Making meat is one of the most important aspects of life here in rural Alaska. I would say it's right up there with getting our wood pile put up so we can have heat during the long Alaskan winter.
Meat can come in many forms. Folks here harvest waterfowl and ptarmigin, and even some caribou and seal. But it's moose that fills our freezers and is on the table more than most other dishes.
Moose is suprisingly very good, and very good for you. It's filled with vitimins and tastes great; nice and tender (and nice and fat depending on your timing of the harvest and the animal chosen for the freezer).
We don't hunt for horns here, so an average sized bull with modest antlers is desirable. We harvest before the rut, so the meat is tender and doesn't have a gamey taste, like a late season large bull would have.
The hunt itself is a peaceful, get in tune with nature, kind of thing. There is alot of waiting by the right patch of timber. Usualy there is swamp involved near by and we sit and watch the waterfowl, beaver, and other wildlife. We sit there until a moose steps out of the thick timber to graze or get a drink from the nearby swamp.
When a moose is finally down, we take great care to keep the meat clean and dry. We use tarps to lay our winters food on as we load it up in the boat. It is then brought home and hung in the smoke house to age, then cut up and packaged for the freezer by our own hands in the kitchen (no processing plants here).
The freezer is filled by late September fall. And we are lucky if we can find space in the freezer to stuff in a few more ducks. This will be our larder for the long winter months, supplimented with fresh fish from our under ice nets, and perhaps fresh caribou if they migrate close enough.
We can never count on the planes to be flying us in our store bought groceries. We are much like farmers that have crops and animals that need no tending, and have learned to be able to count on ourselves for our daily bread.
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