Eighteenth birthday boos! What pops into your head when you hear that? Does it remind you of the birthday blues? Most possibly of an eighteen year old from the states; headed up to Canada to do some heavy drinking to celebrate their birthday? It could me any of those things, but to me it symbolizes a trip of a lifetime. For my eighteenth birthday and graduation present, I got the opportunity to go up to Webber’s Lodges Caribou camp at Schmok Lake and shoot two caribou along with my dad. 

It all began late afternoon on September 14. The long journey up to Schmok Lake, located in Manitoba. Located on top of the world, near the Arctic Circle. Our first flight landed us at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Winnipeg. The next day after waking up wide-eyed and bushy tailed we took another plane into Churchill, the Polar Bear Capital of the World.

Dave, a manager of Webber’s, picked us up from the nut sized, nearly desolate airport. While taking a tour of Churchill, population 800, we drove by the Polar Bear Jail. I thought that was really cool, who has every heard of that? Not me. I was quick to respond and ask, “What is that?” Dave informed us that when polar bears come into town, where they are never allowed, they get one warning. The 24 hour seven day a week bear patrol attempts to scare them off. If they do not listen or come back they are sent to jail. When in jail they are isolated with bars over their windows and no food. After a few days they are marked with a green dot on their butt and returned to the tundra.

Shortly after checking into our motel we met a few other guys that would be hunting with us. The two guys that stood out the most were Joe and his dad, Cedric. These two guys were full of life and happiness. They were jacked to go, just like my dad and I and were. Not only were Joe and Cedric awesome people they were a father-son team, kind of just like me and my dad a daughter-father team. That was pretty cool.

Most of the guys’ first impression of me was that it was a joke that I would be going hunting. A teenager, blonde hair, blue eyes and a girl to boot, ya right they thought. I was determined to prove to them their first impressions of me were completely false. I am just like any of them, have a passion to hunt, can have a good time, and ready to shoot a caribou.

The next morning my dad and I rose early to the beaming light, shooting through the windows of our room. We packed up, and were stoked to head to hunting camp. We strutted over to Webber’s headquarters to see if our floatplane was on its way. They broke the news to us and said it had been weathered in and was not moving. Now we had to wait, yet that was not such a bad thing. Instead we went to breakfast, lunch, and toured around looking at the Polar Bear stuff like the tundra buggies. Tundra buggies are massive. They are indescribable; you have to see them to believe their size.

The clock struck 17.00. The plane was on its way and we were going into hunting camp. There was a twist though. We were all going on one plane. We had to pair down to just the minimum. What we were wearing, our gun, and a small backpack containing a toothbrush. At that point we did not even care; we just wanted to get to camp.

All of the hunters crammed into the Turbo powered, pristine condition Beaver, one of the smaller float planes. It was tight but oh well. It was a breathtaking view from the beaver. Down in the Hudson Bay were beluga whales, and spread across the tundra were the barren ground caribou. After roughly an hour we landed on Schmok Lake our final destination. That night we all got our tags, the hunting plan, room assignments, and an evening snack and headed for bed, all eager for the morning.

Everyone rose at the crack of dawn. Breakfast was at seven sharp. Bacon and homemade pancakes, with four different varieties of morning beverages. After breakfast we sighted in our rifles, because you know how they handle luggage. My gun was slightly off but everyone else’s was good. Then we headed out hunting. Yvan, our guide, my dad and I jumped in the boat to go hunting. It was a breezy fifteen minute ride, and until we were off and hunting. It was not but after 300 yards of walking we ran into a heard of about 20 caribou, with two nice size bulls. Yvan said not to shoot though because we had lots of time still and he was sure we could do better. After a long adrenaline pumping day of hunting we saw about 100 caribou. We saw several bulls but none were large enough.