Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless,
Speaker 1: severely bug bitten in my case, underwear listening podcast. You
Speaker 1: can't predict anything. Um, first thing I want to talk about,
Speaker 1: I want to revisit some of your time about earlier,
Speaker 1: earlier today, Danny, I didn't know that when when you uh,
Speaker 1: I knew you shot a mule deer out of a
Speaker 1: tree with your recurve. I don't know that you were
Speaker 1: in a tree stand you literally climbed up and shot
Speaker 1: it off the branch of a tree. No, like, you're
Speaker 1: not into the whole safety hirness scene and all that.
Speaker 1: You're just like sitting up in the limb of a
Speaker 1: tree with a recurve. Yeah, I mean, mostly out of necessity.
Speaker 1: But that's that's so old school man. Well, it was
Speaker 1: a cottonwood, you know, and had these giant horizontal branches,
Speaker 1: and I mean it felt I had I was kind
Speaker 1: of surrounded by branches and real tucked in there, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't I never felt like I was gonna fall
Speaker 1: out of it. So how'd you like nobody ever does? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it catches people by surprise, falling out of trees.
Speaker 1: So how did you like pull back and swing the
Speaker 1: bone everything up there, just standing on a branch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: standing on a big big I've done a lot of that.
Speaker 1: Actually that's my m O hunting down south for a
Speaker 1: long time. Uh yeah, I don't know. I just make
Speaker 1: it work. How can you keep your balance and and
Speaker 1: being full drawing, especially with a ree curve. But it's
Speaker 1: like it's it's just it was this cotton with the
Speaker 1: well dirt probably knows the tree. But yeah, I would
Speaker 1: always muled your hang out in your dad's place. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a big that cotton when it has like a
Speaker 1: couple of branches that swing out horizontally and then go
Speaker 1: up and it's just like this kind of a true
Speaker 1: standards shimmying up in there, settling and shot with your
Speaker 1: screwed in a few steps to get up there, you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, she meet up in there, and didn't you
Speaker 1: tie a little piece of para cord around? I might have.
Speaker 1: I think I've had a string to pull off. Was
Speaker 1: one of those Nascar harnesses five point harness. That's all, um,
Speaker 1: Buck Bowden, can you first off do you mind first
Speaker 1: off telling about uh how you how you got the
Speaker 1: name buck? Oh yeah, because you were born Mike Bod Yes,
Speaker 1: I was born Mike Boding hidden Alaska outfit. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was my first winter and nome um as at school there.
Speaker 1: It was right when locking buck knives had first come out.
Speaker 1: So so there I am the new kid in town
Speaker 1: in high school and I'm taking this buck knife at night,
Speaker 1: just been given and um, I think it was my uncle.
Speaker 1: You know, that guy's living. He was trying to, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, get me to be uh you know, an
Speaker 1: Alaska native kind of a thing, you know. So so
Speaker 1: first knife, you have the first thing. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a young boy neat needs a knife. So so he
Speaker 1: gets me this locking buck knife and I'm at school
Speaker 1: and I'm flipping it around and catching it by the blade.
Speaker 1: So um, I catch him by the blade. But then
Speaker 1: so then I sliced my thumb open, had to go
Speaker 1: to hospital. They had to sew the tendon bent back together,
Speaker 1: and then there I am at school the next day.
Speaker 1: But because I heard the story originally just because people
Speaker 1: can't see when you hold up your thumb. I heard
Speaker 1: this story originally because I was watching you working with
Speaker 1: the chainsaw and I asked you if you were double
Speaker 1: joined because I couldn't figure out why your thumbs were
Speaker 1: cocked off at such wild angles? Yep, ye hand up
Speaker 1: for a minute. It's so weird. It's so cocked off
Speaker 1: at a while, the angle if people almost could see
Speaker 1: it through the right it was in the air. And
Speaker 1: and ever since then, so yeah, so so there I
Speaker 1: am at school the next day my thumb owned the
Speaker 1: bandage had they had just sown attending together, and so
Speaker 1: me and all my infinite wisdom, there I am at
Speaker 1: school the next day doing it with my other hand. Okay,
Speaker 1: so and the same thing happened there. So there I
Speaker 1: am with with you know, I still have the scars
Speaker 1: here to show it. But um, so there I am
Speaker 1: at school now with both of my thumbs bandaged up.
Speaker 1: And ever since then they gave me the name Buck
Speaker 1: and it stuck. It was just kind of like the
Speaker 1: big joke in school, and then it just followed me on,
Speaker 1: even even on my It's like, there's so many questions
Speaker 1: that brings up. So what hand did you do it to? First?
Speaker 1: I think it was my left hand because I'm left handed,
Speaker 1: So I was with my left hand and the next
Speaker 1: day you got the bandage on that hand and you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna master that same trip with my other hand
Speaker 1: exactly and cut it the same way. Yeah, the same yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: trying to catch up late late, the same way. And
Speaker 1: of course me being left handed and trying to do
Speaker 1: my right hand, I'm not near as coordinated, you know,
Speaker 1: with my right hand. Of course. What did doctors say? Uh?
Speaker 1: He actually said that I had the brains of a cabbage,
Speaker 1: he thought. So they bandage that hand up, and when
Speaker 1: it comes out, you wind up with two what looked
Speaker 1: to be double jointed thumbs, full range emotional with the end.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, yeah, I can't bend them forward, but they
Speaker 1: automatically spring back to the ninety degree position of work
Speaker 1: for a place called professional tree service, you know, climbing
Speaker 1: trees and doing arborst work. And he had, uh he
Speaker 1: cut off his middle finger. I assumed it was from
Speaker 1: a chainsaw. He cut it off on a log splitter.
Speaker 1: Oh really, Yeah, But when he was holding the when
Speaker 1: he's holding his chainsaw, he's always giving you the middle
Speaker 1: finger because the glove, you know, his leather glove would
Speaker 1: always be sticking out. Man. Quick side note. The same
Speaker 1: guy he bought a house and someone told him when
Speaker 1: he bought a house and someone said, man. The lady
Speaker 1: that lived here before you buried a jar full of
Speaker 1: money somewhere in the yard. We don't know where and when.
Speaker 1: When I would show up to work in the morning,
Speaker 1: I think I'm supposed to be there seven, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: He'd always be out digging around in his yard. It's
Speaker 1: like his part of his morning routine would be to
Speaker 1: go out and dig around looking for his jar of
Speaker 1: money with nine fingers. But with it with this sad,
Speaker 1: I mean that's an actual fact or it's just just
Speaker 1: lords in there. Yeah. Someone told him he ran a
Speaker 1: type of chainsaw called a sax dolmar. You know that's
Speaker 1: teeth throat out of your head. Yeah, yeah, run good,
Speaker 1: but they'll rattle the teeth out of your skull. Think
Speaker 1: I think there's Stiller German made. But yeah, I haven't
Speaker 1: heard of sax dummer for a long time. Everybody runs
Speaker 1: huskar barn, isn't husks and stills? Yeah? Uh so talking
Speaker 1: about how you wind up and you know, because you
Speaker 1: were born in the Midwest, right, I was born in
Speaker 1: the Midwest. I was born in the You know, um,
Speaker 1: I was not a model perfect child when I was
Speaker 1: growing up. You know, it was in the late sixties
Speaker 1: and uh, part of the counter culture. Yeah, I was, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and there was a you know, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of h you know, they were the peace marches going on.
Speaker 1: There were there was racial tension everywhere, you know, uh
Speaker 1: pure Illinois. Yeah. And so anyway, I was at a
Speaker 1: little bit bit of a rogue. And I've always been
Speaker 1: uh you know, had to be in the outdoors and
Speaker 1: uh just a live lit to being outdoors. And I
Speaker 1: was frustrated, I guess when I was a kid, because
Speaker 1: I just didn't have, you get, getting near as much
Speaker 1: as I wanted to. So I ended up if we're
Speaker 1: into it, nah, they well, I mean they knew I
Speaker 1: always was always wanted to be any outdoors and and
Speaker 1: I was always uh you know, running away and going
Speaker 1: living in the woods, and they had to send somebody
Speaker 1: to find me and everything else. And then at one
Speaker 1: point I finally uh uh got the hanging out with
Speaker 1: U with some bad people. We broke into our my
Speaker 1: grade school, went into the science room and had our
Speaker 1: way with it, had fun with it. And so anyway,
Speaker 1: got caught doing that. So I was taken before the
Speaker 1: uh the courts, you know, the juvenile courts, and for
Speaker 1: the vandalism, for the vandalism exactly. And of course, you know,
Speaker 1: my my recent history had preceded me a boy throwing away,
Speaker 1: so apparently I was a problem child. He had to
Speaker 1: do something with me. And I'll never forget that. Uh.
Speaker 1: The judge said, well, we're gonna put you in to
Speaker 1: the Gifts Gift Home, which at the boy's home there
Speaker 1: and uh um, so I remember the judge looked looking
Speaker 1: down at his papers, and my parents said, well, if
Speaker 1: his godparents live and nom Alaska, can we send him
Speaker 1: to no nom Alaska. And the judge looked up and
Speaker 1: he looks at me over his glasses. Then he looks
Speaker 1: over my parents, looks over his glasses and says, I
Speaker 1: don't care where you're send him, just get him out
Speaker 1: of my town. And so there I am on the
Speaker 1: way to nom Alaska. So what but what did your
Speaker 1: parents think about that? What was their plan to see
Speaker 1: you again? Well, they just wanted to see me, rehability
Speaker 1: that you know that I would just thought, if you
Speaker 1: want to be in the outdoors here right, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know if there you go, buddy, so much saw
Speaker 1: that they just saw that I needed some sort of
Speaker 1: a change, you know, that they needed to get me
Speaker 1: out of the element that I was in. And actually,
Speaker 1: you know, I tell you the truth that it was
Speaker 1: the best thing ever happened to me. They put me
Speaker 1: up in an eld element that that it was nothing
Speaker 1: but outdoors. It was hunting, basically living off the land,
Speaker 1: just doing all this off the wall of stuff that
Speaker 1: I would just dreamed or read about. You know, at
Speaker 1: what age were you when you hit hit up? And um,
Speaker 1: I think it was fourteen? Yes, And did you know No, No,
Speaker 1: I was thirteen because I turned I remember landing in
Speaker 1: on me with July four and I turned fourteen July
Speaker 1: twenty four, So yeah, I was thirteen when I got there.
Speaker 1: And were your parents were there? Was there the plan
Speaker 1: that you would see your parents still? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that it wasn't the thing where yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: where they just wrote wrote me off and said, you know,
Speaker 1: good to good luck. You know, it was just they
Speaker 1: stayed in touch and then i'd uh. I think I
Speaker 1: think it was about a year later, No, a year
Speaker 1: and a half player because it was in wintertime, went
Speaker 1: down and um, you know, saw him in the family
Speaker 1: and and was with the family and and ever since
Speaker 1: then you know, we we we're still real real close
Speaker 1: our family is. So it wasn't like everybody just you know,
Speaker 1: way bye bye and they forgot So when you were
Speaker 1: when you were knowing, you fell in hanging out with
Speaker 1: the the native kids. That's what what what what like
Speaker 1: what adigitous group? Is it known? It would be the Inupiats. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the the Inupiats up there, and uh that's how you
Speaker 1: kind of fell in with yep yep. And you know
Speaker 1: my uh instantly had had a native girlfriend my year,
Speaker 1: my first year there, and I got to know their
Speaker 1: family real well, and I'd hang out with him and
Speaker 1: and it was it was just to me just the
Speaker 1: needest thing in the world, being able to go and
Speaker 1: you know, eat traditional native food. And I wasn't afraid
Speaker 1: for ready to try it, and I had actually ended
Speaker 1: up loving it, you know, uh d brook, which is
Speaker 1: you know seal that's soaked in seal oil, and I
Speaker 1: love that, uh you know, muck tuck uh oh shuck um.
Speaker 1: And then so I'd live but um, you know, I
Speaker 1: hung around with them quite a bit in their family.
Speaker 1: They uh, they spoke the native tongue more more and
Speaker 1: more than they did English, so you know, I got
Speaker 1: to uh learn a little bit about the culture and
Speaker 1: hang out with him, and and it was it was
Speaker 1: before the UM you know, the uh I could still
Speaker 1: at that that point hunt Seal with him and Morris
Speaker 1: and all assoor. I was able to go on those
Speaker 1: kinds of hunts. And that was before the UM the
Speaker 1: Act where yeah, yeah Marine Man Protection Act, right, you
Speaker 1: got a company him on hunts? Oh yeah yeah. How
Speaker 1: would you guys go as you shoot shoot Seal? How
Speaker 1: would you guys go hunt Walrus? Uh well, uh kind
Speaker 1: of the DAUM. The really neat thing was was that
Speaker 1: my my godparents stayed. One worked, Uh my my godfather
Speaker 1: worked worked for BLM not not not not b I
Speaker 1: a burial Bureau of Indian Affairs. And then uh my
Speaker 1: godmother should work for state Social services. So they were
Speaker 1: always having to fly to the real obscure villages like Selfunga, Gamble, Diamede,
Speaker 1: and uh I was able to go along with them.
Speaker 1: And at first it was it was like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go there, but but they would,
Speaker 1: uh they wanted me to see all this stuff, which
Speaker 1: which now I mean that I have no idea just
Speaker 1: just how fortunately really really was. So we'd go to uh.
Speaker 1: I remember my first of all or hunt. We went
Speaker 1: to Savunga and stay stayed with some people there, and
Speaker 1: uh they asked me if I wanted to go out
Speaker 1: with them and one of the umiaks you know the
Speaker 1: next day. So I did explain what us it's a
Speaker 1: water skin boat. It's a it's a wood frame boat
Speaker 1: and they take the uh, walrus skin they usually split it,
Speaker 1: you know, put it over the wood frame. It dries
Speaker 1: and and it's just a walrus skin boat. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they wanted to take that and take you and go Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean what wasn't a um, it was just they
Speaker 1: invited me to go, So I said sure, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I went went along and I did that a couple
Speaker 1: of once in Saboon, go once in Gamble and then
Speaker 1: uh which it's on St. Lord's Island. Yeah, real quick.
Speaker 1: How would they hunt the waters with with with rifles?
Speaker 1: They'd go, we'd it was you know, we we looked
Speaker 1: farm on the ice floes and we'd be going you
Speaker 1: know along and then we'd uh you know, binoculars and
Speaker 1: and we'd see them and then they'd get as closer
Speaker 1: they could and then they um usually take the one
Speaker 1: of the bigger bulls because they were not only not
Speaker 1: not after the meat, but tusk. We're pretty important to Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: when when you've heard when you hit walters and you
Speaker 1: gotta be careful because they'll sink, right, Uh, I suppose
Speaker 1: they do, you know, yeah, I've heard that too. But
Speaker 1: but the ones they took were always on the ice flows.
Speaker 1: And then uh, I remember there was one that that
Speaker 1: I um actually did get into the water and they
Speaker 1: got up close enough that they were able to tie
Speaker 1: a buoy to it before saying Yeah, that's like they
Speaker 1: but they know where where to place the shot. That's
Speaker 1: what this tupid guy I was telling us he was.
Speaker 1: Me and Johnnie were spend the time with the tupid
Speaker 1: out on Novak and Ny on him with the two
Speaker 1: twenty three. Wasn't that right Johnnie? I don't remember the
Speaker 1: saying like yeah, fifty or two twenty three and he said,
Speaker 1: you got it. You know they placed the bullet just
Speaker 1: to get him right in the brain pan, because they
Speaker 1: said if he goes in the water, you can lose.
Speaker 1: You can lose the whole rollers and sink down if
Speaker 1: you can't get over and get at it quick, so
Speaker 1: he says, you gotta you gotta slump He was saying,
Speaker 1: you gotta slump it right up on the ice. From
Speaker 1: what I would remembering, I think they were they were
Speaker 1: aiming for the ice hocket. They were aimed for the eye.
Speaker 1: That that was their favorite favorite place to shoot them,
Speaker 1: you know, anywhere else of course, you know that they
Speaker 1: have such such a thick skull that but the ones
Speaker 1: I remember, yeah, that they would get it right in
Speaker 1: the eye. Did you like eating that walrus? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really actually pretty good. Would you go inland? Would
Speaker 1: you go inland with them and hunt caribou? Or didn't
Speaker 1: they because they there were no caribou around there. That's
Speaker 1: a reindeer area, you know, the um you know, like
Speaker 1: the Seward Peninsula at that time that it was mostly
Speaker 1: all reindeer herds there, Um and Noon or St. Lawrence Island.
Speaker 1: I don't believe they had any kind of caribou or
Speaker 1: even reindeer there, But they'd hunt birds out there. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Burt bird and saw some of the most beautiful bird
Speaker 1: skin park as. They'd wear and they weren't you know,
Speaker 1: they would they would actually wear them because they were
Speaker 1: functional you know, they shed water well and and they
Speaker 1: were warm but but beautiful the same time too. I
Speaker 1: mean they were actually still in that day in the
Speaker 1: seventies and dressing and uh in the traditional native where
Speaker 1: you know. So, how did it work out that? How
Speaker 1: did it work out that you got involved in guiding?
Speaker 1: Like what was the first thing that started pulling you
Speaker 1: out of know them and bringing you kind of into
Speaker 1: the you know, into the big game world right well?
Speaker 1: And and and even though you had that like that
Speaker 1: exposure to subsistence lifestyle, like, what was it that drew
Speaker 1: you into you know, being out in the mountains and
Speaker 1: hunting moose and sheep and whatnot. Well, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what that um. And even when I was a kids
Speaker 1: still in the Illinois you know here in the life
Speaker 1: of big game hunters and guiding big game hunters, it
Speaker 1: was always just kind of real romantic life for me.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to uh just uh hunt and fish
Speaker 1: and and uh so, so I always had that, you know,
Speaker 1: that that allure. And then when I actually went to
Speaker 1: know and was able to go out and hunt arm
Speaker 1: again and moose and and get the tape taste of it,
Speaker 1: I loved it. And when we moved to hunt, moves
Speaker 1: out of home. Oh yeah, uh huh yeah. And so
Speaker 1: when I got that Anchorage, we you know, and my
Speaker 1: my buddies in school, we'd be going hunting snowshoe hair,
Speaker 1: we'd be going out hunting anything anywhere, you know, moose.
Speaker 1: And then how did you wind up done an Anchor? Though? Um, well,
Speaker 1: it just ended up that they my godparents, they decided
Speaker 1: they had enough of the bush life and they moved
Speaker 1: to Anchorage. So I moved with him. And so you're
Speaker 1: a teenager then or whatever I was. Yeah, in fact
Speaker 1: that it was my junior year in high school. And
Speaker 1: then so then I graduated from high school and an Anchorage.
Speaker 1: Did you think did your view going from Nome to
Speaker 1: Anchorage as like a major setback in your hunting life? Oh?
Speaker 1: I hated it. I didn't want to go to Anchorage.
Speaker 1: Was having a blast. I had had all these girlfriends,
Speaker 1: I had honey, and I had everything. It was. I mean,
Speaker 1: life was a grand you know. And uh, but you
Speaker 1: got sucked into the big city. Yeah, I got sucked
Speaker 1: into the big city. I did not want to go
Speaker 1: just uh and then uh, and of course had get
Speaker 1: to know him, and then Anchorage and then had get
Speaker 1: adjusted to the big size city life at that point,
Speaker 1: a big high school, you know, the the we we
Speaker 1: called at the Green Box and Nome. You know at
Speaker 1: the Green Box, it was you know, um it was
Speaker 1: high school. It was it was junior high. It was
Speaker 1: great school. Everybody in the same box. And then they've
Speaker 1: already started the pipeline at this point. No, they haven't, No,
Speaker 1: seven the eight. Yeah, they started the pipeline believe seventy five,
Speaker 1: seventy six, and we're talking Bridge wasn't really Anchorage wasn't
Speaker 1: really here in the way we know it today. No, No,
Speaker 1: I mean it's you know, the change once the pipeline
Speaker 1: started up, Anchorge just manage had boomed. You know, it
Speaker 1: was amazing. I mean the hunting I'm joking about Anchors
Speaker 1: is the hunter run. Anchorage is still prettydamn good if
Speaker 1: you're you're ambitious. Yeah, a good place for lazy It's
Speaker 1: not a good place for lazy hunters. No, it's not,
Speaker 1: you know, but it's also one of these things where
Speaker 1: we've got hunters that they get into Anchorage and and
Speaker 1: they think, man, it's gonna be a snap because they
Speaker 1: see moose walking around downtown Anchorage and even bears and
Speaker 1: down downtown Anchors. So they're they're thinking, Wow, what's it
Speaker 1: gonna be like when I really get out in the
Speaker 1: woods if there's this kind of you know, animal movement,
Speaker 1: you know, wild game movement right in downtown Anchorage, you know,
Speaker 1: down and then what happens And then and then they
Speaker 1: get out there and they realized that, you know, it
Speaker 1: takes them a while, but they realize there isn't a
Speaker 1: moose or behind every tree, there isn't a bear behind
Speaker 1: every tree. These animals really don't care whether I see
Speaker 1: them or not. You know, Whereas the animals and anchors,
Speaker 1: they're they're used to people, so they're not a threat.
Speaker 1: Whereas uh, you know, they get out into the bush,
Speaker 1: all these animals still have that natural fear and they're
Speaker 1: gonna you know, they're they're they're ears and nose and
Speaker 1: eyes are telling them, you know, we don't want me
Speaker 1: to think that they need to do with you. We're
Speaker 1: looking animals. So what was the kind of hunting you
Speaker 1: guys are doing in high school? Uh? High school? Uh,
Speaker 1: it was mostly small game, I guess, you know, off
Speaker 1: off the road system. Uh, moose season would come on
Speaker 1: and we'd we'd go moose hunting in September, but like
Speaker 1: during the winter ptarmigan, snowshoe hair, spruce and any anything
Speaker 1: to get out and just play in the woods. You know,
Speaker 1: we had back then there actually was still a winter
Speaker 1: season for sheep and go back into chew catch and
Speaker 1: it hadn't gone to permit area in there yet, so um,
Speaker 1: you know, we could go in there and hunt sheep
Speaker 1: and goat in the winter. I never took took one
Speaker 1: in the winter, but I'd go with friends and they would.
Speaker 1: You know, that's pretty tough, huh. I actually no, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: You know. I'd go back there with a snow machine
Speaker 1: and wander around and so you know, and that's that
Speaker 1: and rightly so it's a good thing that they closed it.
Speaker 1: And of course now it's all it's all permit in
Speaker 1: there too. So so how old were you when you
Speaker 1: got your first moose? Um? Well it wasn't we were known.
Speaker 1: I suppose of fourteen. And how about when he came
Speaker 1: down here, when I came down here, Um, I myself
Speaker 1: didn't take any moose until I went out to um
Speaker 1: went out to where I took to the river where
Speaker 1: I started doing all my guide and and really got
Speaker 1: got into the hardcore bush lifestyle. So it was and
Speaker 1: then it would have been that winner, my first winner
Speaker 1: in there. After all the hunters had left. Then it
Speaker 1: was just me and there. I decided to stay the
Speaker 1: state of Winter, and I was going to be the Uh.
Speaker 1: I was going to trap for a living. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to go back to town. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: live out there because how old are you at this point? Okay, uh,
Speaker 1: my first year out of high school, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to be I'm going to be nineteen at this point.
Speaker 1: So then at that point you said, I'm gonna go off,
Speaker 1: I'm living the bush and try to become a guide
Speaker 1: and trapper. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean. And and that's
Speaker 1: when a pipe pipeline first start. When I graduated from
Speaker 1: high school, I had two choices. I could go up
Speaker 1: work on a pipeline and become filthy rich like everybody
Speaker 1: thought they would. Or I could go out living the woods,
Speaker 1: take care of horses and be a worthless mountain man.
Speaker 1: Let me see which way at the scales tilting, and
Speaker 1: they they tilted to me going out and being a
Speaker 1: worthless mountain man. And I succeeded. You just found an
Speaker 1: outfit or too. Yeah, um yeah, yeah, the uh the
Speaker 1: outfit that went out to work for. He would look
Speaker 1: for somebody to uh rotting and take care of the horses,
Speaker 1: and um, you know it was like you know, duh
Speaker 1: who who? Who would what? What? What? Kid wouldn't wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to go live out in the woods and his
Speaker 1: main transportation being mean horses living off the land and
Speaker 1: I mean that, So this guy was keeping his horses
Speaker 1: out over the winter. Yeah, we actually took took the horses,
Speaker 1: and ye had the we were The first thoughts were
Speaker 1: that we were going to be flying, you know, bringing
Speaker 1: the horses and riding the horses in and out every winter.
Speaker 1: But that tripped in with the horses was so miserable
Speaker 1: that that we decided to win or the horses in there.
Speaker 1: But now this isn't the same trip that you went
Speaker 1: in to find your lodge for the first time. Oh no, no,
Speaker 1: this is different. Yeah, this is this is early. This
Speaker 1: is before I didn't really stake uh uh the lodge
Speaker 1: land until seventies six. This is after I'd already been
Speaker 1: established further a valley about twenty five miles up from
Speaker 1: where to lodge is now so talking about So there's
Speaker 1: an outfitter that wants to get some horses back into
Speaker 1: the bush and he wants to use them to hunt
Speaker 1: sheep and mooth with. Yeah, and but there's no trail,
Speaker 1: there's no what's the take to get the horses in there? Like,
Speaker 1: what kind of journey is that? Um man, it's just
Speaker 1: for one thing, Alaska at least at least south central
Speaker 1: Alaska is really not good horse country. I mean it's swampy,
Speaker 1: there's willows. It's just it's just miserable, you know. Mean, uh,
Speaker 1: it's not not like you know, the West, where you've
Speaker 1: got solid ground, you know. Yeah. Now and uh so yeah,
Speaker 1: the uh we started heading out there, we're we're you know,
Speaker 1: having this vision of you know, the mountain men heading
Speaker 1: off into uh into the mountain. Everything's going to be
Speaker 1: rosy and and uh ends up to get getting stuck
Speaker 1: in a willow patches, getting the horses mired down and
Speaker 1: um the willows. We got to one one creek where
Speaker 1: we had to uh we couldn't cross it Hilton River,
Speaker 1: so we had to go clear up to Mountain McKinley
Speaker 1: across Hilton and glacier come down the other side. And
Speaker 1: then uh so how many miles does this trip went
Speaker 1: up being with these horses? Yeah, and well as the
Speaker 1: crow flies only about a about a hundred and twenty miles,
Speaker 1: but as if you follow the path and probably being
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty three hundred, you know, just from
Speaker 1: all the detours we had to take, and how many
Speaker 1: horses we started out seven? I gather that means someone
Speaker 1: didn't make it. Yeah, yeah, we started started out with seven.
Speaker 1: And then we we we had had the the river
Speaker 1: destination in mind where we were going to go. And
Speaker 1: then when instead of a base camp, to start guiding exactly,
Speaker 1: and uh and of course I was just the gold
Speaker 1: for it. At this point, I was just you know,
Speaker 1: one um you know the other uh, two guys I
Speaker 1: was with, they were the they were the licensed guides.
Speaker 1: I was the new new kid on the block that
Speaker 1: was just there to help for for for the adventure.
Speaker 1: So they think at first like we'll bring these horses
Speaker 1: in dty miles or whatever and then we'll hunt all
Speaker 1: fall and then ride them back to town exactly at
Speaker 1: the winning closed never came back to oh no, no no,
Speaker 1: And then all the other horses that we took out there.
Speaker 1: We ended up flying in you know, to um. There
Speaker 1: was a mine strip that was quite a way down,
Speaker 1: so we'd bload horses up into a caribou and fly
Speaker 1: them out and then right ride them up valley. What
Speaker 1: in the hell are you feeding them out there in
Speaker 1: the wintertime on the wintertime, Well, you know, when we'd
Speaker 1: have the beaver come out, they would bring clients, and
Speaker 1: an empty plane would come out to pick up clients.
Speaker 1: We'd we'd fill a plane up with oats and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, compressed bales about falfa um. And then I
Speaker 1: remember many times having to lay on top of bags
Speaker 1: of feed in the plane, you know, to get get
Speaker 1: somewhere because we had to have feed in there. But
Speaker 1: then we supplemented further further roughage during the winter. I
Speaker 1: cut birch trees and drink dragon whole birch trees, and
Speaker 1: they would they would eat eat the birch limbs, even
Speaker 1: the whole tree for for their roughage. So at him
Speaker 1: once in the morning, once in the evening, um uh
Speaker 1: scoop of pellette, scoop of boats and then a leaf
Speaker 1: leaf about falfa. Then when they would get really cold
Speaker 1: when we're talking, you know, thirty five degree below zero
Speaker 1: would supplement their feed with molasses. You know that that
Speaker 1: would make sense with it. And you know, Steve, it
Speaker 1: was really crazy. These these horse the first horse that
Speaker 1: we had. Uh. We we bought them. Uh. They came
Speaker 1: from the Yukon, Yeah, and we bought them. They they
Speaker 1: were they were young, they didn't know what in the
Speaker 1: World War world to do. But when we went out there.
Speaker 1: I remember the first first year, we tried building him
Speaker 1: a shelter like a barn, may makeshift barn to keep going,
Speaker 1: and said, and they would not did no matter of
Speaker 1: freezing rain, freezing cold, uh snow, they would not go
Speaker 1: into any kind of shelter. They would just come and
Speaker 1: and stand with their butts up against the door of
Speaker 1: the cabin there and and uh, but but they were
Speaker 1: they were so tough, so rangy, you know that they were. Um,
Speaker 1: they were pretty amazing. And and we we we actually
Speaker 1: did try getting some horses from from the lower forty
Speaker 1: eight and brought them up and too of them didn't
Speaker 1: even like last the first winter. Absolutely, man, if a
Speaker 1: guy up here, if he won't won't want a horse
Speaker 1: for the type operation what we're gonna do if you
Speaker 1: can get it from Canada, that's the way to do it. Um.
Speaker 1: So eventually comes up like, well, someone's gonna have to
Speaker 1: stay here with the horses all winner because we can't
Speaker 1: ride them out, and that becomes your job. It's not
Speaker 1: my job. It was my wish. So then here you are.
Speaker 1: Now you're gonna spend You're spending the whole winter out
Speaker 1: in the bush by yourself. Oh yeah, man, here's this
Speaker 1: kid from Illinois. All his life he wanted to be
Speaker 1: Jeremiah Johnson, you know, he wanted to he wanted to
Speaker 1: trap and and uh you know, just just be be
Speaker 1: a mountain man. And here's my opportunity. I mean, right
Speaker 1: down to the horses and sawbucks and having to use
Speaker 1: the horses to run the trapline. You know, we there
Speaker 1: were no snow machines. The only mechanical thing we had
Speaker 1: out there was a change all the ram about half
Speaker 1: the time. You know, everything else was uh you know,
Speaker 1: either on old wooden snow shoes running the trap line
Speaker 1: when it got too deep for the horses, or know,
Speaker 1: the beginning the season, I have to have the horses
Speaker 1: to run and go ahead and string the steel and
Speaker 1: then i'd um go, you don't use the horses. I'd
Speaker 1: build a little lean twos that that uh, you know,
Speaker 1: out of spruce trees. You know, I'd cut across bar,
Speaker 1: put spruce trees on it and just just basically made
Speaker 1: made a little cave about the spruce trees. It was
Speaker 1: snow over the top top of that, and it'd be
Speaker 1: a shelter, you know. So I spend the night out
Speaker 1: in in those and uh, you know, and because so
Speaker 1: I had three I had three lines out. I had
Speaker 1: my up river line, my down river line, and my
Speaker 1: upper mountain line and the mountain mountain line. It was
Speaker 1: it was only about two miles straight straight up the mountain.
Speaker 1: That's the one i'd take on the you know what
Speaker 1: I wanted to break. And then the other ones were
Speaker 1: they were like five miles long, so ten ten miles
Speaker 1: round trip, which which when you have an established trail,
Speaker 1: snowshoot trail, I mean, you can scoop right right along.
Speaker 1: But when you have a fresh snow, of course, you
Speaker 1: haven't having to break break trail, so it can kind
Speaker 1: of kind of wear you out a little bit. It's
Speaker 1: your trap A pine Martin Lynx Wolverine, Uh, yeah. My
Speaker 1: big money makers were um Martin number one, wolverine, number
Speaker 1: two beaver. The price on beaver were high then. And uh,
Speaker 1: first I tried trapping beaver through through the ice. You know,
Speaker 1: all the all the romantic things you see in the
Speaker 1: books about cutting a hole and making your pole and wiring,
Speaker 1: you know, forget that. I just started trapping the bank beavers,
Speaker 1: you know. And when it was cold, you wouldn't see them.
Speaker 1: But as soon as you get a warm snap, the
Speaker 1: beaver would be out, like you know, they'd be coming out,
Speaker 1: you know, smelling the front fresh air, and and and
Speaker 1: they'd be everywhere, and they were a lot easier to take.
Speaker 1: Then focus on him in the spring, I'm sorry, you'd
Speaker 1: focus on him in the spring none, and in the fall,
Speaker 1: you know, early on and then and then even throws
Speaker 1: up and ride exactly yeah, and then and then even
Speaker 1: like like like I said, when there'd be a warm
Speaker 1: spell come up, you know, you'll have to have your
Speaker 1: chinooks come in and January, you know, late December, January, February,
Speaker 1: and be beaver will come out then and then they'll
Speaker 1: go back in once that warm warm spells over. But
Speaker 1: it was more I caught more in the fall, because
Speaker 1: usually had try and get out of there, um you know,
Speaker 1: the end of February and trying to hit the for
Speaker 1: rendezvous and hit the fur auctions and sell my furs.
Speaker 1: You know, So were you making more money trapping or
Speaker 1: more money taking care of these horses. I wouldn't getting
Speaker 1: paid to take care of the horses I had to.
Speaker 1: I was just out there, you know, voluntarily. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be there. So I wasn't getting paid to take
Speaker 1: take care of the horses. Um. It was who wanted
Speaker 1: to make any money? I had to trap, but I
Speaker 1: had had had no expenses. You know, they they paid
Speaker 1: for my food. You know what what food they would
Speaker 1: give me, of course, you know, all the prime stuff
Speaker 1: like uh, butter and potatoes and everything. It was always
Speaker 1: gone within the first month and then usually ended up
Speaker 1: the last couple of months. And I would be in
Speaker 1: there there, had nothing but a strict meat diet. You know.
Speaker 1: I'd have to shoot a moose and and then I
Speaker 1: live live on the moose. It was. I had a
Speaker 1: grinder out there, so it'd be like, you know, I'd
Speaker 1: grind up some mooseburger, had mooseburger in the morning, and
Speaker 1: then then moose steak for lunch, mooseburger in the evening,
Speaker 1: the moose steak for breakfast, and so it kind of altered.
Speaker 1: I'd always had have some some kind of a moose concoction.
Speaker 1: You know, your beaver meat. Oh, man, beaver is really
Speaker 1: actually pretty good. It is. Yeah. Um. And then I
Speaker 1: remember one time called Lynx, and uh, I tried eating
Speaker 1: the links and the Lynx was I was amazed. Lynx
Speaker 1: is really good, you know. Um. And I've tried a
Speaker 1: few other things. I remember, Uh, one time, Well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try some wolverine. I take the skulls like like
Speaker 1: the wolf wolverine, and I boil them, you know, to
Speaker 1: keep the skulls clean. So I thought, this ain't been
Speaker 1: boiling for a while. That meat's got to be pretty tender.
Speaker 1: So I pulled a skull out and I just kind
Speaker 1: of take it. Look at it looks pretty tender, kind
Speaker 1: of been into it like like an apple. Bad idea.
Speaker 1: It's like the muscle. No, it's not. Now would you
Speaker 1: eat pine squirrel, porcupine? Uh, pork? During the summer for
Speaker 1: for meat, Usually what I do in the spring I
Speaker 1: would shoot a black bear and then I had to
Speaker 1: make makeshift smoker that that I'd smoke up the black
Speaker 1: bear meat. And then for fresh meat, it would have
Speaker 1: to be uh uh ate a lot of grade in
Speaker 1: a rainbow out of the river. But but i'd also
Speaker 1: um eat a lot of porky pine, um you know,
Speaker 1: um snow, snowshoe hair, um, grouse anything. You know. Of
Speaker 1: course we wouldn't take it, take any mooser because it
Speaker 1: just wouldn't keep there any way way to preserve. But
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of small game. And then
Speaker 1: eventually the fall comes and it's time to guide, right yeah,
Speaker 1: and that became kind of your you kind of oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. Not not only the passion, but uh you know,
Speaker 1: at some point to a guy said well, you know,
Speaker 1: I need I need to make some money. So uh yeah,
Speaker 1: my first uh first first to your your guide now
Speaker 1: was um really scared nervous. But but once the guy
Speaker 1: guy got out there, um he was from Hungry, didn't
Speaker 1: um speak any English. Your first client was hungry. He
Speaker 1: was yeah, yeah, he didn't speak speaking any English, and
Speaker 1: and so um he pretty much depended on me. And
Speaker 1: it was kind of like, uh, you know, wow, there's
Speaker 1: somebody out there that depends on me, I have kind
Speaker 1: of had his life in my hand. I felt powerful
Speaker 1: because I was really secure and I can take this
Speaker 1: guy out and take take care of him. He sure
Speaker 1: couldn't take care of himself. And were you calling moves them? Uh? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I learned from the guys I first started without there.
Speaker 1: I'd listened to him, and the first time I saw
Speaker 1: it happened, I was like, Wow, this really works. And
Speaker 1: then a lot of it came to rip a cow
Speaker 1: call for us real quick. Oh, it gives me a
Speaker 1: little chub. Now do the do the do a bull call? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And and and you have to try and protect everybody
Speaker 1: wants to go out there with the birch bark cones
Speaker 1: and everything else. But to me, that's just just ridiculous. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then and then there's uh under says some you
Speaker 1: know people have these um make make a hole in
Speaker 1: the bottle of coffee, can pull a rope through it,
Speaker 1: and none that ever ever, I sounded real to me,
Speaker 1: And a lot of the what I would do, I
Speaker 1: would actually be out there and actually here the cows
Speaker 1: or here the bulls. And then and then just try
Speaker 1: and mimic that. You know, I've yet to hear have
Speaker 1: yet to hear a Kyle never heard a call to
Speaker 1: a call call? Oh man, every every yeah yeah, bulls
Speaker 1: but every year pretty common. I mean me, I mean,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I remember I've been laying in in the
Speaker 1: sleeping bag at night in moose camp here in Kyls Colins. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I say that man, But I gotta
Speaker 1: checking my older brother, my mother, not day any here,
Speaker 1: but my other older brother, because maybe the more I
Speaker 1: think about it, I think that I got talk to
Speaker 1: him about it. I think years ago we did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta ask Hi about that because I
Speaker 1: have like the vaguas recollection of it. But uh, back
Speaker 1: in this chat from Hungary, this is your first guiding experience.
Speaker 1: It is my my my very first son. Does the
Speaker 1: guy get a moose? Yes? He did, Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: was it was so so funny when I, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he was scared to death of horses, and of course
Speaker 1: all the horses had different personalities, you know, and and
Speaker 1: so I tried put him on the uh most docile
Speaker 1: horse we had, but but still the same token. You
Speaker 1: know that a horse, a horse can really sense an
Speaker 1: inexperienced rider. You know, he'd an old punky. She'd kind
Speaker 1: of looked back and put it with her eyes and
Speaker 1: she said, yeah, I got this guy's ticket. I know
Speaker 1: what I can get get away with. And we we'd
Speaker 1: go off up the trail and punk you'd take him
Speaker 1: underneath branches, you know, and knock him off. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: of course yeah, he's uh like like with the rain,
Speaker 1: you're you're trying to teach him, well, the horses are
Speaker 1: net neck rain. But of course you know he's he's
Speaker 1: got the reins and he's trying to trying to pull
Speaker 1: him like uh, you know, pull the head one way
Speaker 1: or the next. And she didn't like that. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, final life had enough, you know, the what
Speaker 1: what what what she's thinking and he just he just
Speaker 1: couldn't get it. Guy a great guy, and it was
Speaker 1: it was fun. It was a fun experience. And being
Speaker 1: able to just have somebody else's you know, life in
Speaker 1: my own hands and being able to to take him
Speaker 1: whatever was they were looking for was fun. Did you
Speaker 1: did you like being responsible for someone because you'd always
Speaker 1: perceived yourself as the troublemaker and the derelict, and here
Speaker 1: was sort of a way that of proving that that
Speaker 1: wasn't true, Like, what do you mean that you liked having?
Speaker 1: Now that's a that's a little deep. I never really
Speaker 1: thought about that. I mean it might be a little deep.
Speaker 1: I mean there's gonna be something going on. Why did
Speaker 1: you like having? I never really tried to analyze it,
Speaker 1: But to me, it was just, um, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't see see it, you know, from my from my
Speaker 1: fault as a as a kid. I I just saw
Speaker 1: it just enjoying taking this guy out because because I'm
Speaker 1: really good at what I'm what I'm doing, and uh,
Speaker 1: something I've always wanted to do. Did you like that? Uh,
Speaker 1: like the teacher role, like show someone something you liked,
Speaker 1: you show someone something you love to kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I really enjoyed the uh, you know, especially
Speaker 1: beating being at at that that age somebody looking up
Speaker 1: to me, you know, somebody's older me, older than me,
Speaker 1: a senior looking up to me and and asking me
Speaker 1: these questions, how did we do this? How do we
Speaker 1: do that? Or just seeing me as uh, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the expert and what I'm doing and that that that
Speaker 1: that that felt good from from the client's perspective, was
Speaker 1: probably really cool to be hanging with someone that was
Speaker 1: that connected to the landscape. Oh yeah, because I think
Speaker 1: at least in this day and age and maybe then too,
Speaker 1: so many of these guys roll in just for a
Speaker 1: few weeks here in hunt and season somewhere in lower
Speaker 1: forty eight and yeah, and plus I I suppose I
Speaker 1: probably probably looked apart too. You know, here's this here's
Speaker 1: this guy with a longer hair and the cloak close
Speaker 1: a war. Not that I was trying to address the part.
Speaker 1: It's just that you naturally fall into into the look
Speaker 1: and the mystique, you know, the movement you do just
Speaker 1: somebody that's lived in the bush, and you know, you
Speaker 1: get these people from that come in that are pretty
Speaker 1: much city born and uh you know, d owing the
Speaker 1: city and they they can they can see that that
Speaker 1: you've been out in the bush and you're comfortable out
Speaker 1: there and you're confident and yeah, and that they don't
Speaker 1: have any problem and putting their life in your hand.
Speaker 1: How long did you guide for that outfit before going
Speaker 1: off and trying to start your own outfitting business. Oh.
Speaker 1: I was with him until clear through the clear through
Speaker 1: the eighties, and then I got my master guideline or
Speaker 1: and then I went into business from I think my
Speaker 1: first hunters were like n somewhere right by yourself. And
Speaker 1: at that point where you already you were already had
Speaker 1: experienced guiding the things like the main things you like
Speaker 1: to focus on now our doll, sheep, moose, and brown bears,
Speaker 1: right right, doll sheep, moose, brown bear, grizzly. They're they're
Speaker 1: what we're most noted for in that order. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that was your order again, uh, sheep, moose, brown bear, grizzly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that that's basically more what you know, what we
Speaker 1: had out there, but what I cut my teeth on.
Speaker 1: And uh and in our area you know just has
Speaker 1: has a good, good population of all those. So when
Speaker 1: you went into business by yourself, that's what you focused on,
Speaker 1: right Yeah, Yeah, we advertise more for you know. Um
Speaker 1: and if you want to take care of Boo black bear,
Speaker 1: they're out there, and uh, you know you can go
Speaker 1: ahead and and take them and don't know, no extra
Speaker 1: charge out there. Because I've always been a firm believia.
Speaker 1: If you book a tent tent ten day hunt, you
Speaker 1: ought to be able to stay out there and hunt
Speaker 1: hunt for ten ten days, you know. But those times
Speaker 1: of changing now oh boy, big time. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: no one wants to hunt hard anymore. Yeah they yeah,
Speaker 1: and and that that that' say you just can't events
Speaker 1: a lot of these people that very rarely do these
Speaker 1: animals come in and surrender. I mean you've actually got
Speaker 1: to go out there and work for him. You have
Speaker 1: to get wet, you have to get dirty, you have
Speaker 1: to uh yeah, you've got to be uncomfortable some sometimes
Speaker 1: and you have to work work hard at it, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you have have to be able to accept
Speaker 1: disappointment sometimes. You know that animals aren't always going to
Speaker 1: move the way you want. And a guide can be
Speaker 1: out there and you can have all the experience and
Speaker 1: the expertise in the world, but sometimes, uh you know,
Speaker 1: there's uh, you know, that's not enough. These animals don't
Speaker 1: care whether you see them or not. They're going to
Speaker 1: do their very best to avoid you. And you were
Speaker 1: but you were involved in Alaska hunting at a time
Speaker 1: when there was still a bit of like exploration going on, right,
Speaker 1: I mean not like big like Matt making, but I
Speaker 1: mean that you could pioneer new hunting spots back then.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, and that and that was part
Speaker 1: of the part of the fun I had when I
Speaker 1: went out out there there there too. And my uh
Speaker 1: to me, part of my job or my my obligations
Speaker 1: to were to take the horses and just head that
Speaker 1: way to see what's over there, you know, And they
Speaker 1: were they were still areas that are you know, wild word,
Speaker 1: nobody was hunting in. Nobody had really been in there
Speaker 1: and tried it out. And I'd take the horses and
Speaker 1: I'd head up and into the mountains for days, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: exploring new places. So did you find like a lot
Speaker 1: of little sheep spots and stuff that people just hadn't
Speaker 1: hunted sheep? Yeah, Well, the area where we hunted it
Speaker 1: was before the Donale National Park and Preserve was um
Speaker 1: um implemented. So we'd go up the head of the
Speaker 1: valley and we'd always heard they were sheep up there,
Speaker 1: and and so we took the horses up there. It took,
Speaker 1: you know, about three days went up there just to
Speaker 1: check it out. And I saw that the west sheep
Speaker 1: but there. So we went ahead and booked a couple
Speaker 1: of hunters and took them up there. Before that, it
Speaker 1: was just you know, I people would fly up there,
Speaker 1: but we we didn't really have access to airplanes or
Speaker 1: anything that things like like that, so it was just
Speaker 1: all everything we did exploring we did. We're all a
Speaker 1: horseback And what would be a long hunt for you
Speaker 1: guys back then? Ten days? Yeah, everything is usually based
Speaker 1: on ten days. But what about when you just messing
Speaker 1: around by yourself? Um me, as far as my hunting goes,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Pretty much just hunting every day. I mean,
Speaker 1: if there's a time where, like during trapping season or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I needed moose, I just go out there and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't get hardcourt with the clients. You know, you're
Speaker 1: obligated to hit it hard all day, every every day.
Speaker 1: And I just when I was out there by myself,
Speaker 1: hunting on my own, I just do it at my
Speaker 1: own convenience, you know, if I wanted to or needed it,
Speaker 1: or if I got hungry. What's a master guide license? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: it's basically just to uh. It holds the same weight
Speaker 1: as a registered guide license, but it's a it's a
Speaker 1: longevity thing that you qualify for it. Begat how many
Speaker 1: years you've had to been a master or a registered
Speaker 1: guide for so many years, had so many favorable recommendations
Speaker 1: been approved by the guideboard before they'll issue you a
Speaker 1: master guide license. So it takes a minimum of at
Speaker 1: least twenty two or twenty three years to become a
Speaker 1: master guide because you've had to do done your initiation
Speaker 1: as an assistant guide, which takes three years. Then you
Speaker 1: can apply to take your registered guide test at least
Speaker 1: that this Batmack when I did it in the seventies.
Speaker 1: And then then you've had to have been a registered
Speaker 1: guide book so many hunters had so many favorable recommendations
Speaker 1: from them, and then you can apply for your master
Speaker 1: guide license. And how many master guides do you think
Speaker 1: are in this state now? I'm not sure I know.
Speaker 1: Um uh, they don't reissue him uh a master guide
Speaker 1: license number. I've got one of the one of the
Speaker 1: lower active master guide numbers right right now. In fact,
Speaker 1: I remember it's it's eighty. Uh. I remember when I
Speaker 1: took my guy to become a master guide. Yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember. Um, And of course there's they've all died,
Speaker 1: you know, sent a lot of times you reached some
Speaker 1: mass master guide status. That's, um, you're not around, but
Speaker 1: but longer after that. But when I took my registered
Speaker 1: guide test in n It was one of one of
Speaker 1: the yeah, the biggest accomplishments of my life to that
Speaker 1: that point. I remember, Um, I did that, I did,
Speaker 1: had the written and then I passed the orals and uh.
Speaker 1: And when I came out of the orals, I was
Speaker 1: out in the hall waiting in the and the gal
Speaker 1: that was given the test of work for the state,
Speaker 1: she came out and she said, Mike. She walked out
Speaker 1: to me, looked at me, she said, congratulations, You're the
Speaker 1: youngest registered guide in the state. So I was the
Speaker 1: youngest registered guide in the state at that point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought, I thought that was a real So I
Speaker 1: took her out to dinner that night. I had some Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go. Can you give us an example of
Speaker 1: like a question that you had answer in the in
Speaker 1: the orals or any any questions that test. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember, okay, Um for instance, some of the it
Speaker 1: was some of the questions, uh, what are the uh
Speaker 1: four four mammals in Alaska remained white year round? That
Speaker 1: would be a question. Let me let me do that one.
Speaker 1: I got three year round. It's always the port. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a key there's a key word. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: trick question. Yeah, but I got it. Okay, Now I'm
Speaker 1: goofed up the question again. Question, what are the four
Speaker 1: mammals that remained white year? Dirtmouth? You got it? I
Speaker 1: think so ridge pounder. Don't we say mammals little over
Speaker 1: emphasize there's a whale that stays white. Yeah, we're just
Speaker 1: talking about dead ones a minute ago or an hour ago. Yes,
Speaker 1: the bluga whale. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know what the
Speaker 1: answer three are? It's amazing how so many people and
Speaker 1: they're sitting in my loge and some of them are
Speaker 1: hanging on the wall and they're looking up in the air. No,
Speaker 1: but but we got a goat, and we got a
Speaker 1: sheep on uh, you know. And then and of course
Speaker 1: the other one polar bear. And then I remember one
Speaker 1: of the other questions to what are the four uh
Speaker 1: for animals that change color with the seasons? Arm again, weasel,
Speaker 1: snowshoe hair, arctic care, arctic snow. There's three time against
Speaker 1: there's three right there. Now, come on your bone head. Okay,
Speaker 1: so weasels weasels. Yeah, it goes from a weasel to
Speaker 1: an ermine. Yeah, tarmy goes from regular one to a
Speaker 1: white one. Right, snows your hair goes from a regular
Speaker 1: one to a white one. Right. What was wanted to
Speaker 1: said a minute ago? It's the Arctic fox. Oh yeah, there.
Speaker 1: What did I say that you didn't like? Um? Oh,
Speaker 1: arctic hare, Arctic hare, snowshoe hair. They're all hair. That's
Speaker 1: a true question, Danny. Did you have all those? Um?
Speaker 1: What was the last one? That's what I hung up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: if I didn't have fox, the found it? Would you?
Speaker 1: Did you? Did you feel like you did good on
Speaker 1: any of those? I did good on the on the
Speaker 1: first one. You like that little mammal party. Mammal party.
Speaker 1: I got it because you were like, oh man, And
Speaker 1: remember I do remember. One of the questions I thought
Speaker 1: was a trick question on the Registered Guide test was
Speaker 1: that uh uh and I got it wrong too, but uh.
Speaker 1: The quick question was when you're standing around the campfire, uh,
Speaker 1: where does the smoke go? And you know, it was
Speaker 1: like but towards beauty. Yeah. And and the one that
Speaker 1: I thought thought thought was the stupid answer was because obviously,
Speaker 1: when you're standing around the fire, the smokes blowing in
Speaker 1: your face because you're creating a little you're creating a backdraft. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking. I'm thinking. I'm thinking, you know, they're
Speaker 1: just they're they're just trying to be funny, but but
Speaker 1: they're actually his truth. Yeah, your body creates a backdraft
Speaker 1: and the smoke yea, you're open smump, smoke goes up
Speaker 1: in your face. I was reading about when guys used
Speaker 1: to use the strategy you're talking about, the lean to,
Speaker 1: and you build a fire, you know, to try to
Speaker 1: fill it with some warmth. That oftentimes people will build
Speaker 1: that lean to that it's that the pitch is pitched
Speaker 1: into the wind, thinking that you gotta wind protection. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but how that causes all that smoke to peel up
Speaker 1: and you actually want to build it. So the winds
Speaker 1: moving across them across the mouth, right, and so it's
Speaker 1: not so you're not just filling the whole thing with
Speaker 1: smoke the whole time. Not only from smoke too, but
Speaker 1: drifting snow too. I mean it don't do the same
Speaker 1: thing with with snow. Yeah. A lot of times what
Speaker 1: I what I do? Keep just freezing your ass? Man.
Speaker 1: Did you have a good bag? Oh yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: had a Remember my mom one of my first uh
Speaker 1: gifts she got me when when I first moved up
Speaker 1: there in my first year. It was a a north
Speaker 1: face um expedition bag uh you know down and I've
Speaker 1: still got that to the you know, you know this
Speaker 1: day up in the loft at the lodge. But a
Speaker 1: lot a lot of times and I'm sorry, feet your
Speaker 1: head towards the fire. Um, I think using my head
Speaker 1: that wherever I'd laid down that you have the head's
Speaker 1: taken out, that that's what built them more. But my
Speaker 1: favorite one Steve where I'd be uh on trying and
Speaker 1: I decided I'd be spending night and then um, yeah,
Speaker 1: the snow is usually five six six ft deep and
Speaker 1: you get, um, you find these big spruce of course,
Speaker 1: you know, the the snow's falling on the branches, bringing
Speaker 1: the branches down, and there's a big void at the
Speaker 1: base of the tree and there's all the dry dead
Speaker 1: grass underneath there, you know, like a tree well yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And and you know you'd cut spruce spruce bows, you know,
Speaker 1: the light land the bottom and you crawl up underneath
Speaker 1: there and you'd uh kick some of the snow out,
Speaker 1: you know, and at the well you get a fire
Speaker 1: going down there and you could actually get some pretty
Speaker 1: good warms come coming up underneath it because the fired
Speaker 1: you know, the um the branches would actually hold some
Speaker 1: of the heat down in there because the branch would
Speaker 1: have snow on them too, And and you're you're, you're surrounded.
Speaker 1: So basically a really a nice shelter. And then I'll
Speaker 1: never forget times just uh falling asleep you because I
Speaker 1: cut the spruce boughs and lay on top of the
Speaker 1: spruce bouch with a sleeping bag and just the smell
Speaker 1: of the spruce and the dead grass and smell of
Speaker 1: the fire. It should I mean right now I can
Speaker 1: still visualize it and since it, and it just really
Speaker 1: brings back some nice memories, you know, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Would you ever come across critters and those those situations
Speaker 1: where they're down bedded in those warm spots or no,
Speaker 1: I can't say as I ever remember anither uh you know,
Speaker 1: times that you'd go along and you'd actually you know,
Speaker 1: either see Martin or Wolverine, you'll scare him up. But
Speaker 1: I've never actually chased one out of a hole like that.
Speaker 1: How many uh, how many times has been attacked by bears?
Speaker 1: Three times? There were how many bears? I mean close
Speaker 1: calls Um, I don't know quite a few. I mean
Speaker 1: there's quite a few. I've had brown bear that was
Speaker 1: tracking brown wounded brown bear and he had circled around,
Speaker 1: was coming up behind me in a willow patch, had
Speaker 1: a brown bear that had a client. We took a
Speaker 1: brown bear that was off of a moose carcass, and
Speaker 1: minute we shot, there was another brown bear was sleeping
Speaker 1: in the alders right next to us. We didn't know about.
Speaker 1: The came um came bound out. It was probably uh
Speaker 1: fifteen feet from us, and came bounding out and my
Speaker 1: client I turned at just turned around and I'll never
Speaker 1: forget that. The sound of that, this one still just
Speaker 1: makes her hair stand up on my neck. When she
Speaker 1: was coming at me, she was slobbering, and when she
Speaker 1: would pick up her pause you could hear the claws
Speaker 1: clacking when she'd pick up her paws, and she was
Speaker 1: running at us, and she was I have never, I
Speaker 1: have never in my life seen such a rage in
Speaker 1: an animals as this brown bear. Hat We had had
Speaker 1: time to shoot from the hip. We had turned turned
Speaker 1: around cheap from the hip, and when she dropped fortunately
Speaker 1: uh it was actually the client's bullet that that hit
Speaker 1: in the head. But when she dropped, her nose land
Speaker 1: landed on my hip boot. But and I don't never
Speaker 1: forget after that, him and I both sat down and
Speaker 1: we just started shaking, you know, the old what is
Speaker 1: because she was if she would have gotten hold of
Speaker 1: either one of us, we wouldn't you know, one of
Speaker 1: the others wouldn't have been here today because that I've
Speaker 1: never in my life seeing that kind of a rage
Speaker 1: out of an animal. How did you get tacked by
Speaker 1: three black Uh? Let me see one of them? Had
Speaker 1: my godparents come out when I first went went out
Speaker 1: to where I was, you know, staying. Um, they came
Speaker 1: out when one summer and brought friends of theirs from Texas.
Speaker 1: They were from from Texas. And it was, you know,
Speaker 1: a little solid roof cabin that that that we had
Speaker 1: built it. You know, it's been in the winter. So
Speaker 1: I just let them have the cabin and I slept
Speaker 1: in a tent outside and I was in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night. Um also I sleeping and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you know, and just being shooking drug and
Speaker 1: I was like, what the hell you know? Um? And
Speaker 1: and I'll never forget. Look that lady from the guide class.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget looking over and seeing the imprint of
Speaker 1: this baritone with I mean, it's still so so so vivid.
Speaker 1: And he's sent yeah you know, you know the nostril
Speaker 1: holes when you can see him. And he's backing up,
Speaker 1: trying to drag me off into the bushes, and and
Speaker 1: I was sleeping with my forty four and I just
Speaker 1: grabbed it real real quick, and you know, shot it
Speaker 1: in the head well through the tent, through the tent,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, and it it fell on top of me.
Speaker 1: And and there I am all all tied up and
Speaker 1: sleeping back and tent and you know all. And I'll
Speaker 1: never forget my godparents that came out, and and my
Speaker 1: aunt Mary kept kept saying, um uh Lee, Mike's being
Speaker 1: attacked by the bear. Shoot it, shoot it, shoot it,
Speaker 1: and uh and what it is. I'm trying to push
Speaker 1: this bear off me. So the bear humping up and
Speaker 1: back up. You know, I'm trying to push it off,
Speaker 1: and I'm screaming, no, don't shoot it, don't shoot it,
Speaker 1: and shoot it because because of course they're dif from Texas,
Speaker 1: they weren't real woodwood savvy. They're just looking at they
Speaker 1: don't realiz that a bullet and go through a bear
Speaker 1: and into into what's underneath it, you know. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: did you have any when you were trapping the wolverines
Speaker 1: to any of those ever you just hear about how
Speaker 1: addressing they are, like had Yeah, there there was one
Speaker 1: time had a wool rain that um I had, I
Speaker 1: had gone on. I just had my seven mag with
Speaker 1: me and I was doing doing the upline trail. So
Speaker 1: I took the seven mag with me looking for a
Speaker 1: moose and I went back in, uh that bag in
Speaker 1: the cabin there and I've got I don't know, about
Speaker 1: half a mile away and was sitting at this um
Speaker 1: mineral lick, you know, hope hoping to see a moose
Speaker 1: come in. So I sat there for about an hour
Speaker 1: day and said, well, I'm gonna go ahead and check.
Speaker 1: Took my traps while I'm coming up here. And the
Speaker 1: night before it had uh it had rained, and then
Speaker 1: it had frozen hard. You know. Next morning about got
Speaker 1: up to my actually got my first set, had a
Speaker 1: Martin in it, and then got out to the second
Speaker 1: set and it was on a a dead snag. I
Speaker 1: had had had a number one and a half time
Speaker 1: at the end of a dead snag and the snag
Speaker 1: would broken off. When I got there, Wow, what happened
Speaker 1: to this? And I was looking looking for trash to
Speaker 1: see where the trap and every everything that they went,
Speaker 1: but everything was frozen so it couldn't really see much
Speaker 1: in the way of tracks. And then off in the distance,
Speaker 1: I hear this snarling and I knew right away then
Speaker 1: what had happened. A wolverine had got caught in the
Speaker 1: number one, broke off the snag and had taken off.
Speaker 1: So I started beating feet over to where the uh
Speaker 1: uh noise was and I got there and there was
Speaker 1: a wolverine that was caught by one toe and he
Speaker 1: was he was tangled up in the willows. So I've
Speaker 1: got my seven mag. I didn't want to shoot it
Speaker 1: with a seven mags, so I started looking around for
Speaker 1: a stick to hit him in the head with. Well,
Speaker 1: he was just going nuts, you know, trying to pull
Speaker 1: all that, and uh, I couldn't find sticking. And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden he pulled out of the trap and
Speaker 1: and just just for a split second, I'm standing there
Speaker 1: and he's standing here. We're probably ten ft apart. We
Speaker 1: were both just stare at each other and then and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden he came running to me
Speaker 1: and he started I had car hard cut cover rolls on,
Speaker 1: and he he hit me and he started climbing up
Speaker 1: up my lace, you know, just shredding the car and
Speaker 1: the only thing I had in my seven mag So
Speaker 1: I had it by the barrel and I started swinging
Speaker 1: at it like a baseball bat with the barrel. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and and it ended up ended up breaking the stock off,
Speaker 1: you know, then into the stock off the seven mac,
Speaker 1: you know, and when I hit it, so oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and not knocked him, knocked him out. He was intent
Speaker 1: on but but yeah, so, uh, that's that's the only
Speaker 1: time I've ever had a Wolveringe get ahold of me.
Speaker 1: So I want to get to some more stuff about
Speaker 1: your business and whatnot. But what are the other two
Speaker 1: black bear attacks? Uh? The other one? Uh, let me see,
Speaker 1: had uh had one where um when I was building
Speaker 1: the lodge and they had had the plane command it
Speaker 1: was full of full of lumber. And before we left,
Speaker 1: I always bringing my party four with me. Um, and
Speaker 1: so the plane lands and the pilot, who's real real
Speaker 1: good front front friend of mine. Now when we taxi
Speaker 1: up to the bank there we got got got out
Speaker 1: and we were unloading lumber, and um, all of a
Speaker 1: sudden he said, look out, and I turned turned around
Speaker 1: and there was some black bear that had come over
Speaker 1: the bank and was coming down on onto us there,
Speaker 1: you know, and and and then he stopped it. It
Speaker 1: was a fall fosse charge and then uh, and then
Speaker 1: he turned around and went back up into the shed
Speaker 1: where we kept all all the horse feed. And that's
Speaker 1: what what are you doing? So anyway, Uh, Jeff said,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be okay, and I said, oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: got got my party four here, it'll be okay. So
Speaker 1: he's okay, Well, I'll go ahead and take off. So
Speaker 1: he took off, and then I went searching around from
Speaker 1: my forty four looking at Everything's like, man, it's not here.
Speaker 1: Where is it? And come to find out I had
Speaker 1: I had it underneath the seat of the truck. And
Speaker 1: then I just forgot I got to get it. So
Speaker 1: I had no big deal. You usually go up there
Speaker 1: and just yell at him and then uh, you know,
Speaker 1: so go away. Well went up there and yelled at him,
Speaker 1: and he come, uh, stuck his head out of the door.
Speaker 1: He had chewed a hold through the door, was eating
Speaker 1: horse feed, and then he came charred charge of me.
Speaker 1: And the old thing I had was a tree to
Speaker 1: climb up to that It was probably right by the
Speaker 1: by the lake. So I skinnied up the tree and
Speaker 1: he hit that tree, and he tried crawling up after me,
Speaker 1: and uh, he made sure I was there then, and
Speaker 1: he would as long as I was there. Okay. He
Speaker 1: went back in, and every time I would try to
Speaker 1: come down out of the tree, he would hit it again,
Speaker 1: and Askecott got a want one point, and I was
Speaker 1: having to kick him in the nose. One time. He
Speaker 1: actually got out there and grabbed ahold of my foot
Speaker 1: and was trying trying and pull pull me dot dot
Speaker 1: out of the tree, and I was kicking him in
Speaker 1: the face. So I said, well, I'm I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: stand here. Let him get uncomfortable in the in the shed.
Speaker 1: So he went back and and there was a cabin
Speaker 1: um that was about two miles away. I knew it
Speaker 1: and had a rifle in it, and so I finally
Speaker 1: after twenty minutes, I'll never forget standing on the branches
Speaker 1: there and my my instep just really getting sore. I
Speaker 1: just couldn't harnita anymore. So I jumped down, and now
Speaker 1: or never I jumped down, I mean, I just started
Speaker 1: running for all it was worth to this cabin. And
Speaker 1: I looked behind me and he wouldn't following me. So
Speaker 1: I went there. It was a three oh eight. Uh,
Speaker 1: he only had three shells for it. Came back up
Speaker 1: and UM stuck my head up over the bank, and yeah,
Speaker 1: sure enough he was. They're eating all the food that
Speaker 1: I brought in. But he looked so much smaller, And
Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, Wow, maybe he looks smaller because
Speaker 1: I got a gun now, you know, so I want
Speaker 1: a hand. Took care of it and uh. And then
Speaker 1: I leaned the rifle up against the uh the tree,
Speaker 1: and I started carrying lumber. Made one load of lumbers
Speaker 1: and came back, got another little lumber Tuba six on
Speaker 1: my shoulder, and when I came up over the lip,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the big bear that had met
Speaker 1: treed come around the corner started running at me, and uh.
Speaker 1: I just took the Tuba six through it it real
Speaker 1: quick and it put on the brakes trying to avoid
Speaker 1: the tuba sick and me time to grab the rifle
Speaker 1: and get the right shoot it, get the right bear. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it was really like, wow, big man, I got
Speaker 1: a gun. Now the bear shrinks, you know. Yeah, pretty
Speaker 1: pretty funny. So I gotta know now the third one
Speaker 1: to detected? The third one, I thought that was two
Speaker 1: and three. Yeah, I was. I was replacing a piling
Speaker 1: underneath the underneath the barn and it was out there.
Speaker 1: So I had gout the pine and I was laying
Speaker 1: prone on the ground and I uh had my head
Speaker 1: my shoulders down in the hole trying to dig out
Speaker 1: loose dirt front from the bottom. So I'm just standing
Speaker 1: lane land there there they're prone. I must have looked.
Speaker 1: It wasn't moving or anything, just my shoulders and uh.
Speaker 1: And then the all of a sudden, next thing, I know,
Speaker 1: something's pulling me back. I was like, whoa, something just
Speaker 1: grabbed ahold of me, just like I was on a
Speaker 1: bungee cord, you know, started backing up. I still still
Speaker 1: got the scars and my shins from it, and uh
Speaker 1: turned around and uh and it was a bare had
Speaker 1: hold of my leg. He was backing up. Yeah, another
Speaker 1: black bear, and it was he was backing off it.
Speaker 1: But you know in his defense. He just thought it
Speaker 1: was dead, you know, and I rolled rolled over and
Speaker 1: um uh and then then just started kicking at him
Speaker 1: and he was a surprise as why it was. And
Speaker 1: he dropped me like a dad and took off through
Speaker 1: through through the woods. So he lived to tell about it.
Speaker 1: Uh yo, yeah, yeah, I mean he wasn't his fault.
Speaker 1: You know, I was just supposed to be dead, you know.
Speaker 1: Once you found out was alive, it's like, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. And then and then uh, there there
Speaker 1: was one other time time with um, a small grizzly
Speaker 1: in sheep camp. I had UM during the spring I
Speaker 1: had and this was one thing I thought it was
Speaker 1: really cool. Um during the spring I had, I had
Speaker 1: broken my leg and they had to I had to
Speaker 1: be met of act out of the lodge with a
Speaker 1: chopper and and all that. Um. And so anyway I
Speaker 1: go in, they you know, get the cast, they set
Speaker 1: the leg and all that, and I ended up going
Speaker 1: back out to the lodge because I need needed to
Speaker 1: be there. That was home, you know. Uh. And you see,
Speaker 1: you know in the summer, you know, there are bears
Speaker 1: in the yard every day, just just about and you
Speaker 1: just get out there, you get along with him, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't approach him. Everybody get gets lunge just fine.
Speaker 1: When I got out there and the first pair of
Speaker 1: the kind of comes out, Oh look at this a bear,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, um, I'm out out on the deck.
Speaker 1: He saw me, and all of a sudden he started
Speaker 1: chasing me and rant ran into the lodge. Uh and
Speaker 1: closed the door and he he hit the door. Then
Speaker 1: he got it, got off the deck, and then I
Speaker 1: went back out and again it was like, um, he
Speaker 1: was gonna get me, and finally he went away. And
Speaker 1: that that happened like two other times that that summer.
Speaker 1: I'm like, why are these bear so mad at me?
Speaker 1: All of a sudden? Then I go out to sheep
Speaker 1: camp and uh, the hunters are out on a sheep
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm at a camp I'm in uh and
Speaker 1: the kind of the kitchen area we have set us
Speaker 1: set up in the base camp and and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I see this little straggly grizzly walk around
Speaker 1: the outside of the weather port. And I don't have
Speaker 1: my rivle with me, so we're kind of the same
Speaker 1: distance from the tent. I run to a tent real quick.
Speaker 1: While he's going over there, he sees me starting heading
Speaker 1: over that way. I started over there, grabbed the gun,
Speaker 1: start running back into the so I can get some
Speaker 1: distance between me and him, back into the kitchen area.
Speaker 1: And next thing I know, this little grizzly had had
Speaker 1: got and and he had reached over and knocked me
Speaker 1: over with my paw and I fell on the ground
Speaker 1: and then rolled over and shot and I stood up.
Speaker 1: It's like, what is going on? Why are these bears
Speaker 1: all of a sudden so mad at me? And then
Speaker 1: the lightbulb came on. It's like, Dan, Dan, you look
Speaker 1: like a wounded animal. I'm in a cast. I'm hobbling
Speaker 1: around nature at its finest, you know. And I thought, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what what's going on. I'm just hobbling around. They're
Speaker 1: seeing me as a as a you know, easy prey,
Speaker 1: wounded animal. At least that's my my theory on the
Speaker 1: whole thing. And it just seemed like it made sense
Speaker 1: to me all of a sudden. I'm a nice guy,
Speaker 1: you're like an little gunfighter. Man. I don't know about
Speaker 1: that gunfighter. So what talk about how you got your
Speaker 1: how you go off to start business? By yourself and
Speaker 1: ride off on a horse and go make a homestead
Speaker 1: and start a lodge, and that you're going to guide
Speaker 1: out of. Well that's because that ship that just doesn't
Speaker 1: happen anymore. Maybe it does, I don't know if it
Speaker 1: does or not. To me. Yeah, well on that not
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you, did you ever through all
Speaker 1: these years did you ever meet someone that it was
Speaker 1: like a peer to you And you're like, oh, you've
Speaker 1: kind of done the same thing that I have all
Speaker 1: these years and became buds with them or knew of them.
Speaker 1: I actually did one time. And he's uh, he's pretty
Speaker 1: pretty high high profile. He's he dead now. But when
Speaker 1: I was uh doing my um float float instruction, I
Speaker 1: took took the flow plane plot to meeting once. But
Speaker 1: you got you got a pilot slicense. Yeah, Dick, Dick
Speaker 1: Park you know are always Ever since I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I had admired what he did at last, what he
Speaker 1: did by hand and drug everything. But in my hand,
Speaker 1: of course, he didn't have any horses or anything. But um,
Speaker 1: he had just gone out to Twin Lakes and built
Speaker 1: that beautiful cabin out there and lived out there by
Speaker 1: himself and that's what I wanted to be, what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. He was. I guess he was somewhat
Speaker 1: my inspiration. I remember when I first got to know him.
Speaker 1: I read the book One One Man's Wilderness. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I met him. And nice guy in the world too.
Speaker 1: You know. It wasn't like he was some kind of
Speaker 1: crazy hermit, you know that you show up and get
Speaker 1: off my land. He was just really a very, very
Speaker 1: very nice person. He's kind of older too, when he
Speaker 1: did that right or something else. I don't know how
Speaker 1: I found out about him, but I used to. There's
Speaker 1: like a you can watch like ten minutes of Alone
Speaker 1: in the Wilderness. It's like a PBS documentary. Some old
Speaker 1: dude washing gravel for his floor and whatnot makes a cabin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody's dad likes that movie. Yeah, man, So I found
Speaker 1: out him on through that. Yeah, how do you spell
Speaker 1: his last name? What's that? No? How do you spell
Speaker 1: his last name? I can't e n K isn't isn't
Speaker 1: somewhere might be an agent there. I was gonna ask
Speaker 1: you about it, because yeah, I like everything that you're
Speaker 1: saying sounds exactly like yeah, yeah, yeah. When I'm a kid,
Speaker 1: I just really really enjoyed the I mean that that
Speaker 1: that book. I just lay it uh waiting and know him.
Speaker 1: I had to sleep in the broom close at that
Speaker 1: was my rooms. It was a little little room and
Speaker 1: I'd read read my book and that was one of
Speaker 1: my favorite favorite books. I remember. So there you are.
Speaker 1: You ride off into the woods to go set up
Speaker 1: your own to find your own property, right, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it was that's when Jay Hammond was governor. And Dan
Speaker 1: Dan knows he's probably one of the best governors Alaska's
Speaker 1: ever had, Sure does he was? He was governor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he he was all for the for the people,
Speaker 1: you know, he wanted uh and of course he was.
Speaker 1: He was a guide, he was a pilot, you know,
Speaker 1: his name Bushrap, but he was he was dead sent
Speaker 1: on on um every lask and being able to have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to uh have their own peace of Alaska
Speaker 1: have to lant. So he came up with a land
Speaker 1: program called UM Remote Partial. It was a remote parcel
Speaker 1: program to where you could go out, you could stake up.
Speaker 1: They had certain designated areas you know that that they
Speaker 1: set aside for just for this program. You could stake
Speaker 1: up to forty acres. Um, you had to put your
Speaker 1: four corners, and you had to pay for the survey,
Speaker 1: and then um, after the state approved the survey, you
Speaker 1: paid what the state considered the fair market value. Now
Speaker 1: you've got a discount. You got a pitch for sent
Speaker 1: dis koind for being a long time a last and
Speaker 1: you got a discount. If there wasn't a road to
Speaker 1: you got a discount. There went power to a discount, discount, discount, discount.
Speaker 1: You were saying, there's even a discount. I think you're
Speaker 1: telling me this even a discount for whether it was
Speaker 1: a southerly or northerly. Yeah, and that that that was
Speaker 1: one of the and they listed the discounts. And you
Speaker 1: know that that I was given once I got the
Speaker 1: title to the land. Uh Um, I was gotten, had
Speaker 1: a percent taking off of what they considered the fair
Speaker 1: market value because my cabin faced north and not south.
Speaker 1: So they were doing every everything. They had no power discount,
Speaker 1: the no road discount right, the long time alasking discount. Right,
Speaker 1: So what'd you pay for what you pay for the place.
Speaker 1: So it ended up that I didn't. I thought I
Speaker 1: had a lot more than forty acres, But what I
Speaker 1: stay because I staked the whole south side of my lake. Um,
Speaker 1: but it actually only ended up being like twenty six acres. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was what twenty one years old. I had no
Speaker 1: idea what forty acre or like that. Man, this is
Speaker 1: more Land and oliver Use. So anyway, after and I
Speaker 1: was shaking and how I'm just a poor trapper out there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I don't have any money. So because
Speaker 1: she went off and found this place on horseback, yeah,
Speaker 1: just looking at a map, right, Yeah, that was before
Speaker 1: GPS is and all that, I just load loaded up
Speaker 1: all the horses and and uh, well, well let's go
Speaker 1: that way. It's gotta be over here somewhere. So we
Speaker 1: were sneaking our way through the trees, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden I kind of saw an opening in the trees.
Speaker 1: I said, Um, that's got to be the lake over there.
Speaker 1: And the lake has actually glorified beaver pond. It's real small,
Speaker 1: oh man, grazing rainbow. Yeah. And uh, and so took
Speaker 1: the horses and started wandering over that way. And remember
Speaker 1: I came out in the north or uh uh, the
Speaker 1: upper end of the lake. And when we can't came
Speaker 1: out of the tree, right, beautiful sunny day. There was
Speaker 1: a moose out there. This was in into July. There
Speaker 1: was a moose out there. He'd be going under water
Speaker 1: and he'd come back and literally pads are dripping off
Speaker 1: of his antlers, and it was just wanted to say.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is it. This is where I
Speaker 1: want to be, you know, and I wanted the southern exposure.
Speaker 1: So I took the horses and I started riding around
Speaker 1: the other opposite side the lake. But it was just
Speaker 1: all swampy, you know. I mean he had to It
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know what yards of swamp before
Speaker 1: you actually got got to some dry land. And it
Speaker 1: was just really disappointed. And finally made the whole circle
Speaker 1: of it. Then I came to the outlet of the
Speaker 1: lake and came onto the uh the only place where
Speaker 1: you got dry land all the way down down to
Speaker 1: the lake, and that's where I went. I went ahead
Speaker 1: and decided to stake the land. And when I staked
Speaker 1: at um, I didn't know it know at the time
Speaker 1: that had that nice little bench you know where the
Speaker 1: lodge is now about bow the lake. I didn't find
Speaker 1: that out until later, and it it just ended up uh,
Speaker 1: you know, all the planets line and it just kind
Speaker 1: of made a drink contru So you stake the whole
Speaker 1: thing out and send your form off in the mail
Speaker 1: and you're sweating and thinking it's gonna be a show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, how am I going to come up with
Speaker 1: thirty forty fifty dollars or whatever? And I opened it
Speaker 1: up and the envelopen it end up being six d
Speaker 1: dollars After that, Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can, I can. I can scrape up six hundred
Speaker 1: bucks somewhere. That's just a couple of wolverine. So you
Speaker 1: like start dragging cutting logs and dragging them with your horse,
Speaker 1: and of course I'm walking on cloud nine. I've got
Speaker 1: my own land, you know. Uh and um, the actually
Speaker 1: from where the lodges now, you can't even you couldn't
Speaker 1: even see the lake because it was that that heavily treed.
Speaker 1: So I started dropping trees and uh um, pouring them
Speaker 1: in to start building a lodge, and you know, just
Speaker 1: clearing the land and just everything starts snowballing, you know,
Speaker 1: just started you know, working on it. Because when you
Speaker 1: see lodge, it's like it functions as you're hunting lodge.
Speaker 1: But it's a cabin. Yeah, it's basically a cabin, but
Speaker 1: but you got out buildings and Webster definition, it would
Speaker 1: be considered a loge at the gathering place. Yeah. Well
Speaker 1: because you have you have other cabins you built for
Speaker 1: guests over the years and build the barn and plus
Speaker 1: I say it's a lodge, so it's a lodge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I feel that like people here lodge and they
Speaker 1: think that that kind of like fakey you know, that
Speaker 1: kind of like fake full Western kind of lodge where
Speaker 1: you where you cut out little Cariboan moves out of
Speaker 1: sheet metal and one everything. Yeah, he flaminoes, pink flamine
Speaker 1: goes in the yard, that kind of thing. Now it's
Speaker 1: like a it's like a bush cabin man, yeah, but
Speaker 1: very comfortable. But drinking. You drink to have all the
Speaker 1: comforts of home, and you drink rain water and it
Speaker 1: does have having out out but you know for you know,
Speaker 1: uh totally opt to grid. Uh. I've got solar power
Speaker 1: within birders, you know, so not not him to run
Speaker 1: generators to supply the thing. The refrigerator, freezer runs off propane. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the stove a course of pro pro pane,
Speaker 1: so flying it out on your own floor plane. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Gave up on horses. Uh yeah, we got rid of
Speaker 1: the last horses in n because it just died off. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, they were always just glorified pets. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they were worth a weight in gold in August and September.
Speaker 1: Other than that, they were just a pain in the ass,
Speaker 1: you know. And they're just a glorified pets. And yeah,
Speaker 1: we I mean they all had the personalities and we
Speaker 1: we you know, really enjoyed them. But it just stood there.
Speaker 1: You stood the lodge using horses all oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: You use them to all the logs in for the
Speaker 1: for the lodge. Yeah, and lift them and lift them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and have a rope pull over uh you know one
Speaker 1: end or one one side of it, and then on
Speaker 1: the other side have have old pomp poncho you know,
Speaker 1: just pull them up, you know, the skids from one
Speaker 1: side or the other. Yeah. How long would the horses
Speaker 1: last during these like we're as a working, functioning animal
Speaker 1: years wise? Uh? Well, I had I had heard that,
Speaker 1: I had heard the poncho. Uh. He didn't die until
Speaker 1: he was like thirty something years old, so he was
Speaker 1: pretty pretty tough as far as you know. All the
Speaker 1: other horses. I'm not sure when they died, but when we,
Speaker 1: uh we got rid of them, they were probably nine
Speaker 1: ten years old and they were still, you know, good, good,
Speaker 1: rainey working horses. Did someone come get him or how
Speaker 1: did you get him out of there? Uh? Yeah, let
Speaker 1: me see. He ended up riding them over to the
Speaker 1: other side of the up through rainy passing up up
Speaker 1: on the other side there, and then uh uh we
Speaker 1: actually sold some of them too rainy pass as well.
Speaker 1: So some of those horses. It wasn't just the one
Speaker 1: way ticket. Some of those horses made it back out. No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it was a one way ticket. They never saw town again.
Speaker 1: Oh uh yeah, they stayed in the bush. They just
Speaker 1: went went to the other side of the last range,
Speaker 1: you know, wrote them over there. How do you learn
Speaker 1: how to build your cabin? Watson? That old movie about
Speaker 1: the guy a Washington? Um remember getting a book? Who's
Speaker 1: the guy? What was his name? Um? Tom Walker? You remember? Uh?
Speaker 1: He had it was in seven He had a book
Speaker 1: on you know, how to on you know, to notch logs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he kind of wrote wrote it a hot too, but
Speaker 1: but Tom Walker, he was actually a uh more noted
Speaker 1: as an as an outdoor photographer, but he did kind
Speaker 1: of the same thing. Him and his wife went out
Speaker 1: and built built a place out in the woods. You know,
Speaker 1: they just wanted to get get off the grid and
Speaker 1: live in the woods. And he made a book about
Speaker 1: it and had a lot of pictures of fortunately, had
Speaker 1: pictures in it. You know, so you're describing and saddle
Speaker 1: notch and all that kind of oh yeah, and and actually,
Speaker 1: you know there's nothing to it if you pay attention
Speaker 1: to it, there's nothing to it. You can make uh
Speaker 1: you know, you have to make make sure that that
Speaker 1: that you cove the inside of your saddle notch, you know,
Speaker 1: so when you compress them, it that compressed it together
Speaker 1: real well. And um, you know you just you know,
Speaker 1: you can do do the full sweet describe it, which
Speaker 1: which I didn't do. You know, I'd lay lay the
Speaker 1: logs on the ground, so I'd have three logs on
Speaker 1: the ground, take a chain saw running between them two, uh,
Speaker 1: get them cloak closer to you know, to where they
Speaker 1: were they were matching, and then you put one up
Speaker 1: and then you describe your saddle notch. And then you'd
Speaker 1: uh first rough it out with a with like a
Speaker 1: cheet sheet rock knife the line, you know, and you'd
Speaker 1: use your chisel and chisel out the wood and then
Speaker 1: use a the chainsaw to go go ouch it out
Speaker 1: and then um roll it over and there it is.
Speaker 1: You've cheeking with moss the old school weigh or no,
Speaker 1: now I used to strip the fiberglass. Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do the most thing I can imagine.
Speaker 1: And and they and actually, you know Dan, they were
Speaker 1: you know, doing that method of just running the chainsaw
Speaker 1: bar running between when they're they're close together, and then
Speaker 1: then you use like yeah, actually then you use log
Speaker 1: log dogs to hold them together and do it again
Speaker 1: and you yeah, you have to call log dogs. Are
Speaker 1: they're jaw dogs right their bars at a hook hook
Speaker 1: hooked at each end. You drive a man and holds
Speaker 1: the logs together. Yeah. Yeah. When when you talk about
Speaker 1: and I don't want to present this as though you
Speaker 1: disparage your clients, because you certainly don't. But when you
Speaker 1: talk about how hunters are becoming more and more a
Speaker 1: cupcakes all the time, are you doing it because you're
Speaker 1: comparing it to what you've been through or you doing
Speaker 1: you're comparing it to other hunters from the past clients. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess I still still live an old school.
Speaker 1: I know what I went through. I mean, if it
Speaker 1: would if it was raining, and you know, and and
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not you know, those days there wasn't
Speaker 1: no police or anything. It was either wool or blue jeans,
Speaker 1: you know. And and me, I'm hunting blue jeans. I
Speaker 1: just get wet, and I'd stay wet and just didn't care.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was just because I don't enjoy that now,
Speaker 1: but at the time I didn't didn't even even think
Speaker 1: about it. But it's just yeah, you know, wet all
Speaker 1: the time, or having to you know, slog through the
Speaker 1: alders or you know, uh, eat your food while waters
Speaker 1: running off your hat into you know, none, None of
Speaker 1: that stuff ever bothered me. Um, a lot of the
Speaker 1: change changing. Hunting has changed a lot, and you know,
Speaker 1: the traditional hunting ways and I kind of, for some reason,
Speaker 1: I want to blame it on the uh since since
Speaker 1: the electronic age has kind of kind of taken over.
Speaker 1: It's just things have just become too easy, you know,
Speaker 1: for for hunters. And you know, um, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of forces that are working here to you know a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of the these hunts have gotten
Speaker 1: to where they're so expensive. You know, there's um some
Speaker 1: of the guys that, uh, they can't afford to go
Speaker 1: home without having been successful on their hut, you know,
Speaker 1: simply for the fact that they couldn't afford to do
Speaker 1: another one. They've saved all their life to do do
Speaker 1: this and um and so they she you got some
Speaker 1: of the more expensive stuff we do. Yeah, sheep, sheep,
Speaker 1: and and and moose moose. Now it's grown grown to
Speaker 1: be when when when the high dollar hunts, that of
Speaker 1: Cordon brown berry is too So the guys save up
Speaker 1: their whole life. Yeah, and so the the whole um,
Speaker 1: you know, the pressures on them when when they come
Speaker 1: up not to enjoy uh, you know, enjoy their hunt,
Speaker 1: enjoy their their whole surroundings, going out and and and
Speaker 1: just uh you know, legitimately hunt the animals, look for them.
Speaker 1: They need the animals to be there. They can't go
Speaker 1: home without one. And you know, unfortunately a lot of people,
Speaker 1: they're the uh loggers, farmer, blue blue collar workers that
Speaker 1: that that uh, that kind of money is a lot
Speaker 1: of money to them and um, you know, how in
Speaker 1: the world can they go home and face their family,
Speaker 1: face their wife, face their their friends with them thinking
Speaker 1: you spend all that money and you didn't get anything. Uh,
Speaker 1: the different set of expectations exactly right. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: and then they're they're there's the other force to that. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's the ones that uh you know, that kind of money.
Speaker 1: Uh it's just pocket change, you know. They they leave,
Speaker 1: you know, they leave cocktail Hour, jump on a plane.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, two days later they're up there and
Speaker 1: they're shooting a predesignated sheep, you know, one that's already
Speaker 1: been picked out for him. And and then uh they
Speaker 1: shoot the sheep. The next day, they're right back down
Speaker 1: to cocktail Hour, you know, with with their friends. So
Speaker 1: if that person doesn't get a sheep, you know, there's
Speaker 1: the humiliation factor. How am I going to base my
Speaker 1: friends and tell them that, uh, you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: get a sheep. So a lot of people that this,
Speaker 1: you know, that the fun has got out of going
Speaker 1: out of the hunting because the pressure is on for
Speaker 1: them to be me successful. Now they're the technology issues.
Speaker 1: Uh well you know the um you know, back back
Speaker 1: in days I first started. Uh, the plane dropped you off.
Speaker 1: You waved by by said see in intent ten days,
Speaker 1: you know, and now you've got all that. You've got
Speaker 1: the end reaches, you've got the satellite phones, you've got
Speaker 1: the GPS is you know eaper everything. I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: you can't hide anymore. I mean, and it's a thing
Speaker 1: we're uh oh we're not seeing much. We need to
Speaker 1: call somebody to come in and either move us or
Speaker 1: look around or um. You know, it's it's too easy
Speaker 1: to quit it. Uh. You know, in the old days,
Speaker 1: you you were there, whether you're just there, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you got if you were sick. You know, they've had
Speaker 1: a hunter recently that uh after two days he wasn't
Speaker 1: seeing much. So all of a sudden he was sick
Speaker 1: and he need needed out. And uh, just as soon
Speaker 1: as he got out, it was a miraculous change. He
Speaker 1: was just fine. You know. Um, but I guess I
Speaker 1: guess the point being is that it's just, um, it's
Speaker 1: too too easy to give up where it. You know,
Speaker 1: back back before the electronity, if you have this disability
Speaker 1: to to come out, to call somebody to you know,
Speaker 1: come come come in and get you eat or hunted,
Speaker 1: or you're sat there and you're pouted, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: so what else you gonna do? And then and and
Speaker 1: it's it's uh, if you're if you're not seeing much,
Speaker 1: you know you, um, you just keep on it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you just don't quit and eventually it's gonna it's gonna
Speaker 1: gonna happen. So but but I feel like you're saying
Speaker 1: I understand you're saying two different things, but I just
Speaker 1: want to clarify the two things, because on one hand,
Speaker 1: you feel that it's gotten so expensive. Where a sheep punt,
Speaker 1: the doll sheep hunt, if you're if you're coming in,
Speaker 1: you need to hire an outfit ter guide dollars points
Speaker 1: well over twelve is right. Well, we're we're on the
Speaker 1: lower end of the scales of the Uh, the price
Speaker 1: of sheep punts were probably about average total lower end.
Speaker 1: There's some sheep hunts that, um, these outfitters, they they
Speaker 1: have a complete air force, you know, uh, super cups,
Speaker 1: so they have to pay for and they um, so
Speaker 1: they're sheep punts are going to be a lot higher.
Speaker 1: They're they're gonna be up for dollar range ten days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But but you're andy and they do a lot of
Speaker 1: pre scouting, yes, before the season. Uh yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm not I'm not gonna be gregrads those people
Speaker 1: to them. I mean, if they if they have the
Speaker 1: ability they have and some some something. They had to
Speaker 1: pay for all those airplanes, something, have to pay per
Speaker 1: all that, and they're catering to the people that that
Speaker 1: they will not take no per nancwer. You know, they
Speaker 1: pay for sheep hunt, they're going to get a sheep.
Speaker 1: And but I guess that that's the question I want
Speaker 1: to They don't understand because you're saying that with the money,
Speaker 1: people come and they have to get a sheep or
Speaker 1: else it's humiliating to them or not only or it's
Speaker 1: like an ego thing and they gotta get a sheep.
Speaker 1: The hunts of failure if they haven't. Uh there's the
Speaker 1: other hand, you're saying it's too easy to quit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So how do those things co exist? They have to
Speaker 1: get a sheep, but then they don't have what it
Speaker 1: takes to get the sheep, and then they feel disappointed
Speaker 1: by the experience exactly. So then when that happens, then
Speaker 1: they're having to pass the buck to somebody, you know,
Speaker 1: so so then it's, ah, well, I didn't get my
Speaker 1: sheep because the river was high, so the outfitter shouldn't
Speaker 1: have had me going into when when the water was high,
Speaker 1: or I didn't get my sheep because um there was
Speaker 1: no manny in camp for my sandwich. You know, and
Speaker 1: I'm serious, you know that. I mean that they'll come
Speaker 1: up with all these ridiculous little reasons why the whole
Speaker 1: hunt was a pair and that coming up to all
Speaker 1: these little things that culminate into one big thing to
Speaker 1: where you know, the hunt hunt was a failure they uh,
Speaker 1: and it's all of this stuff instead of being honest
Speaker 1: with themselves that they either physically weren't able to do
Speaker 1: it or it was you know, beyond beyond their physical
Speaker 1: means to actually do it. Even though the outfit are
Speaker 1: provided a good sheep area, providing with a fair fare
Speaker 1: chase hunt. Um, you know, uh that we had a
Speaker 1: tough first couple of days. We didn't see any sheep.
Speaker 1: So obviously, uh, you know, I've been here two days
Speaker 1: and and I'm an expert on the sheep movements. Now
Speaker 1: you know there are going to be no sheep here.
Speaker 1: You know, get me out of here at yeah, and
Speaker 1: and it just told them going back and commencing the
Speaker 1: people that that that uh they um didn't get their
Speaker 1: animal because they themselves um had quit on it. It
Speaker 1: was uh, somebody's fault because and you feel that it's
Speaker 1: like that there's something that's happened where it's different than
Speaker 1: it was twenty years ago. Yeah, I mean because it
Speaker 1: was Yeah, I mean because it was you didn't have
Speaker 1: that uh uh you know, and not another thing when
Speaker 1: you were not jate. When you're going going out, you
Speaker 1: had to pretty much put everything anything in your back
Speaker 1: and you had had to go a lot of the
Speaker 1: um expectation. Then they went in knowing full well that
Speaker 1: that they were going to be miserable for ten ten days,
Speaker 1: but you know they were gonna hunt where Now it's
Speaker 1: that um, you know, with all the new equipment, with
Speaker 1: all this and that you know that everything's you know perfect,
Speaker 1: people feel like they solved the uncomfortable part. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and and people feel like after I haven't spent this
Speaker 1: money that they have bought this animal, No, just the
Speaker 1: whole I don't know that they there's too much of
Speaker 1: this thinking that these animals are going to come in
Speaker 1: and surrender because they know they paid this much for
Speaker 1: this hunt, but you still like the business though, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I do want to people that want to book a
Speaker 1: home with you can't even book a home with you,
Speaker 1: And and that that that's not not all all hunters either.
Speaker 1: There's still the the hunters are out there that that
Speaker 1: that yeah, I mean, that's what they could be millionaires,
Speaker 1: but but that's what they're wanting to get away, Get
Speaker 1: get out there and do do the fair chase. They
Speaker 1: don't want a plane to fly around and spot that.
Speaker 1: They want to find that sheep on their own. They
Speaker 1: want to be the one going around the corner. Hey,
Speaker 1: nobody help help me find you know them in their
Speaker 1: guide And don't nobody help us find the sheep. You know,
Speaker 1: we hunted it on our own. Give me a bag
Speaker 1: of granola bar. Let's go out there, let's hit it.
Speaker 1: Let's let's uh, let's side wash up on the side
Speaker 1: of the mountain. Let's let's let's sleep underneath the tree,
Speaker 1: let's leap under the stars. Yeah that uh. And in
Speaker 1: this day and age, I'd say that it's maybe of
Speaker 1: a lot of the hunters you get that are actually
Speaker 1: and when they get get there, I'd say probably sev hunters.
Speaker 1: Now once they get there their animal, it's up. Okay,
Speaker 1: get me back to town. I gotta get home. You know. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's still the a good proportion of them like what
Speaker 1: we get. You know that I don't want to go home.
Speaker 1: I want I'm on vacation. I want to stay stay
Speaker 1: out here. But those those kind of hunters are getting
Speaker 1: further for there away. You know, in your mind, what
Speaker 1: makes a good client and what makes a good hunter.
Speaker 1: A good client is one that um is gonna go
Speaker 1: out there and uh and realize that, uh, everything is
Speaker 1: not going to be perfect. There's gonna be time when
Speaker 1: they're gonna be ncomfortable. It's gonna be times when when
Speaker 1: it's gonna gonna rain. There's gonna be times you know,
Speaker 1: you know deep dealing with with some of some of
Speaker 1: the elements, um, you know, more more than anything, it's
Speaker 1: a yeah, deep dealing that they're going to have to
Speaker 1: deal with elements that that are going to be uncomfortable. Um,
Speaker 1: They're gonna have to, um realize there there's gonna be
Speaker 1: times when the game isn't gonna be in particular area,
Speaker 1: isn't gonna be as plentible. I mean there's no fences
Speaker 1: around round rounting on these airs. They have to go
Speaker 1: in there and knowing that that they're going to have
Speaker 1: to hunt for their animal animals, not going to commit
Speaker 1: a surrender. You know, that's what makes a good hunter
Speaker 1: in your mind. Uh one one that uh um has
Speaker 1: a positive attitude at every day and um that when
Speaker 1: he when he's out out there they're hunting, hunting, he's
Speaker 1: he's happy and just and just having a great time
Speaker 1: and not uh you know, not stressed out thinking I've
Speaker 1: got to have this animal and you know when it
Speaker 1: when's it gonna happen. So the content you feel that
Speaker 1: the contentment pays off, you know. You know the hunter
Speaker 1: that wakes out, walks out of the tent in the
Speaker 1: morning and looks around, sees where he's at, see the mountain,
Speaker 1: whether it be in you know, moose country where you're
Speaker 1: you're either or a swampy area. But but you know
Speaker 1: you're outdoors that there's more to the hunt that killing
Speaker 1: the animal. You know, Uh, do you feel like optimism
Speaker 1: helps get animals killed? You're speaking his language if you
Speaker 1: say yes, Well, I don't, I mean optimism helps, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it draws the animal in it it. Oh, look,
Speaker 1: there's a happy person. I'm gonna go talk to him.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think the same thing thing like that,
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean, I think you just
Speaker 1: said it. Prior to that, you said that, like you
Speaker 1: gotta have a good attitude. Yeah, and I think an
Speaker 1: attitude problem. Maybe there is just some something out there
Speaker 1: that you know that a person, Yeah, a person rewarded
Speaker 1: for going out there and being having a positive attitude.
Speaker 1: Person has rewarded for going out there and just enjoying
Speaker 1: being in the outdoors and and um, you know, and
Speaker 1: and and may maybe it's that attitude to that naturally
Speaker 1: makes him get out there and hit it harder and
Speaker 1: enjoy it more. Now you're speaking language, believes that you
Speaker 1: tell him what much what you believe? I believe a
Speaker 1: lot of things. Can you narrow down a little bit
Speaker 1: how you feel that, Um that you're not sure what
Speaker 1: the controlling mechanism is. You're not sure like what forces
Speaker 1: in the universe control this, But you feel that radiating
Speaker 1: an optimism. Oh no, no, not at all. I feel
Speaker 1: that like oftenism directly correlates to your success because you
Speaker 1: go out there and instead of being like probably ain't
Speaker 1: gonna see ship today and walking through the woods not
Speaker 1: you know, not like not expecting to see something over
Speaker 1: the next still not being ready to see something over
Speaker 1: the next, still not being like constantly thinking like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's about to happen, and actually being ready in the
Speaker 1: moment and like foreseeing it in your head just like
Speaker 1: they say, like you know you've never done something, If
Speaker 1: you run that scenario through your head at gazillion times,
Speaker 1: you're gonna perform better when that moment happens. So constantly
Speaker 1: in your head being ready and being positive because if yeah,
Speaker 1: if you wake up in the and look out your tango,
Speaker 1: probably not gonna see any sheet today, well guess what
Speaker 1: probably not? Probably not. You know, he really set a mouthful.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think he's onto something, because it really
Speaker 1: does feel that way some some sometime tied and you know,
Speaker 1: it kind of affects everybody in camp too, you know.
Speaker 1: But when when people have that attitude, you know, it
Speaker 1: can kind of slough off onto the guide or whatever,
Speaker 1: and that you just kind of get a little discouraged sometimes.
Speaker 1: But keeping that positive attitude and it seems like, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe here's where it falls apart. Let's say there's a
Speaker 1: sheep hunter or whatever, there's a squirrel hunter, okay, and
Speaker 1: he's like so positive and so optimistic. He's like, I'm
Speaker 1: not even even the tent. I know, I know that
Speaker 1: if I sit right here looking out the door of
Speaker 1: this tent, the sheet will come up here. You just
Speaker 1: done that. Uh you know, you may laugh at that.
Speaker 1: That's probably actually happened. And it's happened with us a
Speaker 1: few times, and we've got lucky it doesn't happen all
Speaker 1: the time. But everybody's got those stories, I know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're so far a few people. But be honest.
Speaker 1: Used to when Janest was guiding, he would have to
Speaker 1: give He would give pep talks to try to main
Speaker 1: He took it upon himself to maintain the client, to
Speaker 1: to feed the client the type of optimism that he
Speaker 1: felt is necessary to articulate it for him. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't work, I thought so pretty used to do little
Speaker 1: pep talks for me. Yea. For some reason quit ran
Speaker 1: out of that. You still got a little pet, yea.
Speaker 1: You You'd be lost without you? Honest, he keeps, Oh yeah, man,
Speaker 1: he ranged you in every now and then. I bet Yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: if you if you want, if you got out of
Speaker 1: the bills, I'm getting out of the bills. You already
Speaker 1: got a job, buck, I'd let you the only you're
Speaker 1: the only qualified candidate. I got a job. I mean,
Speaker 1: what hit in the last outfitters? Yeah, So let's say
Speaker 1: someone wants to come home with you, the kind of
Speaker 1: shot out of luck. Right, Let's they want to wait
Speaker 1: till twenty or whatever it is. Oh no, no, we
Speaker 1: got that. We We still got openings you know, here
Speaker 1: and there. Every Uh we usually pretty much stay booked
Speaker 1: up on the average for for a couple couple of
Speaker 1: years in bands. I mean, we've got hunters a right now,
Speaker 1: they're booked out into two thousand twenty two. How do
Speaker 1: they know what they want to be doing in two
Speaker 1: I don't know. And that's actually what I asked. This
Speaker 1: guy said, Uh, this was like two years ago when
Speaker 1: he booked. It's like, we can we can be dead
Speaker 1: by then, you know, and of course you have to
Speaker 1: have you need to put a deposit down to hold
Speaker 1: a hunt you know. So he's like in five years
Speaker 1: or four years, I would like to go sheep up.
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I said, why why are you doing
Speaker 1: this now. He said, well, I just want to lock
Speaker 1: in the price now. And you know it's a good
Speaker 1: thought retiring or something. You know. Oh, so you honor
Speaker 1: that if he books it now even he gets for right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if he books in two thousand and eighteen for the
Speaker 1: uh two, I'm going to honor that too. But he
Speaker 1: could be divorced or married. Hard things that could happen,
Speaker 1: Things that could happen to me too. You know what's
Speaker 1: mostly causing these big increases in the prices? Is it
Speaker 1: just gas? And I think I think it's just because
Speaker 1: they can, I mean, people pay them, you know, and
Speaker 1: just uh and then you know I did do the
Speaker 1: shows and and uh yeah, there's a lot of this. God,
Speaker 1: I can't believe how much he's hunts cost now. You know.
Speaker 1: Then they they keep going up, and yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: and and and just and if you don't keep up,
Speaker 1: you know, keep with the the going trend, you know,
Speaker 1: the going price, and then there's something wrong with you
Speaker 1: as an outfit or and that, uh, why aren't you
Speaker 1: charging as much? You know? Yeah, exactly, you don't know.
Speaker 1: One wants some bargain basems. So it's not not that
Speaker 1: I'm greedy I'm just trying trying to stay with it.
Speaker 1: And I've had other fightersers come up and say, man,
Speaker 1: you need to right your prices because they see that
Speaker 1: and of course there uh you know, they don't want
Speaker 1: a quality outfit or given away a cheaper hunt. Have you. Um,
Speaker 1: I feel like you told me this, you've kind of
Speaker 1: lost your You've lost your taste for hunting personally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so much like being with you like guiding more
Speaker 1: than you like hunting now and I just kind of lost,
Speaker 1: you know, the enthusiasm you do uh nothing, Yeah, the enthusiasm,
Speaker 1: I guess because I've been I've hunted so much and
Speaker 1: and just have taken everything and gone through the whole
Speaker 1: the whole thing. My myself personally, going on a personal hunt,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't um throwing me as m as much
Speaker 1: as I used to. Just just like trapping too. I
Speaker 1: trapped for you know, years and years and years and
Speaker 1: and I loved it and it's not that I but
Speaker 1: now you know, been there, done that, that doesn't really
Speaker 1: hold that much appeal for me anymore. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of times at the end of a hunt, I'll have
Speaker 1: a client say, hey, you need to come down after
Speaker 1: the hunting season and come whitetail hunting with us, and
Speaker 1: you know, sitting in a um, sitting in a tree
Speaker 1: stand at you know, twenty degrees in the Midwest, looking
Speaker 1: out over a cornfield. Man. Last thing I want to
Speaker 1: do is, uh, you know, after after hunting for a
Speaker 1: full season, go hunting again. I'm gonna go lay on
Speaker 1: a beach in a yi or something. Yeah. Well, what
Speaker 1: age did that start to fade? The enthusiasms fade? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I guess, Uh, I don't know. I guess
Speaker 1: I really first noticed it probably six seven, eight years
Speaker 1: ago maybe. And it's not that not that I if
Speaker 1: I go out and do it, I enjoy it. And
Speaker 1: and maybe it's because too that, uh, I lived at
Speaker 1: lifestyle every day I've got I've got it any any
Speaker 1: day at day of the week I want. So maybe
Speaker 1: it's just just kind of a thing where I'm not
Speaker 1: it's not something I'm never gonna be able to do
Speaker 1: it and do again. And you know, and and there
Speaker 1: there's times I get up, just like we were talking
Speaker 1: talking about about moves, I still get just the biggest
Speaker 1: thrill about going out and calling and moves. I mean, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you're all excited about You're all excited about our hunt
Speaker 1: right now? Oh absolutely, I am. Yeah. You act about
Speaker 1: other people's hunts the way people act about their own hunt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I know what you're gonna be seeing when you
Speaker 1: get out there. I know where you're gonna be, the
Speaker 1: country you're gonna be in, and you me knowing you
Speaker 1: the way I do. It's just it's right up your alley.
Speaker 1: You're just gonna You're just gonna be um uh, pleasantly
Speaker 1: surprised what you're gonna see out there. You know that,
Speaker 1: the that the country, to beauty, the rug, ruggedness, you
Speaker 1: know of it, of the whole thing. So how much
Speaker 1: long do you think you'll run your business for? Um?
Speaker 1: Probably till I die. I mean the only way, the
Speaker 1: only way I can afford to retires, if I dyeing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: But how much money you're making off those birch bowls
Speaker 1: you make? I'm not making us because I give him
Speaker 1: a way to people like you we feel guilty about.
Speaker 1: And we made up a deal today. We made up
Speaker 1: a little wager by which we would determine which of
Speaker 1: us got the first picks out of the two bowls.
Speaker 1: But I thought you already picked out the way he wants.
Speaker 1: I know the one I want, but I haven't picked
Speaker 1: it yet. And then you know I caused recently, I
Speaker 1: caused great physical harm, to be honest, and um so
Speaker 1: that's weighing on my mind. But then we made this
Speaker 1: side wager by which we were determined who gets which bowl,
Speaker 1: and the wage you kind of fell apart. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna keep struggling with it. Yeah, but Buck cuts burrels
Speaker 1: off old growth birch and hobbles it out into beautiful bowls.
Speaker 1: Do you think about selling them online direct instead of
Speaker 1: selling the tourist shops. I'm actually, uh yeah, really thought
Speaker 1: about doing my own website with it, and uh dude,
Speaker 1: it'd be so much better. Here's the thing. When you
Speaker 1: take you take that beautiful bowl he made up at
Speaker 1: your lodge, okay, and you bring it to some terrorist
Speaker 1: shop and some holser comes off cruise ship and buys it.
Speaker 1: He don't know you, You don't know the story behind it. No,
Speaker 1: you're right, he does it. Then he dies and his
Speaker 1: kid brings down to Goodwill. What if you had it
Speaker 1: that you had a place where you sold him for
Speaker 1: more money. I'll sell the damn things for you where
Speaker 1: it was like, here's what the guy, here's the story
Speaker 1: of the guy that made this, and here's how he
Speaker 1: goes about it, and this is a buck bolden damn
Speaker 1: bull would be way better because that way it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be falling into the hands of the undeserving. You're you're
Speaker 1: probably it is likely to fall into the hands of
Speaker 1: the undeserving. One of my guys that have been guiding
Speaker 1: with me, he's been with me for this would have
Speaker 1: been twenty three year. He makes knives now and each
Speaker 1: night he's the European right, uh, yeah, from Sweden. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he uh, every night he sells. There's a little biography
Speaker 1: with it that that he goes and put puts with
Speaker 1: it and and tell it a little bit how it
Speaker 1: happened to his his uh you know, background of making
Speaker 1: knives and everything, and how the knight came to be.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I think I think you're right that.
Speaker 1: I don't really know if that's foot yeah something, but
Speaker 1: it is because I don't know if people are like that,
Speaker 1: I don't think they're picturing how the bowl came into existence,
Speaker 1: because yeah, isn't there the whole backstory of the like
Speaker 1: the birch in your area happen to have more of these,
Speaker 1: Well they're old growth. Yeah. Basically a burrow is just
Speaker 1: a fungus, you know, and so they'll be uh the
Speaker 1: burrows as a reaction to the the fungus, right yeah,
Speaker 1: and and they're actually pretty rare. But but um, you know,
Speaker 1: when you when you find a birch that's going to
Speaker 1: have a burl on it, stay it's just like hunting
Speaker 1: mushrooms or something. You know, stay right there and look
Speaker 1: around at the other birds because there's gonna be probably
Speaker 1: other birds that have have them, you know, being a
Speaker 1: little yeah yeah, because that that that that fungus will
Speaker 1: will have affected those trees in that in that area.
Speaker 1: You know what what kind of mark up to these
Speaker 1: cruise ship tourist shops? What are they? What what kind
Speaker 1: of mark up they put on your birch bowls? I
Speaker 1: have no idea. I just know that it's this like
Speaker 1: a they get thirty nine where they come up with
Speaker 1: a figure nine percent? I don't know, but that's what. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where they Yeah, ye have sella bowls there, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't There was one time that I uh uh
Speaker 1: this um guy to make make makes some nice I'll
Speaker 1: tell you about he. Uh he talked me into getting
Speaker 1: a booth at the Saturday market there, and I just
Speaker 1: finished thirty bowls, so I thought, okay, I'll try it.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I'm gonna have to go there and just
Speaker 1: sit there and and you know, maybe one or two
Speaker 1: bowls or something. But I wentn't there and and uh
Speaker 1: sold like twenty five of those bowls just in one day,
Speaker 1: just just like that. And some of them were yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean they went just like. I was amazed
Speaker 1: at the at the reaction of them. But that's acceptable
Speaker 1: to me to do with that, and and it was
Speaker 1: it was fun too, and and but um, you know,
Speaker 1: I've never since that I've been been able to get
Speaker 1: ahead enough with that that that that much of an inventory.
Speaker 1: How many can you make in a year? I mean,
Speaker 1: if I dedicated myself to uh right now, I should say,
Speaker 1: how many do you make in a year? Um? Back
Speaker 1: before the fire. I've been recently consumed with the last
Speaker 1: few few years and doing some rebuilding out to lodge
Speaker 1: after the fire, But uh, I could probably if I
Speaker 1: dedicated uh, just going full time on making the bowls,
Speaker 1: probably at different stages about a hundred hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: in a summer, probably I could do. If so, if
Speaker 1: you had to give up moose hunting or give up
Speaker 1: carving birch bowls, what should you pick? Give up moose
Speaker 1: hunting or give up birch bowls. Yeah, well, I don't
Speaker 1: understand why I would have to give one of one
Speaker 1: or the other. God came down and put a gun
Speaker 1: to your head. Yeah, I just said, okay, yeah, damned
Speaker 1: if you do, or damned if you don't. Huh, I
Speaker 1: I guess that kind of question. I guess I would
Speaker 1: just have to give up the Well, yeah, because it
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense to me. I could see, I
Speaker 1: could I can shoot a moose and come back and
Speaker 1: make a birch bowl the same day. That's fair enough, man,
Speaker 1: It's fair enough to call the question. It's a question
Speaker 1: the question. But yeah, I suppose I would give up
Speaker 1: the the moose hunting. What. I'm sorry. I just really
Speaker 1: enjoy making those bowls. They're beautiful bowls, man works of art.
Speaker 1: And I like it because I look at it and
Speaker 1: I think about you know, I look at and think
Speaker 1: about you, you know, the stories you told me, and
Speaker 1: kind of like your place and you know big Pilo
Speaker 1: burrels yet the Janny what do you? I don't know
Speaker 1: if you remember this. First time I went out to
Speaker 1: your place, there was a moose shed antler land right
Speaker 1: basically right where you park. You're playing yeah up on
Speaker 1: the and then and then when you had the fire,
Speaker 1: that antler got all burned up. It did, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: did that. That is displayed that burnt charred moose handler,
Speaker 1: charred moose handler which stank the high Haven, Dan, you
Speaker 1: remember this when I brought it out but eventually dried
Speaker 1: out in Danny's woodshop. That is displayed in a very
Speaker 1: prominent place in my home, like where well, the one
Speaker 1: piece of heirloom sort of furniture that my wife has
Speaker 1: from her family is this. I can't remember what you
Speaker 1: call it, man armoir. It's not a word I use
Speaker 1: lightly an armoir. It's up on top of that. And
Speaker 1: I've had people try to buy it from me. But
Speaker 1: why cup giant moose handler. Man. You look at it
Speaker 1: and you're like, I haven't seen one of those before.
Speaker 1: Plus is a crazy andler. And the way it's got
Speaker 1: that weird extra time and holds it up and so
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a flame itself because that drop
Speaker 1: time holds it up, so the paddle, the pad reaches
Speaker 1: up to the sky, but it flames out in the
Speaker 1: shape of a flame, and it's flame scarred and burnt.
Speaker 1: And people come in and I just had someone try
Speaker 1: to buy it off me. Wow for why, I mean,
Speaker 1: my process selling, during the process of selling my house.
Speaker 1: What was the appeal of that thing to him? Then?
Speaker 1: Because it's crazy looking. Yeah, that's beautiful. It's like, uh,
Speaker 1: it's found art. Man. You don't know what you gave
Speaker 1: up and when I want it back now, I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, you might as well set all your sheds
Speaker 1: into another building that you yeah. Oh, and man, that
Speaker 1: was so sad. But that when when the barn went up,
Speaker 1: because that that the whole uh upper barn, that the
Speaker 1: loft was just stacked with years of sheds that I
Speaker 1: found there was there was a whole pile of them
Speaker 1: up in there. Just sad. I guess I don't know
Speaker 1: from what they are, but to me it was more
Speaker 1: and more sentimental thing all these years of these sheds
Speaker 1: and now they're gone. And then I remember I had
Speaker 1: just uh, there was a hundred and thirteen of the
Speaker 1: birch bowls that I had back in the barn done that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were almost done. I just had had to finish
Speaker 1: and finished standing on him all up in flames. Man. Hey,
Speaker 1: Danny talked about the great antler staff that you suffered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I uh, I had been accumulating both shed and shot
Speaker 1: moose antlers and the head quite stack of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like my friends called it the pile of shame. And
Speaker 1: uh when I moved over to this house, say, yeah,
Speaker 1: they took up residents like under the eve of my
Speaker 1: workshop out him around the spruce tree. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: had to stay. You know where'd you find him on?
Speaker 1: I mean just when your travels out there, Yeah, just
Speaker 1: traveling for work and traveling for hunting trips and you know,
Speaker 1: and then a lot of them are just moose side
Speaker 1: shot or bad people with people as cariboo handlers and
Speaker 1: you name it. Just a good big pile handlers out there.
Speaker 1: So we just stole him. Yeah, somebody came over the
Speaker 1: fence from the park out back. And you know it's
Speaker 1: a market for him now, for the like the dog
Speaker 1: to trade, you know, and it's been a hot ticket
Speaker 1: for theft around Anchorage. Man, and a friend of mine
Speaker 1: that lives right in the neighborhood here. He had something
Speaker 1: he came up and work one day as guy in
Speaker 1: a ladder trying to take him off inside of his garage.
Speaker 1: Hardcore Jeffy got ripped off. That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: You put a chain around that one you got outside
Speaker 1: your door up there, and then oh, every time I
Speaker 1: come home, I check and make sure it's still there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love hand gade up comes to
Speaker 1: the man. Yeah, but yeah, they were I I uh yeah,
Speaker 1: one morning I was just knocking around in the yard
Speaker 1: and something didn't feel right. Look, the whole pile is
Speaker 1: just gone, just gone. How many how oh, maybe like
Speaker 1: a six or eight sheds and then probably no more
Speaker 1: than that man, you know, including cariboy was probab maybe
Speaker 1: a couple of dozen sheds, and then uh, probably eight
Speaker 1: or ten just you know, like sets of candlers together
Speaker 1: on a skull plate that were shot, you know, just gone,
Speaker 1: just gone. Yeah, some therapy dogs somewhere chewing on You're stolen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, hardcore Jeffy got interviewed for like an
Speaker 1: a p r N story that ran locally here on
Speaker 1: the radio about stolen moose andlers, and I got picked
Speaker 1: up nationally and he was, yeah, yeah, we helped pack
Speaker 1: that bull out that got stolen off his garage and
Speaker 1: then uh yeah, and then he told that story about
Speaker 1: his buddy who got all handlers stole out of his
Speaker 1: backyard and that was me. So that kind of the
Speaker 1: story made the rounds. Yeah, so watch watching moose andlers? Man,
Speaker 1: what do they what do they do? These people take
Speaker 1: what what what you said? Dog? Choose? Are are they?
Speaker 1: Are they? Because some of them are pretty popular for
Speaker 1: carving too, right? I mean people the people that could
Speaker 1: be the same market. I don't know, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that the market well, well, the chandelier ship the shandon
Speaker 1: like antler chandeliers became fashionable enoughfore they started like casting antlers.
Speaker 1: Antler chandeliers started to establish a market. And then there's
Speaker 1: the Asian apperdisiac thing too, that's round up belt but
Speaker 1: that's like like a that's there. And they raise in
Speaker 1: New Zealand they raise red deer to harvest vela velvet.
Speaker 1: But I was living a gnome. Every summer they'd come
Speaker 1: up there and they ring bring the rained reindeer herds
Speaker 1: in and have big old loppers and and take take
Speaker 1: their antlers off, and there'd be uh a lot of
Speaker 1: the Asians stand stand around buying them. They stander bind them.
Speaker 1: And then the chew toy they just take. They buy
Speaker 1: elk antlers and chop them up in like three four
Speaker 1: inch pieces and they kind of sand the edges. All yep.
Speaker 1: Dudes walk in and yeah, it's like each little chunk,
Speaker 1: each little chunk seven eight nine dollars. I mean, it
Speaker 1: probly defends where you are. This friend friend of mine
Speaker 1: is Selsie, uh makes some n eyes. Every every year
Speaker 1: him and his daughter go up there early summer, I think,
Speaker 1: I guess it's early summer, early summer, up off the
Speaker 1: Hall road. They go in there and they and they
Speaker 1: come back with truckload, a big truck truck load of
Speaker 1: shed cariboo antlers, you know. And uh, that's what he does.
Speaker 1: He just he has a band. So he just boxes
Speaker 1: and boxes and these little cut up there. What do
Speaker 1: you won the world? Do you do with these? And
Speaker 1: and he has these little packages a little dog treats.
Speaker 1: That's a hard working dog. You can get through a
Speaker 1: cariboo way different. I know it. And I would like, wow,
Speaker 1: where'd you come up with that idea? He said, it's
Speaker 1: to go on trend, you know, that's what the and
Speaker 1: I think it too. I think it's like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to blabor this too much, but I think it's
Speaker 1: as those markets emerged and they became a dollar value.
Speaker 1: This is my own personal theory. As the markets emerged,
Speaker 1: the chew toy, the chandelier market, et cetera, and there
Speaker 1: started to bet a dollar value placed on antlers. I
Speaker 1: think it also drove interest and recreational antler pickers who
Speaker 1: just pick them for their own collections. And I brought
Speaker 1: this up before the same way like Morrel's. I think
Speaker 1: that with a market from Morrell's, where Morrell's are like
Speaker 1: worth you know, X dollars or a pound three dollars
Speaker 1: a pound on up and you know dried mushroom prices,
Speaker 1: I think people are like, oh wow, I'd like to
Speaker 1: go find some of those and eat them if they're
Speaker 1: that value. And so it's like, it's just kind of
Speaker 1: funny the way that the antler, like antler collecting in
Speaker 1: our lifetimes has become just become this like obsessive thing
Speaker 1: and just be a chef head antlers. Of a sudden,
Speaker 1: there's a US attention that isn't drawn to them and
Speaker 1: there and they're considered a valuable thing to go after
Speaker 1: once while time people walk past into narrowheads and didn't
Speaker 1: stoop over to the Yeah yeah, you just looked at
Speaker 1: it like a beer can laying there. Yeah, Dan, you
Speaker 1: got any last things you want to ask about? Comments, questions? No,
Speaker 1: it's been it's been interesting conversation. I am uh, I
Speaker 1: am very excited to get out in the last range
Speaker 1: and poke around your home turf a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I call I call flight service. So look, it looks
Speaker 1: like we're gonna have a good day for flying Mars.
Speaker 1: We're actually gonna be able to get out. Good to hear,
Speaker 1: this is not how I envisioned spending my day, I know. Yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I tell you what. It's actually a good thing though.
Speaker 1: I mean that it's gonna be this way that you're
Speaker 1: stuck here and not stuck out there and you know,
Speaker 1: on the airstrip just sitting there waiting for the you know.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I did look group exercise today. We
Speaker 1: had nice dinner, pink pok tournament it Yeah, it's been fun.
Speaker 1: Dirt Yeah, final thoughts. It might be too long to
Speaker 1: get into, but I'm curious with the rebuild, how has
Speaker 1: there been some nostalgia with rebuilding your cabin, you know,
Speaker 1: decades after you did the initial build or you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Just has there been some positive out
Speaker 1: of that experience after the fire? Actually? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I um, I was actually actually be able to build
Speaker 1: something to improve on probably what you know, some of
Speaker 1: the drawbacks. I saw what I had before, I was
Speaker 1: able to put something up and and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: improve on what what it was there. But um, I'd
Speaker 1: still I would still much rather have have the old
Speaker 1: barner and have to have a time that I've had
Speaker 1: to invest in rebuilding. I was. I was just I
Speaker 1: was perfectly satisfied with what was there. But um, but
Speaker 1: it's a At first, it was overwhelming trying to start,
Speaker 1: you know, doing the rebuilds, Like, man, where do I start?
Speaker 1: And then now that I'm seeing the end of it too,
Speaker 1: it uh it's kind of um rewarding and satisfying knowing
Speaker 1: it's almost done. It's almost you know, it's almost back
Speaker 1: the way it was. Yeah, but man, you gotta you
Speaker 1: lost all the stuff that it was filled with. Two
Speaker 1: there were so many, so many people and they're right, right,
Speaker 1: right rightly. So you know, after the fire, they said, well,
Speaker 1: at least you didn't loot lose the lodge. But um,
Speaker 1: the real value of the place wasn't the lodge and
Speaker 1: was in at the real value of the place was
Speaker 1: everything that was in the barn and the shed. I mean,
Speaker 1: so if you're talking monetary, if the lodge would have
Speaker 1: gone up, it had just been a bunch of food
Speaker 1: and a bunch of dead animals on the wall that
Speaker 1: would have burned up, you know. But um, but the
Speaker 1: barn at all, the snow machine, the four wheelers, the
Speaker 1: airplane stuff. Um, I mean, just on and on. And
Speaker 1: I remember remember the after the fire, were sitting out
Speaker 1: there on porch lodge, justice offted. We've been fighting it
Speaker 1: all night and uh um, I thought, man, we got
Speaker 1: I needed something, and I needed the chainsaw. I remembered,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go grab the chains jumping up out of
Speaker 1: the chair and running back to the barn. And also,
Speaker 1: oh wow, there is no barn, there is no change. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then and then uh it was funny I needed
Speaker 1: uh uh, I needed a screw driver. It's something simple,
Speaker 1: a screw driver. Everybody has a screwdriver, like laying around.
Speaker 1: I need a screw d I didn't have a screwdriver
Speaker 1: to just just a simple little thing that I needed
Speaker 1: right right there anyway, you know, just the stuff that
Speaker 1: you're you're used to having on hand, like a hammer,
Speaker 1: and I had no hammer. I had no nothing. You know,
Speaker 1: I had a fork that I had he used to
Speaker 1: try and you know, but anyway, that's all. Uh you
Speaker 1: don't think, you know, I thank God had you know, friends, family,
Speaker 1: and and uh you know that that helped with with
Speaker 1: the rebuild too. You know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: generous people out there that that donated time and and money.
Speaker 1: You know, the family, they got together a benefit to
Speaker 1: help raise money to rebuild and on there. Forget that.
Speaker 1: I mean that that was really something that everybody panded
Speaker 1: together to help me rebuild. Yeah, Pounder, you're cool, dude, Buck,
Speaker 1: I like it. I like you to half dude. I
Speaker 1: like that. I wish you'd let me trade you something
Speaker 1: for it, and uh, hit in Alaska. I just want
Speaker 1: to see if see if there's any any truth to
Speaker 1: all this resiliency I hear about you. Dude, He's got
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of resilience. Man, You think we'd call
Speaker 1: him Rich Pounder. If he didn't, we'd call him Chris Gil. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well there you go, it's right over Chris Gil. Uh Ny,
Speaker 1: what's the longest you ever stayed out there without without
Speaker 1: going back to town? It wou about six months. It
Speaker 1: was remembers, uh like I think it was about seventy
Speaker 1: seventy six or seventy eight, maybe even seventy five. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's when Saint that the volcano uh st Augustine Blue Helens. No, No, no,
Speaker 1: it was Augustine because that was all his ash in
Speaker 1: the air. Is that a well known volcano? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we were. I was actually scheduled to come out in
Speaker 1: December after being in their trapping. Then that when the
Speaker 1: volcano blue all this ashes in the air, planes couldn't fly,
Speaker 1: you know, it was pretty thick, and I got stuck
Speaker 1: out there until February. So it would have been September
Speaker 1: through February, I guess, yeah, bransome time. Yeah. I would
Speaker 1: perfectly uh happy. I mean I wouldn't have any I
Speaker 1: didn't have any uh you know, sweethearts in town that
Speaker 1: I was missing or anything. I was out there with
Speaker 1: the dogs and the horses and just happy with you know,
Speaker 1: my every day meat diet. Just man, one of the
Speaker 1: you know, one of the crazy craziest things that I'll
Speaker 1: always remember that that still this day, I just pictured
Speaker 1: um after that time, after being out there for so long,
Speaker 1: when you're out in the woods, you see no right angles.
Speaker 1: You said, everything is symmetrical, the curves you compounded. There's
Speaker 1: nothing you ever seen and that's naturally a complete right angle,
Speaker 1: you know. And I remember jumping the plane and after
Speaker 1: living out there, jumping in a plane, all of a
Speaker 1: sudden we're flying the anchors. I'm flying over anchors looking
Speaker 1: down and wow, everything's right angles. It just looks so unnatural.
Speaker 1: It's really surreal, and it was just really felt weird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and I'll never ever forget thing. Wow this is
Speaker 1: it just looks like it looks like a science fiction
Speaker 1: movie or something. And then just dammy, you just come
Speaker 1: from a world where everything round, every you know, there's
Speaker 1: everything has a curve. That and I kept trying to say,
Speaker 1: what what have I seen out there that is a
Speaker 1: natural right angle? And I couldn't come up with anything,
Speaker 1: you know, and in nature that's a perfect right angle,
Speaker 1: like white white light, like the streets and trails, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Meso Americans, they like they're like some hard edges,
Speaker 1: you know. But even like most the most the Native
Speaker 1: American groups, all the structures they lived in, round structural structures,
Speaker 1: no corners. Yeah, you couldn't lean anything in the corner.
Speaker 1: Can Can you think of anything natural that that that's
Speaker 1: in nature, that that that has a natural complete right
Speaker 1: angle my tooth, just that tree branch that Danny was
Speaker 1: standing on when he shot that. No, you're right though, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and it's funny that we stumbled that, like culturally,
Speaker 1: we hit on this idea that we really like a corner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I imagine it comes from it's not that we
Speaker 1: really like a corner. Imagine just comes from Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just comes from a structural right. Structurally yeah, probably, I guess,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it it just it just hit
Speaker 1: hit me. It just really spooky. That was not expecting
Speaker 1: to see that. I'm just hey, going to town and
Speaker 1: all said, wow, this is looks so weird. Everything it's
Speaker 1: just a checkerboard to a lecture one time by this
Speaker 1: is my concluding thought. You got on concluders, Johnny Um.
Speaker 1: I went to a lecture one time by a guy
Speaker 1: who'd done these um huge canoe expeditions, you know, like
Speaker 1: he paddled the whole north Shore Lake Superior and did
Speaker 1: all these other crazy canoe trips, and you're saying that
Speaker 1: he was asking the audience He's like, you know when
Speaker 1: you go out in the woods for a week, how
Speaker 1: everything kind of slows down right in your senses pick
Speaker 1: up and you feel that you're hearing kind of either
Speaker 1: improves or it becomes more in tune, and you smell
Speaker 1: things you didn't smell, and there's sort of that you keep.
Speaker 1: You kind of fall into this slower, more contemplative, deliberate
Speaker 1: rhythm over the course of a week. And he was saying, uh,
Speaker 1: he says, you know, when you're out for six months,
Speaker 1: it still keeps happening at that same pace, like he
Speaker 1: hadn't found the end of it yet, which is, uh,
Speaker 1: you know something I think most people aren't gonna experience, No,
Speaker 1: probably not to see it, go to see that quietness
Speaker 1: go that long. For me, Um, it was the terrorist
Speaker 1: text changed Um really changed things for me about being
Speaker 1: gone on longer trips, because you got this sense we
Speaker 1: one time went to where you didn't the thing was happening,
Speaker 1: and you didn't want to be gone longer. It became
Speaker 1: like I became more aware of the fact that you
Speaker 1: might have stepped out, but the but the world moves still. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We went on a long we went on a lot
Speaker 1: trip for deer one time when they were trying to
Speaker 1: settle the Gore George the Gore the Gore Bush election
Speaker 1: and we we they didn't know. We actually put off
Speaker 1: departure way to see how the election was going to go,
Speaker 1: so well, we better go anyway. Um went on a
Speaker 1: float trip, got back. They still hadn't figured it out yet,
Speaker 1: you know, and then you had and then the terror attacks, uh,
Speaker 1: and then it became like being I just remember like
Speaker 1: being away was just different, different because you were about
Speaker 1: that's something had happened, that's some horrible thing had happened,
Speaker 1: and you weren't in tune to it. And then that
Speaker 1: kind of segued for me into having kids. And then
Speaker 1: when you have kids and you're going along trips, there's
Speaker 1: always this this nagging sense that like something would happen right,
Speaker 1: you know, like something would go wrong and you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be there or or whatever that that that like you
Speaker 1: it became harder to divorce yourself from this sort of societal, cultural,
Speaker 1: global momentum that was going on and now it is. Man,
Speaker 1: It's it's like it's not difficult to feel at Pete.
Speaker 1: There is a peacefulness still, but it's hard to for me.
Speaker 1: It's hard to just get the sense that like everything
Speaker 1: stopped and I'm just here now, Like I have this
Speaker 1: like thing in my head that something could be happening,
Speaker 1: something horrible could be happening, right, yeah, and you have
Speaker 1: no control over it either. It's it's just a thing
Speaker 1: that like, you know, it's part of the falling from grace, right.
Speaker 1: So I think about especially with kids, man, like I
Speaker 1: found that, um, there's a huge element of there's a
Speaker 1: huge element of guilt that goes into having kids entails
Speaker 1: like a level of guilt. It becomes uncomfortable, just self
Speaker 1: and pos It's just I think that I'm just governed
Speaker 1: by it in a way, you know, governed by it
Speaker 1: in a way with kids, right that Like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's not nice, but it is because it's like I
Speaker 1: guess that's what keeps you on track. That's what keeps
Speaker 1: me on track. Different people have different things to keep
Speaker 1: me on track. And it could be and I've I've
Speaker 1: talked about this before. I think like it could be
Speaker 1: that I'm not using the right word that what that?
Speaker 1: What that? I'm like, Oh, it's guilt. But maybe it's
Speaker 1: just um commitment to your obligations. And I just think
Speaker 1: I'm just articulating it wrong. Maybe it's just like a
Speaker 1: sense of duty, like you could you can make it
Speaker 1: sound better than than just like it's like this vague
Speaker 1: sense of guilt, a sense of duty, sense of obligation.
Speaker 1: So being gone is different now. And I'm not talking
Speaker 1: six months shit either. I'm talking quick, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got any last thoughts you'd like to add? No,
Speaker 1: I think i think I'm about bready to ready to
Speaker 1: hit the rack and get up and get to get
Speaker 1: everybody out into the woods. Sounds good to me, all right, man, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you for sitting down for so long that I've
Speaker 1: had a blast with you guys, just in a lot
Speaker 1: the last two two days I've hung out with you.
Speaker 1: Thanks man, great dinner last night and then uh and
Speaker 1: then this thing to night first time. Yeah, you had
Speaker 1: a little captain little Captain's plaid, a little Danny Ranella,
Speaker 1: Captain's hall of it salmon who again everything I said
Speaker 1: that no hush puppies. Yeah, yeah that uh, we're a
Speaker 1: dose for the hohol again that you had deep fried
Speaker 1: right there? Y Yeah, they were Oh they were delicious,
Speaker 1: especially when they're fresh out of there and the tails
Speaker 1: were crispy, you know. Yeah, Hey, the trick is baking
Speaker 1: those for a while after you deep Brian. Is that
Speaker 1: what you did then or yeah, a lot of the
Speaker 1: grease comes out and they crisp, bought real nice like that, man,
Speaker 1: But yeah, we eat a lot of them like that,
Speaker 1: my kids especially. Just is that pretty rank oil? That's
Speaker 1: probably fine? Yeah, yeah, I think they were the star
Speaker 1: of the show. Really. They were pleaser man. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: were they? What were the longer ones then? Because you
Speaker 1: had that, didn't where there was a candlefish? Yeah, same thing. Yeahah,
Speaker 1: those are all hooligan yeah okay, because yeah, one was
Speaker 1: just smokes and one was fried. Right, That's that's that's
Speaker 1: what the different. Yeah. Yeah, some we're smoking someone fried. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the ones had their heads on, so they were
Speaker 1: they were bigger fish that way. What the the fried ones?
Speaker 1: They the heads on them too, didn't they? No, yest,
Speaker 1: you're looking for a chore. I told him. The headn't
Speaker 1: got the all the ones we fried, okay, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: then and then they the King salmon chunks, and then
Speaker 1: I think you had helmet chunks, did you. I mean
Speaker 1: it's just a real you know, it's morg board fish. Yeah,
Speaker 1: flatter man. Yeah, you want hooligan dipping next, may get
Speaker 1: in touch man. We'll go out and I would let
Speaker 1: you know after having that in that left, I've already
Speaker 1: seen everybody you know, gathered around the creek down there
Speaker 1: doing it that. You know, what's that? What's up with this?
Speaker 1: What's what's the big deal with the only white guy
Speaker 1: down there? That's he takes those hooligans down. He takes
Speaker 1: those hooligans down. Well, we were catching bourbon on hooligans
Speaker 1: through the ice open the interior, and then he takes
Speaker 1: the hooligans down and catches uh halibut halibant and salmon
Speaker 1: on hooligans. Yeah, it's so so it's it's uh there
Speaker 1: there's good baits Harring. Then they're real oily like Harry
Speaker 1: put out a good sent you know. But the thing
Speaker 1: Harring have up on them, those Harring it that real
Speaker 1: shiny flash, you know. And yeah, there's shapes just different.
Speaker 1: It's more like harry is kind of a more usable shape. Yeah. Yeah, there,
Speaker 1: and they got that that real nice sheen. You know
Speaker 1: they catch us us. You see that harring spinning like
Speaker 1: when you're moving. Yeah, I know, man, A lot a
Speaker 1: lot of times that I'd be, uh, you know, we'd
Speaker 1: be hooking up harrying on there and I'd be looking
Speaker 1: around here. Anybody say if I one of these man,
Speaker 1: I wanted to eat the bait. My brother he spends
Speaker 1: our other brother spends a lot of time down in
Speaker 1: the Bahamas fishing, and he heard a story about he's
Speaker 1: talking to this guy down there. It does a little
Speaker 1: guiding and he goes out with some he's talking about
Speaker 1: taking some Italians out fishing and pulls out some squid
Speaker 1: for bait. Those Italians like, would not bait a hook
Speaker 1: at that squid? Why because they eat it? Like you're
Speaker 1: not gonna put that Yeah, let's just eat that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another one is octopus to octopus babe bases good bait,
Speaker 1: but man, they are sure sure good, you know, cooked off.
Speaker 1: I really like, you know, I don't know if we've
Speaker 1: ever We used to put octopus chunks, octopus arm on
Speaker 1: halbut hooks I can't do anything do that a long time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The nice saying is that the octopus will stay on
Speaker 1: pretty easy too. Yeah, you know that's something about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We use a lot of salmon fins too. Man. They
Speaker 1: got some stand You get that through the skin and
Speaker 1: through the sort of the thin raise and they got
Speaker 1: real star. You can put a harring on a halbut
Speaker 1: hook and then tip it with a salmon fin where
Speaker 1: you running through that cartilage and it's basically like a
Speaker 1: retainer holder. Yeah, that holds it on. Where'd you come
Speaker 1: up with that idea? That's not pretty cool? I can't
Speaker 1: claim just it's not. It's not a ranella. Think it's
Speaker 1: something that's been thought of thoughts, you know. Yeah, all
Speaker 1: right man, good night SA