“The big one is on the left,” my Inuit guide, Amos Irkok, said with a twinge of excitement in his soft voice.
I crawled up the back side of a bald, pebble-covered hilltop toward a coffee-table-sized boulder at the peak. When I reached the rock, I peeked around the left side and spotted a giant, barren ground caribou bull bedded 104 yards out, facing directly away. We’d spotted this bull and his buddy from about 3 miles away. Then we crossed a lake, climbed a steep hill and waded through a sea of fire-red dwarf birch to get to this point.
From our distant vantage, we initially weren’t sure if either caribou was a shooter. But now, lying here on this no-name hill above Edehon Lake in the Nunavut wilderness, staring through my 12-power binoculars at a 350-pound animal with a rocking chair on its head, I was certain this was the bull of my dreams. And he had no clue I existed.
With my chest pressed against rock, my heart’s thumping was amplified. I needed to calm down. I brought my rifle into position and peered through the scope. Figuring I’d wait until the bull stood up, I reflected on how I got here.
Caribou Booms and Busts
Twenty-six years before this moment in September 2025, I first chased caribou on the central Canadian tundra. That was an adventure to the Nunavik region of northern Quebec to pursue the legendary Quebec-Labrador subspecies during the heyday of caribou hunting — when everyone, it seemed, went on a caribou hunt. Every hunting show on TNN Outdoors aired Quebec-Labrador caribou hunts. Every hunting magazine annually published articles about the ample opportunities to chase the Leaf River and George River herds. Dozens of outfitters hawked hunts in this region, promising two bulls and 100 percent success rates during five-day excursions — all for under $2,000.
That’s when the barb of barren ground caribou hunting dug into my soul. To a Pennsylvania deer hunter, the far North is Mars. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the animals – none of it is even remotely similar to my normal hunting. And I love that. I crave it. I dream about it.
But while the land hasn’t changed, everything else about chasing barren ground caribou has during the past 26 years. It’s nothing like it used to be, and while I waited for a shot on that big bull, I couldn’t help but think, I’m 57 now, and this might be the last time I’ll ever get to do this.
If I’d known what I know now, I would have hunted Quebec-Labrador caribou every year after my first excursion in 1999. The hunts were cheap and the caribou were plentiful. As long as I live, I will never forget the sight of walking out of my orange-painted, plywood Arctic Adventures cabin next to a Nunavik lake, the name of which I can no longer recall, and seeing caribou everywhere. Lines of bulls, cows, and calves moved like ants across the barren, expansive landscape. Groups occasionally plunged into the water to cross between points. Hunting wasn’t so much about trying to find caribou as it was picking out which bull you wanted and figuring out how to get within bow or gun range. I had two good bulls down by the morning of my second day, and I only made it that far because it seemed wrong to fill both my tags on the first day.
After seeing such bounty on that hunt, who would ever have thought the herds would fall so far, so fast? But the decline of the once-mighty George and Leaf River herds was precipitous. Various Canadian authorities have said the herds began spiraling in 2001, shrinking by up to 98 percent. The George River Herd, which once had a booming population of about 800,000 is now estimated at about 7,200, according to Northern Caribou Canada, which tracks caribou populations there. The Leaf River Herd hasn’t declined quite so far, but it still dropped from a peak of around 600,000 in the early 2000s to about 187,000 in 2018.
In 2018, provincial leaders in Quebec indefinitely ended all sport hunting of migratory caribou in the province, including the Quebec-Labrador subspecies. Steve West, owner of Steve’s Outdoor Adventures, notes on his website that caribou “hunting in Quebec and the Nunavik Territory is now closed for the foreseeable future – likely for more than 50+ years while caribou populations recover.” If he’s right, that opportunity won’t exist again in my lifetime.
Hunting in Iceland
As the sky was falling on Quebec-Labrador caribou in the early 2000s, I sought other opportunities to chase these animals – or something like them – in other parts of the world. That led me to a reindeer hunt in Iceland in 2006. A handful of outfitters there were looking to attract more Americans to come hunt their caribou-like reindeer, promising treks across the vast Icelandic tundra, solid numbers of animals and excellent odds for success – all for around $5,000. That hunt was different, yet very similar to my Quebec-Labrador adventure, and I took a nice bull.
Today, Iceland’s reindeer hunting has also been restricted. Citing a substantial reduction in the nation’s reindeer population, Iceland’s minister of the Environment, Energy and Climate cut the number of reindeer tags that would be made available for 2025 from 904 to 665 – 265 for cows and 400 for bulls. That’s less than half the number issued just six years earlier in 2019, when 1,451 were sold. Also, the minister jacked up the price of a bull tag by 20 percent to just over $1,900 in U.S. currency. (I don’t remember what my tag cost in 2006, but I’m certain it wasn’t anywhere close to the current price.)
Boone and Crockett recognizes five subspecies of caribou in its records program: woodland, mountain, barren ground, central Canadian barren ground, and Quebec-Labrador. The latter three are the ones that are (were) hunted on the open tundra where I love lacing my boots. It’s where reindeer-moss-covered ground makes it feel like walking across a never-ending line of mattresses, or where you can bend down and scoop up blueberries by the handful if the urge strikes. It’s where stalking cover might be a single, 4-foot-tall black spruce, a boulder, or a simple depression in the topography. The caribou that live in such places are the caribou in greatest crises, and for which hunting opportunities are quickly dwindling.
Three years before Quebec closed hunting for its caribou, Northwest Territories in 2015 shut down hunting of its barren ground caribou. And caribou hunting opportunities in western Nunavut are on a downward trend as tag allocations shrink. Guess what happens when opportunities decline, but demand doesn’t? Prices skyrocket.
In 2016, I signed up for a 2018 hunt in western Nunavut for central Canadian barren ground caribou. Initially, that hunt was $8,500, with the promise of two bulls. By the time I went, the hunt was still $8,500, but due to tag reductions, I was only allowed a license for one bull. Within two years, the outfitter I had hunted with lost all his tags. He recently got a few back, and today – seven years later – that hunt now lists for $22,000 for one bull. That’s too rich for my blood, and for most other hunters, too.
So what’s happening to barren ground caribou herds across the Arctic? Northern Caribou Canada lists five threats on its website: climate change, human disturbance, natural factors, contaminants, and hunting. While there’s plenty of ongoing research, the declines are still a bit of a mystery. The cause is likely some combination of all these factors.
The Last Caribou Hunt
If you want to hunt barren ground caribou in North America without having to mortgage the house, there basically are two options: Alaska and southern Nunavut. Alaska seems to be the better option cost-wise, but there’s an increased level of logistics involved just in getting to the hunting grounds, where much of the hunting there is done on foot. This, of course, limits the amount of area you can cover to whatever you can walk to over the course of a day.
Southern Nunavut is littered with interconnected lakes and rivers. Caribou camps there are most commonly based on large bodies of water, and then boats are used to ferry hunters in search of caribou. It would take more than a day to walk the distance I can cover in two hours traveling by aluminum boat powered with a 40hp outboard.
If feels like the door is closing on my caribou-hunting career. So, after researching the opportunities that do still exist – and which I can afford – I signed up in 2023 to hunt southern Nunavut in 2025 with Henik Lake Adventures and the Lodge at Little Duck. For $18,000, I’d get all air charters needed for a week of hunting, meals, and guides, plus two caribou bull tags, a fishing license, and all taxes and insurances included.
Make no mistake: that’s not an easy price tag for me to swallow. But I knew I had two years to pay for it and it was a two-bull hunt. Seven years earlier I had paid $8,500 for a one-bull adventure, so this was on par with that. (At least, that’s how I rationalized it to my wife.)
And so, in fall 2023, preparations began for what could be the last caribou hunt of my life. On my 2018 hunt, I carried only a compound bow, and I’ve regretted it ever since. While I unsuccessfully searched for a stalkable bull the first two days of the hunt, I had several no-doubt-about-it shooters stand and look at me from 150 to 200 yards. And on the third day, a blizzard arrived and my late-summer hunt quickly turned into a winter hunt that I wasn’t prepared for.
Also, with over a foot of snow on the ground and ice lining the edges of the lake we were on, the caribou herded up and moved several miles away from the water. So instead of glassing multiple bands of 5 to 12 caribou from the boat, we had to hike far from shore in search of one or two groups of 50 to 70 caribou.
On the last day, I borrowed the guide’s rifle (I have a Canadian Firearms Possession and Acquisition License, so that’s legal for me) and, at 3 p.m., I shot the only bull we saw in two days of hunting. It was an average bull that I was thankful to tag. But I still see in my mind all the monster bulls I easily could have shot with a rifle at the outset of the hunt — while carrying only my bow.
I planned to carry both the bow and a rifle on my 2025 hunt to avoid a repeat of 2018. Concerned about the weight, however, I prepared to run and gun as light as possible. So I built a PSE Mach 33 DS (the 2025 Outdoor Life editor’s choice winner) with a sight and stabilizer that resulted in a rig weighing just 5.5 pounds. My rifle was a Howa M1500 Superlite in 7mm-08, with a Leupold VX-3HD and a total weight right at 5 pounds. A 5.5-pound bow in my hand and a 5-pound rifle strapped to my backpack? I figured I could carry that load all day.
Two years flew by, and before I knew it, I was buckled into a bench inside a De Havilland DHC-3 Otter on Sept. 9, winging from the Lodge at Little Duck’s main headquarters in northern Manitoba to an outpost caribou camp on Edehon Lake in southern Nunavut. There, eight of us would hunt the Qamanirjuaq caribou herd, which has steadily been declining over the years. In 1994, the herd numbered around 496,000, according to the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board. In 2008, that number was down to 344,000, and in 2022 – the last year a survey was done – it was around 253,000.
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At Home in the Arctic
Our camp was a typical Arctic wilderness camp. We stayed in heated Quonset-style tents on plywood bases that slept four. A similar (but roomier) kitchen, three outhouses, a skinning shed with freezers and the crème de la crème – a shower house with a hot water heater — completed camp.
I’ve been to northern Canada many times over the years to fish and to hunt caribou, musk ox, and bears, and having a true heated shower in such a place is a luxury on par with the finest amenities offered by the world’s most expensive hotels. I’m not talking about using a solar bag hanging from a hook that trickles down lukewarm water for about 3 minutes if you’re lucky. Been there, done that. I’m talking about a real shower, with real water pressure and really hot water for as long as you need it. I’ve got limited space to write about this adventure, yet here I am, using up precious lines to talk about a wilderness camp shower. It was that good.
The first day of the hunt dawned under heavy clouds, with a cool breeze that was downright frigid as we zipped down the center of Edehon Lake, heading to one of Irkok’s favorite hunting spots. Irkok has only guided hunters on Edehon Lake for a few years, but he knows the area like home. And it is home to his family. At least one of his uncles was born on a sandy beach that Irkok pointed out when we motored past. His grandparents used to follow caribou migrations along the lake, setting up a caribou-hide tent in ideal locations while they hunted and fished.
The typical barren ground caribou hunt puts two hunters with one guide. So sitting alongside me in Irkok’s boat was Bill Ansley, whom I’d only met the day before in Thompson, Manitoba. Turns out he’s a fellow Pennsylvanian, who owns an RV store just two hours from my hometown. The world is indeed small.
After a solid 90-minute boat ride, Irkok cut the engine and the boat skidded to a halt on a bed of shallow boulders at the water’s edge. We put our packs on our backs, climbed a small hill just off the lake and started glassing. Immediately we spotted caribou. Cows and calves grazed in an open area between pockets of black spruce.
I was watching the caribou through binoculars when Irkok suddenly called out, “Bulls!” I shifted my binoculars in the direction he pointed and there, indeed, were three bulls feeding in a much closer clearing. And two of them looked pretty nice.
So we jogged down one side of the hill to put a copse of spruce between us and the bulls, and then double-timed it straight at them. We covered the 500 yards in no time and, after determining I was up first, I shucked my pack and waded into the trees on tiptoes. Through the branches, I could see the bulls were “just” on the other side.
Here on the sub-Arctic tundra distance is warped. I thought I was right on top of the bulls, but when I ranged them, the digital readout said “92.” That’s a poke with a bow. However, I’d been practicing for a shot like this for two years. My bow was dialed, and I knew I could make that shot as long as I didn’t rush and made sure everything was settled and in line when I released the string.
The biggest bull had long top points, bezes that stretched to near the end of his nose, and at least one paddle-like shovel. It took a couple minutes for him to feed into a spot where I had a clear shot, and I ranged him again as he walked. Still 92.
As I set down my rangefinder and picked up my bow, my brain registered the sight of the bull taking a few steps at a different angle from the line he’d been on, but it didn’t immediately click that he’d just moved slightly away from me. I dialed my sight indicator to 92 and drew the string.
I was admittedly shaky on the draw. It was, after all, the biggest bull I’d had the chance to take.
Recognizing the nerves, I told myself to calm down once I got to full draw. There was no reason to rush. The bulls had no idea I was there. I just needed to go through my shot process.
Feel the anchor. Settle the pin behind the front shoulder. Make sure it stays put. Align my shoulders. Relax my grip. Apply a little pressure to the trigger, and then pull through when everything feels good.
At the shot, I watched the bright pink fletchings sail toward the bull. The arc looked good. The left-to-right was perfect. I clearly saw the fletchings disappear just under the belly and right behind the front leg. It was so close, it had to shave some of the bull’s hair.
When the arrow slid under his belly, the bull bolted. He didn’t go far, but he stopped well over 100 yards out and stared back at me. I picked up my rangefinder and hit the rock he’d been standing next to, it read “96.” That’s when the image of the bull angling away before I drew finally clicked in my brain. I was 4 yards short.
Less than two hours later, while skirting the edge of a small pond, Irkok spotted another group of caribou about 300 yards out walking toward us. We ducked into some trees on the edge of the pond and slowly moved forward. We couldn’t always see the caribou, so Irkok periodically snuck to the right to find them in his binoculars.
After taking one such peek, he motioned to Ansley to get ready. We watched the biggest bull in the group of seven feeding in a thin line of trees extending out into the tundra, away from the pond. Ansley crawled up and I gave him a range.
“Two-twenty from right here, Bill,” I whispered.
Ansley was about 15 yards in front of me, when he snapped his rifle bipod into place and settled in. He took a couple deep breaths, pulled the rifle tight to his shoulder, and squeezed. The blast was immediately followed by the hollow thump of a bullet hitting home. The bull dropped where it stood.
After congratulations and a few photos, the work began. Irkok expertly broke down the bull so all of the meat was in packable portions. The head and attached cape were nested so Ansley could carry them on his shoulders, with the cape serving as a cushion against his neck and the back of his head. My job was to carry Irkok’s gear pack and the rifles.
We were only a little more than a mile from the boat, so the packout wasn’t too bad. But by the time we got back to the boat, loaded up and hauled everything back to camp, it was quitting time.
Dream Bull
The second day felt a lot like the first, but with a bit more wind. That worried me for bowhunting, but that’s why I carried the Howa, too. The caribou were a bit harder to find now, and we made several hikes along the lake without spotting any bulls.
Shortly after noon, we were set up on top of a tall hill rising from the north side of Edehon Lake. We’d been glassing for a while when Irkok spotted two bulls very far out across the lake. With no other prospects, we set out after them, bringing the hunt to the point where I was laying behind a rock, looking at a giant caribou through my scope.
Time is fluid when you’re behind the rifle, finger ready to flick the safety off, waiting for an animal to move. I don’t know if two minutes passed or 10, but after some period of waiting for the bull to stand, I started thinking I could just shoot him in his bed.
Once I decided to shoot, my heart started thumping again. It was so strong I felt it in my ears. At 104 yards, though, I knew this was a chip shot and my confidence was high when I squeezed the trigger. At the shot, the bull popped up and turned broadside. I already had another shell in the chamber and my second shot crumpled him.
I gathered my things and walked over to the bull. With each step, his antlers grew bigger. The top points stood taller than I’d thought. The single shovel was broader than I’d expected. The bezes were longer than I’d noticed. It was reverse ground shrinkage. This was the barren ground caribou I’d been dreaming about for 26 years.
Little did I know what a blessing that bull was. Summer temperatures of 85 degrees returned to Edehon Lake the next day and lasted through the end of my five-day trip. I never saw another bull I wanted to shoot.
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And so if this, in fact, was my last caribou hunt, the last bull I stalked was the biggest I’d ever taken. If I can never go caribou hunting again, I can always relive in my mind, crawling up the back side of that barren hill above Edehon Lake and looking through my scope at the bull of my dreams.
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