Mr Moose

A year ago, Handy Man and three other guys set off on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. These four outdoors-men boarded a plane to Alaska on a moose hunting trip. Limited to just 100 lbs of gear per person, - which had to include all their clothing, sleeping bags, boots, food, gun and other hunting and camping necessities - each man embarked on a twelve day float trip in the middle of the Yukon Delta.

I know I will never tell this story correctly - you could not pay me enough to withstand that type of environment for twelve days with limited resources - so I am going to tell this adventure second hand from the perspective of a hunting widow...

Because let's face it ladies with husbands that hunt, this is the story of our lives.

 

Leading up to this grand adventure, we personally helped pay an entire year's tuition for the son or daughter of the CEO of Cabela's. Week after week, boxes were showing up from hunting and outfitting stores alike. I am sure our new UPS driver has also come to the conclusion that Handy Man is the luckiest married man alive. 

Handy man spent his evenings researching Alaska, moose hunts, the Yukon, and studying maps of the area they would be hunting in. He set our DVR to record every Alaskan hunting trip that aired on the hunting channel. Thus spending most nights and all weekend long watching hours and hours of guys walking around in camo searching for the mighty and elusive moose - spare me right?!?

Catching short glimpses of the shows here and there, I began to notice a trend in each Alaskan hunting episode. These guys always seemed to have some kind of a bear encounter. Hunter fishing for salmon... bear jumps out of the scrub oak and takes his fish away from him. Hunters sleeping in their tent... wake to noises outside and realize there is a bear sniffing around their camp.  HOLD THE TRAIN!

So I asked Handy Man one day, "Do I need to take out an additional life insurance policy for you before you go out and get eaten by a bear on this trip? What about a supplemental disability policy in case you manage to live but come home maimed?"

He laughed, rolled his eyes and told me not to be ridiculous. But I wasn't joking. I mean how does one handle a call from an Alaskan State Trooper calling to inform me that my husband and his little buddies appeared to be sleeping soundly in their tents and were eaten by a family of hungry bears preparing to hibernate for the winter? Do I respond with, "Why thank you for the call officer. It's a good thing I took out that additional policy before he left. Please send my regards to the rest of the wives. Do you think you could ship his remaining personal items home to me? I think they might have some value on craigslist so I can finish paying off the Cabela's card. Have a nice day!"

In the middle of September, the boys take off for this huge Alaska moose hunt leaving all the wives behind. Handy Man tells me that he will call me when they get to Anchorage, but after that he won't have the ability to call me again until the trip is over and they are back in Anchorage the day before they will fly home. I kept busy well enough carting kids around and working round the clock. Twelve days finally passed and just as I was calling it quits for the day, Handy Man called as promised. He was alive and had not been eaten by a bear. In fact, my prayers were answered and they didn't even see a bear the entire time.

I picked Handy Man up from the airport a day later and he looked like a worn out dish rag. We were elated to see him and began playing 20 Questions as we pointed the car for home. My first question was, "Did you have fun?"

He took a deep breath and gave a very calculated answer. He said it was a trip of a lifetime, but he wouldn't necessarily call it "fun." In fact, he said it was pretty much the most miserable and physically demanding thing he had ever done in his entire life. Handy Man said they boarded this little float plane with all of their gear and the guides flew them a hundred miles north of any civilization. They landed the plane in the middle of a lake which was the drop off point. The pilot came to shore and these "guides" basically handed the my guys a laminated map of the area, a satellite phone for emergencies, pushed their gear out of the plane, pointed in a direction and said, "The river is 2 miles that way. Follow the river and be at the pick up point in 10 days. Gotta go. Good luck." They closed the plane's door and flew away leaving four guys standing on the bank of a lake in the middle of the Alaskan Yukon. 

Handy Man knew this trip would be physically challenging. He had spent months working out nearly every evening to get in shape for this adventure. Unfortunately, he said nothing could ever really prepare you for that kind of terrain. It took the guys an entire day just to haul all of their gear 2 miles to the river. Every step they took was excruciatingly challenging. Apparently there are two kinds of terrain in the Yukon:

The tundra -clumps of arctic grass that stuck up out of marshy, boggy, water that was 6-12 inches deep. Initially Handy Man said they tried to walk on top of the clumps of grass, balancing as they maneuvered over the clumps like rocks in a river. However, the tundra clumps weren't always stable and they found their ankles rolling as they slipped with nearly each step, falling into the mucky, ice cold water. In order to avoid injury, they found they had to just trudge through the muck and mud. With each step the mud threatened to take hold of their boot forever.

They also encountered a sort of overgrown grassland. The grass was tall, nearly as tall as they were, and thick. Each step was labor intensive as they tried to force their feet through the dense vegetation. And as if that weren't challenging enough, hidden in the grass was the remnants of an ancient forest. Hundreds of years of downed trees now engulfed in vegetation. Unable to see ahead of them, they would blindly hook a toe on a tree limb and crash to their hands and knees as they tripped. They would regain their composure, start pushing forward again, and then come in contact with the second hidden challenge of winding beaver paths and holes. Handy Man said they just couldn't win. Every step was a nightmare as they fell over an over again unable to maintain their balance while carrying their packs and their guns.

But these brave men managed to survive being cold, wet and exhausted in Alaska. The hard work finally paid off when Handy Man shot the moose of his dreams just as the sun was setting.

A very HUGE moose. In fact it was so huge that it took Handy Man and his friend to hold his head upright for this picture.

Before he had left, I asked Handy Man what he was going to do if he got a "big" one. He said he was only bringing back the antlers and planned to have a European Skull Mount done.

A what???

A, a this.....

Uhhhh...Yucky???

I am sorry but forgive me if I do not want look at your moose's nasal passages and orbital sockets on a daily basis. I am really not quite sure how to decorate around this. I am pretty sure that this will eventually end up in the trash after the 12546143 sleepless night we have due to the night terrors that our children - and your wife - are sure to have.

I told him I was willing to compromise and work with something like this.

He just smiled and told me it would be great and look really cool. 

Great...cool...

Well, another guy also got a moose that night. Two moose in one night! The accomplishment was bitter sweet. For you see, it took four guys two days to pack two moose a quarter of a mile in that horrible, oh so horrible spectacular terrain. Not to mention, there really isn't an easy way to pack thousands of pounds of meet and large antlers out, even in the perfect conditions. It's very labor intensive.

Of course, he could have had a lighter load had he listened to me and not saved the skull. 

Seeing the pictures of his trip and I began regretting his accomplishment. I did NOT want that thing hanging on my wall. Nope. Not a fan. 

Each day on the river was the same after they got their moose. The guys would start their days by loading all of the quarters, antlers, supplies and personal items onto the two rafts. They would paddle down river as they slowly inched their way along the map. Late afternoon they would secure a place to set up camp. This consisted of gathering wood in order to construct a frame structure that would be used to hold hundreds of pounds of meet up off the ground. It was imperative that they kept the meet cool, dry and clean so it didn't spoil. Once they had built the frame, they had to unload all of the meet and arrange it on the rack for the night. Then they gathered more wood for their fire, set up tents and prepared dinner before collapsing in their sleeping bags. I am sure they did not set up their tents very far from the meet racks. I am still very shocked they were not eaten by bears.

This process took hours. In the morning, they would start their day all over again.

Finally reaching their rendezvous point at the end of their trip, all four cold and exhausted hunters were flown back to civilization.

No one was skunked and each mighty hunter went home with a set of antlers. But it's important to note that this hunt was not just about the antlers or the sport of hunting. They were all part of a food bank program in Alaska.When they stepped off the planes Handy Man and his friends donated a little over 3,300 pounds of meet to the food bank program. Handy Man said he had never seen anything like it before. There was a line of local people there waiting for the guys and their bounty to return from the wilderness. The line was out the door of the office. Men. Women. Families. Some inadequately dressed for the cool, wet September weather.

By the time Handy Man and the guys had unloaded their gear off the planes, he noticed that the line had dissipated. It had taken just barely 20 minutes for the food back to hand out ALL of the meet. 3,300 ponds of moose meet gone in minutes. Amazing. He had never seen anything like it before.

The guys did save and ship a little over a hundred pounds of meet home so all the families could try the moose meet upon their return. I have to say, it was amazing and very tasty. I only wish he would have shipped more home. 

So he was home, alive, and he had an amazing adventure in the Yukon Delta. Their cargo shipment arrived and he dropped off the ugly rack of antlers to the taxidermist so we could pay money for something I knew I was going to loathe hanging in my house.

Three or four days went by and Handy Man approached me via the safety of an email with a very important matter at hand. He said that "everyone" he has talked to or shown the pictures of his moose to had told him he should get a full mount done. After all this was a huge, maybe even record sized moose he had gotten. It was a once-in-a-lifetime hunt and a successful one at that and... blah-blah-blah. 

Whatever you think dear. You can get it fully mounted.

I had fully prepared myself for that request. I knew it was a possibility before he even left that he would want to "go big" if he was successful in Alaska. Add a little peer pressure and well... I am a hunter's wife after all.

And for the love of all things holy, I would much rather have hair covering that terrible skull.

I continued my reign as Greatest Wife On Earth.
I also had stockpile a hefty chunk of my own ammunition. New Coach purse... Don't mind if I do.

Okay so bringing this very long post finally to present day, 2014.

A little over a year later and Mr Moose was done! While judging a horse show, Handy Man took a pal to go pick up Mr Moose. He sent me this photo via text message. 

I was pretty sure we just spent a small fortune on a stuffed Bullwinkle that was NOT going to even fit through the door of our house. I would have paid money to have been following them in my car as they drove through suburbia with that thing strapped down in the bed of the pickup.

Handy Man said people were slowing down to point and take pictures with their cell phones. Quite the Saturday afternoon sensation!

This was our living room before we owned a moose.

 

This is our living room now...

Need some perspective?

From every vantage point, Mr Moose has become the primary focal point.

Not exactly the "conversation piece" I envisioned when we finally get to remodeling our great room this winter. However, it now appears we will be forced to consult Mr Moose when we begin selecting color palates and other decorating schemes.

Did you know that his muzzle is larger than my head?

I am about 90% sure I could fit my fist in his nose.

The kids dig him!

If he were still alive, I am pretty sure either one of them could fit in his mouth.

My Brown Eyed Girl wants to put Christmas lights on his antlers this year.  
Oh You know it sister!

And Thomas... oh the adventures he will have!

Pretty luck guy that Handy Man is!