By Wayne Pressgrove

Where does one begin when there is so much to tell?
My plane departed at 2:30 p.m. on August 26, 2005, from Birmingham to Denver to Edmonton, Canada.

In Edmonton, I met Danny Stevens, son of Stan Stevens, my main outfitter in North West Territories. After a brief dinner, we headed to a single-engine float-plane and headed for our first “Base Camp” at McClure Lake. There we met other guides, Stan Stevens and wife, Helen. From there we left by plane to our final destination, Mountain Lake base camp.

Shortly after dinner that first night, I met my guide, Avery Shepherd, a 29 years old, single lad who weighed 160 pounds with no sign of an ounce of fat. Avery was not all chocolate or vanilla, but seemed reserved, pensive, aloof and probably harboring old wounds and hurts from a painful divorce of his parents years ago. This came out later. Avery was no nonsense through and through. He was quick to point out which gear I had that was either o.k., or worthless.

The next morning, we were flown to our first location, named inappropriately, Picnic Table. All my training prior to the trip could not have prepared me for what I encountered. First we landed on a gravel bar of a small river, five miles farther than we intended, because the old landing strip had washed too badly from previous high waters. We hiked about five or six miles down an old horse trail, pack and rifle on my back that seemed to weigh far in excess of thirty pounds. About every ten yards or so, I encountered some large amounts of animal feces (large hunks of fiber and berries).

When I asked Avery what it was, he said grizzly bear droppings. I said, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Shortly, down the next trail, he showed me a “bear pole”. This is a marker, used by a mature grizzly to reveal his scent and his size and stature to others bears. This “pole”, a young spruce tree revealed old brown hairs, stuck to the badly worn bark and resin with a peculiar chunk of wood missing higher than my head on the tree. Avery graphically showed me how a bear turns his back to the tree and rubs his back up and down several times, then turns his head over the top of one shoulder and then bites a large plug out of the tree. This particular marker revealed this bear to be about seven or eight feet tall. This was indelibly marked in my mind and Avery said a bear that size probably weighted about 450 pounds.

Somehow I seemed to have more energy now and tried to stay a bit closer to Avery and not lag too far behind! Shortly after departing on our journey, Avery asked me to give him two of my rifle cartridges, one for each of his pants’ slash pockets. He informed me to carry three rounds in the magazine only, and when it was time for me to shoot one of our three animals, he would hand me one bullet.

This was for absolute safety reasons. I completely understood, but left me feeling a little bit insecure in the event of a close encounter with a bear. We spent five to seven days looking first for Dall sheep, to no avail or success.
The first five to seven days were very lean, we saw no sheep. There were plenty of caribou and moose, but no sheep. They want you to shoot sheep first and then worry about caribou and moose. We saw eight big moose on the first morning alone, but the season was not open and we would have been eight miles from our landing strip which was too far to haul out moose which takes about four to eight round trips for the entire carcass, antlers, and cape.


On the first full day of sheep hunting Avery spotted a large grizzly bear feeding and foraging on the slope of a mountain opposite to ours. He came within sixty yards of us, unaware we were there. After Avery took a large amount of video of the bear, he yelled at him, and the bear withdrew, running up the hill and seemed alarmed….. sort of. He ran maybe one hundred yards straight up and then hid in some bushes, just out of sight. The next day, more of the same, beautiful scenery, more bears, no sheep.


Somewhat exhausted and thirsty we made our way downhill to a large, noisy creek bed with water flowing rapidly and loudly over the rocks. Avery had to refill his water bottle from the stream; Wayne had to answer a nature call. Dancing frantically and standing on alternating tip toes, I managed to stray about fifteen to twenty yards from Avery, my back pack and empty rifle. Shortly after I was relieved, I was just to the clean-up stage with paper when I heard a loud noise behind me and very close. While in my prostrate and broken-down position, with clothes around my ankles, I gently peered over my shoulder to observe your “basic nightmare”, a grizzly bear charge.

I stood up quickly, backed up a few steps knowing full well I now had a mess on my hands, or er “buttocks”, just in time to see the bear quartering in on me growling, whuffing, and snarling his teeth, in rapid succession, and closing fast. When he approached about ten feet away, I yelled, “Averyyyy!” At that point, he brushed by me and sprinted up the mountainous bank. Avery, now aware of the bear and close encounter, said “Was that close enough for you, Doc?” I asked loudly “Why didn’t you shoot that bear?” He explained it all happened so fast, he really did not have time to chamber a round in his rifle. Besides, since grizzlies are protected in NWT, he would have had to skin it and take the skin and head back to the Game and Fish officials, and he did not want to do that. I explained that if I had had the rifle, I would still be shooting and to heck with the Game and Fish officials. I would have performed a rapid funeral service and hid the bear.


Back at base, I learned that all three of my new hunting friends in NWT had bagged nice sheep and caribou or moose. They only had one tag left; I still had three, with no success yet. I was confident and told them that it was ok.
On September 1st, we re-located to Caribou Pass and, as we flew in, we saw several sheep near our camp.
The next morning, we awoke very early and got a quick start up the pass; gaining altitude and going up hill most of the way. We stopped several times to glass each bend and slope of the canyon, but saw no sheep. I looked back behind us as a rainy mist began falling and told Avery, “Look Avery, as a large rainbow filled the sky behind us. I said, “It is a sign, a providential sign” and he seemed unimpressed and said nothing, but “Come on”. As we rounded the last bend, our last hope of spotting sheep in that canyon, he glassed with his binoculars and gently said, “Sheep”.

Upon hearing those magical words I said “great”, and he began a closer look with his spotting scope. Somewhat quiet, pensive, and in slow-motion, he backed away from glassing and rubbing his chin, slowly said, “No rams, only ewes and lambs”. I said, “No! Let me look”. There were no rams. Both of us sat silently for about five minutes, he was disappointed and frustrated and I knew it. Slowly I broke the silence and said, “Avery, let’s forget sheep, let’s hunt caribou, moose, and do something!!! When I’m turkey or deer hunting, sometimes you must make something happen. Let’s change our strategy. If we see a sheep, great, if we don’t that is ok. Let’s get on with it. He agreed.
The walk back down the canyon was not easy, more emotionally than physically. For the first time, I doubted I would get a sheep.


Shortly thereafter, Avery was methodically slipping around a large boulder and quietly announced, “Caribou, seven of them with two shootable bulls.” Slowly, he passed me a cartridge and I chambered it. Feet spread apart, standing firm and resting over his pack, I waited, but only for a short time. Gradually, seven caribou came around the large boulder as we stood watching. Avery had his video camera out and started filming and narrating the situation in a soft whisper. He kept saying, “Let the cows and calves pass, let em pass, let em pass.” Then when they did, he said, “Take him.” The rifle cracked and he folded like a dead quail. He was exactly what I wanted, a large white mane and walnut-brown cape, large, heavy antlers with wide spread palmated top points and a double-shovel parallel over his nose. We high-fived, pumped handshakes, and took numerous pictures in different poses.

Avery began his methodical caping and dismemberment of the animal which took four hours. I fell asleep at one point as Avery refused any of my help.
Suddenly, he looked startled, and said rather loudly “Wayne, get down quick and get back behind the rock, three rams are coming”. I was in complete disbelief, but here came three rams up the exact same route the caribou had come, four hours earlier.

Once again, posed on my rock, I awaited my sheep. He told me only one was a shooter, the other two were younger rams. I asked him, “How big is the lead ram?” He said mature and probably a full curl on one side. I told him hand me the bullet, I want him. Sure enough, he came in view, only forty yards away and stopped. Once again, the rifle cracked and I had my Dall ram. I was on cloud nine. Avery announced rather pleasingly, “Now, we have more meat to carry out; we were both satisfied.
This double-bagging occurred on Sept. 3, 2005.

The next day, proud of our success, we flew to our new location for moose, Lonesome Creek. This was a beautiful peninsula with Lonesome Creek on the right and Tahula River on the left. For three straight days we observed two moose across the river from us. No moose appeared on our side. Time was running out, so I told Avery, “We need to cross that river even if we strip and swim across.” We had one pair of hip boots, which Avery gave me and he stripped down and waded the river, with water temperature in the high thirties.

The hip boots were too small for me and my feet were sweaty, making it nearly impossible to get on or off. wished I had waded instead of Avery. I had done just that many times in the past while turkey hunting in Alabama.
Sure enough we kept spotting the same moose about two or three miles away. I told Avery, “Let’s get closer and examine his rack much better, but I was totally prepared to take him. Avery had estimated his spread at about 57 inches with good brow tines. I told him I did not care; I wanted that moose even if he thought it might be “a dink.”

Time was running out. Eventually, I talked Avery into stalking closer to the moose. After hiking uphill and pushing hard for about an hour, suddenly Avery looked startled and pushed me straight down and said rather hurriedly, “Get down, get down, there is a huge moose.” We had encountered a different moose that was definitely bigger. One glance with my Leica rangefinder showed the moose to be about 350 yards away. Avery said he was standing up still, between several spruce trees. Slowly he handed me my bullet and said, “In ten minutes we will begin our stalk and get you inside 100 yards for a close shot.” I said, “Why ten minutes?” and he explained that in ten minutes a big cloud would obscure the bright sunlight, helping shade us even better, and we would begin our stalk.

Sure enough, as shade fell around us, we began our slow, steady, silent approach. Avery said just because these animals are so large and appear dumb, they have excellent hearing, and we must stalk very quietly.
Slowly and quietly we advanced through tough terrain and deep ravines. As I closed the distance inside 80-90 yards, we were startled as a cow and her calf began trotting uphill, spooked and previously unseen by us. Just then, the bull, not aware of us, stood up and began walking in the direction of the cow and calf. Avery pushed me a few yards closer and said, “Take him when he clears the thicket.”

I was not ready for the enormous size of his body and antlers as he moved clear of any obstacles. My rifle scope focused on his high right shoulder, and cracked loudly with a thunderous fall of this magnificent beast. Avery warned to rapidly chamber another round and get to him as soon as possible. We did and even though Avery recommended two more shots between the shoulder blades at close range, I knew he was down for good, and his leg movements were what we refer to as agonal, or terminal events.

Pumping handshakes and high fives broke out again, and two happy campers had completed a fabulous, exciting two weeks, with three incredible trophies. This occurred on September 6, 2005.
Avery and I carried the antlers and some choice meat the night of the kill and reached our camp site between midnight and 1 o’clock a.m. The ensuing three days brought rain and several trips by two to four of us to completely take out antlers, cape and all the meat. The hunt and experience of a lifetime was drawing to a close.

Also, when I arrived home, I began having horrible diarrhea, malaise, and fever. I had contracted Giardiasis. I guess the animals of the NWT had their final revenge, of sorts.

Stan Stevens
MacKenzie Mountain Outfitters Ltd.
(250) 786-5118
www.mmo-stanstevens.com