Moose hunt

I've not written anything in a while, been a bit busy with a few other things. I had the identification test last week. It was supposed to be the week before but the teacher in-charge of nature knowledge was ill and off work so it was postponed. I don't know if I passed the test? I don't even know if we're going to get our results? the teacher was not happy with the overall scores and it looks like we're all going to have to do it again. He played a little game in the test by adding extra tree and plant species that were not on our revision list so he could see how well we really knew what we were identifying. Obviously I gave everything a name weather I knew what it was or not.

Last week we got to join up with a local hunting club for a moose hunt. Because this hunt was quite close to a road the hunters didn't want to use their dogs in case the dogs ended up charging across the road and getting hit by a car. So we were there to do the dogs work.

Here is Vesa the head guy using a machete to show us the starting point for the morning drive and where we were trying to heard the moose to. What we had to do was line up with about 60 metres between each person and start walking in the direction of the hunters, who were waiting locked and loaded about a kilometre in front of us. We had to bang sticks together, shout, scream and just make as much noise as we could to try and scare the moose towards the hunters. That was the plan anyway.
We had to keep in line to try and stop any moose from finding any big gaps and slipping through. Even tho they are big animals they're sneaky fuckers and we were told they could easily get past us if we wern't careful. We didnt see anything in the morning so headed back to the hunters lodge for lunch and to plan the afternoon.

Refreshed and ready to go, we had a new area and we were hoping for a kill in the afternoon. We lined up again along a road this time, waited for the signal that the hunt had started and banged and shouted our way through the forest again. I was waiting the whole time to hear a gun shot but unfortunately I got to the line of hunters at the other end and we had nothing again. Then all of a sudden I heard Aras and Andy screaming they're heads off banging sticks together somewhere on my left, something came over the radio and there were reports of a moose heading our way so we waited hoping to see a moose charging through the trees.
What we actually saw was Aras and Andy, now arguing over who's fault it was that the moose got past. Apparently the moose had sized up Araz and walked back past him calm as you like,then it met Andy who jumped out screaming from behind a tree hoping to scare it, but the moose just paused for a second and carried on like he wasn't there. We were told after that moose are not really scared of humans and are not stupid, so there was no surprise that it wandered straight past as there were only two of them. When moose hunting using a dog the moose aren't scared, the dog will track down the moose and when it is in sight bark like mad. The moose don't run, just stand there staring at the dog, the hunters get to sneak up on the moose undetected by the noise the dog is making and line up their shot.

Ex-veggie Andy posing with his new friends

Ok so we didn't get anything on our day out, but they still had two hanging that were shot a few days ago. A young calf that was about six months old at the front and bigger boy behind about four years old.

While we were there having a cup of tea Vesa chopped up the little fella.

He wasn't messing around. I'm not joking this thing was in bit's in less than five minutes.

Ready to get shared out amongst the hunters.

Then he showed us where and how to get the best cuts of meat from one of the legs.

Job done. The best cuts from the leg, nothing wasted tho the rest of it goes in to make moose mincemeat.

 Hunting day over, then we had a few hours off before night time orienteering. Same deal as daylight orienteering but with one less control point and obviously your in the dark. I didn't mess around, It was raining and I was wearing my wellies and a big rain coat but I ran around the whole thing. I fell a few times and got my leg stuck between two rocks when I was climbing up a cliff but I was determined to pass. It went well, I passed first time round unlike the day orienteering which I'm pissed right off about and I'm not talking about that until I pass it so until next time.

Laters

 

Russian karelia, paanajärvi pt.3

 Day 5 of the trip.
There was a pre-planned route made by the planning team for the whole trip with our camps marked out. We didn't have to follow it exactly, but use it as a rough guide.
I was the lead guide in the morning, with Seishi bringing up the rear and we switched over in the afternoon.We had a meeting the previous night to discuss our route, where we would take breaks, lunch and worked out about how far we had to go and how long it might take. The route in the morning looked fairly straight forward. I had to pretty much follow a stream from where we were to a small lake and a bog just over a kilometre away, go around the bog, up and over a ridge to another small lake, go around that lake, then following contour lines of another ridge go around and not over it to eventually head in a South Easterly direction to our lunch spot at another lake. From there Seishi would take over and take us up and over some big hills, rock faces and down the other side to our next camp.

So up at six as usual, had breakfast and packed up camp. As daily guides we had the extra weight of the First Aid kits, sat phones, gps and extra rope in our packs. The gps is only for emergencies. All navigation was done by map and compass. So if I mention bearings, I mean compass bearings.
Everyone gathered just before eight. Then me and Seishi told them our plan. I let everyone know that it was going to be the longest hike of the trip, because there was going to be alot of climbing in the afternoon and it would be slow going. I would be setting a good pace in the morning to get us as far as I could and give us more time in the afternoon.

I led the way with Seishi at the back. I thought we could have gone along the side of a hill following the direction of the stream, but immediately saw that it was too steep so changed plan to go down to the water level and carry on from there. After about half a kilometre of climbing over fallen trees I thought it might be easier to walk on the other side of the stream so we crossed over and marched on. At some point I thought it was a bit quiet so I turned around to see only one person behind me. We waited for the others to catch up, then had to wait for them to catch their breath and carried on, eventually getting on top of a ridge and following it down to the start of a bog.

A water and snack break

I had a chance to take new bearings while I waited for everyone to catch up again and decided to skip the first small lake and instead go straight over the bog and take a slightly different route to the next lake.
Some people don't like bogs. They can be very waterlogged. You can get sucked in and stuck in the mud. But they are flat, there are no obstacles to climb over and you can walk in a straight line exactly where you want to go.

We got through the bog without incidents and on the map it looked like we had a slight incline over a ridge, then down to the next lake. It was way steeper than I thought it was going to be, but thats the way we had to now go. So, after a few moans and groans from my fellow students, up we went (I thought it was fun). At the top I took new bearings again, went over the top of a hill and down the other side to find the lake.

Ten minutes rest

Looking over the map during our break I changed the route again to cross another bog, seeing as it went so well last time. The teachers had a quiet word in my ear and pointed out a tiny lake on the map, that wasnt really on our way, but might be fun to try and find, and make it more challenging (you can see them plotting something above). Bring it on!

Across the bog, up another hill, over the top and then we met quite a steep drop which would have led us to the tiny lake. I was on for going down it, but I think I was the only one, so we followed the top of the hill to the east until I found a place where everyone was happy climbing down, but it put us off course. I was told that it was ok if we didn't find the lake anymore, but I still wanted to get there and not long after got back on course and found the bugger.

Next stop was lunch, so I took a new bearing and headed off. We came to a ridge which I expected and followed the ridge round to find the lake. Oh hang on. I didnt find the lake did I. No, because I assumed the lake was going to be at the bottom of the bloody hill, not half way up, but you know what they say about assumption. So I led us around the hill and came to a massive rock face.

 I consulted with my guide pair and we decided that the lake must be further on around the rock face. No, it wasn't. We kept going and going until we came to a stream. I told everyone to take a break and after a few words of advice from our teachers on how to find out where we might be, by how long we had been hiking, speed we were travelling and what was around us, me and Seishi headed up the hill to see if we could see the lake from higher up. We couldn't see anything through the trees and were about to give up when Seishi noticed the ground was getting boggy. I told him, it cant be because we're on top a hill and all the water would run down. Apparently not in Russia. We found the lake right at the top of the hill. I had misread the contour lines on the map thinking they went up and then down to the lake but they went up and up again. By the time we got back to everyone, they were cold and hungry so we had lunch where we were and Seishi led us in the afternoon.

We cracked on with it after lunch, a slower pace than in the morning. All but a few people complained that I was going too fast and were knackered already, but we were also about to start climbing.

Not leading I had time to take some pictures. Pretty nice views as we got a little higher. My little camera is not so good at long shots though.

We knew we had to, at some point, head over the top of the hill and it was going to get rocky. It was difficult to know when exectly to start heading south. We had a chat and had to take a guess at how far we had come, but we knew what bearing to take and it didn't really matter exactly where we were as long as we were heading in the right direction.

 Up we went and took a rest at almost the top of the hill. People were getting pretty tired now. It was getting late in the afternoon and we still had to get over this hill and find a suitable camping place on the other side.

Not a great pic, but you can see where the toes and claws were.

 We found bear prints and another lake on top of the hill, before we started climbing down.

It was a little dangerous going down here. Loose rocks and holes all over the place to fall and break your legs in. A few people fell, but no injuries.

When we finally got to our proposed campsite, it was no good. No water source and no flat ground. It left us one choice: to head towards the big lake a few kilometres away. There were one or two places we could have stopped on the way, but the following day was a rest day so we decided to soldier on to the lake.

Finally, got there just before it was dark. Not the best ground to camp on, but we weren't going any further. Some people had enough energy left to put up their shelter before they crashed out. I thought it was a good day overall. It wasn't mine or Seishi's fault the day was so long. A bit of a crazy route planned by the planning team and the original campsite was no good so we had extra kilometres to hike.

More to follow.

Laters.

Russian karelia, paanajärvi Pt.2 of ?

I don't really have many pics from the first real hiking day, because I was worried the battery on the camera was going to run out before the end of the trip. The morning went pretty well. We made good progress through the forest, found our rest stops and a lot of bear poo. When we stopped for lunch we were well ahead of schedule, I think that might have been when everybody switched off. We set off after lunch heading north, thinking it was just a few kilometres over a hill or two to a lake and our campsite. I'm not sure what happened? We didn't find the lake, but we did find a massive bog.

Apparently we had passed the lake a few hours ago, but it seems as if no-one had been paying any attention to the maps. But we were now. We were lost! After Tim had got sucked into the bog up to his knee's and we helped him out, it looked like it was going to start getting dark soon. Our guides decided to head south east to try and get out of the bog and back on track or at least find solid ground to camp on for the night. A few more people got stuck in the bog on our way out, but it was nothing serious..

This was our camp the next morning. We had to put our shelters up in the dark again. Me and Seishi put our shelters up together this time so we had a fire in the middle. The heat from the fire gets reflected from the inside of the shelters keeping us a little warmer.

Thursday was a scheduled rest day, just because we had been travelling since Monday. I found this lot making all sorts of noise doing some kind of hippy forest yoga.

Because we still didn't really know where we were after getting lost the day before, in the afternoon a few us went on a mission to find out. We went up-stream from where we had camped to hopefully find a lake and not another bog.

 Here's a picture of an eagle (if you can see it) I snapped with my mint wildlife photography skills.

We found a lake! which meant our campsite was about 2.5km north west of where it should've been. It meant a little more Hiking the next day.

That night Seishi tried a different fire technique. Got 2 decent sized logs, shaved the top off of one and put the shavings on it, lit the shaving's and put the other log on top and they burnt hot and for a long time. It took a while to get it going, because it was raining, but it worked well.

We were up at six every morning (except rest days) and packed up and on our way by eight. Crossing another bog above. Trying to find a good place to stop for lunch.

Filling with a few pictures here.

Someone had a feast. We think the bones are of a young moose, but we don't know what ate it?

The orienteering went really well this day. Even though we had extra kilometres to walk we got to our camp early enough to put up our shelters in day light. It was a really nice place and probably the most comfortable nights sleep I had the entire trip.

Here we are cooking spag bol and drying our stuff for the next day. We did this every night, some nights because of the rain, but most nights because of the sweat. Rubber boots are good for hiking through bogs and this type of terrain, but not so good at letting your feet breathe.

The next day it was mine and Seishi's turn to be the daily guides. Which will be coming soon.

Laters.

A week in the forest

Got back from our trip to the forest today, it was really good but I'm tired! First thing on my list of new equipment is a quality sleeping bag, I had a few sleepless nights because i was too cold. The days were warm but the temperature dropped at night.
I have to try and write this quick cos the school is gonna close for the weekend soon and that means no more Internet till Monday cos im staying here this weekend, so if I miss anything out I'll fill in the gaps later.

Van loaded and ready to go

We spent an hour or two on Monday morning loading the van and trailer with all of the tarps, big tents, cooking equipment etc, then off it went to our camping ground. We however were hiking there, a 10km trek taking about 2hrs. We met up with the van and carried all the equipment through the forest to our home for the week.

We were put straight to work, and put up the big tents, The green one (I forgot the name) has a stove inside and the white tent is a traditional Canadian tent. We were shown an example of how to build an open shelter and told different construction techniques, then we set about building our own.

The pics above were my camp set up, the second pic was on the second night after a cold sleepless first night. I had to make a few adjustments, adding first the sleeping bag bivvy, then a bed of spruce branches and ofcourse a little fire.

Fire making practice

 

Orienteering lecture

 

 

We did three Orienteering exercises during the week, they all went pretty well, not too difficult. The best was the last one when I was paired up with Aras, we had a mini adventure climbing up small cliffs and doing pull-ups on half fallen trees on our way round, whilst battling with the moose flies (I hate those things). In a few weeks we'll be doing night orienteering so we'll see how easy it is then.

 

 

 

 



Whittling

Everyone did a little fishing, well I didnt. I was in the cooking group for that day and by the time I had helped a few people set up they're fishing equipment I had to start preparing our lunch. Student Mikko was the only one to catch anything, a small pike. But they were only fishing for about half an hour so its ok. Our teacher Mikko, showed us how to prepare the fish for cooking and eplained a few things along the way. He also gave a talk before hand explaining fish behaviour and habitats. I learnt alot.

 Plant identification with Henkka, he knows his stuff

This was us today when we got back, everyone a little tired but we'd had a good week and we all get on really well so happy campers. Ive missed a few things out and havent told much of what we did during the week but this computer is playing up, and im getting kicked out of the computer room now so I'll continue next week.

Laters