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"Being Caribou" Expedition April 21, 2003
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"Those First Days were Tough. And Slow.
Day one we traveled a meager 5 km. The next, only seven. The trees were
thick and caught on our packs, skis and poles, and the snow to either
side of the caribou trails was soft, weak and sugary. A single misstep
sank us up to our hips. It was like balancing along a narrow log for miles.
Once we started on one trail, we had to stick with it, we soon realized.
If it hadn’t been packed by a hundred hooves, then the snow had
no strength to support us. Not even on skis. All the literal ways we had
to describe the trip following in the footsteps of the caribou, being
pulled across the landscape by the herd, of being at the whim of wild
animals, were truer than we imagined.
It wasn’t until the third day the day we broke out of the trees
onto our first ridge in the Richardson Mountains that we saw a group of
caribou; more than 200 cows and yearlings feeding on lichen amid the windblown
rocks. We tried to catch up but by the time we climbed the 2000 feet to
where they were, they were gone.
For the next four days we followed their tracks and the tracks of others
deeper into the mountains onto ever-higher ridges. The vast taiga forests
of Eagle Plains stretched to the south, the Ogilvie Mountains rose from
the other side of Old Crow Flats to the west, and to the east and north
were the Richardsons, covered with tracks and strings of animals kilometers
long. There could be no doubt now, the migration was on.
Barren-ground or Mountain?
The Porcupine Caribou Herd are members of what people call ‘barren-ground’
caribou, but judging by what we saw, ‘mountain’ caribou would
be more appropriate. Or goats. We were astounded by some of the lines
they were taking across mountain faces, up and down scree slopes and rock
bands that we negotiated on all fours ‘ lines that would put the
gnarliest extreme skier to shame.
And they came in waves. Streams of animals pouring like some liquid over
the hilltops, expanding, contracting, spreading across ridge crests and
passes. We followed for as long as we could each day, were overtaken when
we camped for the night, and dragged our leaden limbs out of frosted sleeping
bags in the mornings, to start a day of trying to keep up, all over again.
‘This is the toughest trip yet,’ I finally said to Leanne
one night.
‘We can only do our best,’ she answered. And of course she
was right, but it was quickly becoming apparent our best wasn’t
good enough. A few thousand more caribou passed us by that night and the
next day we saw more running up behind us, covering in two hours what
had taken us a full day.
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| ...connecting brown dots of sun-warmed
ground across the vast, white landscape... |
Distance Grows Shorter and Days Warm
Things got better on Day 7. The trail we were following
up and down the ridges veered west to the foot of the mountains. There
were no trees now and the windswept plains offered easier travel over
hard drifts and more level terrain. For the first time in a week we used
our skis and covered 15 km. We were ecstatic. Both of us felt as though
we’d been launched out of a slingshot.
Just as our pace increased, the caribous’ slackened off. All of
their haste seems to have dissipated and instead of charging ahead, they
plod slowly from one patch of burned-off tundra to the next, connecting
brown dots of sun-warmed ground across the vast, white landscape; feeding
and lounging as they slowly drift northward. The days are getting longer.
The sun warmer. The distance between the caribou and their calving grounds
shorter.
And so it seems we can ‘be caribou’, at least for now. We
pass thousands of animals during the day, set up camp, and then watch
as they pass us later that evening in great strings along a fretwork of
trails. It’s like a game of the tortoise and the hare ‘ us
slow and heavy with our packs, them light and fast, jogging at times,
but distracted by the offerings of the year’s first real spring-like
weather.
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Wolf tracks Credit Scott Hed |
Wolves
...And waylaid by the odd group of wolves.
We have seen quite a few now; entire packs waiting in ambush where the
trails of caribou work through a drifted-in draw, or a lone wolf that
puts the chase on a herd across the open expanse of the plain, a gray
dot pursuing a group of animals that spreads like a stain ahead of it,
running full-out for 5 miles until finally the herd splits and a yearling
lags a few strides, falters, zigs one last time, then is pulled to the
ground.
The rest of the caribou stop, stand for awhile, then slowly file past the feeding wolf as they continue their northward trek to the calving grounds.
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Credit S. Kalinowski |
Bonnet Lake
We are camped at Bonnet Lake now, getting educated as to why
the head of the drainage it’s located at is called the Blow River.
The wind’s cold. And tireless. If you get this update, though, it
means the doggone plane finally got in and we were able to get back into
the mountains for some shelter.
We’re having an amazing time.
Tired. Cold. Wet sometimes. But awesome. Life. Death. Wolves. Deep snow.
Rugged mountains. Caribou. It is impossible not to be inspired by the
beauty, simplicity and determination we see around us, by the unwavering
urge to go north. The caribou get us out of bed in the morning cold, the
caribou help us to continue on through fog, windstorms and the deep, deep
snow.
It is the caribou that keep our own gaze fixed northward.
Copyright 2003 Journey North. All Rights Reserved.
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