I’ve been helping Jack build the addition on his house in return for How to Alaska Lessons. He invited me on a caribou hunt north of the Arctic Circle last week.
We drove up on a Saturday and arrived at 10:30pm, found a spot to park on the side of the road in a light rain, and pitched the tent on a slope. My sleeping pad kept sliding on the slippery Tyvek groundsheet and my feet would stick out into the rain, so I had to sleep in the fetal position.
We woke to a light snow, packed up, and walked a half mile to the river. We crossed it on packrafts, then walked another 5 miles or so (you need to be five miles away from the road to hunt with a rifle). Over the marshy tussocky terrain it took us a good six hours to cover that distance.
The next day we glassed from a ridge in the sun, seeing no animals.
The next day we moved camp up and across the river a couple of miles. We got in an hour or two of glassing before the storm came in and we retreated to the tent. We spent the rest of that day and most of the next in the tent, waiting out the weather.
Thursday was cool and clear. We glassed, saw some critters, Jack crossed the river again to try to sneak up on the only two caribou we saw all week, but they weren’t having it and disappeared on us.
On Friday we floated ~8miles back to the road and returned home.
This was my first time above the Arctic Circle, the first time I’ve been snowed on in August, and my first time packrafting. I loved it. I can’t wait to go back out.
