Moose Hunt

As the leaves change from green to gold, the night air cools enough to usher in a morning mist that blankets the fields in every direction. Each evening comes just a little sooner and morning comes just a little later. Skies are paler blue and the clouds flatten and sprawl with a heaviness that looks as if they will remain overhead for a prolonged rest. The natural rhythms of the season require no calendar to tell what’s coming. It’s autumn and it’s time for our annual moose hunt.

It is these natural rhythms that come back into focus when I ditch the tech, don layers of wool, and head out into the woods in search of food.

Sometimes I feel like a martyr out there in the woods. Why would I go so far into the wild, brush up so closely to predators, subject myself to the harsh elements, and hunt? Why would I do this when a mountain of food is perpetually available just down the street from where I live?

I now know, after so many days in the wild, it is because something deep inside awakens through the process of hunting. There is something deeply satisfying about something so challenging. Like an ancient spartan-like instinct that still trickles through our veins, or a rite-of-passage adventure rekindled in our soul. A camaraderie of men that cannot be properly experienced through digital discourse. An abstinence of the creature comforts of modern life that calls us back to our tribal ancestry and asks: If I ever had to, could I survive simply on Mother Nature’s bounty?  

To hunt is no easy thing. It is a practice of waiting. Of relearning patience and unpredictability. There is no Prime or Uber Eats in the backcountry. For the four moose hunts I’ve now been privileged to partake in, the time spent in the woods surpasses hundreds of hours. Hundreds of hours of waiting, listening, and watching. 

Sitting in a vast, silent meadow, one’s mind initially runs wild. Thoughts about this and that try to fill the stillness. Believe it or not, like meditation, out there in the wild, the mind can settle without ever closing your eyes. In time, a day or two, it can focus its attention on the task at hand and be fully present in the natural world.

I watch nature dance. The leaves shivering in the wind. The sun glittering in the puddles and dew. The meadow hawk kiting through the sky. I can hear the birds singing and the soft sound of the river flowing.

The sights. The smells. They sharpen and become an extension – almost – of your consciousness. In this way, you can note subtle changes in the environment. The slight crackle of crispy falling leaves, that bump into their siblings still clinging to the branches,  as they slowly tumble to the forest floor. The shuffling sounds of the scurrying vole and tiny shrew darting from hole to hole as they collect supplies for the coming Winter. If you remain still long enough, the creatures get to know you – you become part of the meadow – and they play and hide and seek with your feet. Wait long enough, and the shrew will even climb right on your boots.

Colours change too. An autumn mountain meadow isn’t just shades of grey, brown and yellow, but can also be a glorious spectrum of blue, orange, purple and red.

The sound of the occasional rain falling as you wait patiently in the meadow becomes deafening. A symphony of tinkling that drowns out the call of a moose cow, a bull’s grunt, or the thrash of antlers in the willows. As the light changes from dawn through to dusk, your constant stare at the forest begins to create hallucinatory shapes and silhouettes.

Sometimes, after hours and even days of waiting for a moose to appear, the tiny vole can become the moose to my hopeful, and later desperate, senses. I no longer believe a single animal, but voles, shrews and crows exist in all the vast wilderness. Often, only then will something large appear. As if out of nowhere. It just appears – majestically standing in the middle of the meadow. How had I not seen or heard its arrival? I had been waiting, listening, looking with strained eyes, bated breath, and a craned neck for the moose, and yet when it appears, I am startled; I can hardly believe it –  I’m almost paralyzed with surprise. I can hardly remember that I came to this meadow to hunt this food. But nature always surprises. Always impresses. Always challenges you and asks you to keep being curious.

“You don’t know me,” she proclaims. “You can’t predict me. Or control me. I’m wild.”

It all happens very fast after that. The actual hunt that is. It’s exciting and sad, invigorating and deflating. Life and death, beauty and tragedy held in the balance of a brief moment. If you’re successful, if, in that brief moment your mind can be calmed, your sights focused, and your aim true, then you will have your food. The feeling of successfully securing nature’s bounty is one of dissonance, the elation almost tarnished by a felt-sense of the loss of life can lingers for days afterward.

My hunting partners gather together from our respective spots around the meadow and surrounding forest.  We honour the animal. Thank the mother and father of all life for the gift of nourishment. Then begin the real work. For so long, it was stillness and waiting. Now we’re busy. The work of field dressing the animal is no small task. We must skin the animal with care so as not to damage or waste anything. Blood stains my hands for days after. The warmth of the animal’s insides contrasts with the chill of the Fall night air. The liver and the heart are carefully separated from the rest of the organs. They are nutrient rich and will come home with the meat. The quarters (legs), back straps, and neck meat do as well. They are clean and lean protein. The balance of the animal – mainly the meat attached to the spine and some of the hide is a given back to nature – the bugs, birds, critters, and bigger animals will all feast on the remains. The meadow itself will absorb what’s left, and by next year, there will be nothing left.

Next comes the hardest part of all. Carrying the animal back to camp. Every man wants to carry the 200-pound pack. They don’t want to carry this for bragging rights or even to be helpful, although that’s part of it. No, they want to carry the animal to feel the burden of the weight of their choice – their choice to take a life to feed their family. To honour the animal and be satisfied with the effort it takes to bring this prize home. To know you’ve earned every ounce of food because they waited, froze, hunted, handled their nerves, and burdened their muscles for this nourishment. 

While I trudge slowly, one burning step at a time, through the meadow with the burden of this beast-sized animal on my back, I am, in turn, carried through the history of humanity that hunted to survive. Only a few can understand the great sadness and satisfaction of hunting for your own food. There are no guarantees when you set yourself down in the meadow. But, with patience and skill, after hours upon hours, you can proudly look forward to feeding your family clean meat for almost a year. And for years to come, around the kitchen table or campfire you will have stories to tell your children and grandchildren, stories of hard work,  challenge, sacrifice and gratitude - stories of the hunt.