Late in January ’23, Brendan Burns called to ask if I could fill a spot for a sheep hunt at Canol Outfitters in six months. The quick answer was “Yes!” I already had a busy fall planned and a bighorn hunt in Alberta on the schedule. Fortunately, a July hunt didn’t conflict with my other hunts and I was able to make it happen.
I called my buddy, Johnny Nikirk, to ask him to guide me as he had guided the area for over 10 years with the previous outfitter. When we were talking, he said we should hunt caribou after sheep if we had time left before he went back to guide Stone sheep in the Yukon. We chatted about it for a minute and then left it at that.
On July 19th, we chartered into the Canol airstrip from Whitehorse. A quick meet and greet with Glenda and a few successful hunters back at camp and then we repacked our bags and headed to our sheep hunt.
In three days of looking over a ton of country, we saw a few solid rams but nothing we were ready to stalk. On the afternoon of the 22nd, we were making a big move to some new country when we rolled over a rise and I spotted a good ram. After a quick play, Johnny and I had him in the cliffs below us. A small ram pegged us and alerted the big ram we couldn’t see. As the big ram tried to slip out the back door, I was able to send a well-placed arrow into his vitals at 60 yards. After a short recovery and long photo session, we called in for a pickup.
The next morning, we were back at base camp with a crew of other successful sheep hunters. That evening, I asked Glenda if I could stay and hunt caribou for the next five days. Being that I never mentioned it prior, she gave me a startled look and mumbled, “Yeah, we can make that work.” As the other hunters left the next day, she had a tag flown back into camp from Norman Wells. Caribou season opened the 25th, so on the night of the 24th, we flew out to a remote caribou area at the edge of the mountains. As we flew in, we saw a few hundred caribou in the hills around our camp.
In the Northwest Territories in July, it’s pretty much light 24/7. At about 1 a.m., the sun disappears, but it reappears around 4 a.m. We sat in camp that night anxiously waiting to peek over the ridge the next morning to see the giant herd. At about 6 a.m., we left camp and started for the last known location of the caribou. As we crested the first ridge, nothing. A little disappointed, we figured they wouldn’t be far and they had to be around the corner of the drainage. As we rounded the corner, nothing again! I thought it was going to be a slam dunk based on our flight in.
The next spot to look was a 2,000-foot climb over the ridge to look at another drainage. As we crested the top, we could see what looked like ants covering the entire bowl of the head of the basin. Caribou everywhere! As Johnny sat behind the spotter, he went from big bull to big bull. When he was about to let me take a peek, a bigger bull would appear. Many times, he mentioned that one was 400". Finally, as I got situated behind the spotter to look at what he figured was a 410" bull, he said, “There is one that blows them all away! I don’t even know how to judge him.” Johnny quickly grabbed the spotter and gawked for a few minutes. We then got the Ollin scope adapter out so we could both watch him. He looked incredible.
After watching the herd and the giant bull for a bit, we tried to make a game plan on how I could get into bow range. With a herd of over 500 animals, it was going to be tough. We slid down the mountain to about 500 yards from the herd, and the big bull was always close to the middle. As the herd would go one way, we would start sliding in. Then, for no reason, they would shift the opposite direction. On two occasions, I had the big bull inside of 150 yards. With other bulls and cows as close as 20 yards and even some working behind us at times, we just couldn’t close the distance without blowing the herd. At one point, I had him at 135 yards and was belly crawling in closer when Johnny yelled, “AJ, look out! Bear!” At 20 yards, the grizzly bear stood up and looked at Johnny and me while the caribou herd erupted and ran over the hill. The bear went the opposite direction.
With the herd out of sight and the bear gone, it was time to regroup and make a plan. It was now 9 p.m., and we had been chasing this bull for almost seven hours. We decided to make one last push from the riverbed up toward a hidden bowl that we figured they escaped to. As we worked up the stream bed, we could see the herd moving across a flat. They were about to cross the riverbed we were using as cover. As half the herd crossed in front, we could see the giant bull working toward the river. We had to wait until he was about there so that we could hopefully push into the middle of the herd and make it happen before the caribou that were past us winded us and blew the opportunity. As I ran up the bank, we had caribou on every side of us and they were almost closing in. The big bull was at 130 yards when the herd erupted, and we had caribou 10 yards to the right and 15 yards to the left. They winded us. As they stampeded up the riverbank and across the flat, Johnny handed me his guide rifle and gave me direction on which bull he was. With 10 bulls in the herd pushing the 400" mark, it was a little chaotic. When I thought I had him in the scope, I asked one more time and he shouted, “It’s the giant one! He’s at 225. Just kill him!”
As the shot rang out, the herd fled in every direction and the monarch lay in his final resting place. As we walked up on him, he kept getting bigger. With points everywhere, big fronts, and big tops, he had everything one could ever want in a caribou.
After processing the bull, we loaded our packs and stumbled the six miles back to camp. At 3:30 a.m., we stumbled into camp, anxious to crawl into bed. As I lay in my tent that night, I couldn’t sleep as I relived the moment in my head over and over again. I had taken a bull of many lifetimes.
Thanks to Johnny, Glenda, and the crew for a trip-of-a-lifetime! Also, thanks to Brendan Burns for the cancellation call. He’s the wrong guy to talk you out of a sheep hunt!
Login