Caribou: A Necessary
Part of Arctic Life

Mountain Ear
Posted May 8, 2003

By Dave Eastman. Now that I had met my clientele, who were a small seismic exploration firm out of Fairbanks, we needed to set up our new camp far to the west of Prudhoe Bay. In fact, we would be in the Colville River delta, close to Petroleum Reserve No. 4, and the farthest west of any oil outfit on the Slope. We would search during the daylight hours for a suitable location to locate the camp, and then return to another of their camps to sleep the night. It was at this time that I learned that living with a seismic crew was the worst contract a helicopter pilot could experience in the Alaskan Arctic.
Having come out of northern New England, I had heard the history of the old 1900s railroad logging camps of the White Mountains with which to contrast these living conditions. The stink of the bunked-in men was the same: they never washed. Seismic camps were put up over tundra lakes and ponds, but the drillers were too lazy to go down through the eight-foot ice and pump up some more water to fill their tanks. One camp boss regarded me sternly as I finished my shower that first night, and swore at me.

“Some of the men in this camp haven’t had a shower in three weeks,” he informed me. Baleful, fierce eyes stared at me out of a foot-long black beard.

I wondered what I was supposed to do with this information, so I asked him what he meant by his remark. He explained the above, and then I said, as an arrogant helicopter pilot, that that would surely change with me around. I intended to be the camp’s prima donna as its only pilot, and was going to shower every day. More glare.

The next few days continued with us searching for a good camp site, and then getting in trouble returning to the primary camp. Light was so poor after sundown that we could not afford to come back late. All landmarks disappeared in the flat. On one occasion just when we thought we all had found the base camp, it “moved.” During my final approach to the supposed cluster of huts on treads, a cow caribou got up and moved off. The groan from the back seat was audible, and not because we had mistaken the resting female for camp, but because we had to start searching for it all over again!

Barren ground caribou overwinter in partially open coniferous forest far to the south of the Arctic calving grounds of summer. When they move north, it is in great bands, sometimes in the thousands. These heavyset “deer” have brown bodies with white necks; both sexes have antlers, with the male bulls having great sets — often measuring 40 inches high or more. Their ivory colored racks are semi-palmated, with a peculiar brow tine that is called a “shovel.” Last year’s calves accompany their mothers, who are about to give birth in May and June to this year’s crop of young.

One day I came over a small rise while alone in the aircraft, and discovered a huge herd migrating northerly. I dropped my helicopter down into the center of the grazing herd for a look-see, and was completely unprepared for what happened next. Hovering at a fast clip like I commonly did, about 25 feet above the ground, I expected the hoofed animals to disperse in many directions if they were worried about my presence at all.

Instead they stampeded. All around me, with my bird in the center, I was surrounded by hundreds of galloping caribou all heading in one direction, closing to within inches of the cabin of the Jet Ranger helicopter, so that I, too, was running with the herd. Tongues lolling, mule-like faces like apparitions, the caribou were employing a technique they used when attacked by wolves. They coalesced upon the helicopter instead of fleeing it. Up close, I could see that many were similar in age and sex. I had soon had enough, and wished to stress them no further. I pulled the helicopter up and away, and flew off to one side as I did. Gradually then, the herd slowed down after a few more miles of running.

I would never fly that close to a traveling group of barren ground caribou again, and always observed them from afar after this occasion. These marvelous animals for eons in the past have supplied the Eskimos with skins for bedding, clothes and tents. Their meat fed them and their dogs; they are to these natives as the buffalo was to the plains Indian.

Mountain Ear

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