Moving a Quartered Caribou Off Wet Tundra

Quarter a caribou into four pieces plus the neck and ribs, then carry it in two balanced loads rather than one heroic one. Walk at a pace you can hold for an hour, stop before your grip fails, and rest the meat off the ground where air moves and water does not pool. Every shortcut across wet tundra is paid for twice: once in meat and once in knees.

A working team of draft horses does not drag a load by force. It paces it, balances it and keeps the animal calm, and a hunter with 90 pounds of caribou on his back is running the same arithmetic. The reference for that arithmetic is moving a heavy load calmly, and the rules transfer to tundra without much translation.

How do you divide and carry a caribou so the weight is balanced?

Split the animal at the joints, not through the middle of a muscle group. Four quarters, the neck, and the ribs and brisket as a separate bundle. A mature barren-ground bull can run 250 to 400 pounds on the hoof, and field-dressed weight lands somewhere near half of that. Do the division on a tarp or on a clean gravel bar, not in the mud.

Balance means two loads of roughly equal weight, not one load and one armful. Weigh nothing, but compare: a hind quarter is heavier than a front quarter, so pair a hind with a front plus the neck, and pair the other hind with the other front plus the ribs. If you are carrying with a partner, swap sides every 20 minutes so neither of you walks crooked for three days.

Use a frame pack or a tump line, not a duffel over one shoulder. A pack that sits high and close to the spine lets the hips carry the weight. A duffel that swings low pulls the shoulder down and the opposite hip up, and that is how a hunter tears a knee on flat ground.

Why does pace matter more than strength when you are moving meat?

Strength gets a load onto your back. Pace gets it to the lake. A strong hunter who walks at his top speed for 15 minutes and then sits for 40 moves less meat in a day than a moderate hunter who walks 45 minutes and sits 10.

Wet tundra is the reason. The surface is moss, sedge and water, and it gives back very little. Every step is a small eccentric load on the quadriceps and the knee, and the cost compounds. A pace of about 1.5 to 2 miles per hour, with short steps and a slightly bent knee, keeps the foot from punching through the moss crust and keeps the ankle from rolling.

Set a rhythm you can breathe to. Two steps in, two steps out. If you cannot speak a full sentence, you are walking too fast for a loaded carry. Slow down before you feel the need to, because the need arrives about 10 minutes after the damage.

What does a working-horse team do when a load shifts or the ground gives way?

It stops. That is the whole answer, and it is the part hunters skip. A teamster feels a shift through the harness and halts the team before the load can swing, because a swinging load on a slope pulls the animal sideways and then downhill.

On tundra, a shift is a quarter sliding in the pack, or a boot sinking to the calf in a wet seep. Stop, plant the uphill foot, and reset the load with both hands while standing still. Do not try to correct a shifting pack while walking. Do not step sideways to catch your balance with 80 pounds on your back. Sit down if you have to. A wet seat dries; a twisted knee ends the trip.

Ground that gives way is usually a peat hagg or a snowbridge over a creek. Probe with a walking stick or a rifle butt before you commit your weight. If the ground is bad for 200 yards, walk the long way around it. The detour costs 10 minutes. The fall costs the season.

How do you rest without letting the meat spoil or the load freeze?

Rest the meat, not just yourself, and rest it correctly. Put the load on a pack frame, a pair of crossed paddles, or a bed of willow branches, so air moves under it. Meat that sits directly on wet moss or warm gravel loses its cool layer within minutes.

In September and early October on the Quebec-Labrador plateau, air temperatures commonly sit between 30 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit, with wind chill well below that. That is good cooling weather, but it is not a freezer. Keep the meat in the shade of a rock or a spruce clump, out of direct sun, and keep it dry. A game bag that breathes is better than a plastic tarp, which traps moisture against the surface.

Rest for 10 minutes every 45 minutes, and eat and drink at every stop. Cold, wind and heavy work burn calories fast, and a hunter who stops fueling slows to a shuffle within two hours. If the temperature is below freezing and the meat is already chilled, do not lay it on snow for a long stop; a crust of ice on the surface is harmless, but a quarter frozen to the ground is a quarter you have to pry loose.

What the carry looks like end to end

A quartered caribou from a kill site two miles from camp is a four to six hour job for two hunters, not a two hour job for one. Plan it that way. Quarter, cool, bag, and carry in two balanced loads. Walk at a talking pace. Stop when the load shifts. Rest the meat off the ground, in the shade, in moving air.

The hunters who arrive at camp with clean meat and intact knees are almost never the strongest ones. They are the ones who paced the load, balanced it, and kept themselves calm, which is the same discipline a teamster uses on a muddy lane in October.

What to carry for the move

A frame pack or a tump line, 25 feet of 550 cord, two game bags per quarter, a small tarp for the butchering site, a walking stick, and a headlamp with spare batteries. Add a foam sit pad, which weighs almost nothing and keeps your seat dry at every rest stop. Leave the single heavy duffel in camp.

Sources consulted

Quebec's Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Parks publishes the hunting regulations and zone rules for caribou in Nunavik, and the Canadian Wildlife Service and the Newfoundland and Labrador wildlife division publish the George River herd survey data that hunters read before a season.