It was supposed to bea February Musk Ox hunt, but weather kept me from getting to Nunivak Island in the Bering Sea. I drew one of 40 tags they issue per year to hunt Musk Ox out there. This herd numbers around 650 and they have no natural predators, so hunting is needed to keep the numbers in check. These tags are hard to come by, so I was excited to hear that I drew.

I booked with a transporter to get me around the island. The only town on Nunivak is Mekoryuk. It has about 200 residents.

It took me three attempts to get there. The first time I couldn't even get into Bethel, which is about 100 miles east of Nunivak. The weather out there is like no other place. It is usually blowing pretty good, snowing, foggy or bitter cold. I tried to get to Mekoryuk a second time later in February, and managed to land in Bethel, but the weather was too bad on Nunivak, so we gave up that round and I went back to Fairbanks. The season was going to end on March 15th, and I was not going to be able to make an attempt to get out there before the end of the season, so I figured that was all she wrote.

I called the biologist and requested an extension on the season. He said I would have to petition the board of game, so that is what I did. Somehow it worked, and they extended the season for 10 days. I contacted the transporter and we made arrangements for me to come out on the 22nd and hunt the last few days of the season. I was all ready to go, then check the news and find out all flights have been cancelled for the 22nd and 23rd due to the volcano erupting and ash being in the air. At this point I figured it was said and done, but I went ahead and had them change my ticket to the morning of the 24th. I was scheduled to arrive into Bethel around 2pm, and my flight to Mekoryuk would be at 4pm, getting in at 5pm. Everything worked out and I got to the island with my transporter, Abe. Here is the Cessna 208 that we took to the island. It was a regularly scheduled commercial flight, so I was able to hunt same day airborne.

We got off the plane and it was about a two mile snowmachine ride into town. The weather was nice, about 20 above, sunny and only 10-15mph winds. I told Abe that since we have light till around 9pm, I'd like to head out and see if we can find some musk ox close to town, so around 6pm, we headed out on snowmachines.