North of Everything

Adam Foss

There was a moment late in the trip when it clicked.

The hunting was behind us. The pressure was gone. Cam was carefully slicing sheep meat into strips beside the fire while Andrew worked at turning the lips on the cape. We’d hauled a flat rock out of the dry creek we packed the ram out of and set it beside the flames. Our makeshift home for the night, next to an impossibly blue arctic river.

Somehow, we’d all ended up here. Three grown men with jobs, families, responsibilities, and calendars that never seem to have enough room. Yet somehow, we’d all carved out enough time to end up on the same gravel bar in the Northwest Territories, almost two weeks into a journey we’d never forget.

For Andrew, that journey started decades ago. Long before he became one of Arctic Red River Outfitters’ well-respected guides, he was a sheep biologist, acquiring his M. Sc. in Stone’s sheep habitat selection and behaviour research. Understanding sheep wasn’t just something he did in the fall for fun. It was his life’s work.

Cam’s path looked different. He’s built his entire adult life around making sure sheep season always has a place in the calendar. Training. Scouting. Work. Family. Somehow it all gets organized around a handful of weeks in the mountains. I’ve never met anyone more willing to sacrifice time, comfort, or convenience for the chance to catch a glimpse of an old ram.

My path was different again. A camera became my excuse to keep returning to places like this. Photography and filmmaking gave me a way to build a life that repeatedly pointed north, far north. Before I knew it, I’d slowly built a career around documenting wild places that I’d happily visit even if nobody ever asked me to take a picture. Three different roads. Same destination. Somehow, we’d all found our way back.

The sheep meat sizzled on the rock. Sparks drifted into a cobalt sky. A sip of dark rum from a collapsible silicone cup warmed me against the September chill. That’s the thing about sheep hunting after enough years. The hunt almost becomes the excuse. What keeps pulling you back are the places and the people who somehow understand why those places matter. For me, the Mackenzie Mountains have always had that pull.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to chase mountain game across North America and beyond. There are only a handful of places where, before you’ve even climbed back into the airplane to go home, you’re already wondering how you’ll get back.

The Mackenzies are one of them.

Maybe it’s the scale. The wildlife. The feeling that you’re stepping into one of the last intact wilderness systems left on the continent. Maybe it’s the gratitude you feel that you get to wander here.

Dall’s sheep, mountain caribou, wolves, grizzlies, and moose all occupy the same landscape, much as they have for thousands of years. More than likely, a two-week hunt there and you won’t see the sign of another person, not even a faint boot track or a rusted-out sardine can.

This trip would be different than any sheep hunt I’d done before. Most sheep hunts begin with a heavy backpack and a steep climb. The formula is familiar if not challenging: cover country, gain elevation, glass, repeat. Push hard enough, and eventually the mountain might give you a chance if you’re lucky. This hunt began by pushing a raft into the current.

For nearly two weeks, we’d float roughly eighty miles through Arctic Red River Outfitters’ concession in the Northwest Territories, camping wherever the river allowed and hunting whatever terrain revealed itself along the way. Normally, we’re foaming at the mouth to get into the mountains. Part of what I love about sheep hunting is the urgency. The physicality. The feeling that every decision matters.

A river has a way of changing that. Once you push off, the pace slows. There aren’t that many decisions to make. You take this channel or that one. You stop because the evening light looks good to glass off to the east. You move because the weather says it’s time. Somewhere along the way, without really noticing it, you begin paying attention to different things. The campfires. The subtle change in wind direction. The conversations.

The details matter, at least to me, and you’ll find a few of them in the pages that follow. But when I think back on the trip now, those aren’t the moments that rise to the surface first. I think about Andrew. I think about Cam. I think about sitting around a fire on a gravel bar deep in, eating sheep meat with our hands off a blistering-hot rock. I think about how unlikely it is for three lives that took such different paths to converge in the same place at the same time. And I think about how few opportunities like that we really get.

Maybe that’s what hunting has become for me… maybe for all of us. Not chasing sheep, but building a life that keeps leading us back to the places, and the people, that matter most.

Field Notes

August 27

The planes keep getting smaller. The country keeps getting bigger.

August 28

Coffee tastes better when you’re two weeks from the nearest road.

August 29

First push of the raft. For the next two weeks, this river is home.

August 30

We’re spending more time looking than walking. That’s usually a good sign.

August 31

Found the rams. Unfortunately, they picked the steepest mountain in the valley.

September 1

Still watching the same two rams.
They’ve moved maybe 200 yards.

September 2

Turns out “too steep” still exists.

“We got issues.” -Andrew

September 3

Sometimes the best route to a ram starts by floating away from him.
Turns out slicing salami while floating in a raft is not as hard as it sounds.

September 3

Five days of food. One guess. Time to find out if we were right.

September 4

Andrew stayed on the glass. Cam disappeared over the ridge with an arrow nocked. I stayed on the long lens.

September 5

Today we recovered our ram.

Back home, Nico turned two.

Back home, they said goodbye to Grandpa Dave, who took his last ride. One of the finest sheep outfitters to ever do it.

September 6

Packed a rock out of the mountains just to cook sheep tenderloins on it.
Worth every pound.

September 7

No hurry anymore.
Just downstream.