July 21, igoo.]] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
47 
Moose Calling in Alaska. 
Canyon City, Colo. —Editor Forest and Stream: For 
twenty-six consecutive years I have had my annual hunt, 
and don't believe there is a man living who enjoys the 
camp life in forest and mountains more than inyself. 
While living at Troy, O., at sixteen years of age, I went, 
in company with some old friends of my father, to the 
Au Plain forests of Wisconsin to hunt deer. It was the 
long-time practice of my companions to hunt deer by 
"taking a stand," which means selecting a good runway 
(beaten trails of game leading from one feeding ground 
to another), and there waiting until the most beautiful 
of our American game unexpectedly approached within 
range. Well, you know how frequently we were dis- 
appointed and how often we were favored with only 
"freeze out game." I think that it was about the third 
day out that I was snugly perched in the forks of a 
leaning tree, which had lodged against another in falling, 
patiently watching with all eyes and ears for the sight of 
my first wild deer. My old muzzleloader (forty balls to 
the pound) was ready (breechloaders were "no good" — ■ 
oh, no), and my head turned cautiously but slowly to 
catch the rustle of a disturbed leaf or the unmistakable 
snap of a twig. I had mounted my "stand" by sun-up, and 
DALL S MOUNTAIN SHEEP. 
Photographed in Alaska by Dall De Weese. 
as I had walked rapidly to it, it being some two miles 
from camp, I had soaked my underclothing with perspira- 
tion, and by 8 A. M. I was "froze out." 
All this while I was debating m my mind that the 
"sign" indicated the presence of plenty of deer in the 
country, and as there was snow on the ground, why not 
walk quietly, stopping often on a favored log or rise m 
the ground, and see if L could not find the deer that 
could not or, at least, had not found me. It seemed to 
appeal to me that I was waiting to murder a poor, beauti- 
ful deer, like those that I had seen in the park at the 
Soldiers' Home near Dayton, O. I slid from my "stand," 
and after taking bearings with my compass, started cau- 
tiously, slowly and all alert. Within the distance of half 
a mile I stopped, probably eight or ten times in favorable 
places from three to five minutes at each stop. I had 
followed no tracks, but kept my course. _ 
I was now standing on a hemlock log — although it 
is twenty-six years ago, the scene comes as plain before 
me as it was on that day— large hemlock trees, a few 
scattering birchwood, some of them dead and the bark 
curling off their trunks, a brushy thicket some 60 yards 
on my right and some fallen timber. Back of this brush I 
heard sounds that riveted me with all anxiety. What was 
that? I listened. The rattling of the brush increased, and 
then out stepped a deer. Oh, how grand he looked! 
Without going into the details of the killing (for that 
would make another story), I will simply say that his 
horns are in mj collection to-day. 
This put an end to my "taking a stand," and killing a 
moose from the "call" is more unsportsmanlike than 
killing deer from a stand. Since my first experience I 
have still-hunted all my game. I "stalked" ray deer in 
Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, all through the 
Rocky Mountain region and even in Arkansas, where they 
say you must use dogs. I have never yet hunted big game 
with dogs, and never will. I killed my deer in Arkansas 
in 1878 by still-hunting, and so can any hunter. 
In 1896 I went to New Brunswick to hunt caribou and 
moose with my friend Jim Turnbull, of Halifax, Nova 
Scotia. We went to the head of the Miramichi, and near 
Bald Mountain we killed two specimens of bull cari- 
bou—one fell on Oct. 31 and the other Nov. 1. Mr. 
Arthur Pringle, of Stanley, N. B., the famous hunter of 
that Province, was with us. He is the best hunter I was 
ever with. I was anxious to hear him use the birch bark 
horn, and in this art he is most proficient. I say art, and 
those of experience, I think, will grant it, for — well, that's 
another story. Although the calling season had passed, he 
took me out' twice to a nearby favorable place, and I had 
the pleasure of hearing the most perfect call that it has 
ever been ray fortune to hear, except from the actual 
cow moose during my last three hunting trips in Alaska. 
We did not expect a moose to be lured to us, for, as I 
have said, the season had passed for calling, and I have a 
thousand times since been glad that he did not come. I 
imagine I see many lips curl and hear the expression, 
"Oh. no; he wouldn't have shot him!" and I say frankly 
that at that time I would have shot him, or at least have 
tried to. The last day of our hunt my two comoanions 
killed a fine three-year-old moose, but not from the call. 
Ihey stalked him. 
The next season of 1897 I went to Alaska for the sole 
purpose of hunting bull moose. After some 4,000 miles of 
travel, I reached the interior of the Kenai coun*^ry, where 
I I had planned to get my moose specimen. On Sept. i 
' I killed my first moose. He was not as good a specimen 
as I thought I deserved for coming so far, besides T 
wanted two, so I contim^ed my hvmt, and s^yv si?? or seven 
during the next six days that were not to my liking, as I 
wanted a moose that would compare with my record elk. 
Finally, on the morning of Sept. 7, I thought I would try 
the call, more out of curiosity than anything else. It 
was about 5 :30 A. M. when I got an answer — that glutter- 
ing grunt. I heard him but twice. Probably my "bugle" 
was out of tune and I could not lure a moose even in far- 
off Alaska, where the calling is not known among the 
natives. At about 8:30 I raised another answer from a 
different direction. I repeated. He answered. I soon 
discovered that he was quite near, and from the tone of 
his voice I thought him to be an old fellow with a good 
heavy crown. I ventured one more low call. I heard a 
thump against a log, then the smothered crush of a rotten 
limb, then the draging sound made by his antlers as he 
pushed his way through a clump of alders, and out stepped 
the moose. As soon as he reached the open he stopped 
with head slightly drooped and muzzle extended. I could 
see his dilated nostrils and ears changing position as he 
swung his great head slowly from side to side, eager to 
catch the slightest sound in 'the death-like stillness, as 
there was no perceptible breeze and it was verjr cloudy, or 
to inhale the most delicate scent that might taint the air. 
With all his wary instincts fully aroused, he made a 
grand picture as he stood there within 60 feet of where 
I was crouched in a "blind" that T had hurriedly thrown 
up from the tops of young birchwood. He was prob- 
ably six or eight years old, and had antlers of some 45 to 
55 inches spread, and did not look as perfect in shape as 
the specimen I already had, so I stepped out and said, 
"Hello, John!" and you know the rest. Now had I killed 
that animal, I would not have killed two hours later my 
fine specimen, having a spread of antlers of 69 inches. 
Had I shot the call moose my time would have been taken 
up in caring for him, and I would never have stalked the 
large one, and also would not have killed my big brown 
bear {Ursus middendoM) at 3:30 the same afternoon. 
The next year, 1898, I returned to Alaska to get whole 
specimens of moose for our National Museum. Of the 
four I killed, I still-hunted them all. Two were large bulls 
with a spread of antlers over 60 inches. While the moose 
is a wary animal, I find him just as easily stalked as deer 
or elk, providing you hunt him in a locality where they 
are as scarce as moose are where they are hunted. 
Anybody can go out with an experienced guide and 
within a reasonable time can kill a deer, elk or moose by 
■ taking the stand or using the call, but stalking them 
to a finish is different. Yes, I hear some fellow say, "Oh, 
De Weese, you have got your game and now you call 
our method of hunting unsportsmanlike." My answer is 
that I have got every one of my specimens in my collec- 
tion by fair and open still-hunting with my own gun, and 
it adds thousands to their value in my eyes and con- 
science. Now, boys, come, let's be fair with all our 
game of the land that yet affords us such pleasure, and 
for the pleasure of the generations to follow. Not that 
moose are becoming extinct particularly, for there are 
yet many in every wooded section from the eastern shores 
of Nova Scotia to the western shores of Alaska and 
ranging northward into Labrador and swinging north- 
westerly to the Northwest Territory of British Columbia, 
where it joins Alaska; yes, almost as far north as the 
Arctic Circle, does this noble game extend his home. 
The advent of the moose in western Alaska has been 
very recent. During my three hunting trips there I 
have made such inquiry from the old fur traders and 
from the natives and Indians. Twenty-five years ago 
moose were not known on the Kenai Peninsula, nor in 
the Kuscoquira country, and the first one was seen as 
far west as Katrai as late as ten years ago. My idea of 
their raigration to this country is that it occurred about 
the time of the Cascar gold excitement in British Colum- 
Isia, which was some twenty-eight years ago, when some 
fifteen to twenty thousand miners and prospectors Invaded 
there, by careful measurement, stood 7 feet 8 inches at the 
withers, 16 feet 4 inches from tip of nose to rear hoof, 
girthed 8 feet 9 inches at shoulders and had a spread of 
antlers that measured 6g inches. You can guess his 
weight, as I did not happen to be carrying a set of Fair- 
banks' scales with me. 
I always use full metal patch (instead of soft nose) on 
sheep, elk, bear or moose. They mushroom with more 
killing effect, besides I am not one of those good shots 
that "you read about" who kills his game the first shot. 
Let us not kill game from stands nor from the call. Let 
us have a law (and enforce it) that the penalty for shoot- 
ing a moose by the call, by any man under fifty-five 
years of age, $500 fine and one year's imprisonment. You 
ask why do I think a man past fifty-five should have this 
privilege? My reason is that any man of that age has 
"crossed over the range" (meridian of life), and is on 
the down-hill side. His old "props" are more "rickety" 
than in his younger days. He don't track as steadily, and 
somehow he breaks more sticks, and there are hairs in the 
sight of his gun. If he is a veteran sportsman, and by 
reason of circumstances has been deprived of a moose 
hunt, his sporting heart still yearns for a massive set o£ 
horns from the monarch of the big woods, and if by 
having it he would have his collection complete, and if 
the spark of true sportsmanship is yet aglow when the 
frosts of September have come and moose antlers are 
ripe, and he ha« yet nerve to penetrate the forests to the 
land of the moose, I say let that man get his one speci- 
men of bull moose from the stalk, the stand or the call. 
Those of us who are younger can deny ourselves of 
one, and by not using the call, there will be plenty for all 
and then some. 
I get more real sport nowadays in taking photos of game 
than in taking its life, and many a long, weary trarap it 
has given me. Yes, let the man who is below the "sum- 
mit of the range," who aspires to true sportsmanship, go 
to the haunts of his quary, be it deer, elk, caribou or 
moose, and when his guide has made camp, go out alone, 
pit his human faculties against the wary instinct of his 
game and if successful he will feel the keen sen=e of 
satisfaction that he is a true sportsman, that he has got his 
prize, and his conscience will be so much more at ease 
than if he sits about camp while his worthy guide goes 
out and kills a fine specimen, which he takes home and is 
compelled to answer so many times the question, "Did 
you kill it?" 
It must rasp a man's nerves terribly to say yes, when 
the handsome trophy was really killed by his guide, or 
bought, yet I know men under these conditions who can 
look you square in the face and say yes. Why. I know 
men who have hunted in Alaska and upon their return 
have .written articles telling of the greatest caribou, 
moose and bear that ever lived (or did not live) and that 
had fallen to their rifles, and I have since learned that 
they were killed by their guides or bought. They also 
write of the most terrible inaccessibility of every part of 
that country, and you would infer that no common mortal 
could possibly endure a hunting trip in that country, yet 
last season I took my wife further into the interior of the 
hunting country and up the same rivers and over the 
same mountains that the supposed mighty hunters had 
gone. She never had a more delightful trip, met with no 
accident, and was not sick a minute and did not lose a 
meal. I did not expect her to be able to go with me into 
the mountains, but she was determined to see the wild 
white sheep (Ovis dalli) in his native home. She did 
so, and killed two fine specimens with her own gun. 
True, we experienced some adventure and danger in 
ascending rapid running rivers, and were nibbled and 
probed by the frisky mosquitoes and had hard climbs, but 
all these belong to sport, and are met with on every 
hunting trip in any country. The old saying was once, 
call's mountain sheep. 
Photographed in Alaska by Dall De Weese. 
that territory. This section was a great moose country at 
that time, and I believe they migrated down Lake Teslyn, 
the Hoodalinker, over on the headwaters of the Yukon, 
down to the White, up over the Divide to the head of the 
Copper River, Tanana and Sushitna, down this stream 
to the head of Cook's Inlet, where they could neither 
cross over to the head of the Kuscoquira northwesterly or 
southwesterly to the Kenick, then finally on the Kenai 
Peninsula, where in my mind exist the largest moose in 
the world. 
No better feed can be found anywhere, and the climate 
is just such as to suit the moose. After a moose has 
age, he must have solitude, proper climate and good feed 
that will put him in prime condition before he can grow 
perfect and massive horns. The largest specimen I killed 
"The fishermen are the biggest liars on earth," but some 
of the would-be big-game hunters have double discounted 
their stories and robbed them of their laurels. 
Let us have the truth with our story, which is the 
cornerstone of true sportsmanship, and should be the 
first impulse in relating our adventures. 
Canyon City, Colorado. DalL De WeESE, 
Those two illustrations of Dall's mountain sheep are 
among the most interesting nhotographs of American wild 
game we have ever seen. The remoteness of their haunts, 
their rarity, and the fact that so few sportsmen have ever 
seen them in their home, all these combine to give a great 
interest to the achievement of Mr. De Weese in securing 
such admirable photos. 
