Yellowknife (Apr 03/06) - Eric Henderson spent 25 years hunting in the Northwest Territories, but perhaps the day he remembers most is his last on the trail.

"We nearly died," he said, recalling a bitterly cold winter afternoon about six years ago.

Henderson was almost 70 when he and his wife bagged a caribou north of Yellowknife, off the Ingraham Trail. The pair struggled in the freezing cold to butcher the animal and haul it into their customized hunting van.

"Firing a gun is just the beginning," Henderson said. "We were just too old."

"It was just awful," agreed his wife Eva, an avid hunter who could skin a caribou in 20 minutes flat. "The cold was just unbearable."

That experience led Eric on a six-year campaign to convince the territorial government to allow seniors to transfer their hunting tags once they became too old to harvest their quarry.

Henderson's idea was simple: let friends and family members use his tags to bag caribou.

"I'm too old to hunt, but that doesn't mean I couldn't use the meat," said Henderson, who moved to the NWT the early 1970s. "I know plenty of people on my street who would go out hunting for me."

Under new rules introduced this year, non-aboriginals are allowed to kill two caribou each year, which Henderson said would be more than enough to keep his freezer full.

And it would be cheaper than paying seven dollars a pound in the meat aisle.

While the NWT recently reduced quotasto compensate for a huge decline in barrenlands caribou herds, Ray Case, who monitors the animals for the territorial government, said the population could handle the extra tags under Henderson's plan.

"I don't think there would be a huge (increase) in the number of animals harvested," he said. But Henderson, now 74, said he is frustrated that his letters to the government and Natural Resources minister Michael Miltenberger have gone unanswered for years.

"To ignore a suggestion from someone who is reasonably sane... is arrogant," Henderson said. "You can't get the bastards to move."

But senior wildlife officer Raymond Bourget disputed those claims and said his Environment and Natural Resources department looks into all the suggestions they receive.

Officials also sent Henderson a response in August 2004, about three months after he outlined the plan in a letter, Bourget said.

Henderson, though, said he has never heard from the government.

Officials will consider Henderson's idea, but changing territorial laws can take several years, Bourget said. The department is revamping the Wildlife Act, a process that began nearly six years ago.

Meanwhile, seniors still have several avenues to get meat that doesn't involve going to the grocery store, Bourget said.

They can:

• get other hunters to donate their kills;
• contract commercial hunters - like members of the Yellowknives Dene - to harvest the meat; or,
• get left-over meat from trophy hunters.

The penalties for illegal hunting - which include passing your tags onto someone else - range from a $230 fine to a $1,000 fine and a year in jail.

But standing on his front porch, underneath a pair of caribou antlers, Henderson talked about getting the ear of government.

"I don't see what the problem is. It shouldn't take six years for an answer. Especially when an idea makes good sense."