| Snowshoe Lake � Paradise in Newfoundland�s Wildlife Capital When you hear someone at the local sports shop talking about a caribou hunt they went on, most of the time they are referring to Quebec. Throw in black bear and moose and what do you have, Alaska? Well, the eastern version of Alaska. Newfoundland is a beautiful island located about a 100 miles north east of Nova Scotia. The island has one of the highest densities of moose in the world with a healthy population of more than 150,000 animals. This is also the home of the southernmost herd of woodland caribou in the world. There are several herds across the island, which number more than 100,000 animals. The woodland caribou has one of the largest bodies of all of the caribou subspecies, but also has the smallest set of antlers. Last but not least, they have black bear. Over 10,000 of these mighty bruins roam the island and they are large black bear. Wildlife officials captured and released a 687-pound black bear. Hunters have taken bears weighing up to 670 pounds and bears in the 500-pound range are not uncommon (all facts courtesy of the Newfoundland/Labrador Hunting & Fishing Guide). In fact, one of our guides at Snowshoe Lake, Steve Grant, took a 500-pound bear one spring, which was a Boone & Crockett contender. On top all of this, spruce grouse, ruffed grouse, ptarmigan, and rabbits are plentiful. Yes, this is paradise! After much research, many phone calls, and emails, we decided to book our adventure with Snowshoe Lake Hunting and Fishing based in Millertown. Snowshoe Lake is a small family run operation with Ron Hicks (son) the camp manager, John Hicks (father) the head guide, and Bernie Hicks (mother) the cook. Ron was quick to return calls and emails with answers to all of our questions and concerns. Myself, two friends Larry Smith and Richard Otis, and brother-in-law Ron DeVincenzi all had caribou tags. My father-in-law, Jim Rigg, was our lone moose hunter. Because there were 5 of us going, we decided to drive due to the fact that there was the potential for hundreds of pounds of meat and antlers on the return trip home. We ended up taking two full size pickup trucks with caps. The Journey: Newfoundland isn�t �around the corner�. We left Vermont at 9:00AM on October 5th. In light of the September 11th terrorist attack on the United States, our main objective was to make it through Canadian Customs and spend the night some where in New Brunswick. Taking Route 2 all the way to Bangor, Maine, the driving was slow. Once in Bangor, we headed east on Route 9 towards the border. After arriving at the Canadian border, we waited in line for about 10 minutes before finally getting to the booth. We told the officer what our business was in Canada and they had us pull over to register our weapons. We had the Canadian Firearms forms already filled out before we got there. A Customs officer had us open our gun cases to verify the serial numbers on each gun. After that, we went inside, showed them our photo ids, and paid $50 CND per person to register the guns. The Customs officers were all very professional and polite through the entire process. We were on our way! After spending the night in Saint John New Brunswick, it was off the ferry. The ferry was located in North Sydney, Nova Scotia. North Sydney is 800 miles from central Vermont. Our ferry was scheduled to leave at midnight, but because of 60-mph winds, we didn�t leave port until around 1:30AM. Now this isn�t like a Lake Champlain ferry. These ships are more like cruise liners. They have sleeping quarters, lounges, a cafeteria, a bar, and gift shops. We must have had a good �tail wind� because we pulled into port on time at 7:00AM Sunday October 7th. From Port aux Basques it was about a 260 mile drive to Millertown. We met at John and Bernie�s house. From there it was a 40-mile drive to camp which is located on Snowshoe Lake. The Camp: Camp was much more comfortable than we ever imagined. There was a fully stocked kitchen with a nice wood stove and a large table to seat all of the hunters and guides. The meals were incredible. Bernie is a fantastic cook and kept us warm, comfortable, and well fed the entire week. There were two bedrooms with two bunk beds in each for the hunters. There were also two other bedrooms for the guides and John and Bernie. There were two bathrooms with one having a shower. The camp was powered by a 6,500 watt Kabota Diesel generator. There were plenty of outlets for us to plug our boot dryers and camcorder chargers into. They even had satellite TV! They also have a cold storage compartment for hunters to keep the meat, hides/capes, and racks. We were asked to keep these items in cold storage, as the bears sometimes come into camp for a late night snack! |
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| A View of the tundra from Wolf Mountain. |