Becoming More Alaskan

Just one of the hind quarters we got

Back in the beginning of September moose season opened.  In that first weekend friends of our friends got not one but two moose!  It was kind of a sad story actually.  The two moose seem to have been brothers.  They were both wondering the tundra together.  The first moose got shot and the second moose didn't want to leave him there, so he got shot too.  (If it makes my animal loving friends feel any better, those two moose filled more than one freezer.)  Mark was asked to help quarter and pack the moose back to Bethel.  In exchange for his labor we would get to keep some of the moose.  It took the whole weekend.  The first day both moose had to be gutted and quartered.  Each moose probably weighed 700-800 pounds and had to be moved away from the gut pile to keep bears off their sent.  Mark didn't get home that night until about 3:00 am, got a few hours of sleep then headed back out to finish packing the moose back to Bethel.  In the end we got two hind quarters.  
We brought the meat to a processor here in town.  It took a little bit of time, but we finally got our moose back.  One hundred pounds of moose sausage, moose hamburger, moose roast... Our freezer is full of meat that will save us hundreds of dollars this winter.  

Our freezer full of moose!

Moose stew.  Yumm!

Tonight I made moose stew for dinner.  We had our good friends over to enjoy it with us.  (Dinner get-togethers are a way of life here.)  It was pretty delicious, if I do say so myself.  Not too gamey as I was afraid it would be, and very lean.  I do feel just a little bit more Alaskan now that my freezer is full of moose meat and I successfully cooked an enjoyable moose dinner.