Biologist Heather Wilson's voice came over the radio somewhere between Nicolai and Galena. She and her husband had kept chatter to a minimum near the higher-traffic areas, but once they were out of town, they talked more freely.
"Leica," Heather said.
There was a long silence over the radio before Paul answered, "Alces."
There was another pause, then Heather's voice: "You want your daughter to be named after a moose?"
It was the fall of 2010 when Heather, six months pregnant, took off in her Piper PA-18 Super Cub with all the supplies for a moose hunt out in the Middle Yukon area. Her husband, Paul, flew his float plane and carried the couple's 1½-year-old son, Coal, in the back. As they flew past an area known as the Farewell Burn toward Galena, the couple discussed possible names for their new daughter. The weather was perfect for flying, and Heather enjoyed the first "quiet time" she had had in a while. She wasn't focused on chasing a toddler or work, she was just up in the sky with the Alaska landscape below her, and she let her mind wander about the new baby to come.
The uncertain is certain
For Heather, flying into the wide-open country was like a homecoming. She had logged hundreds of hours conducting waterfowl surveys over a similar terrain, low-elevation country with lots of lakes and marshes, willows and wetlands, winding rivers and sloughs. There were few villages or any human settlement off the Yukon River, and the upcoming stretch from McGrath to Galena was a lonesome country -- a no-man's land of red and yellow atop rolling hills. The colors were so brilliant in the sun that, although their airplanes were well colored for spotting the rest of the year, it was difficult to make out two yellow Super Cubs against the Alaska autumn background. They just disappeared.
Flying and hunting were both perfect opportunities to showcase Heather's ability. Although the title "Alaska bush pilot" carried a certain flair, a devil-may-care attitude that is demonstrative of a strength of character, Heather prepared herself for contingencies, knowing that if there was a certainty in flying and hunting, it was the uncertainty. For this reason, Heather, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Division of Migratory Bird Management in Anchorage, liked to give herself as many options as possible. The more options she had figured out in advance -- such as alternative routes or contingency plans -- the more decisive she could be at a given moment. Nothing that could be done in flying or hunting was undoable, it just required enough mental "run-throughs" of different scenarios she might encounter and knowing her options ahead of time, so that when she was called upon to make a split-second decision, she wouldn't lose any time to surprise.
Heather looked for the area they had selected to camp -- she and Paul had seen and shot moose there before, and there were two good lake-landing options. This year, they chose their hunting grounds strategically, given that Heather would be carrying Coal and her pregnancy would require easier walking conditions than usual. They were also looking for a place where Coal could walk around, with a good spot for a tent, and enough trees around to hide them. They needed to be far enough from the main moose areas that they could spot moose with binoculars but not spook them. If there was one variable Heather could count on, it was that with a child along, they were going to be loud.
The weather was warm that night when they set up their camp tent. Heather was mesmerized as she watched the sun sink into the low western horizon. They had brought a small folding chair for Coal and a cooler the two parents could take turns sitting on. Having Coal more mobile and vocal than he was when they had first hunted with him as a baby added a new dimension to the trip. This time he was delighted by the sound of loons calling on the lake, ducks splashing down at dusk, or owls hooting.
As Heather watched from the cook stove, Paul was sitting on the cooler beside Coal discussing something they'd discovered together. Heather felt like she could see into the future a bit. Each time they made the trip out there it would just keep getting better. Coal and his new sibling would grow up camping and hunting with their parents, learning the country and the ways of its flora and fauna from, quite literally, the ground up. She could almost see them as young children, then adults and then as the parents of their own children.
After a simple dinner, prepared on the camp stove, they crawled into their tent. Coal slept between them, snuggling against whoever was closest.
That next morning, frost brimmed sharply on the low vegetation around the tent, a perfect morning for the hunt on the ground. Heather and Paul woke up before Coal and moved carefully and quietly as they made coffee and organized their packs and gear. They had done most of this the night before to minimize any fumbling around in the dark, which would risk waking Coal.
Paul carried a pack with most of the bulky heavy items -- game bags, saws, knives and water. Heather carried Coal on her back in a light pack. Coal enjoyed riding in the pack and tolerated the ear muffs he was used to wearing from riding in the plane. Heather attached two fanny packs to her hip belt, which she loaded up with supplies and ammo. She filled her jacket pockets with snacks, diapers and milk, and had rigged up a small tab on her shoulder strap to hold her rifle in place while they walked. The walking motion kept Coal asleep and the ear protection -- intended to protect his ears from the sound of gunfire -- had the added benefit of keeping things quiet for him as they walked. He fell asleep quickly, only waking up when they stopped to call.
Suddenly awake
They had walked for a little over an hour along the side of lakes or game trails, and Coal was still sleeping. Paul began his cow calling and, in very little time, Heather could hear raking. For a half-hour they listened to the guttural responses from bulls and debated whether they should go into the marsh -- the ground was wet with lots of tussocks that would make carrying hindquarters difficult. But in a few moments, the decision was made for them. Coal woke up screaming.
The couple looked at each other -- they both knew that the bulls were now long gone. By the time they got to another place, there was every bit of a chance the same thing would happen again. Heather knew that the sole purpose of flying all the way out into the wilderness was not to prove that a baby makes noise in the morning, it was how to accommodate that fact that she had to solve.
Quitting wasn't an option, and Heather was determined to make it work with Coal along. They had committed to trying for at least four days. Paul had a moose tag in another area, but they hadn't seen many moose there. Heather had a subsistence tag for the area they were in, and she pushed to fill her tag first, since they had seen plenty of moose in the area and there was a higher probability of using her tag to put meat on the table. Her subsistence tag encouraged shooting "the first bull you see" since it required a hunter to destroy any trophy value in the antlers by cutting them in half, while Paul's trophy tag allowed the harvest of a moose with antlers of trophy proportions.
"You can't eat the antlers," Heather thought.
After a second incident of Coal spooking the moose away, Paul suggested that they split up -- he would stay in camp with Coal and Heather would go out and shoot a moose on her own. He would come out only after he heard shots. They talked about it at length and, in the end, decided to reserve it as an option, but to try at least one more day with Coal on Heather's back. It was important to Heather to have everyone together, participating in all aspects. They had come as a family and they would succeed or fail as a family. She also thought it was wiser to stay together, in terms of having a backup if something went wrong.
'Who does this?'
Heather had fleeting thoughts that perhaps she was being ridiculous. "Who does this?" she thought. Who brings an 18-month-old on a moose hunt when they're pregnant? Was she just trying to prove something to herself that didn't need to be proven? Was her pregnancy -- and all the associated hormones -- influencing her decision making?
She could tell that Paul was frustrated, too. She'd spent countless hours with him in the field both at work and hunting, where they took a great deal of pride in putting in a hard day's work together. He was resourceful, thoughtful, practical and direct. The secret of his success was in his ability to focus all of his attention on completing the task at hand and, if he said something couldn't be done, Heather knew the odds were that he was probably right. If she could not convince him that they should keep trying all together, as they had been, she most likely wouldn't continue without him. Both with flying and hunting, Paul always gave her lots of room for doing things on her own, while offering backup if she wanted it.
The third morning, they awoke in the dark to the sound of a bull raking his antlers in the brush near camp. The sound came through the dense fog, like a foot dragging in a graveyard. They were standing side by side, motioning with hand signals, trying to pinpoint the direction of the sounds. Coal was still asleep in the tent. Paul motioned for her to grab a gun and check it out.
"Maybe he'll come out and you can shoot him from camp," Paul whispered.
"Maybe," Heather said.
They stood as still as possible, holding their breath and straining to hear the bull. They sensed his presence 50 to 100 feet away. He was just behind their camp. "Please don't wake up," Heather thought. Just then, Coal woke up and let out a loud cry. At first the moose replied to Coal's wail, as if it was a strange cow call. Then they could hear the moose running off through the brush, still cloaked in the dense fog.
"Maybe this is why people don't bring kids on hunts," Heather thought. They were all frustrated, and Paul looked at Heather as if to say, "Are we wasting our time here?"
Every moose within 10 miles had probably heard Coal's screaming. But Heather also knew that the area was teeming with moose. In the overall scheme of a moose's existence it was hardly a memorable occasion. They regrouped, fixed a cup of coffee while changing and consoling Coal, and decided to go a different direction -- an option they had discussed the night before.
"What do we have to lose?" Heather said. Paul's expression conveyed that he could think of a few answers to that question, but he agreed that they should try.
They fed Coal breakfast, dressed him in his warm gear, put him in Heather's pack and started walking in the new direction. The fog had not yet lifted as they reached the edge of a meadow. They stopped, listened and could hear sucking noises made by a moose somewhere in the distance as it lifted its feet in the marsh. Paul gave a loud cow call, followed by Heather raking with an old scapula. They waited. They could hear raking in response. They waited a bit more to see if he would come closer before deciding to stalk their way to an island of trees in the middle for cover. The dense fog made it possible for them to get across the open area unseen, and Coal seemed content in the pack, sleeping with his ear muffs turned off to sound.
A bull appears
Heather moved as stealthily as she could, her senses on edge with the fear that as soon as she stopped, Coal would wake up. But he didn't. Paul called again and got a response. They were much closer now. The bull grunted and raked from 100 yards away. They stood stock still and waited patiently, hoping for a window in the fog that would allow a glimpse of the bull before he saw them. Heather positioned herself in front of the trees by a small willow bush. Coal was still with her in the pack, while Paul stayed behind the trees and gave one more grunt on the call.
Heather still couldn't see the bull but, as the heat from the morning sun began to penetrate through the fog, there was a perfect moment when the bull suddenly appeared out of the fog, looking for the cow he had heard earlier. He stopped and turned toward her. Heather motioned to Paul that she had the bull in sight.
Paul was behind the trees, a few yards away, and both her children were on her person. "Take him Wilson," she could hear Paul whisper.
Heather had held the rifle up to her shoulder in the direction of where she had heard the bull raking so that, as soon as she saw him, she would be ready. She made sure Coal's head was tilted to her left side, braced her legs, leaned into it, and shot. The bull was 75 yards away and it was a clean shot to the vitals. It was the first time Heather had heard and seen her bullet hit. She could see the entry wound in her scope. The bull reeled around, and she shot again, hitting the other side, this time a little higher at the top of the shoulder. She stood steady, ready to take another shot or mark wherever he moved to next, but he fell right where he was.
Coal had not been awakened after two shots, and Heather approached the bull with Coal still sleeping. She bent down to make sure the moose was dead before she and Paul started to get things out for butchering, and figuring how to lay out the tarps. It wasn't until she was bending over to start butchering the animal that Coal woke up.
He was cranky at first, letting out another scream and demanding his mother's attention. As he calmed down, childlike curiosity took over, and he soon became busy checking out the details of the animal. Moments later he became less enchanted, then scared a little by the blood, and then upset that his parents were paying more attention to the butchering than to him. Once they had all the meat bagged, Heather and Paul took turns carrying loads or staying at the bull with Coal.
No hindquarters
Heather carried smaller loads by placing Coal on the front of her person and carrying the meat in a frame pack on her back. It took some repositioning to get him in a comfortable spot with her pregnant belly, but it worked. She had an evenly weighted load, front and back, and as long as the backpack was placed on her hips and shoulders, and she had Paul to help her stand, she knew she was capable of helping with the dozen or so trips they would make to the plane. Paul watched as she loaded her pack -- he would have to admit that his wife was determined and had pulled off something remarkable, but he also had to draw the line somewhere. "I don't want you carrying hindquarters pregnant," he said. Heather smiled.
Heather could have stayed home; she knew Paul was perfectly capable of bringing home the family's winter meat and, of course, that would have been the safest choice. But Heather wasn't built that way, never had been and probably never would be. She had given it a lot of thought and considered the "conventional wisdom" that would prohibit her participation, but her life had never been structured like that. Before this hunt had ever started she had decided to incorporate her children into everything she did in life. Breast feeding necessitated bringing her son to all her field locations for work, pumping milk in the plane while flying, making special accommodations in her personal plane to have him with her. She enjoyed seeing him, sleeping contentedly in the back of the plane with his ear muffs on.
With enough planning, energy and motivation she could find a way to share most, if not all, her experiences with her kids, including them in as much as possible. Even if their participation meant considering more options than she had ever had to consider before, and even if her kids were too young to really take it all in, she would tell them about it later. She would tell them that she didn't leave them behind; they were always there with her and a part of it all.
Excerpted from Cunningham's book "Women Hunting Alaska" a series of profiles ranging from a 20-year-old beginner to an 84-year-old who has taken all of the 29 North America species of big game. From Northern Publishing. Used with permission.