Moose hunting in the north of Norway.

I live far north in Norway. For moose hunting I have to travel a couple of hours to the hunting ground. It is in the region Nordland in an area called Tysfjord. Nature in Tysfjord is wild and beautiful. Dramatic bare granite mountains that dive into deep fjords. You will need a boat to get around because there are no roads connecting the fjords. Years back these fjords had small farms, or summer farms, but today most of the old houses are used as cabins
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Moose hunt start 25. of September. This year we decided wait some days. No specific reason, it's just practical to wait towards the weekend. Wednesday was transportation day. First we drive for 4 hours, and the last stretch is made by boat. We had a little accident with the boat when we tried to launch it. The boat trailer jumped and the boat and trailer launched itself to the water. I saw it all in slow motion- it was a rush… You just yell: NOOOOOOO, in your head and hope for the best. Luckily for us the trailer came straight down and didn’t crash in me, or the rocks on the side. Just one thing to do after that. Undress and wade out to get the boat. I blurred the picture to spare you the details…:

Because of all the stuff happening we didn’t get to start the last trip until it was after dark. Usually we don’t go in by boat at dark. But we are having some spectacular weather now so we decided it was safe. Took a picture from the boat moving:

Thursday 06 the alarm rang. Dead tired, but still pretty fast up because of what lies ahead. Our party contains of one lady, four men and two dogs. We rounded up around 07 and decided the different posts for the hunters and then headed out. When we arrived at the landing spot we spread out at our specific posts. Ann would take the youngest of the dogs with her. It is a two and a half year old male that looks very promising. He is very fast, seeks the terrain out wide and he is fearless on the game.

The hunt started with a bang. Just minutes after releasing the dog it found a calf and cow. The calf went down by Ann’s hand. The dog then started following the cow. The moose fled into a part where we can’t shoot, because it is just too far distance to carry the meat afterwards. The dog followed the moose for 3 hours. After a while we saw the dog returning on the GPS tracking system we use. It was still on the trail of the cow. The cow was taken out by my buddy Thomas. It was a clean shot and the moose fell straight to the ground.

After shooting, the real job starts. Butchering the animal and carrying it down to the boats. It is pretty rough taking 30-40 kg in your backpack and carrying it 1 ½ km. A big game like a cow will contain of 10 parts from 10 to 35 kg. Only three people carrying, so our legs were pretty empty when we finished at around nine in the evening. But then we were in for a threat. Norwegian special dish “fårikål” (sheep meat cocked in cabbage). Overate myself- could hardly walk back to our cabin...

The breed of the dogs is "Finnish Jamthund". They look like wolves, but they are cozy towards the people they know. Pretty strange to have a 30 kg dog who want to sit in your lap 😆.
For the dogs there is no bigger joy than tracking and running after game. The dog will seek out the terrain using his fine nose. If it picks up a track it will follow it for hours. If they find the moose they will start to follow it. If the moose stops the dog will bark at him. And if the moose start to move he will be silent until it stops again.

Next two days didn’t produce any game. But the dogs had a good time, especially the young male:
The young dog is strong and has very good instincts that is for sure. Third day of hunting he picked up another cow. We couldn’t shoot because we didn’t have more than one cow in our quota. The dog still followed it from noon until it was dark around 9 in the evening. After that he slept out in the woods. It was a pretty beat up and hungry dog that returned to our cabin at 10 in the morning. We had to call of hunting that day, because he had no more energy left. Hero of the day:

Luckily that was just my first weekend. I have one or two trips left until we get all the animals. I will try to write a new post from next trip. Take care, and please upvote and resteem if you like the story!

PS: All pics are from my Samsung S5.