Mackenzie Mountains in July

[psinclair]

Wood Bison and a silver fox, just north of the Alberta/NWT line.

We rolled out of my driveway at 4AM on July 10th with a long drive ahead. Our destination by road was Yellowknife, NWT. From there we flew commercial to Norman Wells, NWT…

 

[psinclair]

UhhThe Next leg, the Arctic Red River, and base camp at Arctic Red River Outfitters..

 

[psinclair]

We were met by my lifelong friend, Al Klassen and his son Derek “Dak” Klassen. Al has been guiding for ARRO for 34 years. Dak started his career there as a packer when he was 17. Al and I hunted together for the first time in 1990 with South Nahanni Outfitters.
We had along a young packer, Carson, who’s 16 and learning the ropes of becoming a guide within the next few years. Carson is from Alberta, and way ahead of his years.

 

[psinclair]

We left early on the next day, July 14th.
Camp one..if I recall I took this picture around midnight.
We spotted 8-10 caribou bulls and a handful of ewes, lambs and young rams over about six miles of hiking in to this spot..

 

[psinclair]

B Al, Dak, and “Crozier”.

Beautiful in every direction..

 

[psinclair]

 

[psinclair]

The first basin we hiked into above camp one revealed several rams scattered around, and one really old one, but he wasn’t the right one and besides, we had a full 21 days of hunting ahead of us.

 

[psinclair]

That old ram was in a really tough spot..

Probably 1200 meters away.

 

[psinclair]

We continued on another seven miles to look at new country.

 

[El Jason]

Incredible country…

 

[psinclair]

 

[psinclair]

This was the start of day seven, and we had the daunting task of bushwhacking willows, black spruce, rocks and 8-10 water crossings, along with climbing 3,000’ vertical.

 

[psinclair]

Right around the corner above my right shoulder, we stopped for a water break, and I spotted four rams bedded in the shale 3.5 miles away near the head of the basin. We knew they were rams, but that was all.

 

[psinclair]

Almost there…
We’d been hiking with full packs for 12 hours and everyone was ready for getting to a flat spot.

 

[psinclair]

We chose a camp site and started setting up.
Al and Dak looked up across the basin and found the rams I’d seen earlier. Turns out to be six rams. They were about 1,000 meters away and were perfectly relaxed. They hadn’t seen us. Out come the spotting scopes..
Al said he thought one of them was old enough for a closer look to make sure, so we took light packs and closed the distance. There was a deep cut on the creek that allowed us total concealment. We peered over and had a look at about 600 meters. Al and Dak got real quiet…they said I’d better take this one..
Not wanting to shoot from there we could see with a little break in the terrain, we could cut off another 150 meters and not risk them seeing us..

 

[psinclair]

It was the perfect set up. We belly crawled about 25 meters up on an elevated rise and Al set up the scope to confirm it. I was looking at the ram through my rifle scope and saw those annual rings stacked. He was really heavy and looked more like a Bighorn than a Dall ram.
My Swaro EL range said 433 meters, and called for 1.3 mils on the elevation turret. I made the adjustment and chambered a round.
He was bedded broadside and facing right. I probably looked at him for two or three minutes. I asked Al if he was ready and he nodded. There was a slight cross wind going right/left, I held 2/10ths for it and fired, hitting him perfectly behind the shoulder. He got to his feet and I fired again and hit the same place. He rolled in soft shale about 25 meters and came to rest in a flattened out sheep bed..
There was no hooping and hollering, just silence out of respect.
Dak videoed the whole thing, including his father’s and my embrace…
That’s only going to get shared amongst close friends and family..

 

[psinclair]

As he lay…

 

[psinclair]

He was ten years old.

 

[psinclair]

Dak Klassen. The strongest, most fit man I’ve ever hunted with. He travels around in the off season and competes in Iron Man competitions with his wife.

 

[psinclair]

The great Al Klassen… this ram was his 168th.

He’ll turn 68 this month. He always calls me the “old man”… I’m a year older. Believe it or not this adventure gets better and better…