Typical Alberta weather today, April 26 and a blizzard, this gives me a chance too add another chapter;
With a late cancellation from Prestons buddy, Don extended an offer to my son Conor (age 15) to accomodate us for the 12 days. The look in his eyes and excitement from him, well you get the picture,
and besides it was during spring break therefore he only missed 4 days of school.
So Brad and myself on the morning of day 2 boarded a single engine 3 seater plane to scout the area we wanted to hunt. Let me tell you, if you think it is a cake walk to hunt and harvest a Buffalo, what would your thoughts be after spending 3 hours in the air and not spotting a single Buffalo with little to no sign of anything. We new at that point the hunt just became more difficult.
Day 3 and 4 had us sledding within a relative close vicinty of our camp and only spotting a few Moose tracks. These were 30 - 40 km days on sleds.
For the rest of the hunt we continued to travel further and further from camp, exploring new country trying to locate some animals. Well the only animals spotted (6 in all) were 64 KM from camp, making a few days of sledding 130 km + / day.
What a small world we live in when my neighbor from home across the street phones his brother Ed in LaCrete and tells him about us coming up and where were going to be camped. Well Ed tells George (steamer truck) and who shows up on his way home from a job in his truck, you guessed it, George. We all had a great visit and thanks to us, we allowed George to lighten his water load from his truck, directly into our hot tub. How convienent for both parties.
In all it was an enjoyable trip, a lot of work, a couple of real cold mornings,
and a memorable first time Buffalo hunt one I may just have to do again.
Speaking of cold, sledding for an couple of hours straight in -30 weather, no hand warmers, not much of a windshield, = cold body parts. Just ask Joe, the trooper he is, as long as his skin had color he pressed on, (skin not having any feeling wasn't an issue to him, he just wanted to make sure it didn't turn white).
It sure was nice to retreat back to a warm camp in the evening, having Andy there to keep the fire burning was well worth it.
Coincidentally, to retrieve the Buffalo in all, we had 7 sleds, 7 skimmers, it took approx 4 - 1/2 hours to travel back 64 km. anything less than 7 & 7 would have resulted in 2 trips. lots of resources and equipment required and on hand, thanks to Don.
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