The Great Grouse of Lapland

Chasing capercaillie above the Arctic Circle

I have never shot a turkey. Of course that doesn’t mean I haven’t hunted them. But my reasons for remaining unenthused about the sport are legion: no dogwork to appreciate, no rigorous hiking, no wingshooting. And one other thing: Who needs a fine double for ground sluicing? No, turkey hunting is a springtime sport that rarely engages the active autumnal wingshooter. I go only because it’s something a bird hunting fool can do during warm weather. This lackluster attitude surely accounts for my lack of success.

But what if you could visit an exotic land outside of our own season and shoot a turkey-sized grouse with all of the traditional elements that draw us to upland hunting? Last August I accepted an invitation from Håkan Gyllbring of the Rural Economy and Agriculture Society of Norrbotten County in Swedish Lapland to shoot capercaillie.

The cock capercaillie is a jumbo grouse—gray on top with a blue-green breast and underparts marked with white. The color is really visible only in the hand; in the air the bird is so dark as to appear black. The body is massively chunky, with a Lady Windermere-sized fantail. Male birds have heavy ivory bills, scarlet eye patches and Prussian generals’ whiskers, making their heads appear as large as a quail’s body.

Traditionally, they are not shot on the wing but are hunted similarly to turkeys, except that instead of calling the bird to you, you approach it. Also unlike the turkey, which often is shot in a field or on the forest floor, the capercaillie is found in the vaulted boughs of mature trees. A stealthy stalk can be made during the moments when the bird is distracted by a barking dog, or at least that’s the theory.

The wild-bird coverts of Scandinavia may be a kind of f ultima thule to most Americans, but for the British, who in the past appeared to travel with a shotgun in one hand and a pen in the other, it was familiar ground. In 1831, the year John Quincy Adams became a Congressman from Massachusetts, an amateur naturalist and big-game hunter named Llewellyn Lloyd published a book called  Field Sports of the North of Europe. . In it he wrote of his “Lapland dog, Brunette”: “When she found the capercailzie, she would station herself under the tree where they were sitting and, by keeping up an incessant barking, direct my steps towards the spot. I now advanced with silence and caution; and as it frequently happened that the attention of the bird was much taken up with observing the dog, I was enabled to approach until I was within range of my rifle, or even my common gun.”

After flying into Luleå, at the top of the Gulf of Bothnia (where pendulous Scandinavia dangles into the North Atlantic), I was met by Gyllbring and we drove north on a broad empty road through the forests of Norrbotten. Norrbotten is Sweden’s largest county, accounting for about a quarter of the country’s total land mass. The countries of Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg combined are only about three-quarters of Norrbotten’s size. Our route took us up the Torne River Valley. The Torne is wide and fast, with wooden platforms suspended above the rapids from which fishermen scoop up flashing salmon with landing nets on 10-foot poles. It brought to mind photos of the Snake and Columbia before the dams. The river is also the border with Finland.

As we drove, Gyllbring pointed out a round-topped mountain on the far bank called Aavasaksa, where the Czar built a hunting lodge in 1883 when Finland was a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire. Earlier we had spotted what looked like a ruffed grouse on steroids gritting roadside. We’d flashed past before realizing it was a capercaillie. Håkan had hit the brakes and put the car in reverse, and I’d been privileged with my first great-grouse sighting. I’d opened the door for a better view, and the bird had flown into a tree less than 20 yards away. Looking down at us with its head cocking up and down and back and forth, it had resembled any hen forest grouse of North America, only at least twice the size.

In the hamlet of Svanstein, home to just 200 souls, we were met by landowner Jan Rova, who made us comfortable in a mid-18th Century rustic hunting lodge built of what looked like ancient Lincoln Logs. Inside, the adzed-beam walls were covered with mounted examples of all the local gamebirds: black game, ptarmigan, hazel hens and of course capercaillie. A bunk bed enclosed in a birch closet was designed to maximize insulation during the hard Lapland winters. Rova handed me a Merkel Drilling, a telescopic sight and a handful of rifle cartridges the size of cigar tubes, and then began to explain how “a baying hound will tree the tjäder [capercaillie].” It was clear that I was expected to use the rifle barrel, as he was showing me how to use the set trigger when I spoke up.

“Jan, I represent ‘The Magazine of Wingshooting & Fine Guns.’ If I were to shoot a sitting bird out of a tree with a rifle, the magazine would get lots of letters saying what a poor sportsman I am. Besides, if I did this in North America, I would be arrested.” Losing all sense of decorum, I blurted out: “And couldn’t we find a pointer? This bear-dog thing is just too weird!”

There was a sound like uff as Rova pursed his lips and drew in his breath in what I was to learn was a common Swedish expression, though of what I was not exactly sure at the time. Disapproval? Surprise that a guest could be this ungracious? Actually, it was affirmation, as I learned later.

Rova diplomatically allowed that it was possible to shoot a capercaillie on the wing but that it was much more difficult, particularly with the current conditions. The temperature was in the low 70s, and the forest air was clear and dry. The summer-long drought meant the muskeg and even some lakes were easily traversed. The good news was that it was too dry for the mosquitoes to be bothersome. The bad news was that there was insufficient moisture to carry bird scent, the result being that the dogs—whether pointers or the more traditional spitz dogs—were having a hard time making game.

It was clear that Rova wanted to see me shoot before embarking down this unfamiliar path. He threw easy targets, all going away. My consternation at shooting the Drilling proved unfounded, as the heavy rifle barrel provided the steadiest shooting platform I had ever used. I hit enough to satisfy my host.

Five o’clock the next morning Rova’s hunting guide, Peter, and I set off down a “dust road.” A flash from a reflector collar at the forest’s edge marked a small group of reindeer retreating through the birch and spruce. There are no wild reindeer in Lapland; all are domestic creatures owned mostly by the indigenous Sámi people. Because of weather, it was decided that we should be out at dawn, when the capercaillie are most active. I carried only shotgun shells for the Drilling, but in a compromise we used a Norrbotten spitz dog to help locate the birds.

Spitz dogs were one of the earliest breeds in Scandinavia. Skeletons found in Denmark suggest similar dogs existed in prehistoric times. The earliest types were used as guard dogs, and some apparently still are used to herd reindeer, but the one with us, Putte, was a hunter. He disappeared into the forest. We ascended a hill through recently cleared forest and stopped to listen. It was so quiet all I could hear was my stomach grumbling, protesting an unfamiliar smorgasbord breakfast taken way too early. After a while even I could hear Putte barking. I turned to Peter and, with a look of hope, said, “Has he treed a capa?”
Peter said, “Järpe,” and then in heavily accented English, “Hazel hen,” which is a bird virtually identical to our own ruffed grouse. The experienced hunter apparently can tell by the nature of the bark which species has been encountered. However, Putte had found only a rabbit or hare. By midmorning we were done without having seen a thing. Ironically, Rova, who had been scouting elsewhere for moose, had seen a hen from his treestand that he suggested we may have flushed.

Saying goodbye to Svanstein and the Drilling, Gyllbring and I traveled north on perfectly paved, traffic-free roads through the forest. At Kengis Bruuk, an old iron works built along the banks of the Torne River and dating from 1644, all our prayers were answered. Here we met a pair of Finnish hunters, Pentti and Tuomo, who like me were taking advantage of a hunting season outside their own. They had killed a capercaillie the day before we arrived, and serendipity was on our side, as they were hunting with a pair of German shorthaired pointers and a pair of English setters. We were delighted when they invited us to shoot over their familiar breeds . . . .

Later that afternoon the northern forest swallowed us up. Slanting autumnal light pierced the canopy of mature broadleaf and fir. As the light failed, one of the young pointers bumped a hen capercaillie before anyone was ready, and it thundered off through thickets of scrub spruce and paper birch. My new friend Pentti was apologetic as he explained how dry weather had made life difficult even for more experienced dogs. Early the next morning my new pals left for the opening of their own Finnish season, and once again Gyllbring and I traveled north, this time to Kangos.

Kangos is 95 miles above the Arctic Circle and just 15 miles below treeline. It was to be my last chance. I rose at dawn and followed one of five professional guides through the forest. Each would guide me for a couple of hours before turning the task over to a fresh colleague. During the northern summer the days are long, and after a full day of forest walking I barely was hanging on. Only a chukar hunter’s pride kept me going. My only consolations were compliments about my stamina during the evening meal.
At dinner I met Danne Ojanlatva, a fisheries manager, hunting guide and the owner of a Norrbotten spitz with a more-than-regional reputation. On my final full day in Swedish Lapland we started early, rising at 4 am, and Ojanlatva explained how to stalk, stepping out of deep cover only to provoke a flush. “Remember,” he said, “move quietly, and if you come to a clearing, retreat and approach from another direction.”

The dog was barking fiercely about a half-mile away as I crept forward using every centimeter of cover. After a careful stalk, I saw the dog beneath a huge, ancient spruce. He appeared to be howling at the moon. Then when I figured that I was within shotgun range, I stepped free of my protective screen and prepared to shoot . . . . Nothing. I looked up and was confronted by the furry brown face of a squirrel. I must have looked puzzled, because Ojanlatva said, “Sometimes that happens.”

Only minutes of my hunt were left now. Time was running out, and I had just about resigned myself to failure. Then, suddenly, we heard the dog again, and after stalking toward the sound, I could see him barking and looking up. Clearly he had something treed. I stepped free of the cover, and after a pause just long enough to have me contemplating re-securing my safety, a pterodactyl pitched out of the tree above me. I took a quick snap shot at the quail-sized head, and what seemed like a sack of hammers fell to the sphagnum-moss-covered forest floor. The crazy dog ran to the dead bird, which seemed smaller in death than in life—diminished somehow—and continued manically barking over the bundle of feathers.

An hour later, sitting in a toasty sauna sipping frosted Nils Oscar pilsner and contemplating an early morning flight, it occurred to me that despite strong fraternal bonds between hunters of all nationalities, the fieldsports of other nations always seem a little strange. We each think that we are the ones doing it right and that the other fellow’s chase is somehow less fair. Because of my experience in Swedish Lapland, I’m now less likely to criticize how foreign hunters secure their game. But although I have learned a great deal, I still don’t think I’ll have success hunting turkeys.

Author’s Note: For more information on hunting in Sweden, contact Swedish Lapland Hunting Network, 01146-920-24-41-80 or 01146-70-203-88-42; hakan .gyllbring@hush.se; www.huntinginsweden .org; or NordGuide, 01146-70-666-53-04; info@nordguide.se; www.nordguide.se.

Douglas Tate is an Editor at Large for Shooting Sportsman.

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