Moose hunt. Hirvijahti.

We arrived to the hunting hut with dad after 11pm. It was already pitch black and I was a little bit scared while driving on the road 80km/h and with only the car lights showing the way. Finally we got there and because it was so late we didn't have the time to heat the hut up, I slept with a fleece on.

The wake up call was 6.30am and we were supposed to meet 7.30am for the orders (luckily just in the other side of the hut).

In the beginning we had a license to shoot seven elks, four adults and three calfs.

There were about 16 walkers and about the same amount of shooters. And there were at least 7 foreigners! Some rich British, German, Swiss and Spanish men.

My horn which I used to scare the moose/elks.

This one was the last one and we did it from south to north.

8th we did from right to left.

At 9am we were all set up and the first hunt started. The walkers were in the line, hundreds of meters apart from each other, and in the end of our walk were the shooters waiting for the moose to come to them. The first hunt was two hours and a quarter. Not too bad for the first one but it was so wet! I stepped into a swamp so there went my dry socks. I didn't really have the time to look at the nature properly because all the time I had to either blow the horn, check the compass or the map or watch my step.

I never thought trough this whole moose hunting operation. I didn't think about the part where you're supposed to take the insides out from the moose while it's still warm. Or the part where the skin gets taken off. In the end I also took part in the skinning. I just wasn't supposed to think about what I was actually doing and it was fine. There was this Swiss man who guided me. The biggest thing that made the skinning so uncomfortable was the fact that I visited a fur farm couple weeks back. I think it is wrong to grow animals just because they will get killed because of their fur. Animals for human food it's too complicated for me so I'm gonna drop the whole subject. But killing moose/elks isn't that bad. They live in the wild and then we have to balance how many are there. Yes I know some people would say that the mother nature does that for us, but I think this is reasonable.

This is the photo that I dislike. It's a good photo but it makes me sad.

On sunday someone shot on calf but it wasn't a fatal shot so they had to send dogs after the calf. We, the walkers, just had to wait for the shooters to take care of it. Afterwards we found out that the on calf wasn't even shot, but someone shot another calf. So after the whole weekend there's only one license left for an adult.

I am so exchausted after the whole weekend so I was happy to be early at home. Probably tomorrow all my muscles must be so stiff. Luckily I have until next year to get better because I can't make it for the next hunting weekend.