"It was in the fall of 1980 when Leo and I went to check our net across theYukon at the mouth of Owl Slough. It was getting dark and I was getting bored just sitting in the boat watching Leo pull in the net to take fish out of it. I wanted to see a lot more in the country than just fish. I wanted to see more than just the whitefish and all the cohos we were catching. Then I looked over towards the land. Among the willows I saw two big ears, but I couldn't see anything else. Soon, though, I saw the legs and, finally, when I looked in between the legs and the ears, I saw a moose body. It was a cow with two calves. To me they all looked like wolves because of the legs. I turned to Leo and asked him if he could see them, but he thought that I was talking about the fish. When I said, "NO, those things on the land!" he dropped what he was doing and started hollering at me to give him his shells. Of course, I was handing him the wrong type of shells. After all, I was just as excited as he was. Anyway, the three moose took off, but just before they reached the other side of the slough, Leo shot the cow, then the two calves which were already pretty big. Then we went home to get more help and to get Leo's hunting knife. But, you know, after that I. couldn't bear to eat moose meat because I thought too much of how I had seen the moose die."

By Palassa Fitka