Winter Camping

We had a perfect family outing.  Brett has really been wanting to camp, so on one of his last trips to help his buddy, Brent, get housing supplies he checked out the shelter cabin on the Kivalina trail and saw that we could do some cleaning up there.  

"Dad, can you just put the camera away until we get there?" asks Oren.


Thursday was just perfect.  Clear, sunny skies, a little breeze and just about 20 degrees.  We got all packed up and took off before lunch (that's a record for us!).  On the way we stopped and cut down a few trees so we could stock some wood at the shelter.  When we got there we had to shovel out the entry and inside the door to the cabin.  The boys had a blast picking up trash, stacking wood, and exploring around the cabin.  We cleaned up a few trash bags of garbage and organized the useful items.  
After some lunch we headed out into the hills to find some caribou.  Ryker was keen on shooting one with "his gun."  Oren tells about it here:  


"After we ate we decided to shoot some caribou.  We saw some caribou on a ridge so we decided to go after them, but when we got there they were running so we did not want to shoot them.  We saw some other ones that started running too.   They went down the mountain.  Dad tried to shoot them but they were a little farther away so we never got one that time.  Then we thought the other caribou were going to run, but they went up to a different mountain on the opposite side of the caribou we were shooting at.  We decided to go after the ones on the opposite side that we were shooting.  Dad knew that if we went with a snow go they would run, so we decided to walk instead.  We went close to them and they never ran.  We got close enough to them by some willows.  It was really exciting.  They were eating lichen and every once in a while they would lift their heads to look at us.  Dad shot one.  We walked back to the snow-gos and drove them up to the caribou.  We cut it. We took the back straps, the tongue, the heart, the liver, the front quarters, the hind quarters, and the skin.
We went down a different way to go back to the cabin.  We saw some ptarmigan.  They were in many groups of about twenty.  They were behind me, in front of me, and beside me.  We went after them.  I tried to shoot some a few times.   I shot in front of one, in back of it, and over it.  One time I shot right at its feet and it jumped!  I didn't get any, but it was still fun."  

Dad shot a caribou.  We walked over because when we drive we scare the caribou away.  -Ryker

It was such a beautiful evening that we had to take advantage of every minute.  After a quick supper, we headed to a nearby mountain to do a little "mountain climb."

Climbing the mountain climb mountain was fun!  I could step on the ice and walk on the rocks and find cliff rocks.  I like to find cliff rocks. -Ryker


Oren at the top.  Can you spot him under that ruff?



We spotted some musk ox a couple of mountains over and seized the opportunity to see them up close.  We were able to drive right up to them; it was absolutely amazing.  



"My favorite part was seeing the musk ox.  It was really cool.  They surround their babies in a big circle.  That's how they protect them from predators like wolves.  They are huge.  They have big horns.  We took a few pictures.   It was really windy."  -- Ryker






It was close to dark by the time we were back at the cabin.  We built up a fire and snuggled in for the night.
Anya was happy to have her Paci and blankie, but couldn't figure out why she didn't have a crib to sleep in! 

When we woke up in the morning it was quite stormy, so we kept the kids in bed until there was some light in the sky.  I brought some overnight oats and chia pudding for breakfast, but the boys couldn't resist roasting some caribou over the fire!

Snuggled in for some Harry Potter over breakfast.
Ryker cookin' his breakfast:  caribou tenderloin.

We took off at about 11 am.  I realized how easy it is to get claustrophobic in weather like that!  It's just white everywhere. The guys that staked the trail did such a great job that there is no worry of getting lost.


The boys had fun in sledding while they were waiting to  leave.





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