In 1974, my dad, brother, and brother in-law went on a hunt in Alaska in the Wrangell Mountains. I'm the caboose in the family, 15 years younger than my brother and 21 years younger than my brother in law, but got to tag along on the trip.
One afternoon we all took a horseback ride out of camp and spotted this caribou along the river, they asked my brother in law if he wanted to shoot it, and he said he would pass (he later shot a B&C caribou that scored 410). They then told me I needed to shoot this caribou. I had NO idea I was even hunting. I had been practicing the prior months with a .243, but no one told me that I was going to get to hunt. Apparently the outfitter (Doug Vaden) had told my dad that he liked kids coming along on the hunts and if my dad bought me a caribou tag, he we let me shoot a caribou for free. I was so excited. I had to shoot off a rest, so my dad laid down on the gravel and I took a rest over his back with the scope bobbing around with every move he made. This was my very first big game animal ever, a Barren Ground Caribou. It is still mounted hanging over my desk. I was 10 years old.
Other memories were:
The old log lodge at the base camp. When the outfitter discovered it, it had been occupied by a hibernating grizzly for years. The camp cook made some great food and one of the guides eating peanut butter and jelly on his pancakes.
The evening when my dad, his guide and I were spike camped for moose, and I wandered off finding lots of moose sheds, the further I wandered, the more I found. When my dad found me, he was in tears, and I said to him "I was just headed over the next hill".
The time I got left on the trail with my horse to wait for the guide following up in the rear, but he never showed up so I started hollering.
A road apple fight by the horse barn with the girl my age that was the camp helper.
The lake we horse backed into to fish for grayling. We were fishing in the sun, and no one was catching a thing, so I wandered over to the shady side of the lake and caught 20 fish before any one had a clue I was catching anything. My dad finally showed up and we caught something like 50 fish and everyone else only caught a couple.
Good times.
