Moving a Quartered Caribou Off Wet Tundra
How to quarter, balance and carry a caribou across wet tundra without wrecking the meat or your knees, using the pace and rest rules of a working draft team.
The Caribou Ledger
Every entry in this ledger is a numbered note on one question about hunting caribou in northern Quebec: what the season allows, what a rifle should do at the shot, how a fly-in camp actually runs, what the herd's numbers say and what happens to a quarter of meat once it is back south. Entries are written from the regulations, the outfitters' own published practice and the country itself, then filed under one of four logs.
- entries
- 6
- Sections
- 4
- Last entry
Latest entries in the ledger
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Wind, Water and the Decision to Move
Wind, river level and cloud decide a northern caribou hunt. What to read before a crossing, and when to abandon the plan for the day.
What Hunters Can Copy From a Cold-Water Angler
Waders, boots, layering and warm feet: what a northern caribou hunter can copy from a cold-water fly angler's kit, from river crossings to drying gear
Keeping Meat Cold From Tundra to Freezer
Field dressing starts the cold chain. Meat stays safe near freezing for days. Anglers and hunters cool a catch with ice, shade, water, and airflow.
What a Northern Lodge Provides on a Hunt
A lodge fee covers more than a roof: meals, a guide, boats, fuel and game handling. Here is what to ask before you book a northern hunting or fishing trip.
Wind, Water, and a Quiet Approach
A fly fisherman's quiet approach to water shows the hunter how wind direction, current reading, and slow movement decide a stalk on open tundra.
The hunt
Seasons, licences, rifles and cartridges, field shooting and the shot placement that puts a caribou down cleanly.
Wind, Water and the Decision to Move
Wind, river level and cloud decide a northern caribou hunt. What to read before a crossing, and when to abandon the plan for the day.
Wind, Water, and a Quiet Approach
A fly fisherman's quiet approach to water shows the hunter how wind direction, current reading, and slow movement decide a stalk on open tundra.
The herd & the country
The George River herd, the tundra and taiga of Nunavik and Labrador, the weather, and how the caribou move.
Camp & travel
Fly-in camps, what an outfitter provides, gear lists, cold-weather clothing and the trip from home to Schefferville.
What Hunters Can Copy From a Cold-Water Angler
Waders, boots, layering and warm feet: what a northern caribou hunter can copy from a cold-water fly angler's kit, from river crossings to drying gear
What a Northern Lodge Provides on a Hunt
A lodge fee covers more than a roof: meals, a guide, boats, fuel and game handling. Here is what to ask before you book a northern hunting or fishing trip.
Meat & the return
Field dressing, cooling and transporting meat, caping a trophy, export permits and the records a hunter keeps.
Moving a Quartered Caribou Off Wet Tundra
How to quarter, balance and carry a caribou across wet tundra without wrecking the meat or your knees, using the pace and rest rules of a working draft team.
Keeping Meat Cold From Tundra to Freezer
Field dressing starts the cold chain. Meat stays safe near freezing for days. Anglers and hunters cool a catch with ice, shade, water, and airflow.
Related sites
A short list of external pages our editors find useful for this issue.
An entry in this ledger can only describe what a camp provides in principle. For the version of that question written by an outfitter actually running one, an Ontario fly-in lodge keeps its own notes on boats, cabins and the shape of a season.
A stalk and a cast are decided by the same reading of wind, light and current. A guide who teaches reading water before you cast puts that method in public, and a hunter who borrows it will approach more animals and spook fewer.
The rivers of the north are read much like the rivers of the Loire. A French desk that keeps river fishing techniques in writing shows how much of a day on the water is settled before the first cast, by light and by level.
A notebook kept on a southern river is not a manual for the tundra, but the discipline of cold water does not change: dry feet, layered hands, and gear checked before it is needed. The hunter who reads it packs better.
Pilots, fishermen and hunters move when the water says they can. A local magazine that keeps notes on how a coast reads its water is a reminder that the deciding skill on any open ground is observation, not equipment.
Draft horses move weight by balance, pace and rest, and a hunter carrying a quartered caribou over wet ground is doing the same work. A working horse guide on moving a heavy load calmly explains why the calm pair arrives and the rushed one does not.