North of the Border: Beauty and the Beast

Call Sheep and caribou Adventure
R. Mark Lefaivre

There I was, sitting in the airport nervously waiting for my flight. I was traveling with several other sheep hunters to the Northwest Territories of Canada. Every single one of us was hoping for a chance at our dream ram. Kelly Hougan and his crew at Arctic Red River Outfitters was our destination. Arctic Red River Outfitters is well known for the great sheep that come from there each year. Little did we know of the adventure that awaited us!

Don Peay had set up this hunt for all of us and was going along as well. Don has become the sportsman’s voice. He has a true passion for what he does. His work benefits wildlife as well as hunters. He and a few others started a sportsman’s group called Sportsman for Fish and Wildlife. The conservation success, in just a few short years, of S.F.W. has been amazing.

Just getting to base camp was a trip in and of itself. It took three days to travel from my home in Wyoming to base camp. Along the way, I was able to meet and get to know the other hunters. Each of us was from a different walk of life, yet we all shared the same passion for hunting. One hunter who I become good friends with was Sid Groll, a sportsman and gentleman. One evening, we started talking about the backpack trip we were headed up on. Sid and I began wondering if we would be able to keep up. My answer to Sid was that I figured I would concentrate on one step at a time, just one step at a time. Hopefully, that should work just fine.

I was flown into my spike camp by Bernie, Kelly Hougan’s bush pilot. There I met my guide Jeremy Bergen. Jeremy is the kind of guide that you hope to meet. He was ready to go and loves to hunt sheep, kept a positive enough attitude for both of us, and was willing to go the extra mile. After saying goodbye to Bernie, we crossed the creek and made our way over to the camp. Along the way, Jeremy asked me if I had a problem with getting my sheep the first day. I told him no, not if he was a real good one. Then I asked Jeremy if he had found the mystical forty-inch ram. As soon as we got to the tent, he sat down with his spotting scope, looked for a bit and then turned to me and said, “Well, how do you like this one?” When I looked through the scope, I could not believe what I was seeing. This ram was everything that I had hoped for with horns sweeping way up over his nose. After looking him over, we estimated him around the forty-inch mark. What a beauty! I then told Jeremy that if I could get close enough for a shot, then I would really like to shoot this ram. I would have been crazy to pass on a chance at a ram like that on the first or the last day of the hunt.

As it turned out, Jeremy had flown in the day before and had started to glass for sheep when he found these rams, seven rams in all. He kept an eye on them the rest of the day and hoped that they would not take a notion to move somewhere. Luckily for us, they stayed around. So, Jeremy and I spent the rest of the day watching the rams bed up, and then tried to figure out a stalk for the next day. In the Northwest Territories, you cannot hunt for twelve hours after you fly. We waited patiently for dawn the next day.

At the first light of day, after tossing and turning all night, I rolled out of my sleeping bag and got out of the tent to try and find the rams. I was rewarded by getting a chance to watch the rams feed, then posture, and then the big ram, The Captain, as Jeremy called him, began rearing up and shaking his head at the others. Then the group grazed up and out of sight over the top of the ridge. After a few anxious minutes, they fed back over to where we could watch them. They finally bedded down for the day and the hunt was on.

Jeremy had decided to go up one of the chutes across from the rams as the wind was right and we could stay out of sight. After getting into position across from where we had watched The Captain bed down, we found that the second-best ram and a half-curl had moved above there, and were now bedded. With The Captain nowhere to be seen, the waiting game was on. Jeremy and I were pinned down until they got up to feed. After a couple of hours, it started to rain and continued to rain for about four and a half hours. During this time, we would take turns creeping over to the spotting scope to see if the rams had moved. Luckily they didn’t. When it finally decided to quit raining, we crept over to the scope to find that the rams had gotten up, but we could not see them. We didn’t know if they were feeding toward us or moving away. It was now or never and starting to get late. The decision was made to move up and try to catch up with them. We crept to the top of the next ridge and looked over to find no sheep. We crept to the next ridge and still no sheep. Slipping up on the third ridge, Jeremy snuck ahead of me a bit and, as he peeked over, he saw The Captain. After quickly ranging him at 286 yards, I got ready to shoot. When the smoke had cleared, I had a dandy ram down! After a few pictures we caped my ram and de-boned him. Then we headed off the mountain just as it was getting dark.

Picking our way down through the chute, it was slow going that night. After a tough pack down the mountain, we found that the creek swollen up which make the crossing a little tricky. Finally, we made it back to camp at around 3:00 a.m. We heated up some Mountain House dinners – they sure tasted good, and then we stumbled off to bed. The next morning was spent caping the ram and relaxing around camp. We glassed sheep and caribou all afternoon.

The next day Kelly flew in to get the cape and horns and take them back to base camp. He also brought us a few goodies. We cooked sheep ribs that afternoon, boy, what a treat that was. Jeremy had some seasoning that he had made up especially for ribs. Then it started to rain again. It rained so hard that we were forced into the tent early that evening. It was too bad as we had planned to hunt for a caribou that afternoon.

The next morning it was still raining. It rained until around noon, then we decided to hunt our way farther around the base of the mountain we were camped on. We spotted several bulls about three miles down below us, but none of them looked like they were shooters. So, we continued glassing around the mountain. Jeremy glassed up two or more bulls feeding across the river, one of which was a big bull. We looked him over and decided to go after him as his rack was high and wide with a lot of points on each side. After hiking for about half a mile, we jumped two more caribou bulls. One of these bulls was pretty good and would score around 350 to 360 inches. However, the big bull we had just seen was much better. Jeremy and I carefully slipped across from the two bulls who were now feeding their way towards us on the other side of the river. I got set up for the shot and ranged to where the bull was headed on a small hill. When the bull stepped up and gave me a shot, I fired.

The river was now up even higher than before, so we found a good crossing and slowly made our way over to the bull. He was great! He had lots of points and was in full velvet. He had a deep, rich, chocolate coat with a frosty mane. He was a beast and a beautiful trophy. Once again, we had time for a few pictures and then we de-boned the meat and caped the bull. Jeremy and I loaded our packs for the trip out. It was just getting dark when we finished crossing the river again. We broke out the flashlights again and continued on toward camp. It was around seven or eight miles back to camp that night and crossing through the tundra was tough at best. It took us until just before dawn the next day to get back to camp. After getting back to camp and packing the meat over to the airstrip, we made ourselves breakfast and tried to get a little rest for a couple of hours. After our brief nap, we finished caping the bull and made the call to base camp that we had a caribou down and needed to have it flown out.

Kelly said that it would not be until later that afternoon sometime and that he would be able to come in to get the meat. Kelly also needed Jeremy to move to another camp to help another guide, Travis White, and his hunter, John Fields, get a caribou. John had already taken a beautiful ram with Travis and they were looking for a good bull now for John. They asked me if I wanted to go back to base camp or go hunt caribou. Heck, I wanted to keep hunting as I still had several days left in my hunt and would rather help one of the other hunters that had traveled with me to find a good bull than just sit around. I was soon off on another adventure.

Upon returning to base camp, I found my friend, Sid Groll, had gotten in shortly before us with a tremendous ram that he had taken earlier. That afternoon, we all got a chance to shower up and enjoy another fantastic home-cooked meal by Mary, the base camp cook. The pies and pastries she sends out to the hunters are a real treat. Later that day, we heard that Trent Wall had scored on a terrific ram. Don Peay had come along with Trent to get his hunt on film. They would be joining us the next day at base camp.

When our group had started out, we came with hopes and dreams of great hunting. We returned with treasures of a lifetime.