Fall 2011: filling the freezer

It was inevitable that Betsy and I start to provide ourselves with a little food, living as far from the store as we do. My whole life has been spent buying food from various supermarkets, but the farther you get from the supply chain the more you realize how tenuous it would be if everything wasn't working as it should.
Personally I can't think of any downside to the whole concept of providing for one's own food, and it did prove to be very novel the first time we filled the freezer to capacity. The freezer above runs off of our battery bank quite successfully, leaving ample power left over to run our modern web of electronics we have accumulated at the Yurt (rechargeable batteries for everything, computers, electric lights, iPods, wireless internet). Betsy found it online, and although it was a good expense and had to be hauled in on a snowmachine, it makes much more sense than a propane or generator powered model. It is true that for about a month in the dead of winter we have to use our Honda generator to charge the battery bank, but the time ends up being only a few hours of gas power every other day, and the sun comes back quickly after the solstice.

We got two caribou this year. I remember after I shot the first one and it was on its way to dropping for good, I exclaimed to no one but my self 'holy shit, I got one.' I had packed hurriedly as I sighted the caribou before I was ready to hit the tundra and had only a few minutes to pack everything I needed, but in the rush I had forgotten the directions I had copied from various internet sources in the car. So I stood over the downed animal and remembered my friend Tim's advice, which was something like 'you know what meat looks like, and if you don't care how pretty it is you'll be fine.' So as darkness fell I laid out my knives and accoutrements and got to work. I remembered a few things, like 'don't puncture the guts' which I almost managed to avoid but it turned out to be minor. At times it was like a B horror movie but for realz, but I got the meat back to the car at midnight and was back at the Yurt with a load of meat just over 36 hours after I had left. A day later it was all in the freezer.
The picture above shows the second caribou, a small bull Betsy and I got in early November. We packed up for a weeks' time in the field, ready for alpine conditions, but ran into a blizzard and 40mph winds. After a lunch near Paxson we decided that, because we were only a few hours from home we could wait out the bad weather in the comfort of our home instead of packed into a 2-person alpine tent. My tolerance for staying outside when I have better options seems to decrease year after year. Just before we got to the southern most boundary of the hunting grounds a smaller caribou crossed the road right in front of us. Betsy exclaimed, almost under her breath 'well would you look at that', although later she claimed to have no memory of uttering the phrase. The fresh snow made tracking a no-brainer, and forty minutes later I shot the inquisitive animal at a distance of no more than 30 meters. I take a little pride in the fact that both caribou I harvested were heart/lung shots and didn't suffer more than was necessary. Hunters often make the point that caribou are the easiest animal to hunt, as they are very curious and will approach you in an effort to see if you are related to them. Stalking a moose would have required more finesse, and as I have shown in my limited past, finesse is something I can't always call up when the brush is thick and the light is low.

Instead of taking the meat home we got a hotel room in Glenallen, and due to their inflated price and lack of amenities we didn't feel bad using the shower to rinse and clean the meat. It is funny/disturbing to think that we smuggled in the carcass wrapped in a tarp through a side door (the Caribou hotel, coincidentally) and no one said a word. It could have very well been a body, but we had no trouble.

Besides caribou, Betsy had a very successful dipnetting excursion on the Copper river, bagging 50 lbs. of salmon (post-processing) that we vacuum-sealed and threw in the freezer as well. On top of that was some kale, caribou and salmon stock, and potatoes from various gardens. We also learned to can things, and during a visit to Montana we took full advantage of an overflowing and neglected tomato garden, making tomato sauce and anything else that could be derived from that wonderous fruit. Betsy's mother also had some apple trees, from which we produced several jars of applesauce.

We made a sincere effort to recover as much of the caribou as we could- the second one was more utilized than the first. All we left was the gut pile, the hooves and the head. We boiled all the bones into some powerful stock (with floating chunks of spinal cord, which we fed to the dogs, along with the bones themselves once they were exhausted) ground the heart into hamburger, froze the liver and Betsy tanned the hide to be used in the future for various projects. In retrospect we had left the tongue and cheeks, which apparently are a delicacy. Next time I believe I'll recover the entire carcass save the guts, as the brains can be used for tanning, the hooves could be dog treats and the skin of the legs can be used for mukluks because of the natural bend. Betsy knows more than I on the subject.
This was the first year we gathered some food for ourselves, and I already look forward to next season as I learned so much this year and we still have so much to learn. Maybe a bigger caribou next year, some honey from the hives, blueberries, a moose (!), a bigger yield from our growing garden ambitions......time will tell.