Hunting in Newfoundland

I took this trip on impulse. After I returned from Namibia I went through a severe case of withdrawal and the only remedy I could think was another adventure hunt. I was able to find an outfitter - Bill Bryden, proprietor of the Newfoundland Guide Service - who had a space open for August, and I was intrigued by the unusual nature of a hunt among the ancient crags of the Torngat mountains on the extreme tip of Labrador, the mainland portion of Newfoundland province. Actually Saglek Fjord lies just a bit south of the Arctic Circle, but the terrain is no different and there are polar bears, seals, whales the gamut of arctic wildlife.

Destiny took another course. Fierce gales and stormy seas compelled the supply ship to turn back, an understandable discretion when the prospect of shipwreck on the uninhabited and forlorn craggy coastline of Labrador loomed ahead. Then the designated charter float plane service went under and the others in the region refused to risk their aircraft that far north, preventing air delivery of both supplies and clientele. Many hunters simply cancelled. I managed to salvage my hunt by rebooking with Bryden for the interior of Newfoundland, where I had originally intended to hunt before I was drawn by the singular allure of the bleak arctic. My brother, who had been pining after woodland caribou (the only huntable population of which exists in Newfoundland), was also able to come along. I regret now enticing him along.

This is the country hunted and described by Frederick Courteney Selous in his Recent Hunting Trips in British North America, a longtime favorite of mine. In 1905, Selous followed the Exploits River between King George the Fourth Lake, Lloyd's Lake and Red Indian Lake to the west of the Annieopsquotch Mountains. Our camp lay on a small pond called Saviour Lake (or Butts Pond) in the foothills of the ancient, once majestic mountains of the Buchans Plateau, now worn down to mere knobs (called tolts) by glaciers from eons before any man walked this continent. The whole landscape is a series of deep scars left by the southwest to northeast movement of the glaciers in the form of long narrow lakes and river valleys and rolling moraigne ridges, and dotted everywhere with tiny ponds formed in the scourings of the vanished ice sheets. Saviour Lake is situated within 10 miles of the shores of Red Indian Lake and the path taken by Selous.

Topographic Map of the Area West of Red Indian Lake Showing the Camp at Saviour Lake

Moose were introduced to Newfoundland in 1878 and the present population stands at more than 120,000 with a density higher than anywhere else in North America. Mature male Newfoundland moose weigh typically between 850 and 1200 lbs. Woodland caribou are native to the island of Newfoundland, being natural swimmers and unafraid of open ocean migrations. Mature males average around 400 lbs. Less plentiful at over 80,000 strong, the population is nevertheless robust. The black bears of Newfoundland are the largest in North America. Bears weighing upwards of 700 lbs have been caught or killed and those over 500 lbs are not uncommon. The population is also very strong, numbering as many as 10,000 animals.

Despite the big body size of all the animals on our permits my brother and I both elected to bring 7 mm Remington Magnum rifles (his a stainless Ruger M77 MkII, mine a blue-steel version). This would be the first time that I undertook one of these adventure hunts with a rifle other than my beloved .340 Weatherby. I had been developing loads for the 150 grain Swift Scirocco in anticipation of long range shots on the arctic tundra of the Saglek Fjord area of Labrador but now I refocused my efforts toward the 160 grain North Fork Technologies bonded core bullet. These bullets do not penetrate quite as deeply as the Nosler Partitions but make tremendous holes and the jacket and core stay together with singular tenacity.

We were not met by our outfitter at the airport. Another outfitter, named Eric Cranford, had agreed to pick us up, from whom we learned that Bill was busy obtaining the provisions required for our stay. Eric had been described by Bill as his "partner", a relationship I quickly learned that Eric was very anxious to disavow. This other outfitter is the owner of Twin Valley Outfitters and operator of the Valley Lake camp lodge, which is nonetheless advertised on Bryden's web site for Bryden's Newfoundland hunts. Cranford was inqusitive and finally offered that if things did not turn out as we hoped with the situation at Saviour Lake, we could probably relocate to his "moose camp" later in the week. A last minute change of plans had us in a hunting cabin at the lake rather than in a remote tent camp, as I had originally arranged with Bryden. We were taken by Eric (his arrangements -- Bryden had previously mentioned a B&B in another town) to a very commodious and affordable B&B called the River House Inn, owned and operated by Bill and Linda Hudson. The food was superlative. Linda made us a full course breakfast culminating in Eggs Benedict and later served us a luncheon of cod au gratin with regional berry tarts topped with creme fraiche for dessert. We lingered in the company of our hosts past noon because Bryden's last minute flight arrangements meant we would not depart until around 4 PM.

Late in the day our outfitter arrived. In his early thirties, he was attired in T-shirt and sandals, more beach bum chic than hunting guide (sweltering heat notwithstanding). It was then we learned that the camp supplies and gear had not been pre-positioned and that we would be expected to pay for the flying costs of this load and our guides in addition to our own transport costs (this above and beyond the cost of the outfitting). This development had a second consequence. We were overweight now for the 1956 vintage DeHavilland Beaver. That meant that we had to hire the services of the more powerful (and expensive) Turbo Beaver that had wheeled undercarriage on its floats and could take off from the local field. It cost $ 409 US instead of the split charter of $ 140 US that we had been led to expect for ourselves and our personal gear.

"Oh, well," I mused, "At least we're off," refusing to have my spirits dampened by these annoyances. That lasted until we arrived at the hunting lodge. This edifice presented an appealing aspect above the trees crowding the shores of Saviour Lake, but revealed a squalid, delapidated structure strewn with debris and rubbish once the enclosing foliage had been breached. The Beaver was gone before we got a look at the scene or I might have aborted the whole affair then and there. Our outfitter had not visited the site prior to our arrival and we entered a cabin littered with the detritus of last season's debauches: empty liquor bottles and cases of beer bottles, discarded cans and abandoned packages of food. The floor and window sills were covered in a thick layer of black pepper and moth balls. We spent the next two hours cleaning up the trash and sweeping up 8 or 10 pounds of black pepper (used to keep out bears during the off season). You can imagine the effect of sweeping piles of pepper in a musty cabin with boarded up windows.

Finally the bear shutters were uncovered and some fresh air and light permeated the place. The running water (fed by a spring up the hillside) no longer worked and the water heater lacked propane. Well, we had been willing to camp in wall tents, so no matter -- except that it had been promised and we were laying out the cash for a premium hunt, not some fly by night operation. Worse, we had no light source; no lanterns nor even a candle to cook by in the evenings and mornings. This had a bearing our our ability to make use of the prime hunting times because we had to return in time to cook by the waning light and couldn't rise to get going in the dark. My brother assumed the duties of camp cook in an act of self-preservation.

Mike's Knob Behind Our Cabin

The young guide hired to accompany my brother, Morgan Vincent, was faultless all week. Considerate in all points, he worked like a Trojan, offering daily to carry my brother's rifle and knapsack (both offers declined, naturally), watching out for his charge and pointing out treacherous bogs or crannies. Morgan would say, "I am going to climb that peak there and take a look about. If I see any game I'll come back and get you." Morgan was paid by Bill a mere $ 300 CAN (about $ 204 US) for his week of labor, not even minimum wages (he took the job out of desperation to support his family). My brother and I paid $ 7575 US together for our hunts (discounting floatplane charter flights, license fees, and 15% taxes, another $ 3500 US). Be assured that Morgan was tipped far beyond his weekly wages for making a bad situation tolerable.

Our outfitter, Bill, was to be my personal guide on this hunt. He chose to wear a white T-shirt on our first day of hunting (and several thereafter). I had a difficult time keeping pace with him across the bogs, not always knowing the safest path to take. Occasionally he looked back and paused impatiently until I had caught up (I trained him differently after the first day of this). He didn't have a functional pair of binoculars, so he borrowed mine (his ended up in the trash).

Our Outfitter and My Guide, Bill Bryden, Glasses the Terrain with My Binoculars

The weather was sultry, the worst in memory, and the game wasn't moving. It was scarcely to be seen. In fact, I saw few fresh tracks. I blame no outfitter for the weather or the behavior of game or my shooting, but I was disappointed in the scarcity of game animals in our area. This may be partly attributable to the population density of caribou in Newfoundland. With only two-thirds as many caribou as moose, the island isn't exactly bustling with herds like those seen in Alaska. Consequently, it is important to be in a good location and pre-season scouting would seem to be important. Again, my original suggestion was a tent camp hunt which could be anywhere the game were found, but Bill didn't want the cost of pre-positioning the camp via helicopter to come out of his outfitting fee. In fact, I now realize that he did not have any tents or camping gear any longer, but didn't want to confess it because it would be clear that he was in no position to operate as an outfitter (he bartered it all to Cranford to pay back the deposits on Saglek hunts, and possibly other monies owed to hunters from the previous season, judging by some of his talk). Late in the afternoon I saw seven caribou cows, distributed over a vast area. No stags.

On the very first day of our hunt we were visited by the rightful owners of our hunting lodge and discovered that we did not have permission to stay there! (This cabin belongs to Rollie Reed) Had not the terrorist incidents of the 11th of September taken place we would have been evicted the following morning. Moreover, had the aforementioned other outfitter not offered us to use his moose tent camp free of charge we should have been back at the B&B by the evening of the second day of hunting (however, Cranford's "moose camp", I have since learned, was illegally situated on the territory of another outfitter). We might have made arrangements to hunt at Valley Lake Lodge after the Saglek venture fell apart (and at least enjoyed decent accommodations, if nothing else) had Bill not insisted that we hunt near Bear Knob and Saviour Lake with him. In this way the fees that I had already paid him for the Saglek trip (plus those additions of my brother) could be used to defray the losses he experienced in the collapse of that venture. Some of Bill's former Saglek clients had already been assumed by Eric (along with some of his debts) but Bill kept us for his special personal services. Despite his disavowal of a "partnership", Eric Cranford is in some form of business relationship with Bryden ("good cop, bad cop"?) and I settled accounts with him, not Bryden.

One of the Stairstep Ponds on the Ridge West of Saviour Lake

After waiting half a day for our relocation flight we finally went hunting on Tuesday. Though it had cooled considerably we saw nothing at all. Bill and I stalked all along the grassy fields and timber thickets following the Shanadithit Brook. The lack of fresh tracks even here was a clear indicator that very few game were in this area.

Wednesday also began with uncertainty, but we decided to go hunting as long as we were not too far from the cabin. Somehow Bill always managed to get us as far away from camp as possible just at dusk. He had a penchant for incessant chatter that had become quite tiresome. And illuminating. Bill had described himself as a former wildlife biologist who had now become an outfitter. I had assumed from his depiction of his activities that he was in his late forties and was shocked to find him so young at our first meeting. The truth was that he had once been a graduate student in wildlife biology, but never completed his coursework. He had also been a sometime poacher of bear gall bladders for the Asian black market.

I eventually saw eighteen caribou cows (over the course of three days) plus three moose cows with my 20X binoculars (most at eye straining distances, meaning upwards of two miles), but no trophies by anyone's definition. I did finally see a young caribou stag that afternoon but it was not fit to shoot, having only a few knobs on its head. My brother never saw a male game animal, few animals at all.

The Last Sunset at Saviour Lake

Thursday morning at 7 AM we were flown to Little Grand Lake, to Eric's moose camp. Bill by this time had ceased to take any initiative or responsibility for getting us relocated. I relied on Cranford for making the necessary arrangements. Bill insisted that the float plane wouldn't arrive as predicted and that we need not do any work to get ready for the relocation until the morning. Steve and I packed anyway the night before. The float plane arrived exactly on time, as Bill was loitering about the cabin building his daily supply of smokes. Breakfast was immediately abandoned and all the gear dragged down to the water. This being the old Beaver, there wasn't any way to carry all of us in one trip anyway, so Bill and my brother went with as much gear as the float plane would carry while Morgan and I set about replacing the covers over the windows and otherwise preparing the cabin. It took an hour but we were finishing just as the Beaver returned for us.

While I had renewed hopes, as soon as we flew into the steep walled canyon I saw the ruin of our hunt. We had only one moose tag between us and the terrain was extremely confining. A narrow delta region of bogs lay at the head of the canyon, accessible by a half-mile canoe trip (or a treacherous trek along the margins of the shore). Otherwise, very steep towering slopes covered in a dense forest of black spruce timber ran right down to the water's edge. Visibility was negligible. Hunting these timbered slopes was nigh to useless; were they crawling with game you would encounter any only by the merest chance. The only hope lay in the open bogs and surrounding strips of thick lowland forest and alders at the head of the lake. As a two-day prime moose camp it was possibly great (although the location of the camp was inconvenient -- apparently sited to accommodate the float plane owing to the shallow water at the head of the lake), but it was bad medicine for hunting trophy woodland caribou. The reason that the camp was located in this all but inaccessible locale on the narrow margin of a lake is that it had to be there to escape detection by the outfitter whose zone was being poached, but this I learned nearly a year later.

That afternoon, Bill and I took the canoe up to the delta. Morgan and Steve remained in camp making it habitable, planning to walk up along the shoreline later. The canoe had little freeboard and the lake, miles long, was chopped by a strong wind that blew down the canyon. We had to keep with the wind and stay close to shore to avoid disaster. With a heavy load it would have been interesting.

We tied up at a trapper's trail and stalked onto a bog that lay against one side of the canyon. I found a place to sit and we waited. After a couple of hours Bill became restless (a feature of our hunting experiences -- he liked to hike more than hunt). Just as we stood up to relocate we heard some sticks breaking directly across in the woodline opposite. Bill began exclaiming the bad luck, but I told him to keep quiet and still. The sounds continued. I made him sit down behind some brush since he was again wearing his white T-shirt. I continued to stand. Presently a black bear emerged, only 75 yards away directly in front of me.

"Its a small black bear," I whispered. Bill leaned up and said, "Boy, he ain't that small!" The bear wandered out onto the bog coming directly our way. I continued to watch him. It was rather neat to see it this close and undetected. "Its a male, and he'll go maybe 300 pounds," my guide judged. The bear was now about 30 yards away, still coming our direction and still unaware of our presence. One way or another we would shortly have to make our presence known. "Shoot him!" Bill whispered, a bit excitedly. It occurred to me that this was a bear and I had better do this well. I considered a head shot and decided against it. I don't know why, since it would have been sure at this distance and from this angle. Instead I aimed just to the right of the bear's jaw, to hit the shoulder and drive through the torso lengthwise. That seemed like a devastating shot path. I fired and the bear collapsed onto its back, forepaws flailing weakly. Calmly and deliberately I reloaded, then stood ready (I thought!) for a quick shot should it try to regain its feet. After half a minute or so it began to roll over. I raised the rifle, but the bear was quicker. Almost miraculously, he swapped ends and took off like a fire had been lit iunder his tail. I missed, shooting a scant handsbreadth to his right where he had been an instant before as he turned. That lost me precious time. By the time I had shucked a round and reacquired him he was just at the edge of the timber and I shot him near the center of his bulk above the hips.

Bill jumped to his feet, exhuberantly recounting the action. I cautioned him mildly to just keep still a bit. We could hear a few cracking sticks just inside the timber. "Let's just sit here real quietly for a while and let him die," I said. Bill could not contain himself. Inclined to loquaciousness, he burst forth every few seconds with fresh observations. Among these: "It was probably a sow, actually. It had that arched Roman nose, not the square nose of the males. But that's OK, it would have raided the camp sooner or later." That nettled me extremely. I would not have shot a sow, regardless. I had to admonish him repeatedly to keep quiet. After some minutes we heard another cracking of sticks, signalling that the bear had been aroused. Then it grew quiet again. We waited a long time after that. Finally Steve and Morgan met up with us and told us that they had just left camp when they heard the shots. Assuming it was a moose, Steve was excited to learn I had shot a bear.

It had been an hour so we went to follow it up. We found the blood trail on the bog and followed it to the edge of the timber. Steve and I, rifles at the ready, went into the wood side by side. It was thick beyond believing. The whole mountainside was a mass of ancient deadfalls and rockslides, treacherously covered with moss and overshadowed by black spruce. You could see no more than a few yards and everywhere were patches of black that suggested a glimpse of a bear. The blood trail was clear and we followed it to where we had heard the noises. There we discovered a large pool of blood. It wasn't, however, good lung blood. The bear lay here a long time until, disturbed, it roused itself and crawled away. We followed this second trail angling up the slope for another ten yards to the mouth of a small cave. But here the blood trail, still wet and fresh and prominent till now, simply vanished -- along with the bear. With considerable caution I crawled into the mouth of the cave and verified that it really was no more than an overhang for an animal of that size (of course I was going by Bryden's estimate of its size, which I now think was exaggerated). There was no blood on the rocks either. But what direction it had traveled from this point we searched all about it vain to discover. Once I was absolutely certain that I saw the fallen bruin, but it turned out to be only a large piece of bark leaning against a rock, making a black patch of shadow. I had to crawl within three yards before I realized my mistake. With darkness coming on and the real prospect of a living wounded bear in the timber I suggested that we come back in the morning. There was no way that someone could have gotten to the aid of anyone who encountered the bear in time to avoid harm. We were crawling on hands and knees on that hillside.

To make a long story short, we never recovered the bear, though we went back the next day and resumed searching. It is likely that my knowledge of bear anatomy was inadequate. Apparently, my first shot mainly stunned the bear from hitting near the spine. I have regretted not taking a head shot ever since. Still I wish even more that the bear had not been disturbed from its death bed and most of all that my guide had not admonished me to shoot at a bear that he believed to be a sow (I don't know if Bryden was alarmed that the bear was coming directly at us or merely that he wanted me to kill something). I would like to believe that my two shots finally killed the bear that day. It grieves me more than I can say to have destroyed a fine animal for no good purpose, but the thought that I maimed it is too troubling to ponder.

That night it rained hard for several hours. The bogs were flooded ankle deep the next day and the lake rose by several inches. Hip waders were required now to get off our island without getting swamped. The brook that cut us off from the shoreline was raging. For the next two days we continued to hunt this area. Had we been hunting moose for meat we would have been successful. I saw several cows. I never did see a caribou, although some impressive tracks of a single animal were seen the last morning as the two guides and I went out for a last effort. Steve was sick and decided to sleep in. Morgan later returned to camp on foot to look after Steve. Bill had been chiding me for two days that I ought to climb up the timbered canyon side and sit on some promontory where you could see all the bogs in the delta. That it would have been quite impossible to shoot into any one of them or to get back down in time to stalk the game seen I was unable to impress on him. However, on this last day I did something similar. Leaving him to watch over one lower bog area, I climbed a short distance up a hillside (tree height or so) where a recent deadfall offered a clear field of view and a steady shooting position. My instructions to Bill were to watch the lower bog and to alert me if anything came into view. Mainly it was nice to get situated alone where I could at least enjoy the experience of a hunt in gorgeous weather and magnificent landscape without a continuous recital of all the game hereabouts and a hundred other things I could have repeated myself now by rote. I saw some moose cows, including one that jogged across the bog that Bill was watching for me. Oddly, he never saw it. I never saw a moose that took more than ten seconds to cross one of these bogs, usually half that time. I could see and shoot about 300 yards onto two bogs and, considering the wind, that was plenty far enough. No bulls showed and I don't think any were in the area this early in the season. During the rut, one or two might move in searching for cows.

Bill grew restless again about 1 PM and came searching for me. Too disgusted to resist and concluding that killing a moose this far from camp on the afternoon of the last day was probably a bad idea anyway I decided to at least begin stalking slowly back toward camp. It required frequent admonitions to get Bill to walk behind me and to understand why I was slowly skirting the timberline instead of trudging across the bogs in plain view. We jumped a cow moose at ten yards using my methods. I think maybe he got it after that. He was wearing a dark green sweatshirt at least. Late in the afternoon I decided that this had now become a caribou hunt due to realistic logistics considerations. We took up the trail of the big tracks across the beach from that morning. Returning tracks marked where the caribou had gone back into the alder covered islands of the delta. We stalked around on the island where the tracks went without seeing any game or any other tracks, although this clearly had been a bedding place. As it grew late and the wind remained strong I reckoned that we better start for camp. It was treacherous going. Any of those swells would have been sufficient to capsize our canoe had it gotten us broadside. Did I mention that the water was very cold, that we had no personal flotation devices and that the canoe itself wouldn't float? (I had brought along a floating gun case) Anyway, we returned without mishap, largely owing to years of Boy Scout canoeing experience. It turned out that Morgan had seen the caribou when returning to camp at mid-morning. It was just a cow with big feet.

Sunset and Dawn at Little Grand Lake

Considering how many things might have turned out on this trip I was grateful that my brother and I suffered no personal harm. We thanked God on the day of the terrorist incidents for all that we had. Our lives hadn't been ended or turned upside down. We wasted several thousand dollars on a premium hunt that was anything but, and yet our misfortunes were insignificant in comparison with the troubles of many of our countrymen. Perspective changes everything.

When we returned to the River House Inn, we saw again the fine folks we had met prior to our departure, a judge and his wife from Utah. They had been at Valley Lake lodge where they slept in clean beds, enjoyed the benefits of a hot shower at the end of the day, and ate meals prepared by a full time cook. I would not have paid $500 for what we got (other than for the services of Morgan, who is worth a great deal more than that). Nevertheless, I think only one hunter at Valley Lake filled his tag. Possibly none did. I know someone shot a cow. Despite this significant lack of success (counting ourselves, at least six hunters) Cranford still claims on his website to have 99% success on mature stags since 1990. That is rather hard to believe as it would require that we were the only persons in that period who experienced misfortune and I happen to know that parties who hunted in the weeks following us also had similar failures. Getting the picture?

When I spoke with other hunters at the B&B and at the airport on the way home I found that few had taken trophies. Most had meat, although some had passed on that as being a hassle. You can get cow meat for less back home. The weather spoiled the hunting as surely as anything, though that wasn't the main problem with our experience. We didn't pay for perfect weather or 100% assurance of success, but I did expect honesty.

If you go to the website of Bryden's Newfoundland Guide Service you will find a link to Valley Lake Lodge operated by Eric Cranford's Twin Valley Outfitters. I have never hunted at Valley Lake Lodge and cannot give a first hand account of the quality of the outfitting, however I have received a rather disheartening account of what transpired there two weeks following our trip, with the remainder of the Saglek hunters who rebooked. Don't be fooled by remarks like this on Bryden's site (posted after he had us):

"The secret to our success is simple: find the best location around for the fish or game you are about to offer, build or lease a lodge there, treat your guides like family, don't offer what you can't deliver, and work hard and keep a low profile."

Bryden made no attempt at pre-season on-the-ground scouting. He illegally put us in a privately owned hunting lodge without the owner's knowledge (because he had neither a lodge of his own nor even a lean-to tent). He didn't make any preparation for our hunt prior to the night we arrived (not even arrangement of someone to meet us at the airport, overnight accommodations, or air transport to camp) and didn't deliver on anything promised (namely a wilderness tent hunt in a prime area). He barely lifted a finger in the work, expecting his hired guide to perform nearly all the duties around camp. Far from keeping a low profile, he talked incessantly and repetitively in a near constant state of nervous agitation.

Apart from roughly $ 200 US and the cost of a few groceries (some of which were pulled, partly eaten, out of his own refrigerator), all the money he was paid went into his pocket or to paying back the deposits of hunters who had booked with him (where their money had gone I cannot guess). I paid for the air transport (except the relocation flights -- Cranford took that out of Bryden's cut, I have no doubt). There was obviously no lodge lease. What became of the unused game tags I cannot say.

If you decide to hunt Newfoundland, I advise getting several endorsements from other hunters and probing in detail the experiences they had (some hunters are not too particular how they get their game). I also advise going later in the season, so as to make the best of the weather and seasonal migratory behavior. Visit the Hunting Information website and look under their outfitter reviews. I am sure that there are other such sites on the web. I have to bear much of the responsibility for the failure of this hunt, not only in my miserable performance on the bear, but principally in my over-eagerness to find something that seemed to satisfy my sense of adventure and in not getting independent counsel from past clients. Learn from my $ 13,000 mistake.

Someday I will likely return to Newfoundland to hunt woodland caribou (Steve swears he'll never go back), but I will probably do as did Selous and make all my own outfitting arrangements or else stay at a well furnished lodge, depending on whether I'm in the mood for adventure or comfort. Steve is burned bad enough by this experience that he just doesn't want to talk about it.

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