A Life Wasted

The Great Bear Hunt

I'd been away from home so much since we'd moved to Alaska that it felt strange to be around Mary and our children.  This hit me hard because I knew well how Mary felt about my being home with her.  All she has ever asked of me is that I come home every night.  This brief time at home reminded me how much I had failed her.  I didn't know how I was going to change the circumstances to put me on a normal schedule, but I resolved that I would.

While I was home Mary wanted moose meat, so I told her I'd go get one.  Moose are everywhere in Alaska, but the bulls are a little more difficult to locate.  This is especially true during hunting season.  We'd lived in Alaska nearly two years by this point and I had yet to hunt, so I was eager to bag my first big game.  Alaska law prohibits shooting any game within a proscribed distance from the road, so I went to a jeep road I knew a few miles from our home.  About a half mile down the jeep road there was a steep decent and a long level bottom.  I could see a creek running through that bottom, so out of concern about getting stuck down there, I parked the Cherokee at the top of the hill and walked down the jeep road.

A moose is easy to kill, so rather than bring my large caliber and expensive Sako .338 Winchester Magnum, I carried a .30 .30 lever action Marlin.  It was a good deer gun that would work well for moose too.  There was six inches of fresh snow on the ground, but not a single track.  This was disappointing as I was hoping to see fresh moose tracks in the snow.  I figured there would be tracks near the creek.  Thick waist high brush grew so close to the narrow dirt road that it brushed both doors on the Cherokee.  As I walked down the road the brush felt too close.  Half way to the creek I smelled blood.  To my right, about six feet off the road I noticed steam rising into the air.  I investigated and noticed a nearly perfect circle of knocked down brush.  In the center of that circle lay a young moose with it's guts littering the fresh snow.  Blood was everywhere.  The moose had distinctive bear claw marks on the side of it's hind quarter.  The poor thing was dead, but so recently so that there was still enough heat in his body to cause steam to rise into the air.

I observed all of this with a detached clinical interest until something important occurred to me.  This young moose had been killed by a bear.  Recently.  I, like an idiot, was now casually standing over that bear's fresh kill.  Over the bear's hard earned dinner.  First, I backed away from the dead moose until I reached the road. I looked up and carefully took in my surroundings.  Nothing stirred.  I worked the rifle's lever and loaded a round of .30 .30 ammo.  I actually looked at the gun with disgust.  The gun was fine for a moose hunt, but I was no longer hunting moose.  To be clear I wasn't hunting bear, but there was a very real possibility I might have to shoot one.  If so I needed more gun.

Moose and bear have an interesting evolutionary history, one that made what I had just witnessed even more troubling.  Everyone who lives in Alaska notices the time of spring when baby moose are born.  You notice because it happens all at once.  I was told that all moose calves are born within a week of each other.  This is easy to believe because you see them all at once.  To add to this intrigue, nearly every cow moose has two calves.  This is nature's way of preserving the moose.  You see, bear love moose meat.  A full grown moose can be killed by a bear, but it is difficult and dangerous for the bear.  An adult moose is also difficult for the bear to catch.  A young one however, is no challenge for a bear, so the bears kill and eat their fill of moose calf when they are young.  This is evidenced from driving the roads in Alaska because you stop seeing mother and two calves.  Often one of her calves has been taken by a bear.  It doesn't take long before that youngster is able to move it's legs fast enough to out run a bear.  At this point the attrition diminishes and few moose are killed by bear until the next year.  I was told some bear are fast and clever enough to take down a yearling moose, but that was rare.  This rarity was the reason for my high level of concern.