Wild meat and vegetables
I promised to write about moose hunting. I will, because it’s that time of year again. Lots of hunting folk are out in the woods searching for a beast to shoot and field dress. Then it’s off to the butcher for further processing into steaks, roasts, sausages, quick fry, and whatever else, maybe even bologna. I love eating moose. I think if a person sustained one’s self on fish, wild game, and fresh vegetables, well, let’s just say it would be a healthy lifestyle. Killing your own wild game and catching fish, along with growing and tending a garden, would certainly entail plenty of exercise as well. That’s just perfect. I pretty near done that for one year.
It was in the mid 1980s. At the time Goldie wasn’t eating moose, or a tiny bit at best. Now she loves the stuff. But anyway, I killed a dandy young bull and had two quarters in the freezer. Yes, I ate it myself, just about, minus a few meals I gave away here and there. I hardly ate a scrap of store bought meat for the entire year, maybe a feed of Mary Brown’s chicken here and there, but that was it. Goldie would cook a roast of meat for herself and moose for me. God love her, cooking two suppers. She’s put up with a lot from me. That was the year I swore off domestic meat.
You might think I’d get sick of eating moose. Well, no, because Goldie cooks it different ways, and besides I had lots more sorts of wild meat in the freezer, and plenty of cod. Let’s see. No doubt I had at least a couple dozen rabbits along with a spattering of wild freshwater ducks. I’m going along the timeline of the hunting season here, and maybe a few grouse. That was the early autumn bounty. Then after Christmas I’d be out on the water hunting turres and seals. And I didn’t just eat the flippers. No, I butcher up the entire carcass and stow it in one of my freezers. In late winter, say early March I’d put some effort into hunting eider ducks on the salt water. Now there’s a delicacy. Yes, I lived well. And yes, I grew my own spuds, turnips and carrots, too.
I’m not the hunter I once was. That is certain. Now I spend more time angling for fun. But hey, I have moose in the freezer. I didn’t get a licence this year, but Robert’s significant other Sherry Seymour tagged her first, a nice 12-point bull. We are all in it together so I have a quarter in the freezer and sausages in the making. Way to go Sherry, you did it. You are the provider for 2018. Goldie is some happy. Her taste buds have certainly evolved in the wild meat direction since the 80’s. There’s no more of that cooking two meals business. But she still won’t eat turres.
I mentioned about exercise, the sort that comes naturally with the hunting and gathering lifestyle. It’s the best, outdoors
in the fresh air, smell of the woods, and all that good stuff. Well then, back in the bad old days, before ATV’S were invented, that exercise could get pretty darn extreme. Lugging out a moose through bog, snow, marsh, and thicket, is nothing like a 15-min cardio blast on a gym treadmill. No, not at all, especially when you’re young and have little sense, latter I became more strategic. I’d try to kill a moose along a water route so I could use my canoe to advantage. Paddling along a wooded shoreline with a moose onboard, now that’s the life. I’ve done it a few times.
But before the slightest degree of sanity settled in my brain, at 18 tender years, I killed my first moose, a quite heavy bull, and a god-awful jaunt from the nearest road or waterway. It was absolutely brutal, not just the mathematical distance, but the terrain and topography,
up over hills, boulder hopping, and narrow muddy trails trough spruce forest. Looking back, we must have been completely nuts. And to make matters worse it started to pour rain just after I shot the moose. What a day it was.
I killed the moose at about 8-am and we celebrated, the three of us, Chris Coombs, Boyd Winsor, and myself. So much for that, fun over, now we young greenhorns had to get this mighty beast to my Ford Pickup waiting at the bottom of Peter’s Path on New Harbour Barrens. Did I mention the rain? It poured and we had nothing but those old Ranger Tough rubber suits. They were not breathable. Gore-tex was not yet invented. We had no cell phone to call for reinforcements. But we did have a few tricks up our sleeves.
We had rope, and we knew how to tie knots. After we quartered the moose we fashioned a handbarrow of spruce rails and binding ropes. Of course we had axes and knives as well. And matches, because I still remember that hot black tea that I drank with my Mom’s thick homemade bread soaked with molasses. That was after completing the barrow, so we’d have energy for the heavily laden trek. Like sensible lads for a change, we boiled up and rested for a half hour.
I’d say we left the kill sight just shy of eleven. We tried two quarters on our wooden barrow but it was way to heavy, staves buckling nearly to the breaking point, and that was just standing still. No, we’d take just one quarter between the three of us, mere boys that we were. Later in the day we’d see how real men did the moose thing. Off we went, two lads on the barrow and one resting, doodling along behind with the moose head atop a shoulder. We rotated about the duties. Lord what a brutal walk it was. I remember sinking to my waist in muck, soaking wet and bloody stuck. Boyd had to throw the moose head down and pull me out, somehow without my rubber boots slipping off. Finally, sweaty, soaked and exhausted, we made it to the truck.
Do the math. Four quarters, one out, and three to go, and three in the afternoon, we needed help. We made some phone calls and three men showed up with not the least bit of pleading. They loved it. There’s not many around anymore like these guys. Back we went with Boyd’s father Max Winsor, my cousin Gordon Smith, and their buddy Bren Best. And they had no need for handbarrows. We left it in the truck. They laughed at us for using it. Yes, we were boys, and they were men.
The men just tossed a quarter of moose on one shoulder with the knee joint pointing forwards, and off they went. Now there were six of us, and only three quarters. The three of us boys walked sheepishly behind. But we all wanted to be men. I’m sort of joking, well not really, because there is no way either of us young fellas were gonna get outdone. The men knew that of course, and were just egging us on. There’s no way any human could lug one of those quarters to the road before dark. We’d all have to pitch in. We manned up and took our turns with a slab of moose on tender shoulder. We made it, and just before dark. Now we had to hang and skin our beast. It would be a late night. The men bought beer, Dominion Ale I seem to recall.
You know, I can still feel how tired I was when I awoke the next morning. But I also felt wonderful, on top of the world. I went out to the shed and looked in though the door. Dad was there, picking off a few moose hairs we had missed the night before. I went back inside and Mom had my breakfast cooking, fresh slab bacon and eggs I believe. There was coffee brewing. I felt as good as I have ever felt. My sore aching shoulders and tired legs would mend soon. Mom and Dad were proud of me. And that is what hunting is all about.