our smoke break. Here’s where the fun started….
We stopped and hadn’t even shut our machines off when Freddy’s hand shot up and he said “WOLF”
Sure enough I spotted the big grey wolf down in the valley below us. Freddy said “GIVER” and I didn’t argue with him since he would be the bear shooter it was only right for me to go after the first wolf.
I found my way down to the creek, keeping my eyes on the lone grey wolf the whole time. As I pulled up close enough to shoot the wolf something caught my eye off to the right. 2 more wolves, black wolves to be exact and they were headed up the valley too. I dropped the big grey with my first shot then shifted my attention to the closer of the 2 black wolves and I tried a couple shots as he started climbing a steep mountain. Unfortunately I missed but since there was another black wolf around I left this one alone and started off to find another one. Travelling up the left side of the narrow valley I spotted a nice pale white wolf leave the creek bottom and start up the right side of the valley. I looked back to where I last seen Freddy and he wasn’t there so I hoped he was hot on the heels of his own wolf. I was getting closer to the pale wolf when Freddy came flying out of the creek below me right behind the pale wolf. I watched as he stopped, pulled his gun and dropped the pale wolf. There was a short pause at this point as my mind started playing back what just happened in the last 5 minutes. I remembered seeing a couple more wolves climbing a spot a little ways back and then suddenly there they were running along the top of the steep mountain directly across from me. I sped off to see if they could be caught and as I gained some ground I spotted another pale wolf following behind the others. I climbed out and picked up their tracks heading out onto a large flat but couldn’t spot any. Then a black wolf came running out from behind a small hill and into the flat. Anybody that’s hunted wolves like this knows that seeing a wolf running into a large flat is the best sight as they can be caught up to easier. Right before shooting the black I spotted the pale wolf heading back towards where we started all this action earlier. I quickly shot the black and smiled to myself knowing that I was bringing 2 wolves home for sure and Freddy had at least 1 of his own as well (he had actually shot one of the blacks wolves too that I spotted earlier before shooting the pale one). With the black down I sped off to catch up to the pale wolf and as I crested the next ridge I spotted him along with 3 more crossing the big flat. I was sure happy to see that but was hoping Freddy was close enough to get in on this opportunity. Just like before, here comes Freddy flying out of the creek above the wolves, perfect timing and he was in position to keep all 4 of them away from the rocks and escape terrain. I focused on the 2 wolves closest to me while Freddy was getting close to the 2 further ones. I pulled up to a black wolf and dropped it in one shot before speeding after the pale one. I glanced over towards Freddy just in time to see his wolf fall, and then I shot the pale one, then looked over to Freddy and see his other wolf drop. I looked around and didn’t spot any more so I took the opportunity to light a cigarette which I wanted to do since before all this took place.
I back tracked and hauled three of my wolves to one spot but still hadn’t talked to my hunting partner.
Once we finally met up I could see he had 2 wolves in his sled and was in the process of hauling them to where I left my 3. I told him we’ll meet up at the spot I left the 3 once we finished picking up our wolves and that it would be worth it to skin them to avoid hauling a heavy load home and to keep the fur cleaner instead of throwing them all in the sled and have them bounce around for a couple hours.
We pieced together our chase and filled each other in on numbers we seen, and what we did right and what we could’ve done better. We confirmed that we had seen 12, and a quick look at their tracks told us that they had come from the direction we lost the 19 a week earlier. There was also a bunch of tracks heading off in a different direction which we decided had to be the other 7 from the pack of 19.
We skinned all 8 right there in the flat and would’ve kept looking for a bear but ran out of daylight. We made it home at 430 in the morning with 4 wolves each, a couple tired but happy wolf hunters.
