While it's not my favorite meat, it serves well to supplement the moose, bear, sheep, and deer. Good filler, so to speak, I used to hunt caribou every year, just to fill the freezers, and they are simply fun to hunt. Usually in a good hunting location, too. My wife loves it.


This is a little cow. Note the small antlers. This is one going to be collared and released.



Some friends with a nelchina herd bull in the Wrangell's.



A beaver mountains bull that I shot with 41 mag.



Meat ready to fly out from 40-Mile Country.



Lisa and I scouting on Paldo strip.Camped overnight.



Ridgetop landing area in 40-Mile country. Too windy at night for our airplane. Safer to have buddy drop you off.



Lisa with Denali in background. Highest mountain in north America.

Amazing pictures. Caribou look like they would be fun to hunt.

Thank you for sharing.

Thank you Jack, for your photos and experiences.

I had caribou backstrap for the first time last March , when I was in Fairbanks with JR. It was fantastic, to me.

I have been waiting to illustrate a caribou for a while now. What Ill probably do, is just draw one on my own time anyway. And Ill use the photos of this bull , below. This is a bull that JR had in his mountains . He took some amazing photos of it before it was harvested. He also gave me permission to use his photos in anything I would want to draw. When I draw one , it will absolutely be this one, of JR's.

ALL of these photos are incredible! Thanks for sharing, y'all.
Sharon,
I just love when they're in velvet.

great thread . . love the pictures

What open country. How much does that pack of meat and bones weight? ......jk

What I remember the most is while on the tour bus going to the observation lodge for Denali ( Then Mount McKinley ) and we came over a small rise and down below was a herd of caribou so large it appeared that the ground was moving and seemed to go and on .

Sharon , that's a monster bull caribou that will look great in any background you choose for it .

Thank you Jack for keeping us looking forward to seeing the different animals you highlight .

Of all the that I have seen on the northern Manitoba barrenlands caribou have been heavy infested with the bot or warble fly Hypoderma tarandi[u][/u] from 20 to the hundreds. An uninformed group sent 100's of winter hides down to be tanned. Leather garment was their goal. There was not 3 square inches with-out-a-hole. My suggestion to make some Valentine small bikini's with selective holes in certain places. Was a TOP SELLER at some of the Treaty Days.
I have only seen one group of Woodland caribou while doing a woodcock survey in Manitoba

You just HAD to mention the parasites, didn't you , N 50 ??? Sheesh....

Sorry
they are quite a desired food source I'm sure Crosspatch can occur with the Labrador people's choice.
Sorry there are no pictures of the ware that can be posted on this forum

A good acquaintance, a Khanty guy, grew up in a family of reindeer herders in northern Yugra. They lived in reindeer skin tipis and followed reindeer migrations in wooden sleds. He said that his and his siblings' chores in the summer included popping out those bot fly larvae, like acne, and they had competitions where whoever collected the most won. Most of the kids considered them a tasty snack, just eaten raw

No worries, N40....you're the reporter on those underground varmints

Tatiana, Hades will freeze ovah before Id evah do that .... UGH !

Very nice.My favorite meat.

Bot fly's up north, fire ants from Guatemala down here. Not sure which is worse.

Speaking of parasites..this is surprisingly satisfying to watch

Mr. Jack, I always enjoy your posts. Thank You

I have a Quebec-Labrador bull that looks like a smaller version of that bull. Shot in 1989 before the big herd collapse.

One of the best reads was as they entered Manitoba off the barrens of by Joe Robinson of them tagging barrenground caribou in the late 40's-50's . A very large population of first nations in northern Manitoba depended on them passing through. As they entered the lakes to swim across the canoes would paddle up and dispatch with a knife/spear . The winter hair would float the animal and as they washed up on a distant shore the animals would be bound up with rocks to sink below the surface. As winter progressed they would chop out and pull the animals up as needed. Many peoples perished as the bou changed migration because of fires during this time period. Oskar Mallory ( Wildlife Director Manitoba 1930-50's) spent many a hour telling of some of the stories over many a pot of tea.

A very good report was from a Phd student that put cameras on the bou neck region in the Thompson area in the winter and these went into the barrens of NWT just above Man/ Sask boarders. This was to see what they were eating for 9 months. The collars released and sent a sat location for recovery. ( cant remember her name at the moment)a

speaking of bots, my cousin and i during milking of the cows in between carring milk to the cooler in milk house used to squeeze bots out of the cows back. When the bots were mature and we squeezed them , they would pop right out. In later years cousin father put insecticide ropes for cows to go under and rub their backs and insecticide would take care of bot fly eggs before they would bore into cows hide.

caribou hunt in northern Quebec was one of my best trips,

Super Thread

In an old hunting mag there was an article of taking the train out of Winnipeg just inside of Minnesota and hunting the 4 big game animals in 1898. Elk, moose, mule deer, and caribou. The white tail deer were not there yet. There is even a town with the distinction called Caribou Minn.
In Manitoba up until 1956 your big game license also included them as legal quarry. One specimen of a Woodlands Bou in the Museum of Manitoba was taken by Dess Williams in 1954 by Basket Falls , White Lake Whiteshell Park that is ranked 10 th in the trophy books. He told me the story of it being taken as my cottage is close to there and our families go back several generations. The winter of 1956 /57 there was 100 inches of snow and it whipped out the deer population for 4 years of no deer hunting.

Could be the qamanirjuak herd. Range includes nwt Nunavut Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Yes it is the Qamanirjuak herd wintering near Tadoule Lake Manitoba and calfing near Ranklin Inlet that Joe was working on. Great examples of the methods are in the Dauphin museum that he had a retirement passion to put down

I shot one caribou out of that herd in 2014. Final year of college field trip. we werent allowed to go after wolves or wolverine but it wouldve been easy to pile up the fur with all the caribou around. Field trip took place at Doran lake NWT