Worldwide Game and Fish Adventures

Forbes Magazine, Caribou Hunt

The Perfect Hunt

Jessica Maxwell,

A THIN SKIN OF OCTOBER SKY pulls taut above the tundra. Antler clouds pierce it from the north. Jason Dyck stomps the ground like an arctic mammal. "It's getting colder," he tells his brother-in-law, Dale Friesen, but Friesen just grins. A Manitoba dairy farmer, Friesen has wanted to hunt caribou all his life. This lodge on this lake in the barren lands of Canada's central Northwest Territories is supposed to offer the best caribou hunting on earth, especially now, on the iffy cusp of winter.

Dyck and Friesen had arrived via Twin Otter bush plane the day before, landing sideways in the hard arctic wind beside a collection of cabins called MacKay Lake Lodge. The lodge sits on a 10,000-year-old esker, a gravel ridge above the 100-mile gash of MacKay Lake. We are in the heart of the summer range of what biologists call the Bathurst barren ground caribou herd.

In this caribou's name, "barren" refers to the ground, not the beast; in late July and August some 400,000 of them skirt the long lakeshore on their way south from their calving grounds on the coast. By September the wildflowers have borne cranberries and blueberries, which, by October, flare hotly with the scarlets and ochres of autumn. Then the caribou herd up again, preparing for their southern migration to the woodlands where they will spend the winter.  

Caribou are the largest members of the reindeer family, and barren ground caribou are one of four caribou subspecies. Males can weigh up to 600 pounds, with wildly forward-swooping three-tiered antlers that trophy hunters score by their dimensions and bone mass.

Jason Dyck was 1999 provincial champion hunter for central barren ground caribou, thanks to the trophy bull he tracked on foot and shot 60 miles south of the Northwest Territories border. The bull's rack scored 372 7/8 inches. Now his goal is a caribou that scores in the 400s. Friesen, a veteran white-tailed-deer hunter, just wants a trophy.

Mackay Lake Lodge assigns a guide and a boat for every two hunters. Friesen and Dyck drew Malcolm Jaeb, the son of MacKay Lodge President Gary Jaeb. Dyck scans the land with binoculars from Jaeb's trusty 18-foot aluminum Lund. He's looking for the spidery silhouettes of caribou skylining themselves against the horizon. Twenty minutes later he and Friesen can hear caribou, but they can't see them, the cloud cover is that low, and the bulls' earth-colored bodies and white manes dissolve into the rock and snow of the ghostly terrain.

Jaeb parks the boat and the men head out across the tundra. Their rifles are heavy—Friesen carries a .300 Remington Magnum and Dyck hauls a .300 Weatherby. So are their packs: 40 pounds of camera equipment, ammunition, food, extra clothing in Zip-Loc bags, skinning knives and sharpening kits. Dyck hand-carries a spotting scope. "I like to make sure the animal has everything I want on its rack before I shoot it," he says.

When they reach the top of the first hill they see about a hundred caribou. The men drop and crawl, single file, to a rock 80 yards from the herd. Friesen has never seen a caribou and waits for Dyck to give the sign to shoot. He doesn't. Suddenly the animals scatter.

"What's going on?" Friesen asks.

"They couldn't have spotted us or picked up our scent," Dyck answers. "Maybe there's a wolf."

Slowly, Dyck stands up. He can hardly believe his eyes. Caribou! Thousands of them. As far as he can see.

"And they're all heading straight for us!" he breathes.

Over the crest of the nearby esker they come, spiny-headed beasts, all at bow range—less than 50 yards—oblivious to their human predators. Choosing this particular rock to wait behind was a godsend.

Friesen is anxious to shoot, but Dyck holds him back. Finally, and with great portent, there arrives a bull with a magnificent antler, one to take to Boone & Crockett, the trophy scoring club based in Missoula, Mont. Dyck has already informed his brother-in-law that he won't take a shot until Friesen has harvested his own dream caribou.

"That's the one you want," Dyck tells Friesen. "Take him."

Friesen drops him in one shot. The wind is howling so loudly it absorbs the noise of the gun. The caribou near the fallen bull stop and look, then resume their endless repast of tundra lichen and shrubs.

Half an hour later the hunters spot a second bull even larger than the first. Friesen drops it in one shot, too. He is now tagged out (hunters are only allowed to sack two) and ecstatic. The men resume their watch for a third trophy bull.

Finally, they see him. A Boone & Crockett shoo-in. He is quite broad and especially tall, with nine tines on the top of one antler, eight on the other. A fabulous beast. Within minutes he passes directly in front of Dyck, but other caribou surround him and Dyck can't shoot. Soon the bull is lost in the herd. Minutes later Jaeb spots him again.

"There he is! He's walking up that hill. He's all by himself."

Dyck's Weatherby is what hunters call a "cannon." Its recoil can easily dislocate a shoulder. Dyck sets up the twin legs of its supporting bipod and prepares to shoot.

"Never mind," Jaeb says. "He's way out of range."

"I don't think so," Dyck replies and puts the crosshairs on him. "Let's let the big dog sing."

His target is 460 yards distant.

"He's going over that hill," Jaeb warns. "If you want him, you'd better shoot."

"I need him to turn sideways a little," Dyck replies. And waits

Finally, his shot rings out.

"I don't think you hit him,",Jaeb says.

But Dyck has seen the great bull's footing falter. Soon he's down. Hit through the lungs and out the shoulder, at a quarter of a mile, with a crosswind. A very difficult shot.

Jaeb can't believe it. They now have three caribou lying on the tundra—all scoring in the 360s—and it's almost dark. He radios back to the lodge for help. In the 35 minutes it takes the backup guides to arrive, Dyck spies a 400-plus bull, walking down a hill, heading north. His dream caribou. Dyck watches it while the guides gut and skin the day's take, deboning the meat on the spot. Soon they have it in canvas meat sacks strapped to their foreheads for the mile-and-a-half hike back to the boats. By the time Dyck's 400-class bull finally walks by it's too dark to shoot.

Dyck watches for his prize bull the rest of the hunt. He never sees it again, and goes home with one caribou tag still open.

"I just couldn't settle for anything less," Dyck explains. "And I know my bull will be here next year, if the wolves don't get him. I'm coming back."

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