Wolves at the door

Caribou on the river in front of our house

You get used to the wilderness. It begins to feel familiar, even a bit suburban and then wolves attack a caribou at the edge of your yard and you remember just how wild it is. We took the snowmachine for a swim in the Yukon that same day, so have been thoroughly shaken out of our complacency.

Ice pressure ridge up river from us

I nipped out for a pee in the evening and heard a commotion. When the temperature drops to 30 below, sounds distort. They bounce off the frozen surfaces and become brittle and hollow. It was pitch black. Neil came out and we both heard a volley of crashes and cracks very, very close. We are ever so brave and so ran inside in a panic, grabbed the guns and went up to our raised back porch, where we would be safe from the intruder.

Been cold recently

Something was thrashing the willows right at the edge of the yard. It was grunting and snorting. The creature was big, very big- so most likely a moose, but why so much noise? Males will thrash the brush with their antlers in rutting season, but that was finished. I know two people who have had nasty meetings with winter bears. Occasionally bears don’t hibernate and they may be starving and dangerous. Their fur does not repel water well in the cold so they become covered in a layer of ice and are known as ice bears. That wasn’t a pleasant thought. Most likely a moose, we decided, having a thrash around. And why not?

We were talking loudly, but the creature hadn’t run away. Neil saw a large shape in the beam of his headlamp, then we heard deep, heavy breathing. Then quiet. “She’s heading up the valley,” he said confidently, apropos of nothing, but he convinced me.

Jumble ice in the river

We crept out with our guns and headlamps to look for her tracks crossing our trail, to check it was a moose, and not quite sure what we’d do if it wasn’t.

We descended the short, steep slope out of the yard into the woods, pausing every few steps to listen without the crunching of snow under foot.

Neil’s asthma plays up in the deep cold and his heavy breathing behind me was annoying as I couldn’t hear properly. Oh hang on… I realised with a start that the heavy breathing was beside me, not behind me. 

I turned my head and two green eyes flared in the beam of my head lamp. It was very close, about 15 feet away in the brush, and it was not a moose. It was too low, a few feet from the ground, and the eyes were too small and peered straight at me.  

“It’s there, back up, back up!”

Neil wanted to know where it was but I kind of couldn’t be bothered to explain exactly at that point. The animal was, I think, smelling us. Its breathing was loud and coarse. “Just back up!!”

Backing up an icy hill in military issue bunny boots is not very easy. So we took turns, one of us keeping their gun in the general direction of the eyes and breathing whilst the other turned and walked a few paces.

Back in the cabin we concocted a brilliant explanation about how it must have been a moose and she’d been thrashing around making a nice bed, was sitting down in it when we saw her, and her eyes looked small cos umm… they are on the side of her head, of course! It couldn’t have been a caribou as they are too spooky and always come in groups, wolves would have scarpered as soon they heard us and a crazy ice bear would have eaten us. So it was a moose.

I was desperate to get out and see her at first light, hoping to get a nice photo for this blog. The photos weren’t as nice I’d hoped and the story in the snow told a different tale to the one we’d imagined.

Caribou tracks sliding into the creek, wolf tracks beside and blood

A small pack of wolves, maybe 2 or 3 had chased a caribou up into our yard. They were biting at it as it ran and drops of blood and tufts of fur followed their tracks across the creek.

Caribou fur and blood on the bushes

At the edge of our yard the willows were coated brightly in frozen blood. They must have gone for their final attack but scarpered when they heard us. The eyes were the caribou. It sat panting in the snow just off our trail and left a patch of frozen sweat and blood. It must have made its way up the creek.

We tried to follow its tracks but soon hit a patch of fresh overflow that obscured the end of the story. The creek has been overflowing since, so either the caribou lived to see another day, the wolves had dinner or the local ravens and foxes will have a good winter. It will work out well for someone.

Setting off on the machine looking rather pleased with myself

We took a plunge in the river on the snowmachine that day too. Luckily into overflow, not an open lead, but we had got a little bit too used to just charging up the ice shelf. They say most car accidents happen within a half mile of your home and, judging from the past week, I’d say if we are going to get mauled by a bear, stomped by a moose or drown in the river, it will be in the comfort of our own backyard.

Overflow the previous week at the same spot

Had I noticed the shelf ice rise and flood so dramatically anywhere else, I would not have driven onto it, but as we were on the doorstep, I thought, ah fuck it. I managed a few hundred yards, then felt the back of the machine bust down through the ice. “Jump off!!” I screamed to Neil, who was riding pillion and the poor bastard leapt off head first into the water. We’ve learnt if the passenger jumps off quickly you can sometimes keep going and reach solid ice.

I ploughed an open channel for about 30 feet and just made it to solid ice but- thunk- I was sunk too low to get onto it and came to a slushy halt. At 30 below, everything freezes instantly so we got the sled unhitched and hauled it out of the water straight away.

Poor Neil stood knee deep in the overflow and lifted the back of the machine out onto an ice chunk. No sense in both of us getting wet, I told him, sympathetically.

I'm leaning to one side to keep the machine from veering down the rocky bank. 

The beach was so rocky we couldn’t tow the sled and had to hand pull it home, and then go back and get all the tools. The 30 foot open lead I had created was frozen again within 5 minutes.

Refrozen already

I ripped the piss out of our dog mercilessly for his caution on the ice shelf in my last blog, so I wouldn’t have blamed him for laughing at us, but Homer was very gracious. He curled up in the snow and cleaned the ice from his feet as if to say, “I’m just glad you didn’t hurt yourselves, is all.”

Neil knocking ice off the sled runners with an axe after our dip

The Forty Mile caribou herd has been migrating right past our door since that day. That unlucky fellow must have been up in front. We are on the edge of the main herd but have the pleasure of watching small bands plod past us.

They’ve cut through the yard a few times, one almost ran up the bank smack into me, and the woods behind the house are criss-crossed with their trails.

The overflow on the river has now frozen and we have made it to our friends’ place 20 miles downriver. The ice shelf has held all the way and I have never seen the trail so smooth. So now we are travelling again and our world has speeded up.

I will miss this quiet time of freeze up, when we can’t do much and or go anywhere, and nobody comes, but still there is no need to rush off just because we can. I’ll take a lesson from the caribou migrating hundreds of miles from Alaska to Canada, slowly plodding along, one gangly leg in front of the other. They get there eventually, most of them.