Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/812511
W e were out of the wind up there on that Yukon ridge. In the polished blue of the sky, fluffy white clouds were sailing along like jet planes, but where we sat, it was quiet and pleasantly warm. It was late August, the tail end of the Yukon summer, and the rolling hills around us had not yet begun to turn scarlet from the frosts. Beyond the hills in front of us, however, we could see the sawtooth profile of the St. Elias Mountains, cold and white, buried in everlasting snow and ancient ice. "We won't see any caribou in here," I said grandly to my wife, Eleanor, who was making her first hunt in the Yukon. "Ugh," grunted little Sam Williams, an old friend and Yukon Indian guide with whom I had shot my last Dall ram back in 1956. "Why's that?" Eleanor asked, and without taking a breath, she said, "Let me have the binoculars." "Elementary, my dear," I said. "It is too warm here. The caribou has one of the warmest coats in nature. The Indians spread their beds on caribou hides when they make brush camps in the winter at forty below. On days like this, the caribou are lying up on a snow patch or beside a very cold stream in the shade. This is no place for caribou." "Ugh," said Sam. "I've seen a lot of Yukon caribou in my day," I reminisced. "Think of it! I made my first Yukon hunt back in 1945, eighteen years ago." Then I added, "Don't be disappointed if you don't see any caribou today. We should see plenty before the trip is over, though." Eleanor had been watching something through the binoculars. Without taking them from her eyes, she said, "I'm just an innocent 44 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S