Trout River (Oct 15/04) - In search of moose, Danny Allaire and Troy Ruttle trod the same ground their ancestors crossed for decades.

On Sept. 24, the two friends set out from Sambaa Deh falls with heavy packs on their backs. Over the next several days they hiked to Yellowknife Creek, a distance of 35 km.

Along the way, they noticed signs left behind by their predecessors such as chop marks from axes and places where food caches were kept.

"It was just like walking in the steps of our grandfathers. It was a pretty neat experience," Allaire said. "There's a lot of history on that river."

Ruttle and Allaire would start out each day around 10 a.m. and stop before dark to make camp and gather firewood.

During their journey, they crossed the river close to 20 times, sometimes to avoid having to descend into canyons or climb cliffs.

The frigid water, running at levels lower than usual, was generally knee deep but occasionally up to their chests.

They wound up with colds, so they gathered wild mint for tea and consumed cranberries and rosehips in hopes of speeding their recovery.

"We were literally living off the land," Allaire said, adding it didn't take them long to realize why their forefathers chose this place to go hunting.

They saw numerous indications of wildlife: a myriad of animal tracks, willows that had been scratched by moose antlers and places where moose had slept in the tall grasses. At night, they listened to wolves howling.

"We started calling it grand central because there was moose all over the place, wolves, owls, chickens, everything," Ruttle said.At one point, they came across a bull moose in some willows. They called it and Allaire dropped it with Ruttle's .303 rifle.

They arranged to have the meat airlifted out by helicopter, whereas their forefathers would have packed it in spruce boughs and covered it in fallen trees to prevent predators from eating it. Then they would have returned for it in winter by dog team.

There were other differences. Allaire and Ruttle enjoyed the technological benefits of GPS and a hand-held radio, with which they called in their location daily for safety's sake. They also got a daily weather forecast over the airwaves. In other ways, they tried to stay true to the traditions of their ancestors.

"We got a little taste of what the old-timers used to do," said Ruttle. "Our ankles were giving out on us. It was rough walking."

"It was a lot of work, but it was worth it," Allaire added.