A first-time Musk Ox hunt in the High Arctic

About 5 miles away on the distant horizon, we could see black dots on the amazingly pure white, snow-covered, barren ground, 130 miles east of Tuktoyaktuk (Tuk), Northwest Territories, Canada.
Our guide Chuck Gruben of Tuk said there they are, let's get going.
This hunt was to be my first-ever musk ox hunt, my second-ever guided hunt.
It was something that I wanted to do for a long time.
I was sitting home one night and thought what the heck, I should go.
My wife agreed, so the necessary arrangements went into high gear.
I phoned a friend in Whitehorse, who I knew also wanted to go.
He said yes, and I told him I would take care of all the arrangements.
I did not contact any other outfitter than Chuck Gruben.
We knew some of Chuck's relatives from when we had lived in Old Crow, Yukon from 2004 to 2007, and Chuck remembered me when I sent him an e-mail.
The dates of the hunt changed a couple of times, early on, as Chuck was trying to accommodate other hunters as well.
Our dates were finally set for April 21 - 26 and we each had two musk ox tags. 
I left Watson Lake on April 18, drove to Whitehorse (a distance of 350 miles), and stayed overnight at my friend's house.
The next morning, we loaded our gear into his truck and we were off.
After a long day on the road, the Eagle Plains lodge on the Dempster Highway, 600 miles from Whitehorse, was a welcome sight.
We saw lots of caribou along the Dempster on the way up to the lodge.
The next morning there was a small surprise: A back tire on the truck was flat.
The changing and repair delayed us a couple of hours but at least the flat happened right at the lodge and not out in the middle of nowhere.
On our way, we crossed the Arctic Red River and the McKenzie River ice bridges. Both had quite a lot of water from spring melt.
The end of the Dempster Highway is at Inuvik, Northwest Territories.
From Inuvik one can drive to Tuk only during the winter.
At Inuvik, it is down onto the frozen McKenzie River and a 100 mile drive down the river, out onto the Beaufort Sea, then a bit east to "downtown" Tuktoyaktuk.
I was quite surprised at the number of vehicles, we saw coming and going.
Dean was driving and we only hit the opposite snow bank off the road once, though there were a couple of good skids.
Arriving in Tuk, we found Chuck and were shown to one of two Tuk's B&B's for the night. We agreed to meet Chuck at his house about 9 the next morning.
Upon arrival at Chuck's house, I immediately noticed our snow machines.
My comment to Dean was that the equipment looks good. All were Skandik 550 snow machines which looked new.
There were five of us going on the hunting trip: Dean and I were to hunt along with Chuck Gruben, Chuck's brother, and a young fellow from Alberta who helps Chuck on a regular basis.
Four of us (all except Chuck) had very large skimmer (sleds) to pull loaded with gear, including one loaded only with filled, five-gallon jerry cans of gasoline.
We headed east on the snow for 130 miles. The trip was great. Man, did we fly along. The land is not smooth at all, and one lake we crossed was 37 miles wide.
The trip, including two stops, took us 7 1/2 hours, which meant that when travelling, we averaged over 20 miles an hour on that snow covered terrain.
I think I now know what a rodeo bull rider feels like for his 8-second ride, but ours was much longer. I was thinking I hope everything holds together and the trip was made to "camp" without incident.
Camp was a 10 x 12 wall tent on a snow-covered hill just off the Beaufort Sea.
Cooking was done on a small propane camp stove and the food was very good.
In the mornings we had bacon and scrambled eggs.
For dinner one night, we had traditional fried meat which is small pieces of caribou fried in lard, strip loin steak and pork chops. The fried meat is surprisingly good, however, I am not sure of how good it is for one's arteries though.
With five of us in the 10 x 12 wall tent, it was a tight fit and we had to roll up our bedding each morning. We slept in sleeping bags supplied by Chuck, and underneath the bags were whole caribou hides with hair as sleeping mats. They provided a very warm underneath and were quite comfortable.
The morning of the 22nd was very still and very quiet with thick fog.
We left camp at 10 in the morning and headed northeast. Visibility was terrible in the fog. We went about 25 miles from camp that morning and decided to head back as we really could not see much. On the ride, we did see a couple of musk ox but they were a cow and a calf.
Day One was done and we had traveled 47 miles.
The 23rd was clear and cold and the wind was blowing.
This made the temperature - 30 Celsius which is 22 below real degrees. But, at least we could see today.
We headed in the same direction as the day before.
One hour traveling brought us to a small ridge that gave us a pretty good view.
There they were. Four black dots in the distance.
Musk ox, the adrenaline started to kick in as I knew we were getting close.
Over another small hill and there they were again, only, of course, closer.
Chuck motioned for us to turn around. Back we went a bit then we began to make a large arc. We saw the musk ox again and dropped back a bit and down to try not to spook the four in the group.
Around a hill and close to the top we got off our snow machines.
A short walk in 12 inches of snow and we were at the crest of the hill.
124 yards away were four nice bull musk ox.
The four bulls were in the classic musk ox stance, a small circle.
I told Dean he could take the first one.
It was bitter cold. One's fingers froze almost immediately if out of your gloves.
Dean took his shot and a musk ox went down.
I was next and managed to take what I thought was the best of the remaining three.
Dean decided to take his second bull and it was also down.
The fourth bull, the smallest of the four, decided he did not like this situation and left as fast as he could.
Then, the work started after some picture taking. The thee guides got to work skinning and cutting the meat up.
Chuck asked if I wanted another one? I replied if we saw a good one on the way home I would take it.
When they were done skinning and cutting, off we went again.
I quickly realized we were not going back in the direction of camp.
Through a few passes in hills and down some steep banks, then we saw a group of 20 musk ox but all of them were cows and calves.
Further on, after half an hour, there was a very large group of 45 musk ox.
There was one particularly large bull in the group but he was smart. Even though we had musk ox all around us, the bull would not leave the inside of a small group. They all took off at once and we did not chase them. I was again surprised at how fast they can go, though not for a very long distance at full speed.
We headed back to camp, arriving after 10 pm, still in daylight.
We put 88 miles on the machines that day.
To tell you the truth, I was beat.
Dean has a very bad back, which was hurting him, so with me having only the remaining tag, I told Chuck I really did not need another musk ox, so it was decided to head back to Tuk.
The next morning was basically the reverse of the trip out.
On the way back I lagged behind a bit. I knew the rest had gone over a hill and I could tell their direction would take them behind the hill where we planned to stop for a break. I went over the hill and could easily see their tracks and thought maybe I should just keep going straight.
I saw them behind the hill and decided they did not need to chase me all over the tundra. I told Chuck I was thinking of just keep going, even though I knew where they were, to make it seem as if I was lost. He laughed and said we would have let you go for a while.
The next morning we packed everything into the skimmers and we were off west towards Tuk. This trip took just over 8 hours as we were really heavily loaded with our gear and the three musk ox.
When I arrived back home in Watson Lake, I had pre-arranged to have our local butcher cut and wrap the meat, which I put into one of our three freezers at home.
Chuck told us the meat would be tough as the three bulls were on the old side.
I took a package of musk ox steaks out of the freezer and put a fork into the steak and thought, this seems to be OK.
On the BBQ and onto the dinner plate, then I remembered what Chuck said, "The meat will be tough." It was tough that's for sure.
I told my wife, "Boy, is this good eating, but we better make Swiss steak or slow cook roasts, etc. to tenderize the remaining meat."
I had asked the butcher to put the hamburger through the grinder an extra time which he did. The hamburger is, we think, the best we have ever had. It makes wonderful burgers, meat loaf, etc.
I had purchased a small pressure cooker and tried a new recipe a couple of nights later, using a chuck roast recipe for pressure cooking times.
I let it cook for 40 minutes. The meat was incredibly tender and tasted great.
As a side note, we have visitors (mostly bicyclists) from all over the world who stay at our house, when passing through Watson Lake.
We feed them moose, caribou, venison, salmon, cod, halibut, and now, musk ox.
So far the number one favorite for the visitors has been the musk ox.
We have the three freezers still fairly full of four kinds of game meat, along with halibut, ling cod, and salmon from our Alaskan fishing trips.
My wife says we do not need any more fish and wild game, but I told her we can always share with others.
Later this year, we passed on a bull moose that showed up at our fishing camp on August 2nd, while I was cooking breakfast.
We had the moose stay around for 40 minutes before leaving, but the weather was too hot, and lots of the moose hunting season still remains.
We are booked for a 17 day moose and caribou hunt beginning September 12th, when the weather will be much cooler. 
Being the first musk ox hunt I had ever been on, would I go again?
Absolutely!
I would have no hesitation going again with Chuck Gruben out of Tuktoyuktuk.
Look up Chuck Gruben's Guiding and Outfitting.
He does musk ox, and bear hunts out of Tuk.