Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/812511
AlAmo Axis There's one less trophy buck in Texas, but plenty more where he came from. By taylor J. Pardue S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S • 133 I t was easy to see this was to be more of an expedition than a hunt, considering the logistics involved. Two days of commercial air travel aside, there'd been a multi-village hop in an oil-drum-filled, ear-blasting DeHaviland Otter, several snowy landings, and much shuffling of assorted cardboard-boxed trucks before reaching Grise Fiord, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. An outpost of perhaps 300 native Inuit, Grise Fiord is Canada's northernmost settlement ("town" is somehow just not fitting), flanked by Greenland and the Arctic Ocean north of Baffin Bay. Yet our journey was far from complete. After a night to acclimate in Grise Fiord, some 1,700 miles from the North Pole, Alfredo Julian and I climbed into waiting sleds drawn by snow machines and larruped noisily westward across a frozen sea. I'd known Alfredo a little more than a year, since November 2002, when we had one of those chance meetings only hunting camps can provide. But I also understood without doubt that despite obvious trials to come, we would emerge from this 20-day adventure not only on speaking terms, but as lasting friends. I felt honored to have been invited to share in this major undertaking. Our journey was initially enchanting, if occasionally joltingly rough, traversing a subtly beautiful world of white-on-blue extending to every horizon, across ocean bays and rocky mountain passes. As the newness subsided, it became simply something to be endured—the May sun an interminable entity hanging 24 hours a day, making it easy to lose track of time and space during the multi-day journey. We stopped occasionally to pour stashed fuel into the thirsty snowmobiles and gulp hastily prepared black tea. Nearly 38 hours later we arrived in base camp, an impressive collection of double- walled canvas tents and long strings of tethered huskies. The first order of business was food, and then much-needed sleep, the evening passing like a fever dream amidst surroundings as strange as it was possible to be—the cold, the clicking of native tongues, howling dogs, and purring Coleman stoves. W ith morning (who was to say at this point when it was night or day?), Alfredo and I loaded into waiting sleds, the two-stroke snow machines tethered and sputtering. My sled would be piloted by veteran hunter Imisho; Alfredo's sled by teenager Jimmy; Aaron piloting a supply