Category Archives: Alaskana

08.22.18
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MEET THE TONG FAMILY: LARRY, FLO, JOSEPH AND LAURA (PEP)

Larry and Flo

Larry and Flo — 50th wedding anniversary

Larry Tong grew up in Madras, Oregon, about 48 miles north of Bend.  Florence came from Redmond, which was 28 miles south of Madras. Though her name is Florence, most people call her Flo.  Larry first introduced Flo to his family as Loree, her middle name.  They still call her Loree.

In 1964-65, Larry commuted three days a week to attend classes in Bend at the Central Oregon Community College.  Larry says, “I was kind of ignorant and got 8:00 classes, so I had to get up early to drive my Corvair to school.”  After one year of college, Larry started working at a newspaper office.  Flo, who was 17 at the time they met, cared for an elderly couple.  The woman was blind and sat in the middle of the living room floor most of the time; she ate and slept there.  Her husband, who had been in the Spanish-American war, loved to tell stories to the high school kids in the college.

The lady had a collection of “End of Day” glass that Flo had to wash.  She got very nervous doing this job, as the glass was very fragile and she was afraid she would break it.  “End of Day” glass was made with all the glass left over when the glass-blower had finished for the day.  The odds and ends were blown into an “end of day” piece.  Flo never broke one of them.

Flo and Larry met at a mutual friend’s New Year’s Eve party. Larry came to visit the party, not intending to stay.  Flo says she fell in love with him at first sight.  She tended to be shy; however, she followed him home and made sure they got acquainted.  They were married 5 weeks later.

Flo tells the story of going driving with her mom and seeing Larry.  She said to her mom, “Honk, Mom!  That’s Larry.”  Her mom said, “I don’t want to honk at that beatnik.” However, because Larry had a job, the community accepted him, even though he had a beard.  Beatniks had a bad rep. The community there was redneck cowboy and thought nothing of rounding up squatting beatniks every now and then and kicking them out of town.

Larry says, “Flo was 17 when I met her.  She turned 18 in January and didn’t need her

Larry and Flo Wedding

Bride and Groom

parents’ permission to marry.  However, Larry, then 20, had to get his parents’ permission.  They were married in her parents’ home by a Justice of the Peace.  They have now been married 51 years.

In early times in Gustavus, there were many young couples who had not been together all that long.  One time Rob Bosworth asked Larry how long he & Flo had been married.  When Larry answered, “Ten years,” Rob said, “Wow!  I don’t know anyone who has been married that long.”

Larry said, “What really cemented our relationship was our parents.  After three or four weeks, the couple brought their parents together to meet.  The older folks had so much in common that they ignored us.  They had so much to share.  They realized we might really get along because our backgrounds were the same.”

After Larry and Flo married, Larry was working for the weekly newspaper, The Redmond Spokesman, in Redmond, OR. He worked as a pressman and linotype operator.  The newlyweds lived in an apartment ½ block from the newspaper office.  Within a year, they bought a little house that had been built in 1942.  They paid $16,000.  The owner wanted $500 down, but the couple only had $300 in the bank.  The owner accepted that. Their mortgage payments were $75/month for the first year, then reduced to $60.

On October 9, 1968, Joe was born.  A few months after Joe’s birth, Larry asked his boss for a raise.  He was getting $3.00 per hour.  Five weeks later, he got a nickel raise.  He started looking for other employment.  He found a job advertised in a trade magazine in Juneau.  Larry had all the skills they needed.  He didn’t even know where Juneau was.  At the time he first got to Juneau, the population was 16,000. His employer paid his way up.  He wanted to see if Larry had the skills he needed before hiring him.  After a couple of days he got the job.

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04.24.18
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HATS OFF TO KIM HEACOX: WRITER, PHOTOGRAPHER, MUSICIAN, ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST

HATS OFF TO KIM HEACOX:  WRITER, PHOTOGRAPHER, MUSICIAN, ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST

  If you could rub Aladdin’s lamp, what would you wish for?  There is a man in Gustavus who might wish for an avalanche of understanding that would end  our destructive ways and uncover the knowledge we need to protect and preserve our natural world.  His name is Kim Heacox.

Kim is a man whose loves are deep and lasting:  His wife, Melanie; his close friends; his celebration of nature, and his passion for Glacier Bay.  He asks that we be hyper aware, and that we do our best to protect our planet whenever possible.  Kim’s motto in all his writing is “Change Everything Now.”  He feels we’d best change things for the better and wake up while we still can, because, given the grave issues facing us, such as climate change and its evil cousin, ocean acidification, “we are sleepwalking into the future.”

Kim told me a story about a trip he made in 1979, after his first year as an interpretive ranger/naturalist in Glacier Bay.  At the end of his summer season, he had saved about $5,000.  He took a Greyhound across America, visited friends in Florida, and flew to Europe.  He first visited Spain, where he volunteered for the World Wildlife Fund at Coto de Doñana National Park, one of Europe’s most important wetland preserves.  A major site for migrating birds, the park is home to five threatened bird species.  Kim worked on habitat restoration.

In November of 1979, he went to Istanbul.  He was scheduled to go to the Soviet Union, and had all his tickets; however, on Christmas day the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and all U.S. tours were cancelled.  So, in early 1980 he went to Bulgaria.  There he met a dissident who had been thrown into a Siberian gulag for three years of hard labor because he’d distributed dissident pamphlets.  When Kim said, “Really?”, the dissident took off his shirt and showed the scars on his back from being whipped.

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03.25.18
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INTRODUCING DON BRYANT: FRIENDLY, KIND, WORLD TRAVELER, A “QUIET REBEL”

Don Bryant was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Margerie and Vaughn Bryant.  His father was a news correspondent for the Associated Press.  Don has one full brother, Vaughn, older than he, who is now a professor of anthropology at Texas A & M, and one half-brother, Jim, who presently flies for UPS.  When Don was still an infant, the family moved from Rio to Santiago, Chile.  Because his nanny in Chile spoke only Spanish, it became his first language as a toddler.  Then they moved to New Orleans when he was about three years old.  He lived in New Orleans for about five years.  Their completely different accent influenced his English speech.  Then, as the family followed his father when work took him to a new location, they moved to Texas.  Here, his dad worked in public relations.

His parents divorced in 1956.  In Austin, his mother, Marge, met and married Jim Woodworth, an Alaskan, who was a professional hunter/guide in Kodiak.  Don went to Alaska with them.  Marge and Jim homesteaded on the Kenai River, near Sterling, Alaska.  Jim wrote a book titled “The Kodiak Bear.”  In his book, he used “Monarch of Dead Man’s Bay” as one chapter title.  Later, another author used the same title for his book about a Kodiak bear.  Jim also wrote articles for the pre-Alaskan magazine called “The Alaska Sportsman.”

In 1959, Don went back to Texas.  After about a year, he went to live with his brother, Vaughn, who was in college.  In 1961, Vaughn and Don went to Europe by ship, where they were supposed to go to school.  His brother studied in Germany and Don went to school in France.  The school was for foreigners, to teach them French.  Don says he lasted about a week.  He knew no French when he started his classes, and the teachers spoke only French.  So, Don started hanging out at the beach with the Swedes, who all spoke English.

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02.04.18
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THERE’S A BOAT AT THE FOUR CORNERS BY KATE BOESSER

Fritz (short for Frederick) has a tee-shirt that reads “Bundin er batlaus madur –bound is boatless man.”  He subscribes to Wooden Boat magazine and Messing About in Boats.  His grandparents on his mother’s side came from the fjords of Norway, so he is l/2 Norwegian.   He loves to build, repair, fish from, and journey in boats.  He spent the first thirteen years of his life in Sitka, living on Sheldon Jackson campus across the street from the beach, rowing with his neighborhood friend in a small wooden rowboat.

FRITZ AS A TEENAGER

SV Red Sea

When Fritz moved to Juneau as a teenager, his dad bought him a 16-foot wooden skiff and an 18-horse engine.  He began to teach himself how to repair and replace boat engines; how to wire and repair boat electronics; how to build wooden boats.

LEARNING TO SAIL

Fritz and I crewed on a 56-foot ketch, named the Red Witch, out of Juneau when we were 20.  We were running before a storm outside of Baranof Warm Springs when 19-year-old deckhand friend John raised the sail but over-stretched the winch’s reach.  Screw-bolted into the wood, it actually ripped out of the mast and hit John in the chest.  It could have killed him, but he was unhurt.  We made it back into the protection of the cove, where we all took hot tubs and hiked the hills of natural hot springs to avoid the raging captain carefully re-mantling the winch so we could continue on our journey.  A few days later we hit an unseen iceberg south of Juneau in Taku Inlet, heard the screaming blame of the captain one too many times and decided to leave the ship for good once back in Juneau. This was not the captain for us, but we certainly had sailing in our blood from then on.  Two things remain to this day – I am willing and capable of going out in any weather to deal with lines, then coil them carefully for the next person. The second is that I can tie a fast bowline knot, which I use to this day for tying up everything.

FIRST GUSTAVUS BOATS

SV Soleglad

In 1977, at the age of 23, we moved to Gustavus with our klepper kayak.  For the first three years or so, Fritz traveled in the kayak either alone or with a friend up into Glacier Bay for two weeks each spring.  About this time we found ourselves moving up in the boat world.  We first rescued a small plywood skiff from a Juneau beach.  After two years, we acquired the 22-foot Soleglad, meaning sunset in Norwegian.  This scow sloop with lee-boards had been built by Manual from Haines in 1952, the year of Fritz’s birth. Fritz and my brother-in-law Jim  sailed it down Lynn Canal and Icy Strait to Gustavus.  We spent the summer when our oldest daughter Lena was two years old sailing and motoring all over Glacier Bay.

As a mother, then 28 years old, I found myself losing confidence in myself when afraid for the safety of my child.  I was no longer the 20-year-old sailing off on the ocean among men deck mates.  Now I felt responsible for others.  It surprised me as much as Fritz that I worried so much on the sea.  Though I never got seasick, living on a small sailboat in Glacier Bay I had to deal with my fear to enjoy life on the water.  I kept a small journal.

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08.29.17
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MEET BOB LUDERS: A MAN WHO IS KIND, LOYAL, AND FAMILY-ORIENTED

Robert Ernest Luders entered the world on June 20, 1923, in Berkeley, CA.

Bob’s mother, Alma Vass,  had graduated from art school in San Francisco.  She was an entrepreneur and owned a design shop with two other women in the city.  She had been invited to study art in France.  Bob says, “Fortunately for us, that’s right when she met my father, so that was the end of her art career and the beginning of a family.”  It was not an easy choice, but one she thought about carefully.

Bob’s grandparents came from a well-to-do family in Lübeck, Germany.  They moved to London in the mid-1800s.  As tensions between the English and Germans grew, Bob’s grandparents were urged to go back to Germany, but they opted to stay in London instead.  The family was extremely wealthy.  They had become interested in gas lighting, put a significant amount of their money into it and lost their fortune.  So, “disgraced,” they packed everything up, including the grand piano, and shipped it to Texas, then overland to California.  Bob’s uncle had purchased land in Bakersfield, California, sight unseen. They lost two European manor houses and ended up in a tar paper shack.  Bob’s uncle disappeared and his grandfather took one look at the place and folded; he died shortly after that. Bob’s father, Ernest, was now responsible for his mother, his two sisters and himself. Bob says, “In those days, in wealthier families, as soon as you were born you were given a silver spoon with your name engraved on it.”  The highly educated wealthy class didn’t “work;” they managed their estates and businesses.  For Ernest, however, when things got tough, you did anything you could to provide for your family.

In Bakersfield,  they started a farm, raising strawberries and produce.  They even planted an orchard. Unfortunately, the water they had been promised wasn’t always available.  At one point, the little irrigation water they received simply ran into a hole in the sand.  Their solution was to plug the hole by “planting” Bob’s Aunt Anna. That hole was so large that Anna stood in it and they shoveled sand around her.  They added sand until Anna was covered up to her hips.  With the area now covered with sand, the water was forced to the plants.

Eventually, they had to abandon the farm.  The land was worthless.  Although oil had been found in Bakersfield, none came from their property.  The good news was that because of the land boom, they were able to get jobs at the land office in town.  Then, an old acquaintance from Germany suggested they go to San Francisco where Ernest could get a job with Schwabacker-Frey, a large company selling stationery, photographic supplies and various printed items.  Then came the earthquake of  1906.  The business was destroyed, so Bob’s father worked during the clean-up and reconstruction.

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07.16.17
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AIMEE YOUMANS: INNOVATIVE, COURAGEOUS, ENTREPRENEUR, WORLD TRAVELER

The more of these Gustavus interviews I do, the more I am amazed at the people who live here.  So many of them love to travel, and have been to far-flung parts of the world.  Aimee Youmans is no exception, but has done more than her share of seeing and experiencing distant places.  It seems to me that there are three kinds of people in this community.  One group is content spending their life here.  Another group has done their exploring of the planet, and find in Gustavus a quiet place to spend their later years.  Many others consider Gustavus a home base, from which they can travel and explore where they will, and when their journeys are completed, they return to the calm, comfort, and familiarity of home.  I believe people here are oddly unique, and Aimee fits that description.

Aimee Youmans was born in Seattle on September 6, 1948.  The family immediately moved to Sitka, where Aimee lived until she was ten.  Her mom, Anne, got a job as a nurse at the Sitka Pioneer’s Home, where she worked for 25 years.  For Aimee’s first ten years she lived in Sitka.  She says a bit of her heart is still there.

When she was ten, her father already had a job at Glacier Bay Park.  He was discovered by the Park Service.  He had been prospecting.  Though he had done nothing illegal, her dad said they hired him so they could keep track of him.  He worked on the Nunatak, the supply boat for the park service, as a deckhand.  At the time, there was only a foot path to the park.  It was decided to start building a station at Bartlett Cove, and her dad became the foreman.  They got the roads in and docks built.  When Aimee was five or six she visited her dad, who lived in a wall tent in the summer and a small cabin in the winter.

Then began the annual family exploration of Glacier Bay, for two weeks every summer.  Aimee recalls, “My mother would pack the big ham, spam and foodstuffs in the Spindrift, our ‘marine station wagon’ that my dad built from a ‘Kriskraft’ kit.  We would set up camp in the Ibach’s old cabin in Reid Inlet, the kitchen and bunks for my brother and me, and a wall tent master bedroom just outside.  At this time, Muz Ibach’s trees, rhubarb, and the vestiges of her garden were all the green in the rocky new landscape of the West Arm of Glacier Bay.  We rarely saw another boat or plane, and never any animals at all.

One night a berg came into the pothole harbor on the high tide and picked our boat off the hook.  What a surprise in the morning!  My dad had to row the little punt halfway to Russell Island to retrieve it.  Who knows where and when it would have been found had he not spied it far out in the channel!”

Another favorite family jaunt was to take their boat behind Lester Island in the Beardslees to a small island called “Strawberry Island.”  Aimee and her family used to go there every year to collect raspberries from prolific bushes at the old fox farm.  They also gathered their strawberries from both sides of the road out to the park before there were trees, giving them a plentiful bonanza of berries.

In her tenth year, Aimee and her brother, Ken, came out to live with their dad.  Their older brother and sister were just finishing high school in Sitka, so they stayed with their mother until they graduated.  The Gustavus School needed eight children to start.  Ken and Aimee were number seven and eight, so there were enough to open.  The school at the time was held in the former preschool.  Over time this building served as a grade school, preschool, and the post office.

Aimee’s mom saved up her days off and flew out from Sitka when she could.  She flew the milk run — Angoon; Tenakee; Pelican; finally, to Gustavus.  Her plane was a weather plane — a Grumman Goose, which was a World War II plane.  To get from Juneau to Sitka she flew on a PBY, another World War II plane, which landed at Merchant’s Wharf in downtown Juneau.  In later years, her father would visit Anne via skiff along the Outer Coast.  He traveled in a small boat in a big ocean, and the trip took most of the day.

Ken and Aimee were park kids.  Then there were homesteaders’ kids (Chase family,) and some children from CAA:  (Civil Aeronautics Administration) families who stayed to maintain the emergency airfield.  These were pretty mobile families, so the kids “changed” from year to year.

Aimee was in fifth grade when she started school in Gustavus.  One teacher instructed all eight students.  Aimee says, “The students’ purpose seemed to be to entertain the community.  We put on many shows, programs, and music events.” During the winter, Aimee and Ken came to school on the snowplow which their dad drove.  He picked up the Chase kids as well, then proceeded to the school.

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10.16.16
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SMITTEN: A MOOSE-HUNTING STORY BY KIM PAPAW WARREN

Back by popular demand, here is guest blogger Kim Papaw Warren, to tell you a new moose-hunting adventure.  Hope this story makes you laugh as hard as it did me!

I  went moose hunting again yesterday afternoon. In my area of Southeast Alaska, our season lasts one month and we are allowed one bull.  So far I had seen five bulls but no shooters.  (To be a legal “shooter,” a bull must have a spike or fork on one side or three brow tines on one side, or there must be a 50-inch spread between the extremes of the antler.)  As I approached the willow-covered muskeg I had chosen to hunt, I saw a cow watching me from about 300 yards away.  She continued to watch with mild curiosity as I settled under a spruce tree, levered a round in my Winchester Model 71 and got ready to start calling.  I sat unmoving for about 15 minutes to let things settle down.  The cow lost interest and moved on, grazing on the willow tips.

I started calling, doing my best to mimic a love-sick cow in season.  After the second series of calls, a bull stepped out of the woods on the other side of the clearing, paddles flashing in the late afternoon sun.  He was looking around, trying to locate me, or rather, the cow he thought I was, so I did another series of calls.  Immediately he zeroed in on me.  At over 300 yards away, I couldn’t tell if he was legal, and he couldn’t see me, as I was all decked out in my cammies.

Slowly I picked up my binoculars and watched him as he came around the perimeter of the clearing, moving obliquely in my direction.  When he reached a point closest to me, which put him about 75 yards away, he turned and headed across the clearing straight toward me, never once taking his eyes off me.  By now, I could tell that he wasn’t a legal bull, so I just sat unmoving and watched him come.

At about 100 feet we made eye contact, and he kept right on walking casually toward me making low grunting sounds.  Almost a cooing sound…he was sweet-talking me.  At 50 feet I began to get a little nervous.  At 20 feet I started talking to him.  “That’s far enough.  You don’t want to come any closer.”  I began waving my hands and continuing to talk to him.  “Don’t make me have to shoot you!”  He just kept coming, ignoring my now-frantic waving.  I tried not to be too demonstrative for fear of ruining my hunt, but the situation was now serious.

At less than ten feet he stuck his head under the spruce bough where I sat and stopped.  He just stood there, making low grunting sounds.  Sweet-talking me.   This bull was smitten!  He was in love.  I could have stood up and in two steps kissed him on the nose.  I know he must have thought I was the ugliest cow he had ever seen, but it didn’t seem to matter.  He wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer.

I started yelling at him and waving my rifle in his face.  This didn’t faze him.  I was the love of his life and he wasn’t going to give me up.  He decided on a different approach.  Slowly he circled around under my spruce tree and came up behind me.  I intensified my yelling and waving.  At this he very reluctantly began to move away.  I know he was thinking, “I’ll let her calm down a little.  I know she’ll come around.”

As he stood watching me from about thirty feet away, I quickly gathered up my stuff and began to walk away.  The bull followed me for a few feet, then stopped, broken-hearted, and watched me leave.  Looking back over my shoulder, I said, “Cheer up!  We’ve both lived to love another day.”

10.06.16
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TLINGIT TRIBAL HOUSE DEDICATION AT BARTLETT COVE

stephanieThis story comes from guest blogger, Stephanie Shor. It is a report on the dedication ceremony of the new Tlingit tribal house in Bartlett Cove, Glacier Bay National Park.  Stephanie is the editor of our sweet local paper, “Strawberry Point Pioneer.”  Thanks, Stephanie, for sharing the story of this historical event with us!

“We heard our ancestors singing as we came into the bay.  They’ve waited a long time for us.  It’s hard to hold back the tears of joy.”

The shores of Glacier Bay were humming with people, young and old, native and non-native, as three traditionalcanoes2 Tlingit canoes slowly emerged through the morning mist of Bartlett Cove. Hoonah Tlingit children, grandchildren of the tribe in their ancestors’ regalia, waited with wide eyes to receive them in a long-awaited return to their homeland.

The first day of the week-long tribal house dedication event included a color guard for Hoonah veterans, a naming ceremony for the tribal house, a spirit song and a collective breath of life into the structure.

As the canoes, carved over long months from 400-year-old trees, drew closer to the sight of the new tribal house standing on ancient Tlingit land, elders and their grandchildren began to sing.  Hoonah’s youth met the
tribded2rowers and were handed the individually carved oars of their elders as the crowd lifted the canoes to carry as a whole onto land.

Huna Tlingit history began in this land of lower Glacier Bay, where there were at least 3 ancient tribal houses, like the modern-day version now in Bartlett Cove. About 300 years ago, they were forced to flee their homeland as glaciers advanced and overran their settlements, according to park service documentation. The retreating Tlingit clans eventually settled in modern-day Hoonah.

Tlingit elder, Ken Grant, watched from the new tribal house as the people sang and danced through the crowds and up the hill of their ancient birthplace.  Many had tears streaming down their faces.  The children were solemn with understanding.

“What we ever do is for our children and our grandchildren,” he said.  “They can say, ‘I was there and I am Tlingit from Hoonah.’”tribalhouse86

Grant stressed the importance of the Xunaa Shuka Hit, or “Huna Ancestor’s House,” in incorporating “the ancestors before you and the children ahead of you” to keep their traditions alive.   Young adults and elders were ceremoniously dressed in their regalia by members of an opposite clan to symbolize partnership.  The new tribal house in Bartlett Cove represents four different clans.

One of the many purposes of the tribal house, which took nearly 20 years of collaboration between the National Park Service and Tlingit people to complete, is to foster a sense of healing between communities and within tribded3individuals.  In fact, as master carver, Wayne Price, and others crafted the canoes in Hoonah, youngsters collected the wood chips from the ground and community members wrote names of loved ones suffering from personal struggles such as addiction and depression, to burn in symbolic release.

The process of burning wood chips was incorporated into the soaking and steaming of the canoes, which the entire Hoonah community helped to accomplish.  Tlingit master weaver, Darlene See, visited Gustavus often to provide updates on the massive project underway. She said Hoonah residents rose at 6 am for every  soaking and steaming to carry the unfinished canoes down to the water.

Upon completion, canoers paddled tirelessly from Hoonah to reach Glacier Bay in time to see their tribal house.  At the opening ceremony, elders thanked not only the trees for their contribution, which they likened to their revered women, who constantly bring life, but also their neighbors in Gustavus and all across Southeast, tribded1both native and non-native.  This was a first in history for the National Park Service and a native group to collaborate on such a project, and NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis bestowed a partnership award on the accomplishment.

Southeast residents joined the park service and their Tlingit neighbors at the ceremony, and all helped to breathe life into the tribal house, meant to not only bring tribded4the Tlingit people back to their homeland, but to bring all people together, Grant said.

“This house to us is a keystone that holds up the bridge between the National Park Service and the Huna Tlingit,” he told the crowd.  “I wish the rest of the world could be like that.  Instead of fighting with each other, let’s talk.”

09.03.16
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HUNTING WITH JIM, BY MARSHALL (KIM) WARREN

(Note from Fran:  This article is the first one submitted to my blog by a guest author.  Kim Warren is from Gustavus, and is a member of our writer’s group.)

kim-warrenI have a friend whose name is Jim.  He has lived in Southeast Alaska for nearly 30 years.  He is a trapper, hunter, fisherman and bushman of the first order.  I’ve known him for about 20 years.  Normally Jim hunts alone, but from time to time he has agreed to take me along to share his natural world.  Now, I am no newcomer to the Alaskan bush or to hunting, but I’m not in Jim’s class.  He talks to the animals!  Not only does he talk to them, but they talk to him and he understands.  I was with him once when he talked to the moose.  Cows would cautiously approach us to get a look at this bull they heard.  When they saw us, they would stand and stare in confusion.

Jim and I went moose hunting awhile back.  The weather was lousy; temperature around 40 degrees and raining.  It was still dark that morning when we left his cabin and headed for the area he wanted to hunt.  I had been to the area before and had way-points in my GPS so I could find the particular spruce tree we were headed for.  Of course, Jim didn’t own a GPS or know how to use one.

We picked up the trail that would lead us to the area of the target tree.  A limb knocked my hat off. Jim patiently waited while I put my hat and headlamp back on.  He didn’t use a light.  After about a mile of stumbling along with branches slapping my face, we moved into an open swampy area spotted with small patches of spruce trees and willows.  The ground had a thick covering of moss and grass, with standing water.  Stealth was out of the question, so we made noises like a moose and trudged on for another mile to our tree.  Jim had led us straight to it.  I don’t know how he is able to navigate like he does.  He doesn’t even know how he does it.  If you ask him, he’ll tell you, “I just know where I want to go.”

By the time we reached the tree it was just light enough to see outlines.  While I was taking off my pack and fiddling with my gadgets, Jim scampered up the tree like a squirrel and began to call.  I could hear him moose-850391__180softly rattling and making moose sounds — AAUGGHHH!  AAUGGHH!  AUGH!  AUGH!  He even poured out some of his precious coffee, making a splashing sound like a moose taking a leak.  He was serious today!

Just as I reached for a limb to begin my climb, Jim says, “There’s a bull!”  “Where?” says I.  “Straight out in front,” says he.  Well, my front and his front were 90 degrees off, so confusion reigned for a couple of minutes.  Finally, I saw the faint outline of a bull at 75 yards.  “Shoot!” he whispers.  The bull looked like he was standing quartering away from me.  So I shot him in the middle of the ribs, expecting the 250 gr nosier partition from my .338WM to carry forward through the lungs and heart.  At my shot the bull turned broadside to me.  Jim whispered, “Shoot him through the shoulders!” I took a little more time looking at the bull through my scope and realized it had been quartering toward me, not away.  The next shot caught him in the shoulder and he took off.  Jim couldn’t stand it any longer. BANG!  He dropped the bull with a neck shot.

Jim climbed down the tree and we headed for the bull.  It was a nice, medium-sized animal.  We looked it over and I found my two bullet holes and Jim’s neck shot.  I complimented his shot in poor light at a running target.  All he said was, “I was aiming for his heart.”

Jim did most of the dressing.  I tried to help, but just got in the way.  I carried out the back straps and Jim packed out a hind quarter.  Back at my house, we rounded up family and friends to help with the rest of the moose.  With a festive air, several of us spent the rest of the day packing out all of the meat.  Over the next two days we all butchered it and packaged it.  I shared the meat with everyone there.  Anyone who kills a moose here shares in this manner.  That way no one goes without winter meat.

Jim is always ready to go hunting.  I’ll go deer hunting with him as soon as the weather breaks.  You know, he is still more comfortable talking with the animals than he is talking with people.  Nonetheless, I’m really glad I have a friend named Jim.

09.01.16
by

BIZARRE ALASKAN STORY II: NEW TWIST TO BEAR-BAITING?

According to the Huffington Post, last year a man in a realistic-looking bear costume, complete with head, ran through the area close to a weir on the Chilkoot River near Haines.  A crowd had gathered near the weir to watch a sow and two cubs who were feeding there.  They were startled when the man, dressed as a bear, began to jump up and down and then got within 5 to 10 feet of the cubs.  An Alaska Fish & Game technician moved the sow away for the man’s safety, and then tried to talk to the man, who refused to identify himself.  The man then drove off, never removing his costume.  The article said troopers were investigating and the man could face wildlife harassment charges.

Why was he bothering the bears in the first place?  No one knows.  Perhaps he felt they were getting more than their share of salmon.