Sarah Palin's Hunting Trip to Feed her Family cost $42,400 or $141.33 per lb. of Caribou

When Sarah Palin took us on a hunting/camping trip with her dad Chuck Heath on the latest episode of Sarah Palin's Alaska, she said hunting was necessary to "fill her freezer!"  Hunting for caribou means “food on the table and in the freezer for a lot of Alaskans,” the former Govenor extolled. She opened her freezer to let us see how the Palin meat pantry was getting bare.

“For many people in remote areas of Alaska, there’s no grocery store nearby, we just got to get out and hunt,” enthused Sarah. The only thing is that getting out and hunting for Sarah turned out to be an adventure requiring three separate airplanes to get her to her hunting spot with her father and family friend Steve Becker.

Hollywoodlife.com researched the logistics and cost of Palin’s hunting trip which resulted in a bagged caribou, and discovered that it was a mighty expensive way to feed the Palin family, at $42,400 for the trip.

The grand total to charter a Dehavilland Dash plane from Era Alaska to travel round trip from Wasilla’s Palmer airport to Deadhorse, Alaska was $37,600. In Deadhorse, the Palins switched to a 6 seat Cessna C207 Skywagon which they flew into the Kavik River Camp, at $1200 for the round trip, according to Lori Goodman, director of sales and marketing of Era Alaska, the company which chartered the planes for the Palins.

Once in Kavik, the Palins spent two nights at the Kavik River Camp at $250 a person per night, for a $750 total.

Finally, the Deltana Outfitters flew them individually on a Piper Supercub airplane from Kavik into their hunting spot at a cost of $350 per hour for three hours each way, for a total of $2100, according to Deltana.

The grand Palin total to bag a caribou and get it back to the Palin homestead added up to $42,400, or $141.33 per lb. of caribou meat. Sarah shot and killed a female cow which may have weighed up to 300 lbs.

Just to put this is perspective, the Palins could have filled their freezer with ribeye steak at $10.99 a lb. from Alaska’s Mr. Prime Beef, which is based in Anchorage and ships anywhere in the state.

I have no problem with hunting as a hobby and eating what you catch. But when Sarah goes on about being “tough, independent and self sufficent” and that’s why she hunts, she can't be serious. How many Americans can afford to be that “self sufficent” and “self sustaining” when it costs $42,400 to personally hunt for their meat?

It’s a nice fantasy Sarah — but that’s what you’re really selling on your reality show.