“Three…”

After the hunt

I didn’t realize that the hunting season was so short. I envisioned people hunting geese all summer long but most of the birds already have moved on. Some will inhabit the lakes around Fort Yukon, but as my neighbor Bruce told me they soon won’t be much good for hunting because they quickly lose the tasty fat they brought with them from down south. It’s the mating, you see; it leans them up and lean birds aren’t as tasty. Most everybody in the village already has freezers full of fat and juicy ones.

In the dead cold of next winter, if you happen to walk the darkened streets of Fort Yukon on about dinner time, you will likely catch the savory aroma of a bird roasting slowly over a fire in a cabin as you past by, its fat dripping onto the coals and sputtering its way up the flue and wafting out onto the frozen night air as a hunter leans back into his chair and relives fond memories of a spring hunt.