Hunting Yukon Moose

By Polly Mahoney

When I lived in the Yukon we hunted moose every year for our year’s supply of meat. We would often give away one front quarter to a friend in need as this would have been enough for the two of us to eat. If we were not lucky enough to get a moose we would try to get a caribou and sheep which would be about the same amount of meat. One year we struck out on our hunting efforts and someone gave us an old pack horse that had been hit by a car on the Alaska Highway so we ate that. I am a real horse lover but when hungry, it didn’t matter. The meat was tough so we ground it up and called it “bronc burger”!

Moose was one of the easiest animals to hunt as they respond well to someone calling them by cupping their hands and imitating a cow or bull moose. In the fall when the males are in the rut they can come in quite quickly and aggressively so you better have your gun ready!

We usually hunted by horseback or occasionally by canoe. The moose in the Yukon are a lot larger than those in Maine so you have to really think before shooting them of how you are going to get them out as we had no trucks around for miles to help with this.

Since I did not grow up hunting, I learned a lot from my ex-husband and other guides I was around in hunting camp. I really enjoyed looking for moose and getting close enough for a shot, the killing was hard for me, but then I enjoyed dressing them out and of course eating them!

We always favored the tongue, made lots of tongue sandwiches, the heart and of course the back straps. Another part of the moose that many people don’t seem to know about is the “bum guts”, part of the large intestine which has a lot of fat in it. We would turn them inside out, remove the poop, and use it like lard. It was good to have the extra fat for the cold winters.

Since we lived without electricity or running water we liked to get our winter meat in the mid to late fall. We would quarter it, hang it on a pole between two trees outside our cabin or wall tent, cover it with a tarp and let it hang. A nice rind would form on it and it would freeze. We would bring in one quarter at a time as we needed meat, thaw it, cut off the rind which we cooked for the dogs, then cut it into meal size portions, wrapped it and put it back outside in containers to keep it frozen until we wanted to eat it.

One time we were living in a cabin for the winter and didn’t have good dog houses for our sled dogs and I felt sorry for them so one by one I was bringing them into our one room cabin for warmth. A couple of them discovered the moose hind quarter thawing in the corner and started a dog fight right inside! We quickly broke that up and they had to go back out into the cold.

In the spring when the weather got warmer and the meat was thawing I would need to do something with all of the meat we still had so it wouldn’t spoil. I dried a lot of it hanging it over the woodstove, made jerky, pemmican and canned some of it. I even sent some home to Maine to family. Little did I know my older sister had become a vegetarian and she tells the story of receiving this package of canned moose meat from her sister in the Yukon and had to find a friend who would enjoy it!

One of my brothers came to visit me at hunting camp and we got to hunt moose together with my ex-husband. While my brother and I were huddled together in the bush by some trees the moose was called in so close to us that we could almost touch it. Our hearts were in our throats as this huge animal came crashing by us looking for a cow and luckily not wanting us. I am not sure whose eyes were bigger around my brothers or the moose but as he went away I asked my ex why he hadn’t shot it. He said it was too beautiful. What, I thought! That may have been the winter we had to eat a horse instead!

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