Mmmm! Moose Meat!

DISCLAIMER: The following story and photos contain graphic content, view at your own risk. Not for the faint of heart.

Today I helped butcher a moose. Yep, a moose. Our Redeemer Lutheran Church has a food pantry that assists over fifty families each week. In Alaska, when a moose is hit on the road as road kill, instead of letting the meat go to waste various organizations are called and allowed to take the moose. Each organization is put on a list with a corosponding number, when the number of killed moose reaches the number assigned to an organization they are called to come and get the moose.

It is really neat and resourceful, the only downside is the organization must come as soon as they are called or they will simply go on to the next number. Generally calls come very late at night. This incident was no exception. The call to pick up the moose happened at 2:15am, which meant that one lucky member from Our Redeemer Lutheran Church got to retrieve the moose in the wee hours of the morning.

Once the moose is obtained it hangs out in the church garage until it is ready to be processed. Since it is the summer and the weather is warmer the moose hung a little over 24 hours before being processed. I was told by Johnny Jarnagin (an elder, and one of several men who helped process the moose) that it would have been ideal for the moose to hang longer but the heat would not allow it.

Moose in the church garage-our church van in the background

So members of Our Redeemer gathered this evening to help with the process. It was all men except for Jess & myself. It was real neat to see the whole process.

The moose is brought in in pieces since it would be too large to carry as a whole. This moose had a lot of trauma to the stomach which ruptured on impact so the pieces of the moose that were left were the four limbs and part of the neck. Each leg was brought in and then the fun began.

Left to right: Johnny, Chuck, Bart & John

Chuck-my host dad

Johnny (left) let me cut some meat off the leg!

Meat was cut off of the leg. The men cut around the fat and bone. Smaller pieces were then put into a meat grinder and ground into moose burger. Larger pieces off of the moose’s upper leg were cut into moose roast. Remaining fat, and bone were disposed of.

The whole set up...grinder on the left, and cutters of the meat on the right

I must admit that I did not do much cutting. My main job was as a runner. I would run cut up pieces of meat from the kitchen window over to the meat grinder. I would also run packaged meat to the table, write with permanent marker the meat cut and date, and then put it in the freezer. While I did a lot of running around I did get to run the grinder for a while and package moose burger in 1 pound balls and wrap them in butcher paper.

Grab the meat and run it over to the grinder...

...put the meat in the grinder

Moose Burger! Yum!

The men were thoroughly impressed with “get ‘er done” attitude and not-so-squeamish manner. I explained to them how growing up on the farm has formed me into not your typical girl, and they were all glad for that.

Packaged and labeled :)

Did I ever mention how much I love this internship?! Gutting and processing a moose? Who would have thought. I can’t wait to see what God has in store for me next