Eight of us from a rural Alaskan Yupik village had decided to travel up the Nushagak and Mulchatna rivers to hunt moose.  The hunting party consisted of two teachers and six of the Yupik natives from the village.This was the first day of the moose hunting season and everyone wanted to get one or at least split one.  Everyone on the hunt usually received their share of meat.  Of course this all depended on how lucky or skillful we were.  The season required that we only shoot a Bull Moose.  No cows were to be harvested.

The eight of us had traveled in two boats for about two hours.  We saw all kinds of cow moose.  One of my travel companions even tried to put a rope collar on one cow moose that was swimming in the river.  But that is a totally different story for a different time.

Finally we rounded a bend in the river and there stood a two year old Bull Moose drinking from the river.  His antlers were still partially in velvet and in the sunlight they were a blood red.Evut, one of the other hunters in our companion boat, got off a quick shot and dropped the moose right where he stood.  Moxie, the driver of our boat, said that you didn't want to let the moose get into the river.  He said the four of us would not be able to pull it back on to the shore.

We pulled the boats over to the sandbar where the moose had dropped.  We proceeded to clean the animal and hang the sections up in the trees to allow the meat to cool.  The meat from the moose was not going anywhere so we decided to go up the river a little bit more to see if any other moose were out. We had only traveled a short distance from the other moose.  We came around another bend in the river and there swimming in the middle of the river was a nice big bull moose.

We all remembered what Moxie had said, "Don't shoot the moose in the river."  So we drove the boat up beside the moose.  He was swimming towards the shoreline of the river.  As he proceeded to walk out of the river I lowered my rifle and set my scope on the back of his head.This crazy moose knew what he was doing he walked straight away from us.  That way the only shot a hunter had was the back of his head or risk damaging a lot of meat with an intestine or gut shot.

As I centered my scope on the back of his head, just below the crown of his antlers, I slowly squeezed the trigger.  My rifle erupted and this very large moose dropped straight to the ground.  I had hit him exactly where I had aimed and did not destroy any meat or any part of the antlers.

We were not going to keep the antlers because most, if not all of the Yupik hunters, did not believe in "trophy hunts".  They only hunted to sustain the lives of their families and others living in the village.

Again we cleaned and cut the animal into sections.  We then hung the sections in the tree to allow the air to get to the meat and cool the temperature down so it would not spoil.It was still early in the day so we decided we would go up the Mulchatna River just a little bit further to see if we could catch some caribou down by the river drinking.

During the thirty minutes we traveled up the river, we did not find any caribou but we did see many Bald Eagles flying around, perched in the top of trees, and feeding on dead salmon.  We decided to turn the boats around and head back down the river to retrieve the moose we had killed and hung up to cool earlier that morning.

We stopped at the spot where I had shot my moose.  We collected the six sections and placed them in the boat.  With four hunters and six sections of a butchered moose in the boat, space was very limited.We decided since it was getting late in the day we had better head down river, collect the sections from the first moose of the day and head towards home.

As we neared the area where we had shot the first moose, we came around the bend in the river.  We immediately saw a huge Grizzly or Brown bear with a half of the rib cage section in his mouth heading into the brush. We quickly landed the boats on the shore.  

I was told to stay by the boat and protect the other hunter's backs.  At the time I did not know what they meant. The other seven hunters quickly entered the brush, tracking the bear as they went.  They were determined to get the meat back.

I could hear and follow their direction of travel by all the noise they were making. Then it became very quiet, except for the sound of the river behind me.  I could feel my heart pounding in my neck and ears.  I was breathing rather quickly also.  Then all at once I heard the other hunters yelling and shouting.  Then it became totally quiet again, except for the natural sounds of rugged rural Alaska.

My heart was pounding, and I was actually breathing very rapidly.  What was going on? I heard a loud snapping of a branch just to my right.  As I turned to identify the sound, my fellow hunters came out of the brush.

As they walked towards me, I could tell they were a little upset.  I asked them what had happened.

Moxie, the driver of the boat I was in, said they had tracked the bear into the brush.  They could all hear him in front of them but the brush was so thick they could not see him. When they broke out on the other side of the brush, they could see the bear with the rib cage still in its mouth running over the top of the hill and out onto the tundra.  They had started yelling trying to startle the bear into dropping the meat. Moxie said, "That bear knew exactly what he wanted and there wasn't any way he was going to give it up.  He was too darn hungry. He didn't even turn his head to look at us."

As we were loading up the remainder of the meat into the second boat I asked Moxie why they wanted me to guard the boats while they went into the brush after the bear.

He laughed out loud and said, "We didn't leave you there to guard the boats.  These bears have a nasty habit of circling around behind its prey and attacking.  You were protecting our backs and our lives."  With that he began laughing again as he continued loading the meat.

I pondered what he had said as we traveled back down the two rivers towards our village.  I was actually proud that they had trusted me with their lives.

What a great day and a super boat ride back down river into a glorious sunset.