WEBVTT - Ep. 133: You're a cool dude, Buck. 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.720 This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:18.320 severely bug bitten in my case, underwear listening podcast. You 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:27.000 can't predict anything. Um, first thing I want to talk about, 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:28.880 I want to revisit some of your time about earlier, 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:37.640 earlier today, Danny, I didn't know that when when you uh, 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:40.479 I knew you shot a mule deer out of a 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.120 tree with your recurve. I don't know that you were 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.280 in a tree stand you literally climbed up and shot 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:50.480 it off the branch of a tree. No, like, you're 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.319 not into the whole safety hirness scene and all that. 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:54.920 You're just like sitting up in the limb of a 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:59.760 tree with a recurve. Yeah, I mean, mostly out of necessity. 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.800 But that's that's so old school man. Well, it was 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:05.840 a cottonwood, you know, and had these giant horizontal branches, 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:07.680 and I mean it felt I had I was kind 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.320 of surrounded by branches and real tucked in there, and 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:12.640 it wasn't I never felt like I was gonna fall 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:19.360 out of it. So how'd you like nobody ever does? Yeah, 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:21.800 I think it catches people by surprise, falling out of trees. 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:27.160 So how did you like pull back and swing the 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:29.640 bone everything up there, just standing on a branch. Yeah, 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:32.040 standing on a big big I've done a lot of that. 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.319 Actually that's my m O hunting down south for a 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.400 long time. Uh yeah, I don't know. I just make 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.440 it work. How can you keep your balance and and 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.119 being full drawing, especially with a ree curve. But it's 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.440 like it's it's just it was this cotton with the 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:52.000 well dirt probably knows the tree. But yeah, I would 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.480 always muled your hang out in your dad's place. But um, yeah, 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:55.840 it's a big that cotton when it has like a 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:58.440 couple of branches that swing out horizontally and then go 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.400 up and it's just like this kind of a true 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:04.800 standards shimmying up in there, settling and shot with your 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.400 screwed in a few steps to get up there, you know. 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.919 But yeah, she meet up in there, and didn't you 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.280 tie a little piece of para cord around? I might have. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.799 I think I've had a string to pull off. Was 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:24.800 one of those Nascar harnesses five point harness. That's all, um, 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.640 Buck Bowden, can you first off do you mind first 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:34.560 off telling about uh how you how you got the 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:39.640 name buck? Oh yeah, because you were born Mike Bod Yes, 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:45.240 I was born Mike Boding hidden Alaska outfit. Yeah, that 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:49.640 was my first winter and nome um as at school there. 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.359 It was right when locking buck knives had first come out. 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.000 So so there I am the new kid in town 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:59.920 in high school and I'm taking this buck knife at night, 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:04.240 just been given and um, I think it was my uncle. 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:06.320 You know, that guy's living. He was trying to, uh, 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.800 you know, get me to be uh you know, an 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.639 Alaska native kind of a thing, you know. So so 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:16.920 first knife, you have the first thing. Uh, you know, 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.280 a young boy neat needs a knife. So so he 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:22.880 gets me this locking buck knife and I'm at school 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.240 and I'm flipping it around and catching it by the blade. 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:28.720 So um, I catch him by the blade. But then 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:31.640 so then I sliced my thumb open, had to go 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.600 to hospital. They had to sew the tendon bent back together, 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:37.400 and then there I am at school the next day. 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:43.880 But because I heard the story originally just because people 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.920 can't see when you hold up your thumb. I heard 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:51.760 this story originally because I was watching you working with 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:55.360 the chainsaw and I asked you if you were double 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.320 joined because I couldn't figure out why your thumbs were 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.720 cocked off at such wild angles? Yep, ye hand up 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.960 for a minute. It's so weird. It's so cocked off 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:06.920 at a while, the angle if people almost could see 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:10.440 it through the right it was in the air. And 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:16.640 and ever since then, so yeah, so so there I 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.359 am at school the next day my thumb owned the 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.160 bandage had they had just sown attending together, and so 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.320 me and all my infinite wisdom, there I am at 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.040 school the next day doing it with my other hand. Okay, 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.240 so and the same thing happened there. So there I 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:34.320 am with with you know, I still have the scars 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:36.840 here to show it. But um, so there I am 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.080 at school now with both of my thumbs bandaged up. 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.080 And ever since then they gave me the name Buck 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:44.800 and it stuck. It was just kind of like the 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.040 big joke in school, and then it just followed me on, 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:52.159 even even on my It's like, there's so many questions 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.919 that brings up. So what hand did you do it to? First? 0:04:57.560 --> 0:04:59.560 I think it was my left hand because I'm left handed, 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:01.480 So I was with my left hand and the next 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:03.440 day you got the bandage on that hand and you're like, 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:05.920 I'm gonna master that same trip with my other hand 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:10.120 exactly and cut it the same way. Yeah, the same yeah, yeah, 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:12.000 trying to catch up late late, the same way. And 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:14.320 of course me being left handed and trying to do 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:16.560 my right hand, I'm not near as coordinated, you know, 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.360 with my right hand. Of course. What did doctors say? Uh? 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.160 He actually said that I had the brains of a cabbage, 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:28.320 he thought. So they bandage that hand up, and when 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.720 it comes out, you wind up with two what looked 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.920 to be double jointed thumbs, full range emotional with the end. 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:40.080 Uh yeah, yeah, I can't bend them forward, but they 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:45.080 automatically spring back to the ninety degree position of work 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:49.440 for a place called professional tree service, you know, climbing 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:55.039 trees and doing arborst work. And he had, uh he 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.440 cut off his middle finger. I assumed it was from 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:00.400 a chainsaw. He cut it off on a log splitter. 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.360 Oh really, Yeah, But when he was holding the when 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:05.640 he's holding his chainsaw, he's always giving you the middle 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:08.920 finger because the glove, you know, his leather glove would 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:13.120 always be sticking out. Man. Quick side note. The same 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:18.800 guy he bought a house and someone told him when 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.159 he bought a house and someone said, man. The lady 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:23.680 that lived here before you buried a jar full of 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.000 money somewhere in the yard. We don't know where and when. 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:28.840 When I would show up to work in the morning, 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:30.840 I think I'm supposed to be there seven, I can't remember. 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:34.320 He'd always be out digging around in his yard. It's 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:36.240 like his part of his morning routine would be to 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:38.080 go out and dig around looking for his jar of 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:42.600 money with nine fingers. But with it with this sad, 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.040 I mean that's an actual fact or it's just just 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:50.080 lords in there. Yeah. Someone told him he ran a 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:52.600 type of chainsaw called a sax dolmar. You know that's 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.560 teeth throat out of your head. Yeah, yeah, run good, 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.200 but they'll rattle the teeth out of your skull. Think 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.720 I think there's Stiller German made. But yeah, I haven't 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.160 heard of sax dummer for a long time. Everybody runs 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:11.480 huskar barn, isn't husks and stills? Yeah? Uh so talking 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.040 about how you wind up and you know, because you 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.680 were born in the Midwest, right, I was born in 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:21.120 the Midwest. I was born in the You know, um, 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:23.200 I was not a model perfect child when I was 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.360 growing up. You know, it was in the late sixties 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:29.600 and uh, part of the counter culture. Yeah, I was, yeah, yeah, 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:30.880 and there was a you know, there were a lot 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.000 of h you know, they were the peace marches going on. 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:38.840 There were there was racial tension everywhere, you know, uh 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:42.640 pure Illinois. Yeah. And so anyway, I was at a 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.400 little bit bit of a rogue. And I've always been 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.400 uh you know, had to be in the outdoors and 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:53.120 uh just a live lit to being outdoors. And I 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.360 was frustrated, I guess when I was a kid, because 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.480 I just didn't have, you get, getting near as much 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.280 as I wanted to. So I ended up if we're 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.600 into it, nah, they well, I mean they knew I 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.600 always was always wanted to be any outdoors and and 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:10.760 I was always uh you know, running away and going 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.200 living in the woods, and they had to send somebody 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:15.680 to find me and everything else. And then at one 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:20.120 point I finally uh uh got the hanging out with 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:24.200 U with some bad people. We broke into our my 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.040 grade school, went into the science room and had our 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.880 way with it, had fun with it. And so anyway, 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:34.400 got caught doing that. So I was taken before the 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:41.840 uh the courts, you know, the juvenile courts, and for 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:45.400 the vandalism, for the vandalism exactly. And of course, you know, 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.880 my my recent history had preceded me a boy throwing away, 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:51.920 so apparently I was a problem child. He had to 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:57.200 do something with me. And I'll never forget that. Uh. 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.319 The judge said, well, we're gonna put you in to 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:03.440 the Gifts Gift Home, which at the boy's home there 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:09.240 and uh um, so I remember the judge looked looking 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.240 down at his papers, and my parents said, well, if 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:13.880 his godparents live and nom Alaska, can we send him 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.640 to no nom Alaska. And the judge looked up and 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.200 he looks at me over his glasses. Then he looks 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.680 over my parents, looks over his glasses and says, I 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:27.720 don't care where you're send him, just get him out 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.559 of my town. And so there I am on the 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.679 way to nom Alaska. So what but what did your 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:36.040 parents think about that? What was their plan to see 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.120 you again? Well, they just wanted to see me, rehability 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:41.400 that you know that I would just thought, if you 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.079 want to be in the outdoors here right, well, I 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:46.400 don't know if there you go, buddy, so much saw 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:48.760 that they just saw that I needed some sort of 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:50.960 a change, you know, that they needed to get me 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:53.439 out of the element that I was in. And actually, 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.520 you know, I tell you the truth that it was 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:58.319 the best thing ever happened to me. They put me 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:01.559 up in an eld element that that it was nothing 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:05.160 but outdoors. It was hunting, basically living off the land, 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:07.440 just doing all this off the wall of stuff that 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.520 I would just dreamed or read about. You know, at 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:12.880 what age were you when you hit hit up? And um, 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.640 I think it was fourteen? Yes, And did you know No, No, 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.080 I was thirteen because I turned I remember landing in 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:25.800 on me with July four and I turned fourteen July 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:29.600 twenty four, So yeah, I was thirteen when I got there. 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.120 And were your parents were there? Was there the plan 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.800 that you would see your parents still? Oh? Yeah, yeah, 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.920 I mean that it wasn't the thing where yeah, yeah, 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.680 where they just wrote wrote me off and said, you know, 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.800 good to good luck. You know, it was just they 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:51.640 stayed in touch and then i'd uh. I think I 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.679 think it was about a year later, No, a year 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:56.400 and a half player because it was in wintertime, went 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.480 down and um, you know, saw him in the family 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:03.760 and and was with the family and and ever since 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.920 then you know, we we we're still real real close 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:10.840 our family is. So it wasn't like everybody just you know, 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.160 way bye bye and they forgot So when you were 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:16.440 when you were knowing, you fell in hanging out with 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:21.520 the the native kids. That's what what what what like 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:28.200 what adigitous group? Is it known? It would be the Inupiats. Yeah, yeah, 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:32.800 the the Inupiats up there, and uh that's how you 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.680 kind of fell in with yep yep. And you know 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:40.800 my uh instantly had had a native girlfriend my year, 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.600 my first year there, and I got to know their 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.040 family real well, and I'd hang out with him and 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:50.440 and it was it was just to me just the 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:52.199 needest thing in the world, being able to go and 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:56.280 you know, eat traditional native food. And I wasn't afraid 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:57.959 for ready to try it, and I had actually ended 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.160 up loving it, you know, uh d brook, which is 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.600 you know seal that's soaked in seal oil, and I 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:09.679 love that, uh you know, muck tuck uh oh shuck um. 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:12.600 And then so I'd live but um, you know, I 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:16.040 hung around with them quite a bit in their family. 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:20.160 They uh, they spoke the native tongue more more and 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:23.280 more than they did English, so you know, I got 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:26.800 to uh learn a little bit about the culture and 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:28.960 hang out with him, and and it was it was 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:33.680 before the UM you know, the uh I could still 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:36.920 at that that point hunt Seal with him and Morris 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:38.800 and all assoor. I was able to go on those 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:45.360 kinds of hunts. And that was before the UM the 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:50.679 Act where yeah, yeah Marine Man Protection Act, right, you 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.640 got a company him on hunts? Oh yeah yeah. How 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:56.520 would you guys go as you shoot shoot Seal? How 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.760 would you guys go hunt Walrus? Uh well, uh kind 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:05.480 of the DAUM. The really neat thing was was that 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:11.080 my my godparents stayed. One worked, Uh my my godfather 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.360 worked worked for BLM not not not not b I 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:19.280 a burial Bureau of Indian Affairs. And then uh my 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:23.439 godmother should work for state Social services. So they were 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:29.679 always having to fly to the real obscure villages like Selfunga, Gamble, Diamede, 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.679 and uh I was able to go along with them. 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.040 And at first it was it was like, oh, man, 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:37.839 I don't want to go there, but but they would, 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.480 uh they wanted me to see all this stuff, which 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.160 which now I mean that I have no idea just 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.319 just how fortunately really really was. So we'd go to uh. 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.280 I remember my first of all or hunt. We went 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:52.520 to Savunga and stay stayed with some people there, and 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:54.439 uh they asked me if I wanted to go out 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:56.680 with them and one of the umiaks you know the 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:00.480 next day. So I did explain what us it's a 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.319 water skin boat. It's a it's a wood frame boat 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.840 and they take the uh, walrus skin they usually split it, 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.240 you know, put it over the wood frame. It dries 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:16.320 and and it's just a walrus skin boat. Yeah, so 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.680 they wanted to take that and take you and go Yeah. Yeah, 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:22.840 I mean what wasn't a um, it was just they 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:26.600 invited me to go, So I said sure, Yeah, So 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.360 I went went along and I did that a couple 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.520 of once in Saboon, go once in Gamble and then 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:38.440 uh which it's on St. Lord's Island. Yeah, real quick. 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:41.560 How would they hunt the waters with with with rifles? 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:43.720 They'd go, we'd it was you know, we we looked 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.120 farm on the ice floes and we'd be going you 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:49.480 know along and then we'd uh you know, binoculars and 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:51.360 and we'd see them and then they'd get as closer 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.920 they could and then they um usually take the one 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.520 of the bigger bulls because they were not only not 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:02.840 not after the meat, but tusk. We're pretty important to Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:05.320 when when you've heard when you hit walters and you 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.920 gotta be careful because they'll sink, right, Uh, I suppose 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:12.040 they do, you know, yeah, I've heard that too. But 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.120 but the ones they took were always on the ice flows. 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.760 And then uh, I remember there was one that that 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.920 I um actually did get into the water and they 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.960 got up close enough that they were able to tie 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.760 a buoy to it before saying Yeah, that's like they 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:31.880 but they know where where to place the shot. That's 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:33.600 what this tupid guy I was telling us he was. 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:36.600 Me and Johnnie were spend the time with the tupid 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:40.640 out on Novak and Ny on him with the two 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.480 twenty three. Wasn't that right Johnnie? I don't remember the 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:48.960 saying like yeah, fifty or two twenty three and he said, 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:51.400 you got it. You know they placed the bullet just 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:53.160 to get him right in the brain pan, because they 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:54.880 said if he goes in the water, you can lose. 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.320 You can lose the whole rollers and sink down if 0:15:57.320 --> 0:15:58.800 you can't get over and get at it quick, so 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:00.760 he says, you gotta you gotta slump He was saying, 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.000 you gotta slump it right up on the ice. From 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.880 what I would remembering, I think they were they were 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.200 aiming for the ice hocket. They were aimed for the eye. 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:14.920 That that was their favorite favorite place to shoot them, 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.040 you know, anywhere else of course, you know that they 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:21.640 have such such a thick skull that but the ones 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:23.600 I remember, yeah, that they would get it right in 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.680 the eye. Did you like eating that walrus? Oh yeah, 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:30.440 it's really actually pretty good. Would you go inland? Would 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:32.800 you go inland with them and hunt caribou? Or didn't 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.320 they because they there were no caribou around there. That's 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:41.000 a reindeer area, you know, the um you know, like 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:44.080 the Seward Peninsula at that time that it was mostly 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:50.000 all reindeer herds there, Um and Noon or St. Lawrence Island. 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.160 I don't believe they had any kind of caribou or 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:57.880 even reindeer there, But they'd hunt birds out there. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:01.240 Burt bird and saw some of the most beautiful bird 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:05.480 skin park as. They'd wear and they weren't you know, 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.680 they would they would actually wear them because they were 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:12.240 functional you know, they shed water well and and they 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.480 were warm but but beautiful the same time too. I 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.399 mean they were actually still in that day in the 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:23.240 seventies and dressing and uh in the traditional native where 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:28.760 you know. So, how did it work out that? How 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:33.280 did it work out that you got involved in guiding? 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:35.040 Like what was the first thing that started pulling you 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.720 out of know them and bringing you kind of into 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:42.760 the you know, into the big game world right well? 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:45.119 And and and even though you had that like that 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.320 exposure to subsistence lifestyle, like, what was it that drew 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.159 you into you know, being out in the mountains and 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.320 hunting moose and sheep and whatnot. Well, I'll tell you 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:57.480 what that um. And even when I was a kids 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.800 still in the Illinois you know here in the life 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:04.720 of big game hunters and guiding big game hunters, it 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:07.639 was always just kind of real romantic life for me. 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:12.520 I always wanted to uh just uh hunt and fish 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:17.040 and and uh so, so I always had that, you know, 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.639 that that allure. And then when I actually went to 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.360 know and was able to go out and hunt arm 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.280 again and moose and and get the tape taste of it, 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:30.080 I loved it. And when we moved to hunt, moves 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.240 out of home. Oh yeah, uh huh yeah. And so 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.920 when I got that Anchorage, we you know, and my 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:40.720 my buddies in school, we'd be going hunting snowshoe hair, 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.840 we'd be going out hunting anything anywhere, you know, moose. 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.280 And then how did you wind up done an Anchor? Though? Um, well, 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.520 it just ended up that they my godparents, they decided 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:55.320 they had enough of the bush life and they moved 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:57.880 to Anchorage. So I moved with him. And so you're 0:18:57.880 --> 0:18:59.960 a teenager then or whatever I was. Yeah, in fact 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.679 that it was my junior year in high school. And 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.080 then so then I graduated from high school and an Anchorage. 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:08.280 Did you think did your view going from Nome to 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:11.120 Anchorage as like a major setback in your hunting life? Oh? 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:12.960 I hated it. I didn't want to go to Anchorage. 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:18.840 Was having a blast. I had had all these girlfriends, 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.600 I had honey, and I had everything. It was. I mean, 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:25.480 life was a grand you know. And uh, but you 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.000 got sucked into the big city. Yeah, I got sucked 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:29.919 into the big city. I did not want to go 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:34.080 just uh and then uh, and of course had get 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.679 to know him, and then Anchorage and then had get 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:41.040 adjusted to the big size city life at that point, 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.520 a big high school, you know, the the we we 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:46.439 called at the Green Box and Nome. You know at 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:50.040 the Green Box, it was you know, um it was 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:52.439 high school. It was it was junior high. It was 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:55.920 great school. Everybody in the same box. And then they've 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:58.960 already started the pipeline at this point. No, they haven't, No, 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:04.120 seven the eight. Yeah, they started the pipeline believe seventy five, 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:08.960 seventy six, and we're talking Bridge wasn't really Anchorage wasn't 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:11.600 really here in the way we know it today. No, No, 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.920 I mean it's you know, the change once the pipeline 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:19.320 started up, Anchorge just manage had boomed. You know, it 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.920 was amazing. I mean the hunting I'm joking about Anchors 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:24.800 is the hunter run. Anchorage is still prettydamn good if 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:28.880 you're you're ambitious. Yeah, a good place for lazy It's 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.560 not a good place for lazy hunters. No, it's not, 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.800 you know, but it's also one of these things where 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.199 we've got hunters that they get into Anchorage and and 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:40.239 they think, man, it's gonna be a snap because they 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:44.040 see moose walking around downtown Anchorage and even bears and 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:47.439 down downtown Anchors. So they're they're thinking, Wow, what's it 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:49.080 gonna be like when I really get out in the 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:53.800 woods if there's this kind of you know, animal movement, 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:57.960 you know, wild game movement right in downtown Anchorage, you know, 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.920 down and then what happens And then and then they 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:05.280 get out there and they realized that, you know, it 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:08.320 takes them a while, but they realize there isn't a 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:10.879 moose or behind every tree, there isn't a bear behind 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:14.280 every tree. These animals really don't care whether I see 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:18.120 them or not. You know, Whereas the animals and anchors, 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:20.879 they're they're used to people, so they're not a threat. 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:24.080 Whereas uh, you know, they get out into the bush, 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.680 all these animals still have that natural fear and they're 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:33.359 gonna you know, they're they're they're ears and nose and 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:35.720 eyes are telling them, you know, we don't want me 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:37.200 to think that they need to do with you. We're 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:40.399 looking animals. So what was the kind of hunting you 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:44.760 guys are doing in high school? Uh? High school? Uh, 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.920 it was mostly small game, I guess, you know, off 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:52.040 off the road system. Uh, moose season would come on 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.600 and we'd we'd go moose hunting in September, but like 0:21:55.720 --> 0:22:01.960 during the winter ptarmigan, snowshoe hair, spruce and any anything 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:04.320 to get out and just play in the woods. You know, 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:09.000 we had back then there actually was still a winter 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.000 season for sheep and go back into chew catch and 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:15.920 it hadn't gone to permit area in there yet, so um, 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:18.040 you know, we could go in there and hunt sheep 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:20.360 and goat in the winter. I never took took one 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:22.879 in the winter, but I'd go with friends and they would. 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:27.320 You know, that's pretty tough, huh. I actually no, it wasn't. 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:29.119 You know. I'd go back there with a snow machine 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:33.439 and wander around and so you know, and that's that 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:36.639 and rightly so it's a good thing that they closed it. 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:39.159 And of course now it's all it's all permit in 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:41.359 there too. So so how old were you when you 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:45.760 got your first moose? Um? Well it wasn't we were known. 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:48.840 I suppose of fourteen. And how about when he came 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:52.480 down here, when I came down here, Um, I myself 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:57.199 didn't take any moose until I went out to um 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:02.160 went out to where I took to the river where 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.040 I started doing all my guide and and really got 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:09.600 got into the hardcore bush lifestyle. So it was and 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:13.639 then it would have been that winner, my first winner 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:17.280 in there. After all the hunters had left. Then it 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:19.080 was just me and there. I decided to stay the 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:21.479 state of Winter, and I was going to be the Uh. 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:23.240 I was going to trap for a living. I didn't 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:24.720 want to go back to town. I just wanted to 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:29.880 live out there because how old are you at this point? Okay, uh, 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:31.800 my first year out of high school, so I'm going 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:34.639 to be I'm going to be nineteen at this point. 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:36.680 So then at that point you said, I'm gonna go off, 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:38.480 I'm living the bush and try to become a guide 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:41.360 and trapper. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean. And and that's 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:43.959 when a pipe pipeline first start. When I graduated from 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:48.120 high school, I had two choices. I could go up 0:23:48.520 --> 0:23:52.440 work on a pipeline and become filthy rich like everybody 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:56.080 thought they would. Or I could go out living the woods, 0:23:56.080 --> 0:23:58.120 take care of horses and be a worthless mountain man. 0:23:58.840 --> 0:24:01.399 Let me see which way at the scales tilting, and 0:24:01.440 --> 0:24:03.639 they they tilted to me going out and being a 0:24:03.640 --> 0:24:07.080 worthless mountain man. And I succeeded. You just found an 0:24:07.119 --> 0:24:11.879 outfit or too. Yeah, um yeah, yeah, the uh the 0:24:11.880 --> 0:24:13.880 outfit that went out to work for. He would look 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:17.640 for somebody to uh rotting and take care of the horses, 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:23.280 and um, you know it was like you know, duh 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:25.479 who who? Who would what? What? What? Kid wouldn't wouldn't 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:27.280 want to go live out in the woods and his 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:31.520 main transportation being mean horses living off the land and 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:33.719 I mean that, So this guy was keeping his horses 0:24:33.720 --> 0:24:36.800 out over the winter. Yeah, we actually took took the horses, 0:24:36.840 --> 0:24:40.080 and ye had the we were The first thoughts were 0:24:40.080 --> 0:24:42.200 that we were going to be flying, you know, bringing 0:24:42.200 --> 0:24:44.520 the horses and riding the horses in and out every winter. 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:46.840 But that tripped in with the horses was so miserable 0:24:46.920 --> 0:24:50.400 that that we decided to win or the horses in there. 0:24:50.720 --> 0:24:53.480 But now this isn't the same trip that you went 0:24:53.520 --> 0:24:56.359 in to find your lodge for the first time. Oh no, no, 0:24:56.400 --> 0:24:58.800 this is different. Yeah, this is this is early. This 0:24:58.880 --> 0:25:04.080 is before I didn't really stake uh uh the lodge 0:25:04.160 --> 0:25:06.760 land until seventies six. This is after I'd already been 0:25:06.840 --> 0:25:10.120 established further a valley about twenty five miles up from 0:25:10.119 --> 0:25:12.520 where to lodge is now so talking about So there's 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:14.800 an outfitter that wants to get some horses back into 0:25:14.800 --> 0:25:16.400 the bush and he wants to use them to hunt 0:25:16.440 --> 0:25:20.439 sheep and mooth with. Yeah, and but there's no trail, 0:25:20.600 --> 0:25:23.040 there's no what's the take to get the horses in there? Like, 0:25:23.080 --> 0:25:25.520 what kind of journey is that? Um man, it's just 0:25:25.840 --> 0:25:31.119 for one thing, Alaska at least at least south central 0:25:31.160 --> 0:25:35.560 Alaska is really not good horse country. I mean it's swampy, 0:25:35.720 --> 0:25:40.520 there's willows. It's just it's just miserable, you know. Mean, uh, 0:25:41.359 --> 0:25:45.000 it's not not like you know, the West, where you've 0:25:45.000 --> 0:25:51.800 got solid ground, you know. Yeah. Now and uh so yeah, 0:25:51.880 --> 0:25:55.840 the uh we started heading out there, we're we're you know, 0:25:55.960 --> 0:25:59.400 having this vision of you know, the mountain men heading 0:25:59.440 --> 0:26:02.320 off into uh into the mountain. Everything's going to be 0:26:02.440 --> 0:26:06.280 rosy and and uh ends up to get getting stuck 0:26:06.320 --> 0:26:08.680 in a willow patches, getting the horses mired down and 0:26:09.440 --> 0:26:13.800 um the willows. We got to one one creek where 0:26:13.880 --> 0:26:17.680 we had to uh we couldn't cross it Hilton River, 0:26:17.760 --> 0:26:20.120 so we had to go clear up to Mountain McKinley 0:26:20.320 --> 0:26:25.160 across Hilton and glacier come down the other side. And 0:26:25.200 --> 0:26:27.680 then uh so how many miles does this trip went 0:26:27.760 --> 0:26:31.840 up being with these horses? Yeah, and well as the 0:26:31.920 --> 0:26:36.000 crow flies only about a about a hundred and twenty miles, 0:26:36.000 --> 0:26:40.120 but as if you follow the path and probably being 0:26:40.359 --> 0:26:42.720 two hundred and fifty three hundred, you know, just from 0:26:42.720 --> 0:26:44.600 all the detours we had to take, and how many 0:26:44.600 --> 0:26:49.000 horses we started out seven? I gather that means someone 0:26:49.040 --> 0:26:53.000 didn't make it. Yeah, yeah, we started started out with seven. 0:26:53.000 --> 0:26:56.840 And then we we we had had the the river 0:26:57.440 --> 0:26:59.720 destination in mind where we were going to go. And 0:26:59.760 --> 0:27:04.320 then when instead of a base camp, to start guiding exactly, 0:27:04.920 --> 0:27:08.560 and uh and of course I was just the gold 0:27:08.600 --> 0:27:10.960 for it. At this point, I was just you know, 0:27:11.040 --> 0:27:15.119 one um you know the other uh, two guys I 0:27:15.160 --> 0:27:18.000 was with, they were the they were the licensed guides. 0:27:18.280 --> 0:27:20.040 I was the new new kid on the block that 0:27:20.200 --> 0:27:22.520 was just there to help for for for the adventure. 0:27:22.880 --> 0:27:25.359 So they think at first like we'll bring these horses 0:27:25.359 --> 0:27:29.400 in dty miles or whatever and then we'll hunt all 0:27:29.440 --> 0:27:34.320 fall and then ride them back to town exactly at 0:27:34.320 --> 0:27:37.639 the winning closed never came back to oh no, no no, 0:27:38.080 --> 0:27:41.040 And then all the other horses that we took out there. 0:27:41.119 --> 0:27:46.040 We ended up flying in you know, to um. There 0:27:46.119 --> 0:27:48.680 was a mine strip that was quite a way down, 0:27:48.680 --> 0:27:51.320 so we'd bload horses up into a caribou and fly 0:27:51.400 --> 0:27:56.359 them out and then right ride them up valley. What 0:27:56.440 --> 0:27:57.679 in the hell are you feeding them out there in 0:27:57.680 --> 0:28:00.840 the wintertime on the wintertime, Well, you know, when we'd 0:28:00.840 --> 0:28:04.720 have the beaver come out, they would bring clients, and 0:28:04.880 --> 0:28:08.640 an empty plane would come out to pick up clients. 0:28:08.720 --> 0:28:12.320 We'd we'd fill a plane up with oats and uh, 0:28:12.520 --> 0:28:17.119 you know, compressed bales about falfa um. And then I 0:28:17.160 --> 0:28:20.520 remember many times having to lay on top of bags 0:28:20.560 --> 0:28:22.760 of feed in the plane, you know, to get get 0:28:22.800 --> 0:28:25.119 somewhere because we had to have feed in there. But 0:28:25.240 --> 0:28:29.919 then we supplemented further further roughage during the winter. I 0:28:30.040 --> 0:28:33.359 cut birch trees and drink dragon whole birch trees, and 0:28:33.359 --> 0:28:36.520 they would they would eat eat the birch limbs, even 0:28:36.520 --> 0:28:40.920 the whole tree for for their roughage. So at him 0:28:41.000 --> 0:28:44.800 once in the morning, once in the evening, um uh 0:28:44.840 --> 0:28:47.440 scoop of pellette, scoop of boats and then a leaf 0:28:47.600 --> 0:28:51.600 leaf about falfa. Then when they would get really cold 0:28:51.640 --> 0:28:54.240 when we're talking, you know, thirty five degree below zero 0:28:54.720 --> 0:28:59.120 would supplement their feed with molasses. You know that that 0:28:59.360 --> 0:29:03.040 would make sense with it. And you know, Steve, it 0:29:03.120 --> 0:29:05.920 was really crazy. These these horse the first horse that 0:29:05.960 --> 0:29:09.600 we had. Uh. We we bought them. Uh. They came 0:29:09.640 --> 0:29:12.840 from the Yukon, Yeah, and we bought them. They they 0:29:12.840 --> 0:29:15.000 were they were young, they didn't know what in the 0:29:15.040 --> 0:29:17.800 World War world to do. But when we went out there. 0:29:18.120 --> 0:29:21.680 I remember the first first year, we tried building him 0:29:21.680 --> 0:29:24.680 a shelter like a barn, may makeshift barn to keep going, 0:29:24.720 --> 0:29:27.719 and said, and they would not did no matter of 0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:31.760 freezing rain, freezing cold, uh snow, they would not go 0:29:31.800 --> 0:29:35.680 into any kind of shelter. They would just come and 0:29:35.680 --> 0:29:37.600 and stand with their butts up against the door of 0:29:37.680 --> 0:29:41.280 the cabin there and and uh, but but they were 0:29:41.640 --> 0:29:47.160 they were so tough, so rangy, you know that they were. Um, 0:29:47.280 --> 0:29:50.640 they were pretty amazing. And and we we we actually 0:29:50.640 --> 0:29:54.400 did try getting some horses from from the lower forty 0:29:54.440 --> 0:29:56.760 eight and brought them up and too of them didn't 0:29:56.800 --> 0:30:02.600 even like last the first winter. Absolutely, man, if a 0:30:03.240 --> 0:30:05.200 guy up here, if he won't won't want a horse 0:30:05.280 --> 0:30:08.800 for the type operation what we're gonna do if you 0:30:08.800 --> 0:30:12.720 can get it from Canada, that's the way to do it. Um. 0:30:12.840 --> 0:30:15.040 So eventually comes up like, well, someone's gonna have to 0:30:15.080 --> 0:30:17.720 stay here with the horses all winner because we can't 0:30:17.800 --> 0:30:21.000 ride them out, and that becomes your job. It's not 0:30:21.080 --> 0:30:24.080 my job. It was my wish. So then here you are. 0:30:24.160 --> 0:30:26.120 Now you're gonna spend You're spending the whole winter out 0:30:26.120 --> 0:30:29.240 in the bush by yourself. Oh yeah, man, here's this 0:30:29.360 --> 0:30:32.120 kid from Illinois. All his life he wanted to be 0:30:32.200 --> 0:30:34.840 Jeremiah Johnson, you know, he wanted to he wanted to 0:30:34.920 --> 0:30:38.360 trap and and uh you know, just just be be 0:30:38.480 --> 0:30:41.280 a mountain man. And here's my opportunity. I mean, right 0:30:41.400 --> 0:30:43.959 down to the horses and sawbucks and having to use 0:30:44.000 --> 0:30:47.360 the horses to run the trapline. You know, we there 0:30:47.360 --> 0:30:49.760 were no snow machines. The only mechanical thing we had 0:30:49.760 --> 0:30:52.480 out there was a change all the ram about half 0:30:52.480 --> 0:30:57.040 the time. You know, everything else was uh you know, 0:30:57.160 --> 0:31:00.000 either on old wooden snow shoes running the trap line 0:31:00.000 --> 0:31:01.880 when it got too deep for the horses, or know, 0:31:01.960 --> 0:31:05.040 the beginning the season, I have to have the horses 0:31:05.080 --> 0:31:07.680 to run and go ahead and string the steel and 0:31:07.720 --> 0:31:12.120 then i'd um go, you don't use the horses. I'd 0:31:12.200 --> 0:31:16.280 build a little lean twos that that uh, you know, 0:31:16.440 --> 0:31:20.120 out of spruce trees. You know, I'd cut across bar, 0:31:20.200 --> 0:31:22.800 put spruce trees on it and just just basically made 0:31:22.840 --> 0:31:25.000 made a little cave about the spruce trees. It was 0:31:25.040 --> 0:31:26.800 snow over the top top of that, and it'd be 0:31:26.800 --> 0:31:29.960 a shelter, you know. So I spend the night out 0:31:30.000 --> 0:31:34.000 in in those and uh, you know, and because so 0:31:34.080 --> 0:31:37.400 I had three I had three lines out. I had 0:31:37.440 --> 0:31:39.560 my up river line, my down river line, and my 0:31:39.640 --> 0:31:42.920 upper mountain line and the mountain mountain line. It was 0:31:42.960 --> 0:31:46.480 it was only about two miles straight straight up the mountain. 0:31:46.520 --> 0:31:48.800 That's the one i'd take on the you know what 0:31:49.000 --> 0:31:51.440 I wanted to break. And then the other ones were 0:31:52.080 --> 0:31:55.160 they were like five miles long, so ten ten miles 0:31:55.480 --> 0:31:59.760 round trip, which which when you have an established trail, 0:32:00.120 --> 0:32:03.400 snowshoot trail, I mean, you can scoop right right along. 0:32:03.480 --> 0:32:06.320 But when you have a fresh snow, of course, you 0:32:06.400 --> 0:32:08.640 haven't having to break break trail, so it can kind 0:32:08.640 --> 0:32:11.520 of kind of wear you out a little bit. It's 0:32:11.560 --> 0:32:15.600 your trap A pine Martin Lynx Wolverine, Uh, yeah. My 0:32:15.680 --> 0:32:21.400 big money makers were um Martin number one, wolverine, number 0:32:21.400 --> 0:32:27.920 two beaver. The price on beaver were high then. And uh, 0:32:27.520 --> 0:32:31.400 first I tried trapping beaver through through the ice. You know, 0:32:31.640 --> 0:32:33.960 all the all the romantic things you see in the 0:32:34.160 --> 0:32:37.440 books about cutting a hole and making your pole and wiring, 0:32:37.960 --> 0:32:41.120 you know, forget that. I just started trapping the bank beavers, 0:32:41.240 --> 0:32:43.880 you know. And when it was cold, you wouldn't see them. 0:32:43.880 --> 0:32:46.959 But as soon as you get a warm snap, the 0:32:47.000 --> 0:32:50.280 beaver would be out, like you know, they'd be coming out, 0:32:50.360 --> 0:32:52.600 you know, smelling the front fresh air, and and and 0:32:52.640 --> 0:32:55.800 they'd be everywhere, and they were a lot easier to take. 0:32:55.840 --> 0:32:59.200 Then focus on him in the spring, I'm sorry, you'd 0:32:59.200 --> 0:33:01.720 focus on him in the spring none, and in the fall, 0:33:02.120 --> 0:33:05.520 you know, early on and then and then even throws 0:33:05.640 --> 0:33:08.520 up and ride exactly yeah, and then and then even 0:33:08.600 --> 0:33:10.560 like like like I said, when there'd be a warm 0:33:10.640 --> 0:33:13.040 spell come up, you know, you'll have to have your 0:33:13.080 --> 0:33:18.280 chinooks come in and January, you know, late December, January, February, 0:33:18.800 --> 0:33:21.840 and be beaver will come out then and then they'll 0:33:21.880 --> 0:33:25.760 go back in once that warm warm spells over. But 0:33:25.960 --> 0:33:29.640 it was more I caught more in the fall, because 0:33:29.760 --> 0:33:33.080 usually had try and get out of there, um you know, 0:33:33.280 --> 0:33:35.240 the end of February and trying to hit the for 0:33:35.400 --> 0:33:39.400 rendezvous and hit the fur auctions and sell my furs. 0:33:39.840 --> 0:33:42.840 You know, So were you making more money trapping or 0:33:42.880 --> 0:33:45.840 more money taking care of these horses. I wouldn't getting 0:33:45.840 --> 0:33:47.920 paid to take care of the horses I had to. 0:33:48.600 --> 0:33:51.440 I was just out there, you know, voluntarily. I wanted 0:33:51.440 --> 0:33:54.040 to be there. So I wasn't getting paid to take 0:33:54.160 --> 0:33:58.600 take care of the horses. Um. It was who wanted 0:33:58.600 --> 0:34:00.440 to make any money? I had to trap, but I 0:34:00.440 --> 0:34:04.520 had had had no expenses. You know, they they paid 0:34:04.560 --> 0:34:07.960 for my food. You know what what food they would 0:34:07.960 --> 0:34:10.800 give me, of course, you know, all the prime stuff 0:34:10.840 --> 0:34:14.400 like uh, butter and potatoes and everything. It was always 0:34:14.440 --> 0:34:17.319 gone within the first month and then usually ended up 0:34:17.800 --> 0:34:19.400 the last couple of months. And I would be in 0:34:19.440 --> 0:34:21.759 there there, had nothing but a strict meat diet. You know. 0:34:21.760 --> 0:34:25.160 I'd have to shoot a moose and and then I 0:34:25.200 --> 0:34:27.480 live live on the moose. It was. I had a 0:34:27.480 --> 0:34:30.160 grinder out there, so it'd be like, you know, I'd 0:34:30.160 --> 0:34:32.719 grind up some mooseburger, had mooseburger in the morning, and 0:34:32.800 --> 0:34:36.880 then then moose steak for lunch, mooseburger in the evening, 0:34:36.880 --> 0:34:40.120 the moose steak for breakfast, and so it kind of altered. 0:34:40.920 --> 0:34:43.960 I'd always had have some some kind of a moose concoction. 0:34:44.080 --> 0:34:47.759 You know, your beaver meat. Oh, man, beaver is really 0:34:47.760 --> 0:34:51.360 actually pretty good. It is. Yeah. Um. And then I 0:34:51.360 --> 0:34:54.439 remember one time called Lynx, and uh, I tried eating 0:34:54.440 --> 0:34:57.439 the links and the Lynx was I was amazed. Lynx 0:34:57.520 --> 0:35:01.080 is really good, you know. Um. And I've tried a 0:35:01.120 --> 0:35:04.799 few other things. I remember, Uh, one time, Well, I'm 0:35:04.800 --> 0:35:07.480 gonna try some wolverine. I take the skulls like like 0:35:07.800 --> 0:35:10.239 the wolf wolverine, and I boil them, you know, to 0:35:10.960 --> 0:35:14.640 keep the skulls clean. So I thought, this ain't been 0:35:14.680 --> 0:35:17.240 boiling for a while. That meat's got to be pretty tender. 0:35:17.480 --> 0:35:20.560 So I pulled a skull out and I just kind 0:35:20.560 --> 0:35:23.960 of take it. Look at it looks pretty tender, kind 0:35:23.960 --> 0:35:29.000 of been into it like like an apple. Bad idea. 0:35:29.160 --> 0:35:37.840 It's like the muscle. No, it's not. Now would you 0:35:37.880 --> 0:35:45.120 eat pine squirrel, porcupine? Uh, pork? During the summer for 0:35:45.120 --> 0:35:47.920 for meat, Usually what I do in the spring I 0:35:47.960 --> 0:35:50.400 would shoot a black bear and then I had to 0:35:50.480 --> 0:35:55.080 make makeshift smoker that that I'd smoke up the black 0:35:55.120 --> 0:35:58.560 bear meat. And then for fresh meat, it would have 0:35:58.680 --> 0:36:01.880 to be uh uh ate a lot of grade in 0:36:01.920 --> 0:36:05.160 a rainbow out of the river. But but i'd also 0:36:06.040 --> 0:36:09.440 um eat a lot of porky pine, um you know, 0:36:09.760 --> 0:36:15.319 um snow, snowshoe hair, um, grouse anything. You know. Of 0:36:15.360 --> 0:36:17.400 course we wouldn't take it, take any mooser because it 0:36:17.440 --> 0:36:20.680 just wouldn't keep there any way way to preserve. But 0:36:20.840 --> 0:36:23.400 a lot of a lot of small game. And then 0:36:24.680 --> 0:36:31.120 eventually the fall comes and it's time to guide, right yeah, 0:36:31.160 --> 0:36:34.640 and that became kind of your you kind of oh yeah, yeah, 0:36:34.760 --> 0:36:38.680 yeah yeah. Not not only the passion, but uh you know, 0:36:39.120 --> 0:36:41.960 at some point to a guy said well, you know, 0:36:42.320 --> 0:36:45.520 I need I need to make some money. So uh yeah, 0:36:45.600 --> 0:36:48.920 my first uh first first to your your guide now 0:36:49.040 --> 0:36:54.200 was um really scared nervous. But but once the guy 0:36:54.239 --> 0:36:57.320 guy got out there, um he was from Hungry, didn't 0:36:57.680 --> 0:37:00.680 um speak any English. Your first client was hungry. He 0:37:00.880 --> 0:37:04.640 was yeah, yeah, he didn't speak speaking any English, and 0:37:04.640 --> 0:37:07.880 and so um he pretty much depended on me. And 0:37:08.000 --> 0:37:11.239 it was kind of like, uh, you know, wow, there's 0:37:11.280 --> 0:37:14.319 somebody out there that depends on me, I have kind 0:37:14.320 --> 0:37:17.520 of had his life in my hand. I felt powerful 0:37:17.520 --> 0:37:20.040 because I was really secure and I can take this 0:37:20.080 --> 0:37:21.600 guy out and take take care of him. He sure 0:37:21.640 --> 0:37:27.200 couldn't take care of himself. And were you calling moves them? Uh? Yeah? Yeah? 0:37:27.239 --> 0:37:31.680 And I learned from the guys I first started without there. 0:37:31.719 --> 0:37:33.600 I'd listened to him, and the first time I saw 0:37:33.640 --> 0:37:36.920 it happened, I was like, Wow, this really works. And 0:37:36.960 --> 0:37:38.960 then a lot of it came to rip a cow 0:37:39.040 --> 0:37:52.960 call for us real quick. Oh, it gives me a 0:37:53.000 --> 0:37:58.640 little chub. Now do the do the do a bull call? Yeah? 0:38:02.440 --> 0:38:05.040 And and and you have to try and protect everybody 0:38:05.040 --> 0:38:07.120 wants to go out there with the birch bark cones 0:38:07.160 --> 0:38:11.959 and everything else. But to me, that's just just ridiculous. Yeah. 0:38:12.000 --> 0:38:14.759 And then and then there's uh under says some you 0:38:14.800 --> 0:38:17.560 know people have these um make make a hole in 0:38:17.560 --> 0:38:20.440 the bottle of coffee, can pull a rope through it, 0:38:20.480 --> 0:38:23.520 and none that ever ever, I sounded real to me, 0:38:23.640 --> 0:38:25.920 And a lot of the what I would do, I 0:38:25.960 --> 0:38:29.040 would actually be out there and actually here the cows 0:38:29.120 --> 0:38:31.560 or here the bulls. And then and then just try 0:38:31.560 --> 0:38:34.680 and mimic that. You know, I've yet to hear have 0:38:34.880 --> 0:38:38.120 yet to hear a Kyle never heard a call to 0:38:38.160 --> 0:38:42.520 a call call? Oh man, every every yeah yeah, bulls 0:38:42.520 --> 0:38:46.799 but every year pretty common. I mean me, I mean, 0:38:46.840 --> 0:38:51.279 but yeah, I remember I've been laying in in the 0:38:51.280 --> 0:38:57.959 sleeping bag at night in moose camp here in Kyls Colins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:38:58.120 --> 0:39:00.359 you know what I say that man, But I gotta 0:39:00.400 --> 0:39:02.960 checking my older brother, my mother, not day any here, 0:39:03.080 --> 0:39:07.360 but my other older brother, because maybe the more I 0:39:07.360 --> 0:39:10.040 think about it, I think that I got talk to 0:39:10.120 --> 0:39:15.080 him about it. I think years ago we did. Yeah, 0:39:15.280 --> 0:39:16.680 I gotta I gotta ask Hi about that because I 0:39:16.680 --> 0:39:19.520 have like the vaguas recollection of it. But uh, back 0:39:19.560 --> 0:39:23.320 in this chat from Hungary, this is your first guiding experience. 0:39:23.560 --> 0:39:25.680 It is my my my very first son. Does the 0:39:25.680 --> 0:39:28.840 guy get a moose? Yes? He did, Yeah, and it 0:39:28.920 --> 0:39:32.040 was it was so so funny when I, uh, you know, 0:39:32.160 --> 0:39:34.480 he was scared to death of horses, and of course 0:39:35.400 --> 0:39:39.000 all the horses had different personalities, you know, and and 0:39:39.080 --> 0:39:42.520 so I tried put him on the uh most docile 0:39:42.600 --> 0:39:45.680 horse we had, but but still the same token. You 0:39:45.760 --> 0:39:49.080 know that a horse, a horse can really sense an 0:39:49.080 --> 0:39:53.040 inexperienced rider. You know, he'd an old punky. She'd kind 0:39:53.040 --> 0:39:54.680 of looked back and put it with her eyes and 0:39:54.719 --> 0:39:57.200 she said, yeah, I got this guy's ticket. I know 0:39:57.239 --> 0:39:59.280 what I can get get away with. And we we'd 0:39:59.320 --> 0:40:03.359 go off up the trail and punk you'd take him 0:40:03.400 --> 0:40:09.200 underneath branches, you know, and knock him off. Yeah, and 0:40:09.800 --> 0:40:13.399 of course yeah, he's uh like like with the rain, 0:40:13.440 --> 0:40:15.799 you're you're trying to teach him, well, the horses are 0:40:15.840 --> 0:40:17.799 net neck rain. But of course you know he's he's 0:40:17.840 --> 0:40:20.080 got the reins and he's trying to trying to pull 0:40:20.160 --> 0:40:23.040 him like uh, you know, pull the head one way 0:40:23.120 --> 0:40:25.359 or the next. And she didn't like that. It was like, 0:40:25.760 --> 0:40:29.719 you know, final life had enough, you know, the what 0:40:29.719 --> 0:40:32.160 what what what she's thinking and he just he just 0:40:32.160 --> 0:40:35.799 couldn't get it. Guy a great guy, and it was 0:40:36.040 --> 0:40:38.640 it was fun. It was a fun experience. And being 0:40:38.680 --> 0:40:43.239 able to just have somebody else's you know, life in 0:40:43.320 --> 0:40:46.680 my own hands and being able to to take him 0:40:46.719 --> 0:40:49.080 whatever was they were looking for was fun. Did you 0:40:49.880 --> 0:40:54.760 did you like being responsible for someone because you'd always 0:40:54.840 --> 0:41:00.200 perceived yourself as the troublemaker and the derelict, and here 0:41:00.280 --> 0:41:02.799 was sort of a way that of proving that that 0:41:02.880 --> 0:41:05.320 wasn't true, Like, what do you mean that you liked having? 0:41:05.400 --> 0:41:07.640 Now that's a that's a little deep. I never really 0:41:07.719 --> 0:41:09.799 thought about that. I mean it might be a little deep. 0:41:09.880 --> 0:41:11.920 I mean there's gonna be something going on. Why did 0:41:11.960 --> 0:41:15.920 you like having? I never really tried to analyze it, 0:41:16.000 --> 0:41:21.440 But to me, it was just, um, you know, I 0:41:21.480 --> 0:41:27.040 didn't see see it, you know, from my from my 0:41:27.120 --> 0:41:29.879 fault as a as a kid. I I just saw 0:41:29.880 --> 0:41:34.239 it just enjoying taking this guy out because because I'm 0:41:34.280 --> 0:41:37.800 really good at what I'm what I'm doing, and uh, 0:41:38.120 --> 0:41:41.120 something I've always wanted to do. Did you like that? Uh, 0:41:41.360 --> 0:41:46.399 like the teacher role, like show someone something you liked, 0:41:46.760 --> 0:41:49.200 you show someone something you love to kind of yeah, 0:41:49.239 --> 0:41:52.400 I guess I really enjoyed the uh, you know, especially 0:41:52.400 --> 0:41:54.960 beating being at at that that age somebody looking up 0:41:55.000 --> 0:41:58.080 to me, you know, somebody's older me, older than me, 0:41:58.640 --> 0:42:02.160 a senior looking up to me and and asking me 0:42:02.440 --> 0:42:04.920 these questions, how did we do this? How do we 0:42:05.040 --> 0:42:10.560 do that? Or just seeing me as uh, um, you know, 0:42:11.040 --> 0:42:14.840 the expert and what I'm doing and that that that 0:42:14.640 --> 0:42:17.480 that that felt good from from the client's perspective, was 0:42:17.520 --> 0:42:19.920 probably really cool to be hanging with someone that was 0:42:19.960 --> 0:42:23.480 that connected to the landscape. Oh yeah, because I think 0:42:23.480 --> 0:42:25.720 at least in this day and age and maybe then too, 0:42:25.760 --> 0:42:28.120 so many of these guys roll in just for a 0:42:28.120 --> 0:42:30.120 few weeks here in hunt and season somewhere in lower 0:42:30.120 --> 0:42:33.239 forty eight and yeah, and plus I I suppose I 0:42:33.320 --> 0:42:37.960 probably probably looked apart too. You know, here's this here's 0:42:37.960 --> 0:42:41.400 this guy with a longer hair and the cloak close 0:42:41.480 --> 0:42:44.680 a war. Not that I was trying to address the part. 0:42:44.800 --> 0:42:48.560 It's just that you naturally fall into into the look 0:42:48.600 --> 0:42:51.000 and the mystique, you know, the movement you do just 0:42:51.200 --> 0:42:54.120 somebody that's lived in the bush, and you know, you 0:42:54.160 --> 0:42:58.240 get these people from that come in that are pretty 0:42:58.320 --> 0:43:01.080 much city born and uh you know, d owing the 0:43:01.120 --> 0:43:05.480 city and they they can they can see that that 0:43:05.520 --> 0:43:07.520 you've been out in the bush and you're comfortable out 0:43:07.520 --> 0:43:11.359 there and you're confident and yeah, and that they don't 0:43:11.360 --> 0:43:14.000 have any problem and putting their life in your hand. 0:43:15.520 --> 0:43:18.720 How long did you guide for that outfit before going 0:43:18.760 --> 0:43:22.120 off and trying to start your own outfitting business. Oh. 0:43:22.160 --> 0:43:27.520 I was with him until clear through the clear through 0:43:27.560 --> 0:43:31.720 the eighties, and then I got my master guideline or 0:43:31.840 --> 0:43:34.080 and then I went into business from I think my 0:43:35.000 --> 0:43:43.120 first hunters were like n somewhere right by yourself. And 0:43:43.160 --> 0:43:46.000 at that point where you already you were already had 0:43:46.040 --> 0:43:48.719 experienced guiding the things like the main things you like 0:43:48.800 --> 0:43:52.600 to focus on now our doll, sheep, moose, and brown bears, 0:43:52.719 --> 0:43:56.759 right right, doll sheep, moose, brown bear, grizzly. They're they're 0:43:56.760 --> 0:44:00.520 what we're most noted for in that order. Yeah, and 0:44:00.560 --> 0:44:05.399 that was your order again, uh, sheep, moose, brown bear, grizzly. Yeah, 0:44:05.520 --> 0:44:10.520 and that that's basically more what you know, what we 0:44:10.600 --> 0:44:13.120 had out there, but what I cut my teeth on. 0:44:13.239 --> 0:44:16.680 And uh and in our area you know just has 0:44:16.800 --> 0:44:21.120 has a good, good population of all those. So when 0:44:21.160 --> 0:44:23.879 you went into business by yourself, that's what you focused on, 0:44:26.120 --> 0:44:29.920 right Yeah, Yeah, we advertise more for you know. Um 0:44:30.560 --> 0:44:32.479 and if you want to take care of Boo black bear, 0:44:32.560 --> 0:44:35.120 they're out there, and uh, you know you can go 0:44:35.160 --> 0:44:38.120 ahead and and take them and don't know, no extra 0:44:38.239 --> 0:44:40.440 charge out there. Because I've always been a firm believia. 0:44:40.440 --> 0:44:42.960 If you book a tent tent ten day hunt, you 0:44:42.960 --> 0:44:44.960 ought to be able to stay out there and hunt 0:44:45.040 --> 0:44:47.680 hunt for ten ten days, you know. But those times 0:44:47.680 --> 0:44:53.960 of changing now oh boy, big time. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:44:54.200 --> 0:44:57.919 no one wants to hunt hard anymore. Yeah they yeah, 0:44:58.000 --> 0:45:00.400 and and that that that' say you just can't events 0:45:00.440 --> 0:45:03.080 a lot of these people that very rarely do these 0:45:03.120 --> 0:45:05.319 animals come in and surrender. I mean you've actually got 0:45:05.320 --> 0:45:06.799 to go out there and work for him. You have 0:45:06.840 --> 0:45:09.960 to get wet, you have to get dirty, you have 0:45:10.120 --> 0:45:14.239 to uh yeah, you've got to be uncomfortable some sometimes 0:45:14.239 --> 0:45:17.680 and you have to work work hard at it, and uh, 0:45:17.719 --> 0:45:19.480 you know, you have have to be able to accept 0:45:19.520 --> 0:45:22.480 disappointment sometimes. You know that animals aren't always going to 0:45:22.560 --> 0:45:25.640 move the way you want. And a guide can be 0:45:25.719 --> 0:45:28.000 out there and you can have all the experience and 0:45:28.040 --> 0:45:31.759 the expertise in the world, but sometimes, uh you know, 0:45:31.840 --> 0:45:36.759 there's uh, you know, that's not enough. These animals don't 0:45:36.760 --> 0:45:38.239 care whether you see them or not. They're going to 0:45:38.280 --> 0:45:40.920 do their very best to avoid you. And you were 0:45:41.000 --> 0:45:44.919 but you were involved in Alaska hunting at a time 0:45:44.960 --> 0:45:48.239 when there was still a bit of like exploration going on, right, 0:45:48.480 --> 0:45:50.880 I mean not like big like Matt making, but I 0:45:50.880 --> 0:45:53.520 mean that you could pioneer new hunting spots back then. 0:45:53.640 --> 0:45:56.080 Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, and that and that was part 0:45:56.080 --> 0:45:58.440 of the part of the fun I had when I 0:45:58.440 --> 0:46:01.600 went out out there there there too. And my uh 0:46:01.840 --> 0:46:05.440 to me, part of my job or my my obligations 0:46:05.480 --> 0:46:08.759 to were to take the horses and just head that 0:46:08.800 --> 0:46:10.640 way to see what's over there, you know, And they 0:46:10.640 --> 0:46:14.640 were they were still areas that are you know, wild word, 0:46:14.680 --> 0:46:18.160 nobody was hunting in. Nobody had really been in there 0:46:18.160 --> 0:46:20.400 and tried it out. And I'd take the horses and 0:46:20.480 --> 0:46:24.000 I'd head up and into the mountains for days, you know, uh, 0:46:24.320 --> 0:46:26.799 exploring new places. So did you find like a lot 0:46:26.880 --> 0:46:29.200 of little sheep spots and stuff that people just hadn't 0:46:29.239 --> 0:46:32.480 hunted sheep? Yeah, Well, the area where we hunted it 0:46:32.800 --> 0:46:36.359 was before the Donale National Park and Preserve was um 0:46:37.640 --> 0:46:41.880 um implemented. So we'd go up the head of the 0:46:41.960 --> 0:46:44.600 valley and we'd always heard they were sheep up there, 0:46:44.640 --> 0:46:47.960 and and so we took the horses up there. It took, 0:46:48.440 --> 0:46:50.440 you know, about three days went up there just to 0:46:50.520 --> 0:46:53.239 check it out. And I saw that the west sheep 0:46:53.280 --> 0:46:55.240 but there. So we went ahead and booked a couple 0:46:55.239 --> 0:46:58.640 of hunters and took them up there. Before that, it 0:46:58.719 --> 0:47:01.239 was just you know, I people would fly up there, 0:47:01.239 --> 0:47:03.960 but we we didn't really have access to airplanes or 0:47:03.960 --> 0:47:05.920 anything that things like like that, so it was just 0:47:06.280 --> 0:47:08.640 all everything we did exploring we did. We're all a 0:47:08.719 --> 0:47:11.799 horseback And what would be a long hunt for you 0:47:11.800 --> 0:47:16.399 guys back then? Ten days? Yeah, everything is usually based 0:47:16.440 --> 0:47:18.680 on ten days. But what about when you just messing 0:47:18.680 --> 0:47:22.520 around by yourself? Um me, as far as my hunting goes, 0:47:24.000 --> 0:47:26.960 I don't know. Pretty much just hunting every day. I mean, 0:47:27.160 --> 0:47:30.359 if there's a time where, like during trapping season or whatever, 0:47:30.400 --> 0:47:33.520 and I needed moose, I just go out there and 0:47:33.560 --> 0:47:37.799 I wouldn't get hardcourt with the clients. You know, you're 0:47:37.840 --> 0:47:41.239 obligated to hit it hard all day, every every day. 0:47:41.320 --> 0:47:44.600 And I just when I was out there by myself, 0:47:44.719 --> 0:47:46.640 hunting on my own, I just do it at my 0:47:46.760 --> 0:47:49.600 own convenience, you know, if I wanted to or needed it, 0:47:49.800 --> 0:47:55.759 or if I got hungry. What's a master guide license? Um? Well, 0:47:55.920 --> 0:47:59.839 it's basically just to uh. It holds the same weight 0:48:00.000 --> 0:48:03.200 as a registered guide license, but it's a it's a 0:48:03.280 --> 0:48:08.879 longevity thing that you qualify for it. Begat how many 0:48:08.960 --> 0:48:11.640 years you've had to been a master or a registered 0:48:11.680 --> 0:48:15.520 guide for so many years, had so many favorable recommendations 0:48:15.640 --> 0:48:20.160 been approved by the guideboard before they'll issue you a 0:48:20.280 --> 0:48:24.799 master guide license. So it takes a minimum of at 0:48:24.920 --> 0:48:27.239 least twenty two or twenty three years to become a 0:48:27.320 --> 0:48:31.560 master guide because you've had to do done your initiation 0:48:31.680 --> 0:48:35.080 as an assistant guide, which takes three years. Then you 0:48:35.160 --> 0:48:39.160 can apply to take your registered guide test at least 0:48:39.160 --> 0:48:42.040 that this Batmack when I did it in the seventies. 0:48:42.800 --> 0:48:46.880 And then then you've had to have been a registered 0:48:46.920 --> 0:48:50.480 guide book so many hunters had so many favorable recommendations 0:48:50.600 --> 0:48:54.200 from them, and then you can apply for your master 0:48:54.320 --> 0:48:57.480 guide license. And how many master guides do you think 0:48:57.520 --> 0:49:01.440 are in this state now? I'm not sure I know. 0:49:02.160 --> 0:49:08.640 Um uh, they don't reissue him uh a master guide 0:49:08.719 --> 0:49:11.800 license number. I've got one of the one of the 0:49:11.880 --> 0:49:16.359 lower active master guide numbers right right now. In fact, 0:49:16.440 --> 0:49:22.200 I remember it's it's eighty. Uh. I remember when I 0:49:22.280 --> 0:49:27.759 took my guy to become a master guide. Yes, yeah, yeah, 0:49:29.200 --> 0:49:32.239 I remember. Um, And of course there's they've all died, 0:49:32.280 --> 0:49:34.400 you know, sent a lot of times you reached some 0:49:34.480 --> 0:49:40.440 mass master guide status. That's, um, you're not around, but 0:49:40.960 --> 0:49:44.080 but longer after that. But when I took my registered 0:49:44.120 --> 0:49:48.960 guide test in n It was one of one of 0:49:49.040 --> 0:49:55.880 the yeah, the biggest accomplishments of my life to that 0:49:56.040 --> 0:49:59.799 that point. I remember, Um, I did that, I did, 0:50:00.000 --> 0:50:03.719 had the written and then I passed the orals and uh. 0:50:04.360 --> 0:50:06.040 And when I came out of the orals, I was 0:50:06.120 --> 0:50:08.440 out in the hall waiting in the and the gal 0:50:09.000 --> 0:50:11.200 that was given the test of work for the state, 0:50:11.320 --> 0:50:13.920 she came out and she said, Mike. She walked out 0:50:13.960 --> 0:50:17.080 to me, looked at me, she said, congratulations, You're the 0:50:17.520 --> 0:50:20.400 youngest registered guide in the state. So I was the 0:50:20.480 --> 0:50:23.359 youngest registered guide in the state at that point. Yeah, 0:50:23.520 --> 0:50:25.200 I thought, I thought that was a real So I 0:50:25.280 --> 0:50:28.640 took her out to dinner that night. I had some Yeah, 0:50:28.719 --> 0:50:33.400 there you go. Can you give us an example of 0:50:33.800 --> 0:50:35.840 like a question that you had answer in the in 0:50:35.960 --> 0:50:40.160 the orals or any any questions that test. Yeah, yeah, 0:50:41.160 --> 0:50:45.840 I remember, okay, Um for instance, some of the it 0:50:45.960 --> 0:50:48.279 was some of the questions, uh, what are the uh 0:50:49.160 --> 0:50:54.040 four four mammals in Alaska remained white year round? That 0:50:54.120 --> 0:50:56.839 would be a question. Let me let me do that one. 0:50:59.280 --> 0:51:03.719 I got three year round. It's always the port. Yeah. Yeah, 0:51:05.440 --> 0:51:08.239 there's a key there's a key word. Yeah, it's a 0:51:08.320 --> 0:51:14.399 trick question. Yeah, but I got it. Okay, Now I'm 0:51:14.440 --> 0:51:18.839 goofed up the question again. Question, what are the four 0:51:19.000 --> 0:51:22.239 mammals that remained white year? Dirtmouth? You got it? I 0:51:22.320 --> 0:51:27.759 think so ridge pounder. Don't we say mammals little over 0:51:27.880 --> 0:51:33.320 emphasize there's a whale that stays white. Yeah, we're just 0:51:33.400 --> 0:51:36.600 talking about dead ones a minute ago or an hour ago. Yes, 0:51:36.680 --> 0:51:39.520 the bluga whale. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know what the 0:51:39.560 --> 0:51:42.560 answer three are? It's amazing how so many people and 0:51:42.640 --> 0:51:44.520 they're sitting in my loge and some of them are 0:51:44.600 --> 0:51:50.680 hanging on the wall and they're looking up in the air. No, 0:51:50.920 --> 0:51:52.560 but but we got a goat, and we got a 0:51:52.640 --> 0:51:54.839 sheep on uh, you know. And then and of course 0:51:54.880 --> 0:51:58.040 the other one polar bear. And then I remember one 0:51:58.040 --> 0:52:00.279 of the other questions to what are the four uh 0:52:00.880 --> 0:52:06.719 for animals that change color with the seasons? Arm again, weasel, 0:52:07.239 --> 0:52:15.120 snowshoe hair, arctic care, arctic snow. There's three time against 0:52:15.200 --> 0:52:21.040 there's three right there. Now, come on your bone head. Okay, 0:52:21.160 --> 0:52:25.759 so weasels weasels. Yeah, it goes from a weasel to 0:52:25.800 --> 0:52:29.360 an ermine. Yeah, tarmy goes from regular one to a 0:52:29.400 --> 0:52:32.360 white one. Right, snows your hair goes from a regular 0:52:32.440 --> 0:52:37.640 one to a white one. Right. What was wanted to 0:52:37.680 --> 0:52:43.879 said a minute ago? It's the Arctic fox. Oh yeah, there. 0:52:44.280 --> 0:52:47.279 What did I say that you didn't like? Um? Oh, 0:52:48.280 --> 0:52:52.560 arctic hare, Arctic hare, snowshoe hair. They're all hair. That's 0:52:52.600 --> 0:52:56.200 a true question, Danny. Did you have all those? Um? 0:52:56.360 --> 0:52:59.160 What was the last one? That's what I hung up? Yeah, 0:52:59.320 --> 0:53:01.279 if I didn't have fox, the found it? Would you? 0:53:01.560 --> 0:53:03.040 Did you? Did you feel like you did good on 0:53:03.040 --> 0:53:05.320 any of those? I did good on the on the 0:53:05.400 --> 0:53:08.279 first one. You like that little mammal party. Mammal party. 0:53:08.320 --> 0:53:11.080 I got it because you were like, oh man, And 0:53:11.280 --> 0:53:13.719 remember I do remember. One of the questions I thought 0:53:13.840 --> 0:53:17.160 was a trick question on the Registered Guide test was 0:53:17.360 --> 0:53:20.880 that uh uh and I got it wrong too, but uh. 0:53:21.440 --> 0:53:25.319 The quick question was when you're standing around the campfire, uh, 0:53:25.880 --> 0:53:29.719 where does the smoke go? And you know, it was 0:53:29.800 --> 0:53:36.920 like but towards beauty. Yeah. And and the one that 0:53:36.960 --> 0:53:41.560 I thought thought thought was the stupid answer was because obviously, 0:53:41.840 --> 0:53:43.840 when you're standing around the fire, the smokes blowing in 0:53:43.920 --> 0:53:47.759 your face because you're creating a little you're creating a backdraft. Well, 0:53:47.840 --> 0:53:50.200 I'm not thinking. I'm thinking. I'm thinking, you know, they're 0:53:50.239 --> 0:53:53.440 just they're they're just trying to be funny, but but 0:53:53.680 --> 0:53:56.680 they're actually his truth. Yeah, your body creates a backdraft 0:53:56.760 --> 0:54:01.040 and the smoke yea, you're open smump, smoke goes up 0:54:01.040 --> 0:54:03.120 in your face. I was reading about when guys used 0:54:03.120 --> 0:54:07.000 to use the strategy you're talking about, the lean to, 0:54:08.800 --> 0:54:11.360 and you build a fire, you know, to try to 0:54:11.440 --> 0:54:15.840 fill it with some warmth. That oftentimes people will build 0:54:15.920 --> 0:54:20.200 that lean to that it's that the pitch is pitched 0:54:20.320 --> 0:54:24.959 into the wind, thinking that you gotta wind protection. Yeah, 0:54:25.440 --> 0:54:28.120 but how that causes all that smoke to peel up 0:54:28.280 --> 0:54:30.280 and you actually want to build it. So the winds 0:54:30.360 --> 0:54:34.880 moving across them across the mouth, right, and so it's 0:54:34.920 --> 0:54:36.840 not so you're not just filling the whole thing with 0:54:36.880 --> 0:54:38.840 smoke the whole time. Not only from smoke too, but 0:54:39.200 --> 0:54:41.680 drifting snow too. I mean it don't do the same 0:54:41.760 --> 0:54:44.600 thing with with snow. Yeah. A lot of times what 0:54:44.680 --> 0:54:47.480 I what I do? Keep just freezing your ass? Man. 0:54:48.560 --> 0:54:50.840 Did you have a good bag? Oh yeah, yeah, I 0:54:50.920 --> 0:54:54.000 had a Remember my mom one of my first uh 0:54:54.680 --> 0:54:56.759 gifts she got me when when I first moved up 0:54:56.800 --> 0:54:59.279 there in my first year. It was a a north 0:54:59.440 --> 0:55:04.600 face um expedition bag uh you know down and I've 0:55:04.600 --> 0:55:06.719 still got that to the you know, you know this 0:55:06.840 --> 0:55:09.840 day up in the loft at the lodge. But a 0:55:09.920 --> 0:55:13.560 lot a lot of times and I'm sorry, feet your 0:55:13.600 --> 0:55:16.919 head towards the fire. Um, I think using my head 0:55:18.440 --> 0:55:20.960 that wherever I'd laid down that you have the head's 0:55:21.000 --> 0:55:23.279 taken out, that that's what built them more. But my 0:55:23.480 --> 0:55:26.759 favorite one Steve where I'd be uh on trying and 0:55:26.840 --> 0:55:30.919 I decided I'd be spending night and then um, yeah, 0:55:31.280 --> 0:55:34.360 the snow is usually five six six ft deep and 0:55:34.440 --> 0:55:37.839 you get, um, you find these big spruce of course, 0:55:37.880 --> 0:55:41.320 you know, the the snow's falling on the branches, bringing 0:55:41.320 --> 0:55:43.719 the branches down, and there's a big void at the 0:55:44.040 --> 0:55:47.200 base of the tree and there's all the dry dead 0:55:47.280 --> 0:55:51.560 grass underneath there, you know, like a tree well yeah yeah, yeah, 0:55:52.120 --> 0:55:55.719 And and you know you'd cut spruce spruce bows, you know, 0:55:55.880 --> 0:55:58.560 the light land the bottom and you crawl up underneath 0:55:58.640 --> 0:56:02.040 there and you'd uh kick some of the snow out, 0:56:02.520 --> 0:56:04.480 you know, and at the well you get a fire 0:56:04.560 --> 0:56:08.600 going down there and you could actually get some pretty 0:56:08.640 --> 0:56:11.279 good warms come coming up underneath it because the fired 0:56:11.360 --> 0:56:15.640 you know, the um the branches would actually hold some 0:56:15.760 --> 0:56:18.080 of the heat down in there because the branch would 0:56:18.120 --> 0:56:21.120 have snow on them too, And and you're you're, you're surrounded. 0:56:21.239 --> 0:56:25.640 So basically a really a nice shelter. And then I'll 0:56:25.680 --> 0:56:29.520 never forget times just uh falling asleep you because I 0:56:29.640 --> 0:56:31.320 cut the spruce boughs and lay on top of the 0:56:31.320 --> 0:56:34.040 spruce bouch with a sleeping bag and just the smell 0:56:34.120 --> 0:56:36.200 of the spruce and the dead grass and smell of 0:56:36.280 --> 0:56:38.880 the fire. It should I mean right now I can 0:56:38.920 --> 0:56:42.359 still visualize it and since it, and it just really 0:56:42.480 --> 0:56:45.600 brings back some nice memories, you know, that kind of stuff. 0:56:45.640 --> 0:56:49.759 Would you ever come across critters and those those situations 0:56:49.800 --> 0:56:53.360 where they're down bedded in those warm spots or no, 0:56:54.200 --> 0:56:58.160 I can't say as I ever remember anither uh you know, 0:56:58.280 --> 0:57:02.520 times that you'd go along and you'd actually you know, 0:57:02.640 --> 0:57:05.120 either see Martin or Wolverine, you'll scare him up. But 0:57:05.160 --> 0:57:09.279 I've never actually chased one out of a hole like that. 0:57:10.480 --> 0:57:14.280 How many uh, how many times has been attacked by bears? 0:57:15.040 --> 0:57:20.720 Three times? There were how many bears? I mean close 0:57:20.800 --> 0:57:25.040 calls Um, I don't know quite a few. I mean 0:57:25.080 --> 0:57:28.880 there's quite a few. I've had brown bear that was 0:57:29.240 --> 0:57:32.520 tracking brown wounded brown bear and he had circled around, 0:57:32.760 --> 0:57:36.600 was coming up behind me in a willow patch, had 0:57:36.640 --> 0:57:41.200 a brown bear that had a client. We took a 0:57:41.240 --> 0:57:43.520 brown bear that was off of a moose carcass, and 0:57:43.800 --> 0:57:46.760 minute we shot, there was another brown bear was sleeping 0:57:46.800 --> 0:57:48.960 in the alders right next to us. We didn't know about. 0:57:49.040 --> 0:57:54.360 The came um came bound out. It was probably uh 0:57:54.600 --> 0:57:58.160 fifteen feet from us, and came bounding out and my 0:57:58.600 --> 0:58:01.560 client I turned at just turned around and I'll never 0:58:01.680 --> 0:58:04.200 forget that. The sound of that, this one still just 0:58:04.560 --> 0:58:07.120 makes her hair stand up on my neck. When she 0:58:07.240 --> 0:58:09.520 was coming at me, she was slobbering, and when she 0:58:09.560 --> 0:58:12.640 would pick up her pause you could hear the claws 0:58:12.760 --> 0:58:15.160 clacking when she'd pick up her paws, and she was 0:58:15.840 --> 0:58:19.440 running at us, and she was I have never, I 0:58:19.560 --> 0:58:21.880 have never in my life seen such a rage in 0:58:22.000 --> 0:58:25.880 an animals as this brown bear. Hat We had had 0:58:25.920 --> 0:58:27.800 time to shoot from the hip. We had turned turned 0:58:27.840 --> 0:58:30.720 around cheap from the hip, and when she dropped fortunately 0:58:31.000 --> 0:58:33.960 uh it was actually the client's bullet that that hit 0:58:34.040 --> 0:58:37.919 in the head. But when she dropped, her nose land 0:58:38.080 --> 0:58:41.960 landed on my hip boot. But and I don't never 0:58:42.040 --> 0:58:44.440 forget after that, him and I both sat down and 0:58:44.560 --> 0:58:47.640 we just started shaking, you know, the old what is 0:58:47.760 --> 0:58:50.040 because she was if she would have gotten hold of 0:58:50.040 --> 0:58:52.080 either one of us, we wouldn't you know, one of 0:58:52.120 --> 0:58:55.000 the others wouldn't have been here today because that I've 0:58:55.080 --> 0:58:56.919 never in my life seeing that kind of a rage 0:58:56.960 --> 0:58:59.360 out of an animal. How did you get tacked by 0:58:59.400 --> 0:59:03.520 three black Uh? Let me see one of them? Had 0:59:03.600 --> 0:59:07.760 my godparents come out when I first went went out 0:59:07.840 --> 0:59:11.240 to where I was, you know, staying. Um, they came 0:59:11.280 --> 0:59:14.800 out when one summer and brought friends of theirs from Texas. 0:59:14.880 --> 0:59:19.320 They were from from Texas. And it was, you know, 0:59:19.360 --> 0:59:22.280 a little solid roof cabin that that that we had 0:59:22.360 --> 0:59:24.320 built it. You know, it's been in the winter. So 0:59:24.400 --> 0:59:27.360 I just let them have the cabin and I slept 0:59:27.400 --> 0:59:30.840 in a tent outside and I was in the middle 0:59:30.880 --> 0:59:34.400 of the night. Um also I sleeping and all of 0:59:34.440 --> 0:59:37.880 a sudden, you know, and just being shooking drug and 0:59:37.880 --> 0:59:40.080 I was like, what the hell you know? Um? And 0:59:40.920 --> 0:59:44.360 and I'll never forget. Look that lady from the guide class. 0:59:47.160 --> 0:59:49.680 I'll never forget looking over and seeing the imprint of 0:59:49.760 --> 0:59:52.400 this baritone with I mean, it's still so so so vivid. 0:59:53.280 --> 0:59:57.440 And he's sent yeah you know, you know the nostril 0:59:57.480 --> 1:00:00.480 holes when you can see him. And he's backing up, 1:00:00.520 --> 1:00:03.240 trying to drag me off into the bushes, and and 1:00:04.000 --> 1:00:05.960 I was sleeping with my forty four and I just 1:00:06.080 --> 1:00:09.280 grabbed it real real quick, and you know, shot it 1:00:09.320 --> 1:00:11.960 in the head well through the tent, through the tent, 1:00:12.160 --> 1:00:14.480 yeah yeah, and it it fell on top of me. 1:00:14.840 --> 1:00:17.280 And and there I am all all tied up and 1:00:17.360 --> 1:00:20.560 sleeping back and tent and you know all. And I'll 1:00:20.600 --> 1:00:24.120 never forget my godparents that came out, and and my 1:00:24.160 --> 1:00:29.360 aunt Mary kept kept saying, um uh Lee, Mike's being 1:00:29.360 --> 1:00:31.560 attacked by the bear. Shoot it, shoot it, shoot it, 1:00:31.760 --> 1:00:34.600 and uh and what it is. I'm trying to push 1:00:34.640 --> 1:00:36.840 this bear off me. So the bear humping up and 1:00:36.880 --> 1:00:38.360 back up. You know, I'm trying to push it off, 1:00:38.640 --> 1:00:40.880 and I'm screaming, no, don't shoot it, don't shoot it, 1:00:40.920 --> 1:00:43.600 and shoot it because because of course they're dif from Texas, 1:00:43.640 --> 1:00:48.600 they weren't real woodwood savvy. They're just looking at they 1:00:48.640 --> 1:00:50.760 don't realiz that a bullet and go through a bear 1:00:50.840 --> 1:00:55.040 and into into what's underneath it, you know. So, yeah, 1:00:55.960 --> 1:00:57.880 did you have any when you were trapping the wolverines 1:00:57.920 --> 1:00:59.440 to any of those ever you just hear about how 1:00:59.480 --> 1:01:03.840 addressing they are, like had Yeah, there there was one 1:01:03.960 --> 1:01:08.760 time had a wool rain that um I had, I 1:01:08.800 --> 1:01:10.720 had gone on. I just had my seven mag with 1:01:10.840 --> 1:01:14.200 me and I was doing doing the upline trail. So 1:01:14.760 --> 1:01:16.880 I took the seven mag with me looking for a 1:01:16.960 --> 1:01:19.880 moose and I went back in, uh that bag in 1:01:19.920 --> 1:01:21.880 the cabin there and I've got I don't know, about 1:01:23.120 --> 1:01:26.360 half a mile away and was sitting at this um 1:01:27.240 --> 1:01:30.120 mineral lick, you know, hope hoping to see a moose 1:01:30.200 --> 1:01:32.120 come in. So I sat there for about an hour 1:01:32.200 --> 1:01:33.880 day and said, well, I'm gonna go ahead and check. 1:01:33.960 --> 1:01:35.680 Took my traps while I'm coming up here. And the 1:01:35.800 --> 1:01:41.040 night before it had uh it had rained, and then 1:01:41.200 --> 1:01:44.480 it had frozen hard. You know. Next morning about got 1:01:44.600 --> 1:01:47.040 up to my actually got my first set, had a 1:01:47.080 --> 1:01:48.840 Martin in it, and then got out to the second 1:01:48.960 --> 1:01:53.440 set and it was on a a dead snag. I 1:01:53.520 --> 1:01:56.440 had had had a number one and a half time 1:01:56.480 --> 1:01:59.120 at the end of a dead snag and the snag 1:01:59.200 --> 1:02:02.640 would broken off. When I got there, Wow, what happened 1:02:02.680 --> 1:02:05.040 to this? And I was looking looking for trash to 1:02:05.120 --> 1:02:07.440 see where the trap and every everything that they went, 1:02:07.560 --> 1:02:10.720 but everything was frozen so it couldn't really see much 1:02:10.720 --> 1:02:12.720 in the way of tracks. And then off in the distance, 1:02:13.200 --> 1:02:16.240 I hear this snarling and I knew right away then 1:02:16.320 --> 1:02:19.080 what had happened. A wolverine had got caught in the 1:02:19.320 --> 1:02:22.480 number one, broke off the snag and had taken off. 1:02:22.520 --> 1:02:24.840 So I started beating feet over to where the uh 1:02:25.560 --> 1:02:27.520 uh noise was and I got there and there was 1:02:27.560 --> 1:02:30.840 a wolverine that was caught by one toe and he 1:02:31.000 --> 1:02:33.680 was he was tangled up in the willows. So I've 1:02:33.760 --> 1:02:35.360 got my seven mag. I didn't want to shoot it 1:02:35.400 --> 1:02:38.120 with a seven mags, so I started looking around for 1:02:38.720 --> 1:02:41.240 a stick to hit him in the head with. Well, 1:02:41.320 --> 1:02:44.040 he was just going nuts, you know, trying to pull 1:02:44.080 --> 1:02:46.920 all that, and uh, I couldn't find sticking. And all 1:02:46.920 --> 1:02:50.480 of a sudden he pulled out of the trap and 1:02:51.000 --> 1:02:54.080 and just just for a split second, I'm standing there 1:02:54.680 --> 1:02:58.320 and he's standing here. We're probably ten ft apart. We 1:02:58.520 --> 1:03:02.320 were both just stare at each other and then and 1:03:02.400 --> 1:03:05.120 then all of a sudden he came running to me 1:03:05.240 --> 1:03:07.800 and he started I had car hard cut cover rolls on, 1:03:08.480 --> 1:03:11.040 and he he hit me and he started climbing up 1:03:11.120 --> 1:03:14.280 up my lace, you know, just shredding the car and 1:03:14.400 --> 1:03:16.680 the only thing I had in my seven mag So 1:03:16.800 --> 1:03:19.200 I had it by the barrel and I started swinging 1:03:19.280 --> 1:03:23.400 at it like a baseball bat with the barrel. Yeah. Well, 1:03:25.480 --> 1:03:28.760 and and it ended up ended up breaking the stock off, 1:03:28.920 --> 1:03:32.280 you know, then into the stock off the seven mac, 1:03:32.640 --> 1:03:36.840 you know, and when I hit it, so oh yeah, yeah, 1:03:36.920 --> 1:03:39.720 and not knocked him, knocked him out. He was intent 1:03:39.880 --> 1:03:44.240 on but but yeah, so, uh, that's that's the only 1:03:44.320 --> 1:03:46.080 time I've ever had a Wolveringe get ahold of me. 1:03:46.680 --> 1:03:48.760 So I want to get to some more stuff about 1:03:49.440 --> 1:03:51.960 your business and whatnot. But what are the other two 1:03:52.040 --> 1:03:55.919 black bear attacks? Uh? The other one? Uh, let me see, 1:03:56.440 --> 1:04:01.280 had uh had one where um when I was building 1:04:01.320 --> 1:04:05.320 the lodge and they had had the plane command it 1:04:05.400 --> 1:04:08.440 was full of full of lumber. And before we left, 1:04:08.480 --> 1:04:11.880 I always bringing my party four with me. Um, and 1:04:12.120 --> 1:04:16.160 so the plane lands and the pilot, who's real real 1:04:16.200 --> 1:04:19.240 good front front friend of mine. Now when we taxi 1:04:19.400 --> 1:04:22.000 up to the bank there we got got got out 1:04:22.080 --> 1:04:25.880 and we were unloading lumber, and um, all of a 1:04:25.920 --> 1:04:28.320 sudden he said, look out, and I turned turned around 1:04:28.360 --> 1:04:30.200 and there was some black bear that had come over 1:04:30.320 --> 1:04:34.760 the bank and was coming down on onto us there, 1:04:35.560 --> 1:04:38.800 you know, and and and then he stopped it. It 1:04:38.920 --> 1:04:42.960 was a fall fosse charge and then uh, and then 1:04:43.040 --> 1:04:45.600 he turned around and went back up into the shed 1:04:45.760 --> 1:04:48.040 where we kept all all the horse feed. And that's 1:04:48.120 --> 1:04:51.360 what what are you doing? So anyway, Uh, Jeff said, 1:04:51.440 --> 1:04:53.280 you're gonna be okay, and I said, oh yeah, I 1:04:53.520 --> 1:04:56.800 got got my party four here, it'll be okay. So 1:04:57.000 --> 1:04:58.680 he's okay, Well, I'll go ahead and take off. So 1:04:59.200 --> 1:05:02.040 he took off, and then I went searching around from 1:05:02.080 --> 1:05:05.480 my forty four looking at Everything's like, man, it's not here. 1:05:05.560 --> 1:05:08.400 Where is it? And come to find out I had 1:05:09.400 --> 1:05:11.080 I had it underneath the seat of the truck. And 1:05:11.400 --> 1:05:13.360 then I just forgot I got to get it. So 1:05:13.560 --> 1:05:15.600 I had no big deal. You usually go up there 1:05:15.640 --> 1:05:18.640 and just yell at him and then uh, you know, 1:05:18.800 --> 1:05:22.760 so go away. Well went up there and yelled at him, 1:05:22.760 --> 1:05:25.800 and he come, uh, stuck his head out of the door. 1:05:25.880 --> 1:05:29.040 He had chewed a hold through the door, was eating 1:05:29.120 --> 1:05:31.760 horse feed, and then he came charred charge of me. 1:05:31.800 --> 1:05:33.680 And the old thing I had was a tree to 1:05:34.320 --> 1:05:36.240 climb up to that It was probably right by the 1:05:36.320 --> 1:05:39.400 by the lake. So I skinnied up the tree and 1:05:39.480 --> 1:05:42.240 he hit that tree, and he tried crawling up after me, 1:05:42.840 --> 1:05:47.600 and uh, he made sure I was there then, and 1:05:47.960 --> 1:05:51.640 he would as long as I was there. Okay. He 1:05:51.720 --> 1:05:53.600 went back in, and every time I would try to 1:05:53.680 --> 1:05:56.400 come down out of the tree, he would hit it again, 1:05:56.480 --> 1:05:58.840 and Askecott got a want one point, and I was 1:05:58.920 --> 1:06:00.800 having to kick him in the nose. One time. He 1:06:00.840 --> 1:06:03.360 actually got out there and grabbed ahold of my foot 1:06:03.760 --> 1:06:05.640 and was trying trying and pull pull me dot dot 1:06:05.680 --> 1:06:07.000 out of the tree, and I was kicking him in 1:06:07.040 --> 1:06:09.880 the face. So I said, well, I'm I'm just gonna 1:06:09.920 --> 1:06:12.800 stand here. Let him get uncomfortable in the in the shed. 1:06:12.920 --> 1:06:16.200 So he went back and and there was a cabin 1:06:16.960 --> 1:06:20.240 um that was about two miles away. I knew it 1:06:20.320 --> 1:06:25.040 and had a rifle in it, and so I finally 1:06:25.080 --> 1:06:27.920 after twenty minutes, I'll never forget standing on the branches 1:06:27.960 --> 1:06:30.480 there and my my instep just really getting sore. I 1:06:30.520 --> 1:06:32.800 just couldn't harnita anymore. So I jumped down, and now 1:06:32.920 --> 1:06:35.200 or never I jumped down, I mean, I just started 1:06:35.240 --> 1:06:38.280 running for all it was worth to this cabin. And 1:06:38.520 --> 1:06:40.440 I looked behind me and he wouldn't following me. So 1:06:40.840 --> 1:06:43.400 I went there. It was a three oh eight. Uh, 1:06:43.520 --> 1:06:47.520 he only had three shells for it. Came back up 1:06:47.760 --> 1:06:51.240 and UM stuck my head up over the bank, and yeah, 1:06:51.360 --> 1:06:53.560 sure enough he was. They're eating all the food that 1:06:53.640 --> 1:06:56.680 I brought in. But he looked so much smaller, And 1:06:56.720 --> 1:06:59.600 I'm thinking to myself, Wow, maybe he looks smaller because 1:06:59.600 --> 1:07:02.800 I got a gun now, you know, so I want 1:07:02.840 --> 1:07:05.600 a hand. Took care of it and uh. And then 1:07:05.640 --> 1:07:09.280 I leaned the rifle up against the uh the tree, 1:07:09.400 --> 1:07:12.000 and I started carrying lumber. Made one load of lumbers 1:07:12.040 --> 1:07:14.880 and came back, got another little lumber Tuba six on 1:07:14.960 --> 1:07:18.479 my shoulder, and when I came up over the lip, 1:07:18.760 --> 1:07:20.840 all of a sudden, the big bear that had met 1:07:20.960 --> 1:07:25.800 treed come around the corner started running at me, and uh. 1:07:26.080 --> 1:07:28.040 I just took the Tuba six through it it real 1:07:28.120 --> 1:07:29.840 quick and it put on the brakes trying to avoid 1:07:29.920 --> 1:07:32.600 the tuba sick and me time to grab the rifle 1:07:32.680 --> 1:07:37.680 and get the right shoot it, get the right bear. Yeah. 1:07:37.720 --> 1:07:41.000 But it was really like, wow, big man, I got 1:07:41.080 --> 1:07:45.400 a gun. Now the bear shrinks, you know. Yeah, pretty 1:07:45.440 --> 1:07:48.840 pretty funny. So I gotta know now the third one 1:07:48.920 --> 1:07:52.160 to detected? The third one, I thought that was two 1:07:52.240 --> 1:07:59.800 and three. Yeah, I was. I was replacing a piling 1:08:00.040 --> 1:08:03.240 underneath the underneath the barn and it was out there. 1:08:03.320 --> 1:08:06.520 So I had gout the pine and I was laying 1:08:06.560 --> 1:08:10.439 prone on the ground and I uh had my head 1:08:10.560 --> 1:08:13.440 my shoulders down in the hole trying to dig out 1:08:13.520 --> 1:08:15.520 loose dirt front from the bottom. So I'm just standing 1:08:16.000 --> 1:08:18.080 lane land there there they're prone. I must have looked. 1:08:18.439 --> 1:08:21.720 It wasn't moving or anything, just my shoulders and uh. 1:08:21.880 --> 1:08:24.479 And then the all of a sudden, next thing, I know, 1:08:24.880 --> 1:08:27.519 something's pulling me back. I was like, whoa, something just 1:08:27.600 --> 1:08:29.240 grabbed ahold of me, just like I was on a 1:08:29.320 --> 1:08:33.599 bungee cord, you know, started backing up. I still still 1:08:33.640 --> 1:08:35.840 got the scars and my shins from it, and uh 1:08:36.240 --> 1:08:39.200 turned around and uh and it was a bare had 1:08:39.240 --> 1:08:41.840 hold of my leg. He was backing up. Yeah, another 1:08:41.920 --> 1:08:44.200 black bear, and it was he was backing off it. 1:08:44.560 --> 1:08:47.680 But you know in his defense. He just thought it 1:08:47.760 --> 1:08:51.920 was dead, you know, and I rolled rolled over and 1:08:52.400 --> 1:08:55.400 um uh and then then just started kicking at him 1:08:55.400 --> 1:08:57.000 and he was a surprise as why it was. And 1:08:57.240 --> 1:09:00.160 he dropped me like a dad and took off through 1:09:00.320 --> 1:09:02.360 through through the woods. So he lived to tell about it. 1:09:02.800 --> 1:09:07.320 Uh yo, yeah, yeah, I mean he wasn't his fault. 1:09:07.400 --> 1:09:09.519 You know, I was just supposed to be dead, you know. 1:09:09.920 --> 1:09:11.880 Once you found out was alive, it's like, okay, okay, 1:09:11.920 --> 1:09:16.080 I'm just kidding. And then and then uh, there there 1:09:16.200 --> 1:09:19.920 was one other time time with um, a small grizzly 1:09:20.000 --> 1:09:23.400 in sheep camp. I had UM during the spring I 1:09:23.520 --> 1:09:26.200 had and this was one thing I thought it was 1:09:26.280 --> 1:09:29.400 really cool. Um during the spring I had, I had 1:09:29.640 --> 1:09:31.880 broken my leg and they had to I had to 1:09:31.920 --> 1:09:33.479 be met of act out of the lodge with a 1:09:33.560 --> 1:09:37.479 chopper and and all that. Um. And so anyway I 1:09:37.600 --> 1:09:39.840 go in, they you know, get the cast, they set 1:09:39.920 --> 1:09:42.360 the leg and all that, and I ended up going 1:09:42.439 --> 1:09:44.960 back out to the lodge because I need needed to 1:09:45.000 --> 1:09:47.599 be there. That was home, you know. Uh. And you see, 1:09:47.840 --> 1:09:49.679 you know in the summer, you know, there are bears 1:09:49.760 --> 1:09:52.640 in the yard every day, just just about and you 1:09:52.760 --> 1:09:54.439 just get out there, you get along with him, you know, 1:09:54.560 --> 1:09:57.280 you don't approach him. Everybody get gets lunge just fine. 1:09:58.040 --> 1:10:00.519 When I got out there and the first pair of 1:10:00.560 --> 1:10:02.680 the kind of comes out, Oh look at this a bear, 1:10:02.880 --> 1:10:07.120 you know, and uh, um, I'm out out on the deck. 1:10:07.720 --> 1:10:10.360 He saw me, and all of a sudden he started 1:10:10.479 --> 1:10:14.519 chasing me and rant ran into the lodge. Uh and 1:10:15.080 --> 1:10:17.320 closed the door and he he hit the door. Then 1:10:17.360 --> 1:10:19.960 he got it, got off the deck, and then I 1:10:20.040 --> 1:10:23.760 went back out and again it was like, um, he 1:10:23.880 --> 1:10:26.600 was gonna get me, and finally he went away. And 1:10:26.760 --> 1:10:30.280 that that happened like two other times that that summer. 1:10:30.600 --> 1:10:32.360 I'm like, why are these bear so mad at me? 1:10:32.439 --> 1:10:34.559 All of a sudden? Then I go out to sheep 1:10:34.680 --> 1:10:38.240 camp and uh, the hunters are out on a sheep 1:10:38.280 --> 1:10:41.479 and I'm I'm at a camp I'm in uh and 1:10:41.600 --> 1:10:43.800 the kind of the kitchen area we have set us 1:10:43.840 --> 1:10:45.960 set up in the base camp and and all of 1:10:46.000 --> 1:10:50.160 a sudden, I see this little straggly grizzly walk around 1:10:50.320 --> 1:10:54.360 the outside of the weather port. And I don't have 1:10:54.520 --> 1:10:57.200 my rivle with me, so we're kind of the same 1:10:57.360 --> 1:11:01.479 distance from the tent. I run to a tent real quick. 1:11:01.520 --> 1:11:03.720 While he's going over there, he sees me starting heading 1:11:03.720 --> 1:11:06.080 over that way. I started over there, grabbed the gun, 1:11:06.200 --> 1:11:08.680 start running back into the so I can get some 1:11:08.760 --> 1:11:13.040 distance between me and him, back into the kitchen area. 1:11:13.160 --> 1:11:15.880 And next thing I know, this little grizzly had had 1:11:16.640 --> 1:11:18.920 got and and he had reached over and knocked me 1:11:19.040 --> 1:11:21.200 over with my paw and I fell on the ground 1:11:21.320 --> 1:11:25.080 and then rolled over and shot and I stood up. 1:11:25.120 --> 1:11:27.280 It's like, what is going on? Why are these bears 1:11:27.320 --> 1:11:29.320 all of a sudden so mad at me? And then 1:11:29.760 --> 1:11:33.599 the lightbulb came on. It's like, Dan, Dan, you look 1:11:33.680 --> 1:11:35.920 like a wounded animal. I'm in a cast. I'm hobbling 1:11:35.960 --> 1:11:40.720 around nature at its finest, you know. And I thought, yeah, 1:11:40.920 --> 1:11:43.840 that's what what's going on. I'm just hobbling around. They're 1:11:43.840 --> 1:11:47.200 seeing me as a as a you know, easy prey, 1:11:47.400 --> 1:11:51.080 wounded animal. At least that's my my theory on the 1:11:51.120 --> 1:11:54.240 whole thing. And it just seemed like it made sense 1:11:54.320 --> 1:11:56.800 to me all of a sudden. I'm a nice guy, 1:11:58.000 --> 1:12:01.240 you're like an little gunfighter. Man. I don't know about 1:12:01.240 --> 1:12:06.479 that gunfighter. So what talk about how you got your 1:12:06.920 --> 1:12:09.200 how you go off to start business? By yourself and 1:12:09.760 --> 1:12:13.480 ride off on a horse and go make a homestead 1:12:13.520 --> 1:12:15.519 and start a lodge, and that you're going to guide 1:12:15.520 --> 1:12:19.120 out of. Well that's because that ship that just doesn't 1:12:19.160 --> 1:12:22.240 happen anymore. Maybe it does, I don't know if it 1:12:22.280 --> 1:12:25.160 does or not. To me. Yeah, well on that not 1:12:25.280 --> 1:12:27.360 I was gonna ask you, did you ever through all 1:12:27.439 --> 1:12:30.080 these years did you ever meet someone that it was 1:12:30.160 --> 1:12:32.360 like a peer to you And you're like, oh, you've 1:12:32.439 --> 1:12:34.000 kind of done the same thing that I have all 1:12:34.040 --> 1:12:36.559 these years and became buds with them or knew of them. 1:12:36.640 --> 1:12:41.920 I actually did one time. And he's uh, he's pretty 1:12:42.040 --> 1:12:44.559 pretty high high profile. He's he dead now. But when 1:12:44.560 --> 1:12:50.000 I was uh doing my um float float instruction, I 1:12:50.520 --> 1:12:53.760 took took the flow plane plot to meeting once. But 1:12:54.120 --> 1:12:57.280 you got you got a pilot slicense. Yeah, Dick, Dick 1:12:57.320 --> 1:13:00.280 Park you know are always Ever since I was a kid, 1:13:00.360 --> 1:13:03.120 I had admired what he did at last, what he 1:13:03.280 --> 1:13:06.519 did by hand and drug everything. But in my hand, 1:13:06.640 --> 1:13:09.320 of course, he didn't have any horses or anything. But um, 1:13:09.640 --> 1:13:12.400 he had just gone out to Twin Lakes and built 1:13:12.439 --> 1:13:14.479 that beautiful cabin out there and lived out there by 1:13:14.600 --> 1:13:16.479 himself and that's what I wanted to be, what I 1:13:16.560 --> 1:13:19.639 wanted to do. He was. I guess he was somewhat 1:13:19.760 --> 1:13:22.599 my inspiration. I remember when I first got to know him. 1:13:22.600 --> 1:13:25.800 I read the book One One Man's Wilderness. Yeah, and 1:13:25.880 --> 1:13:28.000 I met him. And nice guy in the world too. 1:13:28.120 --> 1:13:29.880 You know. It wasn't like he was some kind of 1:13:29.960 --> 1:13:32.960 crazy hermit, you know that you show up and get 1:13:33.000 --> 1:13:35.479 off my land. He was just really a very, very 1:13:35.600 --> 1:13:38.519 very nice person. He's kind of older too, when he 1:13:38.800 --> 1:13:42.960 did that right or something else. I don't know how 1:13:43.000 --> 1:13:44.800 I found out about him, but I used to. There's 1:13:44.840 --> 1:13:47.599 like a you can watch like ten minutes of Alone 1:13:47.640 --> 1:13:50.400 in the Wilderness. It's like a PBS documentary. Some old 1:13:50.479 --> 1:13:53.599 dude washing gravel for his floor and whatnot makes a cabin. Yeah, 1:13:55.040 --> 1:13:57.880 everybody's dad likes that movie. Yeah, man, So I found 1:13:57.920 --> 1:14:00.599 out him on through that. Yeah, how do you spell 1:14:00.640 --> 1:14:05.720 his last name? What's that? No? How do you spell 1:14:05.800 --> 1:14:13.040 his last name? I can't e n K isn't isn't 1:14:13.800 --> 1:14:16.400 somewhere might be an agent there. I was gonna ask 1:14:16.400 --> 1:14:18.360 you about it, because yeah, I like everything that you're 1:14:18.400 --> 1:14:23.960 saying sounds exactly like yeah, yeah, yeah. When I'm a kid, 1:14:24.000 --> 1:14:27.519 I just really really enjoyed the I mean that that 1:14:27.720 --> 1:14:32.160 that book. I just lay it uh waiting and know him. 1:14:32.520 --> 1:14:34.040 I had to sleep in the broom close at that 1:14:34.160 --> 1:14:36.560 was my rooms. It was a little little room and 1:14:36.760 --> 1:14:38.360 I'd read read my book and that was one of 1:14:38.439 --> 1:14:42.680 my favorite favorite books. I remember. So there you are. 1:14:42.880 --> 1:14:46.120 You ride off into the woods to go set up 1:14:46.160 --> 1:14:49.920 your own to find your own property, right, Yeah, And 1:14:50.000 --> 1:14:53.720 it was that's when Jay Hammond was governor. And Dan 1:14:53.880 --> 1:14:56.600 Dan knows he's probably one of the best governors Alaska's 1:14:56.600 --> 1:15:02.040 ever had, Sure does he was? He was governor. Yeah, 1:15:02.640 --> 1:15:05.880 I mean he he was all for the for the people, 1:15:06.120 --> 1:15:08.600 you know, he wanted uh and of course he was. 1:15:08.680 --> 1:15:10.240 He was a guide, he was a pilot, you know, 1:15:10.320 --> 1:15:15.479 his name Bushrap, but he was he was dead sent 1:15:15.600 --> 1:15:18.960 on on um every lask and being able to have 1:15:19.120 --> 1:15:24.040 the opportunity to uh have their own peace of Alaska 1:15:24.200 --> 1:15:26.360 have to lant. So he came up with a land 1:15:26.400 --> 1:15:31.759 program called UM Remote Partial. It was a remote parcel 1:15:31.880 --> 1:15:34.640 program to where you could go out, you could stake up. 1:15:35.160 --> 1:15:39.960 They had certain designated areas you know that that they 1:15:40.040 --> 1:15:43.639 set aside for just for this program. You could stake 1:15:43.720 --> 1:15:47.040 up to forty acres. Um, you had to put your 1:15:47.080 --> 1:15:49.360 four corners, and you had to pay for the survey, 1:15:50.160 --> 1:15:54.160 and then um, after the state approved the survey, you 1:15:54.320 --> 1:15:56.920 paid what the state considered the fair market value. Now 1:15:57.040 --> 1:15:59.320 you've got a discount. You got a pitch for sent 1:15:59.600 --> 1:16:01.880 dis koind for being a long time a last and 1:16:01.960 --> 1:16:04.280 you got a discount. If there wasn't a road to 1:16:04.400 --> 1:16:07.920 you got a discount. There went power to a discount, discount, discount, discount. 1:16:07.960 --> 1:16:10.200 You were saying, there's even a discount. I think you're 1:16:10.240 --> 1:16:12.240 telling me this even a discount for whether it was 1:16:12.280 --> 1:16:15.479 a southerly or northerly. Yeah, and that that that was 1:16:15.560 --> 1:16:18.240 one of the and they listed the discounts. And you 1:16:18.320 --> 1:16:21.200 know that that I was given once I got the 1:16:21.880 --> 1:16:26.080 title to the land. Uh Um, I was gotten, had 1:16:26.120 --> 1:16:28.720 a percent taking off of what they considered the fair 1:16:28.760 --> 1:16:31.920 market value because my cabin faced north and not south. 1:16:32.760 --> 1:16:36.800 So they were doing every everything. They had no power discount, 1:16:37.120 --> 1:16:41.000 the no road discount right, the long time alasking discount. Right, 1:16:41.200 --> 1:16:43.040 So what'd you pay for what you pay for the place. 1:16:43.240 --> 1:16:46.600 So it ended up that I didn't. I thought I 1:16:46.680 --> 1:16:48.960 had a lot more than forty acres, But what I 1:16:49.000 --> 1:16:51.880 stay because I staked the whole south side of my lake. Um, 1:16:52.439 --> 1:16:56.960 but it actually only ended up being like twenty six acres. Yeah, 1:16:57.120 --> 1:17:01.360 I was what twenty one years old. I had no 1:17:01.479 --> 1:17:03.360 idea what forty acre or like that. Man, this is 1:17:03.400 --> 1:17:07.320 more Land and oliver Use. So anyway, after and I 1:17:07.520 --> 1:17:10.599 was shaking and how I'm just a poor trapper out there. 1:17:10.640 --> 1:17:13.160 I mean, I I don't have any money. So because 1:17:13.200 --> 1:17:15.760 she went off and found this place on horseback, yeah, 1:17:16.120 --> 1:17:18.599 just looking at a map, right, Yeah, that was before 1:17:18.720 --> 1:17:20.960 GPS is and all that, I just load loaded up 1:17:21.000 --> 1:17:24.000 all the horses and and uh, well, well let's go 1:17:24.080 --> 1:17:25.920 that way. It's gotta be over here somewhere. So we 1:17:26.000 --> 1:17:28.479 were sneaking our way through the trees, and all of 1:17:28.520 --> 1:17:30.679 a sudden I kind of saw an opening in the trees. 1:17:30.840 --> 1:17:33.200 I said, Um, that's got to be the lake over there. 1:17:33.720 --> 1:17:37.320 And the lake has actually glorified beaver pond. It's real small, 1:17:39.520 --> 1:17:44.200 oh man, grazing rainbow. Yeah. And uh, and so took 1:17:44.240 --> 1:17:47.559 the horses and started wandering over that way. And remember 1:17:47.640 --> 1:17:50.439 I came out in the north or uh uh, the 1:17:50.560 --> 1:17:52.559 upper end of the lake. And when we can't came 1:17:52.600 --> 1:17:55.760 out of the tree, right, beautiful sunny day. There was 1:17:55.840 --> 1:17:59.479 a moose out there. This was in into July. There 1:17:59.560 --> 1:18:02.000 was a moose out there. He'd be going under water 1:18:02.120 --> 1:18:04.400 and he'd come back and literally pads are dripping off 1:18:04.479 --> 1:18:06.840 of his antlers, and it was just wanted to say. 1:18:07.120 --> 1:18:09.240 I was like, this is it. This is where I 1:18:09.280 --> 1:18:12.559 want to be, you know, and I wanted the southern exposure. 1:18:12.600 --> 1:18:15.280 So I took the horses and I started riding around 1:18:15.400 --> 1:18:17.360 the other opposite side the lake. But it was just 1:18:17.520 --> 1:18:20.400 all swampy, you know. I mean he had to It 1:18:20.560 --> 1:18:24.280 was like, I don't know what yards of swamp before 1:18:24.320 --> 1:18:26.360 you actually got got to some dry land. And it 1:18:26.520 --> 1:18:29.639 was just really disappointed. And finally made the whole circle 1:18:29.720 --> 1:18:33.160 of it. Then I came to the outlet of the 1:18:33.320 --> 1:18:38.320 lake and came onto the uh the only place where 1:18:38.640 --> 1:18:40.479 you got dry land all the way down down to 1:18:40.560 --> 1:18:43.639 the lake, and that's where I went. I went ahead 1:18:43.640 --> 1:18:46.120 and decided to stake the land. And when I staked 1:18:46.160 --> 1:18:50.200 at um, I didn't know it know at the time 1:18:50.280 --> 1:18:52.120 that had that nice little bench you know where the 1:18:52.439 --> 1:18:55.120 lodge is now about bow the lake. I didn't find 1:18:55.160 --> 1:18:58.599 that out until later, and it it just ended up uh, 1:18:58.960 --> 1:19:00.880 you know, all the planets line and it just kind 1:19:00.880 --> 1:19:02.920 of made a drink contru So you stake the whole 1:19:02.960 --> 1:19:04.599 thing out and send your form off in the mail 1:19:04.600 --> 1:19:06.800 and you're sweating and thinking it's gonna be a show. Yeah, 1:19:06.840 --> 1:19:08.840 I'm thinking, how am I going to come up with 1:19:09.240 --> 1:19:14.040 thirty forty fifty dollars or whatever? And I opened it 1:19:14.120 --> 1:19:15.920 up and the envelopen it end up being six d 1:19:16.040 --> 1:19:20.800 dollars After that, Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, 1:19:21.479 --> 1:19:23.360 I can, I can. I can scrape up six hundred 1:19:23.360 --> 1:19:25.760 bucks somewhere. That's just a couple of wolverine. So you 1:19:25.960 --> 1:19:30.360 like start dragging cutting logs and dragging them with your horse, 1:19:30.439 --> 1:19:34.400 and of course I'm walking on cloud nine. I've got 1:19:34.479 --> 1:19:39.000 my own land, you know. Uh and um, the actually 1:19:39.080 --> 1:19:41.840 from where the lodges now, you can't even you couldn't 1:19:41.880 --> 1:19:44.840 even see the lake because it was that that heavily treed. 1:19:45.600 --> 1:19:50.280 So I started dropping trees and uh um, pouring them 1:19:50.320 --> 1:19:53.479 in to start building a lodge, and you know, just 1:19:53.600 --> 1:19:57.840 clearing the land and just everything starts snowballing, you know, 1:19:57.960 --> 1:19:59.760 just started you know, working on it. Because when you 1:19:59.760 --> 1:20:03.240 see lodge, it's like it functions as you're hunting lodge. 1:20:03.320 --> 1:20:07.000 But it's a cabin. Yeah, it's basically a cabin, but 1:20:07.520 --> 1:20:10.320 but you got out buildings and Webster definition, it would 1:20:10.320 --> 1:20:12.840 be considered a loge at the gathering place. Yeah. Well 1:20:12.840 --> 1:20:14.960 because you have you have other cabins you built for 1:20:15.080 --> 1:20:18.240 guests over the years and build the barn and plus 1:20:18.320 --> 1:20:20.160 I say it's a lodge, so it's a lodge. Yeah, 1:20:20.880 --> 1:20:23.400 but I feel that like people here lodge and they 1:20:23.520 --> 1:20:28.040 think that that kind of like fakey you know, that 1:20:28.200 --> 1:20:32.400 kind of like fake full Western kind of lodge where 1:20:32.400 --> 1:20:35.000 you where you cut out little Cariboan moves out of 1:20:35.080 --> 1:20:39.160 sheet metal and one everything. Yeah, he flaminoes, pink flamine 1:20:39.200 --> 1:20:41.120 goes in the yard, that kind of thing. Now it's 1:20:41.160 --> 1:20:44.120 like a it's like a bush cabin man, yeah, but 1:20:44.720 --> 1:20:47.760 very comfortable. But drinking. You drink to have all the 1:20:47.920 --> 1:20:50.280 comforts of home, and you drink rain water and it 1:20:50.439 --> 1:20:53.920 does have having out out but you know for you know, 1:20:54.479 --> 1:20:57.840 uh totally opt to grid. Uh. I've got solar power 1:20:57.920 --> 1:21:00.639 within birders, you know, so not not him to run 1:21:00.720 --> 1:21:06.880 generators to supply the thing. The refrigerator, freezer runs off propane. Uh, 1:21:07.479 --> 1:21:09.320 you know, the stove a course of pro pro pane, 1:21:09.400 --> 1:21:12.559 so flying it out on your own floor plane. Yeah. 1:21:12.760 --> 1:21:15.360 Gave up on horses. Uh yeah, we got rid of 1:21:15.360 --> 1:21:19.479 the last horses in n because it just died off. Well. Yeah, 1:21:19.640 --> 1:21:21.960 and you know, they were always just glorified pets. Anyway, 1:21:22.000 --> 1:21:25.240 they were worth a weight in gold in August and September. 1:21:25.880 --> 1:21:27.559 Other than that, they were just a pain in the ass, 1:21:27.680 --> 1:21:29.960 you know. And they're just a glorified pets. And yeah, 1:21:30.040 --> 1:21:32.479 we I mean they all had the personalities and we 1:21:32.720 --> 1:21:35.639 we you know, really enjoyed them. But it just stood there. 1:21:35.800 --> 1:21:38.920 You stood the lodge using horses all oh yeah, yeah, yeah. 1:21:38.960 --> 1:21:41.000 You use them to all the logs in for the 1:21:41.240 --> 1:21:44.040 for the lodge. Yeah, and lift them and lift them. Yeah, 1:21:44.160 --> 1:21:47.519 and have a rope pull over uh you know one 1:21:47.680 --> 1:21:50.360 end or one one side of it, and then on 1:21:50.439 --> 1:21:52.600 the other side have have old pomp poncho you know, 1:21:52.720 --> 1:21:55.080 just pull them up, you know, the skids from one 1:21:55.120 --> 1:21:59.120 side or the other. Yeah. How long would the horses 1:21:59.200 --> 1:22:04.280 last during these like we're as a working, functioning animal 1:22:04.880 --> 1:22:08.000 years wise? Uh? Well, I had I had heard that, 1:22:08.280 --> 1:22:10.880 I had heard the poncho. Uh. He didn't die until 1:22:10.960 --> 1:22:14.880 he was like thirty something years old, so he was 1:22:14.880 --> 1:22:17.920 pretty pretty tough as far as you know. All the 1:22:18.000 --> 1:22:21.760 other horses. I'm not sure when they died, but when we, 1:22:22.200 --> 1:22:26.040 uh we got rid of them, they were probably nine 1:22:26.200 --> 1:22:30.559 ten years old and they were still, you know, good, good, 1:22:30.720 --> 1:22:34.400 rainey working horses. Did someone come get him or how 1:22:34.439 --> 1:22:36.960 did you get him out of there? Uh? Yeah, let 1:22:37.000 --> 1:22:39.600 me see. He ended up riding them over to the 1:22:39.680 --> 1:22:42.360 other side of the up through rainy passing up up 1:22:42.439 --> 1:22:46.439 on the other side there, and then uh uh we 1:22:46.520 --> 1:22:49.679 actually sold some of them too rainy pass as well. 1:22:51.200 --> 1:22:53.040 So some of those horses. It wasn't just the one 1:22:53.040 --> 1:22:56.479 way ticket. Some of those horses made it back out. No, no, no, no, no, 1:22:56.640 --> 1:22:59.120 it was a one way ticket. They never saw town again. 1:22:59.680 --> 1:23:03.000 Oh uh yeah, they stayed in the bush. They just 1:23:03.080 --> 1:23:04.920 went went to the other side of the last range, 1:23:05.960 --> 1:23:09.280 you know, wrote them over there. How do you learn 1:23:09.360 --> 1:23:12.960 how to build your cabin? Watson? That old movie about 1:23:12.960 --> 1:23:20.519 the guy a Washington? Um remember getting a book? Who's 1:23:20.560 --> 1:23:25.120 the guy? What was his name? Um? Tom Walker? You remember? Uh? 1:23:25.720 --> 1:23:28.920 He had it was in seven He had a book 1:23:28.960 --> 1:23:34.320 on you know, how to on you know, to notch logs. Yeah, 1:23:34.400 --> 1:23:36.479 he kind of wrote wrote it a hot too, but 1:23:36.680 --> 1:23:41.880 but Tom Walker, he was actually a uh more noted 1:23:41.960 --> 1:23:45.080 as an as an outdoor photographer, but he did kind 1:23:45.120 --> 1:23:46.680 of the same thing. Him and his wife went out 1:23:46.760 --> 1:23:49.800 and built built a place out in the woods. You know, 1:23:49.840 --> 1:23:51.680 they just wanted to get get off the grid and 1:23:51.760 --> 1:23:54.360 live in the woods. And he made a book about 1:23:54.360 --> 1:23:56.320 it and had a lot of pictures of fortunately, had 1:23:56.360 --> 1:23:59.559 pictures in it. You know, so you're describing and saddle 1:23:59.640 --> 1:24:02.839 notch and all that kind of oh yeah, and and actually, 1:24:02.920 --> 1:24:05.599 you know there's nothing to it if you pay attention 1:24:05.680 --> 1:24:08.360 to it, there's nothing to it. You can make uh 1:24:09.000 --> 1:24:11.120 you know, you have to make make sure that that 1:24:11.280 --> 1:24:13.720 that you cove the inside of your saddle notch, you know, 1:24:13.880 --> 1:24:16.200 so when you compress them, it that compressed it together 1:24:16.840 --> 1:24:20.680 real well. And um, you know you just you know, 1:24:20.800 --> 1:24:23.280 you can do do the full sweet describe it, which 1:24:23.600 --> 1:24:25.439 which I didn't do. You know, I'd lay lay the 1:24:25.520 --> 1:24:28.000 logs on the ground, so I'd have three logs on 1:24:28.040 --> 1:24:30.960 the ground, take a chain saw running between them two, uh, 1:24:31.400 --> 1:24:33.360 get them cloak closer to you know, to where they 1:24:33.400 --> 1:24:36.640 were they were matching, and then you put one up 1:24:36.680 --> 1:24:40.880 and then you describe your saddle notch. And then you'd 1:24:41.040 --> 1:24:44.920 uh first rough it out with a with like a 1:24:45.000 --> 1:24:48.280 cheet sheet rock knife the line, you know, and you'd 1:24:48.360 --> 1:24:50.840 use your chisel and chisel out the wood and then 1:24:50.960 --> 1:24:53.960 use a the chainsaw to go go ouch it out 1:24:54.200 --> 1:24:57.720 and then um roll it over and there it is. 1:24:58.160 --> 1:25:01.360 You've cheeking with moss the old school weigh or no, 1:25:01.760 --> 1:25:04.920 now I used to strip the fiberglass. Okay, yeah, yeah, 1:25:05.000 --> 1:25:08.160 I didn't want to do the most thing I can imagine. 1:25:08.600 --> 1:25:11.360 And and they and actually, you know Dan, they were 1:25:13.200 --> 1:25:16.920 you know, doing that method of just running the chainsaw 1:25:17.000 --> 1:25:19.840 bar running between when they're they're close together, and then 1:25:19.960 --> 1:25:23.080 then you use like yeah, actually then you use log 1:25:23.200 --> 1:25:26.759 log dogs to hold them together and do it again 1:25:26.880 --> 1:25:30.000 and you yeah, you have to call log dogs. Are 1:25:30.680 --> 1:25:34.639 they're jaw dogs right their bars at a hook hook 1:25:34.680 --> 1:25:36.800 hooked at each end. You drive a man and holds 1:25:36.800 --> 1:25:44.599 the logs together. Yeah. Yeah. When when you talk about 1:25:44.640 --> 1:25:47.320 and I don't want to present this as though you 1:25:47.600 --> 1:25:51.840 disparage your clients, because you certainly don't. But when you 1:25:51.920 --> 1:25:53.960 talk about how hunters are becoming more and more a 1:25:54.040 --> 1:25:57.240 cupcakes all the time, are you doing it because you're 1:25:57.280 --> 1:25:59.760 comparing it to what you've been through or you doing 1:26:00.040 --> 1:26:05.960 you're comparing it to other hunters from the past clients. Yeah, 1:26:06.080 --> 1:26:09.439 I guess, I guess I still still live an old school. 1:26:09.520 --> 1:26:12.120 I know what I went through. I mean, if it 1:26:12.160 --> 1:26:18.600 would if it was raining, and you know, and and 1:26:18.840 --> 1:26:23.760 I mean I'm not you know, those days there wasn't 1:26:23.760 --> 1:26:26.120 no police or anything. It was either wool or blue jeans, 1:26:26.240 --> 1:26:29.200 you know. And and me, I'm hunting blue jeans. I 1:26:29.320 --> 1:26:32.080 just get wet, and I'd stay wet and just didn't care. 1:26:32.320 --> 1:26:35.639 Maybe it was just because I don't enjoy that now, 1:26:35.720 --> 1:26:37.920 but at the time I didn't didn't even even think 1:26:37.960 --> 1:26:41.519 about it. But it's just yeah, you know, wet all 1:26:41.520 --> 1:26:43.760 the time, or having to you know, slog through the 1:26:43.840 --> 1:26:47.920 alders or you know, uh, eat your food while waters 1:26:48.360 --> 1:26:51.120 running off your hat into you know, none, None of 1:26:51.120 --> 1:26:54.560 that stuff ever bothered me. Um, a lot of the 1:26:57.280 --> 1:27:00.800 change changing. Hunting has changed a lot, and you know, 1:27:00.920 --> 1:27:05.080 the traditional hunting ways and I kind of, for some reason, 1:27:05.560 --> 1:27:09.439 I want to blame it on the uh since since 1:27:09.479 --> 1:27:12.120 the electronic age has kind of kind of taken over. 1:27:12.400 --> 1:27:17.000 It's just things have just become too easy, you know, 1:27:17.200 --> 1:27:22.559 for for hunters. And you know, um, there's a couple 1:27:22.600 --> 1:27:24.840 of forces that are working here to you know a 1:27:24.880 --> 1:27:28.240 lot of a lot of the these hunts have gotten 1:27:28.280 --> 1:27:33.120 to where they're so expensive. You know, there's um some 1:27:33.240 --> 1:27:36.680 of the guys that, uh, they can't afford to go 1:27:36.840 --> 1:27:40.880 home without having been successful on their hut, you know, 1:27:40.960 --> 1:27:42.800 simply for the fact that they couldn't afford to do 1:27:42.880 --> 1:27:45.000 another one. They've saved all their life to do do 1:27:45.240 --> 1:27:52.880 this and um and so they she you got some 1:27:53.000 --> 1:27:56.320 of the more expensive stuff we do. Yeah, sheep, sheep, 1:27:56.479 --> 1:27:59.560 and and and moose moose. Now it's grown grown to 1:27:59.640 --> 1:28:01.880 be when when when the high dollar hunts, that of 1:28:01.960 --> 1:28:06.000 Cordon brown berry is too So the guys save up 1:28:06.040 --> 1:28:09.040 their whole life. Yeah, and so the the whole um, 1:28:09.560 --> 1:28:11.599 you know, the pressures on them when when they come 1:28:11.680 --> 1:28:17.519 up not to enjoy uh, you know, enjoy their hunt, 1:28:17.720 --> 1:28:21.240 enjoy their their whole surroundings, going out and and and 1:28:21.400 --> 1:28:26.360 just uh you know, legitimately hunt the animals, look for them. 1:28:26.960 --> 1:28:29.040 They need the animals to be there. They can't go 1:28:29.200 --> 1:28:32.479 home without one. And you know, unfortunately a lot of people, 1:28:32.520 --> 1:28:36.160 they're the uh loggers, farmer, blue blue collar workers that 1:28:36.320 --> 1:28:38.800 that that uh, that kind of money is a lot 1:28:38.880 --> 1:28:42.960 of money to them and um, you know, how in 1:28:43.040 --> 1:28:45.719 the world can they go home and face their family, 1:28:45.840 --> 1:28:49.639 face their wife, face their their friends with them thinking 1:28:50.040 --> 1:28:53.840 you spend all that money and you didn't get anything. Uh, 1:28:55.400 --> 1:28:59.120 the different set of expectations exactly right. Yeah, and then 1:28:59.240 --> 1:29:02.880 and then they're they're there's the other force to that. Uh, 1:29:03.040 --> 1:29:05.639 there's the ones that uh you know, that kind of money. 1:29:06.680 --> 1:29:10.880 Uh it's just pocket change, you know. They they leave, 1:29:12.040 --> 1:29:15.400 you know, they leave cocktail Hour, jump on a plane. 1:29:16.200 --> 1:29:19.040 Uh you know, two days later they're up there and 1:29:19.360 --> 1:29:22.960 they're shooting a predesignated sheep, you know, one that's already 1:29:23.000 --> 1:29:26.760 been picked out for him. And and then uh they 1:29:26.840 --> 1:29:29.599 shoot the sheep. The next day, they're right back down 1:29:29.680 --> 1:29:32.519 to cocktail Hour, you know, with with their friends. So 1:29:33.560 --> 1:29:36.639 if that person doesn't get a sheep, you know, there's 1:29:36.680 --> 1:29:39.519 the humiliation factor. How am I going to base my 1:29:39.680 --> 1:29:42.800 friends and tell them that, uh, you know, I didn't 1:29:42.840 --> 1:29:45.240 get a sheep. So a lot of people that this, 1:29:46.000 --> 1:29:49.599 you know, that the fun has got out of going 1:29:49.720 --> 1:29:51.680 out of the hunting because the pressure is on for 1:29:51.760 --> 1:29:55.439 them to be me successful. Now they're the technology issues. 1:29:56.080 --> 1:29:59.640 Uh well you know the um you know, back back 1:29:59.640 --> 1:30:03.200 in days I first started. Uh, the plane dropped you off. 1:30:03.479 --> 1:30:06.519 You waved by by said see in intent ten days, 1:30:07.400 --> 1:30:09.559 you know, and now you've got all that. You've got 1:30:09.640 --> 1:30:12.880 the end reaches, you've got the satellite phones, you've got 1:30:13.040 --> 1:30:17.360 the GPS is you know eaper everything. I mean, uh, 1:30:17.560 --> 1:30:21.320 you can't hide anymore. I mean, and it's a thing 1:30:21.439 --> 1:30:23.840 we're uh oh we're not seeing much. We need to 1:30:23.920 --> 1:30:26.439 call somebody to come in and either move us or 1:30:26.920 --> 1:30:31.360 look around or um. You know, it's it's too easy 1:30:31.439 --> 1:30:35.160 to quit it. Uh. You know, in the old days, 1:30:35.200 --> 1:30:40.120 you you were there, whether you're just there, yeah, if 1:30:40.160 --> 1:30:43.880 you got if you were sick. You know, they've had 1:30:43.920 --> 1:30:48.840 a hunter recently that uh after two days he wasn't 1:30:48.880 --> 1:30:50.920 seeing much. So all of a sudden he was sick 1:30:51.000 --> 1:30:55.120 and he need needed out. And uh, just as soon 1:30:55.160 --> 1:30:57.280 as he got out, it was a miraculous change. He 1:30:57.439 --> 1:31:02.560 was just fine. You know. Um, but I guess I 1:31:02.600 --> 1:31:06.680 guess the point being is that it's just, um, it's 1:31:06.720 --> 1:31:10.720 too too easy to give up where it. You know, 1:31:10.880 --> 1:31:14.040 back back before the electronity, if you have this disability 1:31:14.120 --> 1:31:17.120 to to come out, to call somebody to you know, 1:31:17.200 --> 1:31:19.519 come come come in and get you eat or hunted, 1:31:19.640 --> 1:31:22.559 or you're sat there and you're pouted, you know, Um, 1:31:22.840 --> 1:31:25.320 so what else you gonna do? And then and and 1:31:25.520 --> 1:31:28.080 it's it's uh, if you're if you're not seeing much, 1:31:28.160 --> 1:31:32.479 you know you, um, you just keep on it. I mean, 1:31:32.680 --> 1:31:36.560 you just don't quit and eventually it's gonna it's gonna 1:31:36.640 --> 1:31:39.719 gonna happen. So but but I feel like you're saying 1:31:41.000 --> 1:31:42.720 I understand you're saying two different things, but I just 1:31:42.800 --> 1:31:44.920 want to clarify the two things, because on one hand, 1:31:44.960 --> 1:31:48.960 you feel that it's gotten so expensive. Where a sheep punt, 1:31:49.200 --> 1:31:52.880 the doll sheep hunt, if you're if you're coming in, 1:31:52.920 --> 1:31:57.519 you need to hire an outfit ter guide dollars points 1:31:58.800 --> 1:32:03.600 well over twelve is right. Well, we're we're on the 1:32:03.680 --> 1:32:07.360 lower end of the scales of the Uh, the price 1:32:07.479 --> 1:32:11.600 of sheep punts were probably about average total lower end. 1:32:11.640 --> 1:32:18.200 There's some sheep hunts that, um, these outfitters, they they 1:32:18.320 --> 1:32:21.800 have a complete air force, you know, uh, super cups, 1:32:21.840 --> 1:32:25.479 so they have to pay for and they um, so 1:32:26.160 --> 1:32:28.120 they're sheep punts are going to be a lot higher. 1:32:28.200 --> 1:32:34.160 They're they're gonna be up for dollar range ten days. Yeah, 1:32:34.280 --> 1:32:37.000 But but you're andy and they do a lot of 1:32:37.080 --> 1:32:42.360 pre scouting, yes, before the season. Uh yeah, and you know, 1:32:42.800 --> 1:32:45.080 and I'm not I'm not gonna be gregrads those people 1:32:45.120 --> 1:32:47.320 to them. I mean, if they if they have the 1:32:47.439 --> 1:32:51.000 ability they have and some some something. They had to 1:32:51.040 --> 1:32:52.840 pay for all those airplanes, something, have to pay per 1:32:52.920 --> 1:32:55.920 all that, and they're catering to the people that that 1:32:56.080 --> 1:32:59.320 they will not take no per nancwer. You know, they 1:32:59.520 --> 1:33:01.360 pay for sheep hunt, they're going to get a sheep. 1:33:01.960 --> 1:33:04.040 And but I guess that that's the question I want 1:33:04.040 --> 1:33:08.160 to They don't understand because you're saying that with the money, 1:33:08.600 --> 1:33:12.120 people come and they have to get a sheep or 1:33:12.200 --> 1:33:15.960 else it's humiliating to them or not only or it's 1:33:15.960 --> 1:33:18.120 like an ego thing and they gotta get a sheep. 1:33:19.160 --> 1:33:22.760 The hunts of failure if they haven't. Uh there's the 1:33:22.800 --> 1:33:25.320 other hand, you're saying it's too easy to quit. Yeah, 1:33:25.680 --> 1:33:29.400 So how do those things co exist? They have to 1:33:29.439 --> 1:33:30.880 get a sheep, but then they don't have what it 1:33:30.960 --> 1:33:33.080 takes to get the sheep, and then they feel disappointed 1:33:33.120 --> 1:33:38.160 by the experience exactly. So then when that happens, then 1:33:38.640 --> 1:33:41.400 they're having to pass the buck to somebody, you know, 1:33:42.960 --> 1:33:45.920 so so then it's, ah, well, I didn't get my 1:33:46.160 --> 1:33:50.280 sheep because the river was high, so the outfitter shouldn't 1:33:50.280 --> 1:33:52.920 have had me going into when when the water was high, 1:33:53.200 --> 1:33:59.200 or I didn't get my sheep because um there was 1:33:59.320 --> 1:34:02.600 no manny in camp for my sandwich. You know, and 1:34:03.320 --> 1:34:05.640 I'm serious, you know that. I mean that they'll come 1:34:05.720 --> 1:34:09.000 up with all these ridiculous little reasons why the whole 1:34:09.080 --> 1:34:10.800 hunt was a pair and that coming up to all 1:34:10.840 --> 1:34:14.080 these little things that culminate into one big thing to 1:34:14.160 --> 1:34:20.200 where you know, the hunt hunt was a failure they uh, 1:34:20.880 --> 1:34:24.960 and it's all of this stuff instead of being honest 1:34:25.080 --> 1:34:28.439 with themselves that they either physically weren't able to do 1:34:28.600 --> 1:34:32.360 it or it was you know, beyond beyond their physical 1:34:32.439 --> 1:34:35.640 means to actually do it. Even though the outfit are 1:34:35.720 --> 1:34:39.439 provided a good sheep area, providing with a fair fare 1:34:39.520 --> 1:34:44.519 chase hunt. Um, you know, uh that we had a 1:34:44.640 --> 1:34:47.960 tough first couple of days. We didn't see any sheep. 1:34:48.080 --> 1:34:52.280 So obviously, uh, you know, I've been here two days 1:34:52.360 --> 1:34:55.120 and and I'm an expert on the sheep movements. Now 1:34:55.360 --> 1:34:56.800 you know there are going to be no sheep here. 1:34:56.920 --> 1:35:00.960 You know, get me out of here at yeah, and 1:35:01.120 --> 1:35:04.160 and it just told them going back and commencing the 1:35:04.760 --> 1:35:09.240 people that that that uh they um didn't get their 1:35:09.280 --> 1:35:14.720 animal because they themselves um had quit on it. It 1:35:14.880 --> 1:35:20.080 was uh, somebody's fault because and you feel that it's 1:35:20.120 --> 1:35:23.920 like that there's something that's happened where it's different than 1:35:24.000 --> 1:35:27.600 it was twenty years ago. Yeah, I mean because it 1:35:27.960 --> 1:35:32.519 was Yeah, I mean because it was you didn't have 1:35:32.720 --> 1:35:36.840 that uh uh you know, and not another thing when 1:35:37.160 --> 1:35:39.640 you were not jate. When you're going going out, you 1:35:39.720 --> 1:35:41.679 had to pretty much put everything anything in your back 1:35:41.720 --> 1:35:45.120 and you had had to go a lot of the 1:35:46.280 --> 1:35:52.880 um expectation. Then they went in knowing full well that 1:35:53.560 --> 1:35:55.880 that they were going to be miserable for ten ten days, 1:35:56.360 --> 1:36:00.160 but you know they were gonna hunt where Now it's 1:36:00.240 --> 1:36:05.040 that um, you know, with all the new equipment, with 1:36:05.160 --> 1:36:08.879 all this and that you know that everything's you know perfect, 1:36:09.120 --> 1:36:12.000 people feel like they solved the uncomfortable part. Yeah, and 1:36:12.240 --> 1:36:14.720 and and people feel like after I haven't spent this 1:36:14.840 --> 1:36:19.880 money that they have bought this animal, No, just the 1:36:19.960 --> 1:36:26.760 whole I don't know that they there's too much of 1:36:26.840 --> 1:36:30.080 this thinking that these animals are going to come in 1:36:30.160 --> 1:36:32.600 and surrender because they know they paid this much for 1:36:32.680 --> 1:36:35.880 this hunt, but you still like the business though, Oh yeah, 1:36:35.920 --> 1:36:39.760 I do want to people that want to book a 1:36:39.800 --> 1:36:41.160 home with you can't even book a home with you, 1:36:41.240 --> 1:36:44.200 And and that that that's not not all all hunters either. 1:36:44.280 --> 1:36:47.000 There's still the the hunters are out there that that 1:36:47.360 --> 1:36:51.080 that yeah, I mean, that's what they could be millionaires, 1:36:51.160 --> 1:36:53.360 but but that's what they're wanting to get away, Get 1:36:53.439 --> 1:36:57.360 get out there and do do the fair chase. They 1:36:57.439 --> 1:37:00.080 don't want a plane to fly around and spot that. 1:37:00.479 --> 1:37:02.280 They want to find that sheep on their own. They 1:37:02.360 --> 1:37:04.880 want to be the one going around the corner. Hey, 1:37:05.040 --> 1:37:06.880 nobody help help me find you know them in their 1:37:06.880 --> 1:37:10.280 guide And don't nobody help us find the sheep. You know, 1:37:10.439 --> 1:37:12.760 we hunted it on our own. Give me a bag 1:37:12.880 --> 1:37:15.240 of granola bar. Let's go out there, let's hit it. 1:37:15.800 --> 1:37:18.840 Let's let's uh, let's side wash up on the side 1:37:18.880 --> 1:37:21.519 of the mountain. Let's let's let's sleep underneath the tree, 1:37:21.720 --> 1:37:26.519 let's leap under the stars. Yeah that uh. And in 1:37:26.600 --> 1:37:29.560 this day and age, I'd say that it's maybe of 1:37:29.920 --> 1:37:32.120 a lot of the hunters you get that are actually 1:37:32.520 --> 1:37:36.160 and when they get get there, I'd say probably sev hunters. 1:37:36.240 --> 1:37:39.880 Now once they get there their animal, it's up. Okay, 1:37:39.960 --> 1:37:42.920 get me back to town. I gotta get home. You know. Uh, 1:37:43.120 --> 1:37:47.439 there's still the a good proportion of them like what 1:37:47.600 --> 1:37:49.960 we get. You know that I don't want to go home. 1:37:50.000 --> 1:37:53.200 I want I'm on vacation. I want to stay stay 1:37:53.240 --> 1:37:58.920 out here. But those those kind of hunters are getting 1:37:59.360 --> 1:38:04.000 further for there away. You know, in your mind, what 1:38:04.320 --> 1:38:11.360 makes a good client and what makes a good hunter. 1:38:12.439 --> 1:38:17.280 A good client is one that um is gonna go 1:38:17.400 --> 1:38:23.240 out there and uh and realize that, uh, everything is 1:38:23.320 --> 1:38:25.080 not going to be perfect. There's gonna be time when 1:38:25.080 --> 1:38:27.760 they're gonna be ncomfortable. It's gonna be times when when 1:38:27.880 --> 1:38:30.479 it's gonna gonna rain. There's gonna be times you know, 1:38:30.840 --> 1:38:34.200 you know deep dealing with with some of some of 1:38:34.240 --> 1:38:38.400 the elements, um, you know, more more than anything, it's 1:38:38.439 --> 1:38:40.519 a yeah, deep dealing that they're going to have to 1:38:40.600 --> 1:38:45.120 deal with elements that that are going to be uncomfortable. Um, 1:38:45.240 --> 1:38:48.760 They're gonna have to, um realize there there's gonna be 1:38:48.880 --> 1:38:54.040 times when the game isn't gonna be in particular area, 1:38:54.160 --> 1:38:58.000 isn't gonna be as plentible. I mean there's no fences 1:38:58.000 --> 1:39:00.280 around round rounting on these airs. They have to go 1:39:00.360 --> 1:39:02.960 in there and knowing that that they're going to have 1:39:03.120 --> 1:39:06.280 to hunt for their animal animals, not going to commit 1:39:06.360 --> 1:39:09.639 a surrender. You know, that's what makes a good hunter 1:39:09.720 --> 1:39:16.559 in your mind. Uh one one that uh um has 1:39:16.600 --> 1:39:21.800 a positive attitude at every day and um that when 1:39:21.800 --> 1:39:25.040 he when he's out out there they're hunting, hunting, he's 1:39:25.600 --> 1:39:28.719 he's happy and just and just having a great time 1:39:29.360 --> 1:39:33.519 and not uh you know, not stressed out thinking I've 1:39:33.560 --> 1:39:36.240 got to have this animal and you know when it 1:39:36.280 --> 1:39:39.120 when's it gonna happen. So the content you feel that 1:39:39.160 --> 1:39:43.040 the contentment pays off, you know. You know the hunter 1:39:43.160 --> 1:39:45.040 that wakes out, walks out of the tent in the 1:39:45.080 --> 1:39:47.679 morning and looks around, sees where he's at, see the mountain, 1:39:47.680 --> 1:39:51.120 whether it be in you know, moose country where you're 1:39:51.200 --> 1:39:54.519 you're either or a swampy area. But but you know 1:39:55.080 --> 1:39:57.880 you're outdoors that there's more to the hunt that killing 1:39:57.960 --> 1:40:02.120 the animal. You know, Uh, do you feel like optimism 1:40:02.320 --> 1:40:06.960 helps get animals killed? You're speaking his language if you 1:40:06.960 --> 1:40:12.880 say yes, Well, I don't, I mean optimism helps, I don't. 1:40:12.920 --> 1:40:16.160 I don't know if it draws the animal in it it. Oh, look, 1:40:16.240 --> 1:40:18.240 there's a happy person. I'm gonna go talk to him. 1:40:18.320 --> 1:40:20.040 You know, I don't think the same thing thing like that, 1:40:21.000 --> 1:40:22.439 but you know what I mean, I think you just 1:40:22.520 --> 1:40:28.080 said it. Prior to that, you said that, like you 1:40:28.160 --> 1:40:31.080 gotta have a good attitude. Yeah, and I think an 1:40:31.120 --> 1:40:36.080 attitude problem. Maybe there is just some something out there 1:40:36.200 --> 1:40:41.320 that you know that a person, Yeah, a person rewarded 1:40:41.400 --> 1:40:44.800 for going out there and being having a positive attitude. 1:40:45.000 --> 1:40:48.400 Person has rewarded for going out there and just enjoying 1:40:48.520 --> 1:40:52.400 being in the outdoors and and um, you know, and 1:40:53.479 --> 1:40:57.400 and and may maybe it's that attitude to that naturally 1:40:57.479 --> 1:40:59.400 makes him get out there and hit it harder and 1:40:59.640 --> 1:41:05.560 enjoy it more. Now you're speaking language, believes that you 1:41:05.680 --> 1:41:11.040 tell him what much what you believe? I believe a 1:41:11.080 --> 1:41:13.080 lot of things. Can you narrow down a little bit 1:41:13.320 --> 1:41:18.680 how you feel that, Um that you're not sure what 1:41:18.800 --> 1:41:22.439 the controlling mechanism is. You're not sure like what forces 1:41:22.520 --> 1:41:28.560 in the universe control this, But you feel that radiating 1:41:28.640 --> 1:41:33.120 an optimism. Oh no, no, not at all. I feel 1:41:33.160 --> 1:41:38.200 that like oftenism directly correlates to your success because you 1:41:38.320 --> 1:41:42.000 go out there and instead of being like probably ain't 1:41:42.000 --> 1:41:44.960 gonna see ship today and walking through the woods not 1:41:45.479 --> 1:41:48.280 you know, not like not expecting to see something over 1:41:48.320 --> 1:41:50.280 the next still not being ready to see something over 1:41:50.320 --> 1:41:53.880 the next, still not being like constantly thinking like, oh, 1:41:54.000 --> 1:41:56.200 it's about to happen, and actually being ready in the 1:41:56.280 --> 1:41:59.240 moment and like foreseeing it in your head just like 1:41:59.320 --> 1:42:02.000 they say, like you know you've never done something, If 1:42:02.080 --> 1:42:04.679 you run that scenario through your head at gazillion times, 1:42:04.720 --> 1:42:08.879 you're gonna perform better when that moment happens. So constantly 1:42:08.960 --> 1:42:12.240 in your head being ready and being positive because if yeah, 1:42:12.240 --> 1:42:14.599 if you wake up in the and look out your tango, 1:42:15.240 --> 1:42:17.760 probably not gonna see any sheet today, well guess what 1:42:18.560 --> 1:42:22.920 probably not? Probably not. You know, he really set a mouthful. 1:42:23.160 --> 1:42:25.559 I mean, I think he's onto something, because it really 1:42:25.640 --> 1:42:29.680 does feel that way some some sometime tied and you know, 1:42:30.000 --> 1:42:32.320 it kind of affects everybody in camp too, you know. 1:42:32.360 --> 1:42:35.080 But when when people have that attitude, you know, it 1:42:35.479 --> 1:42:38.719 can kind of slough off onto the guide or whatever, 1:42:38.880 --> 1:42:42.200 and that you just kind of get a little discouraged sometimes. 1:42:42.240 --> 1:42:46.400 But keeping that positive attitude and it seems like, yeah, 1:42:46.520 --> 1:42:50.080 maybe here's where it falls apart. Let's say there's a 1:42:50.120 --> 1:42:54.200 sheep hunter or whatever, there's a squirrel hunter, okay, and 1:42:54.360 --> 1:42:59.519 he's like so positive and so optimistic. He's like, I'm 1:42:59.520 --> 1:43:06.280 not even even the tent. I know, I know that 1:43:06.360 --> 1:43:09.200 if I sit right here looking out the door of 1:43:09.280 --> 1:43:12.200 this tent, the sheet will come up here. You just 1:43:12.400 --> 1:43:19.000 done that. Uh you know, you may laugh at that. 1:43:19.080 --> 1:43:21.800 That's probably actually happened. And it's happened with us a 1:43:21.880 --> 1:43:23.760 few times, and we've got lucky it doesn't happen all 1:43:23.800 --> 1:43:27.000 the time. But everybody's got those stories, I know. Yeah, 1:43:27.040 --> 1:43:30.920 but they're so far a few people. But be honest. 1:43:31.040 --> 1:43:34.240 Used to when Janest was guiding, he would have to 1:43:34.360 --> 1:43:40.439 give He would give pep talks to try to main 1:43:40.760 --> 1:43:44.200 He took it upon himself to maintain the client, to 1:43:44.400 --> 1:43:48.720 to feed the client the type of optimism that he 1:43:48.880 --> 1:43:53.439 felt is necessary to articulate it for him. Yeah, I 1:43:53.520 --> 1:43:57.679 didn't work, I thought so pretty used to do little 1:43:57.800 --> 1:44:06.680 pep talks for me. Yea. For some reason quit ran 1:44:06.760 --> 1:44:13.080 out of that. You still got a little pet, yea. 1:44:13.479 --> 1:44:18.160 You You'd be lost without you? Honest, he keeps, Oh yeah, man, 1:44:20.479 --> 1:44:24.800 he ranged you in every now and then. I bet Yeah, no, no, 1:44:24.920 --> 1:44:26.360 if you if you want, if you got out of 1:44:26.400 --> 1:44:32.160 the bills, I'm getting out of the bills. You already 1:44:32.200 --> 1:44:36.120 got a job, buck, I'd let you the only you're 1:44:36.160 --> 1:44:40.040 the only qualified candidate. I got a job. I mean, 1:44:40.240 --> 1:44:43.800 what hit in the last outfitters? Yeah, So let's say 1:44:43.840 --> 1:44:45.160 someone wants to come home with you, the kind of 1:44:45.160 --> 1:44:47.519 shot out of luck. Right, Let's they want to wait 1:44:47.600 --> 1:44:50.280 till twenty or whatever it is. Oh no, no, we 1:44:50.400 --> 1:44:52.640 got that. We We still got openings you know, here 1:44:52.680 --> 1:44:55.679 and there. Every Uh we usually pretty much stay booked 1:44:55.760 --> 1:44:58.280 up on the average for for a couple couple of 1:44:58.360 --> 1:45:00.360 years in bands. I mean, we've got hunters a right now, 1:45:00.439 --> 1:45:03.400 they're booked out into two thousand twenty two. How do 1:45:03.479 --> 1:45:05.280 they know what they want to be doing in two 1:45:05.720 --> 1:45:07.920 I don't know. And that's actually what I asked. This 1:45:08.000 --> 1:45:10.280 guy said, Uh, this was like two years ago when 1:45:10.320 --> 1:45:16.240 he booked. It's like, we can we can be dead 1:45:16.360 --> 1:45:18.360 by then, you know, and of course you have to 1:45:18.400 --> 1:45:20.880 have you need to put a deposit down to hold 1:45:20.920 --> 1:45:23.160 a hunt you know. So he's like in five years 1:45:23.320 --> 1:45:25.760 or four years, I would like to go sheep up. 1:45:25.920 --> 1:45:30.280 I mean yeah, I said, why why are you doing 1:45:30.360 --> 1:45:32.439 this now. He said, well, I just want to lock 1:45:32.479 --> 1:45:35.080 in the price now. And you know it's a good 1:45:35.120 --> 1:45:39.400 thought retiring or something. You know. Oh, so you honor 1:45:39.560 --> 1:45:45.840 that if he books it now even he gets for right, Yeah, 1:45:45.880 --> 1:45:47.840 if he books in two thousand and eighteen for the 1:45:48.400 --> 1:45:51.320 uh two, I'm going to honor that too. But he 1:45:51.360 --> 1:45:54.960 could be divorced or married. Hard things that could happen, 1:45:56.040 --> 1:45:58.599 Things that could happen to me too. You know what's 1:45:58.640 --> 1:46:02.160 mostly causing these big increases in the prices? Is it 1:46:02.280 --> 1:46:06.639 just gas? And I think I think it's just because 1:46:06.720 --> 1:46:09.040 they can, I mean, people pay them, you know, and 1:46:09.960 --> 1:46:14.840 just uh and then you know I did do the 1:46:14.920 --> 1:46:18.000 shows and and uh yeah, there's a lot of this. God, 1:46:18.040 --> 1:46:20.960 I can't believe how much he's hunts cost now. You know. 1:46:21.120 --> 1:46:25.479 Then they they keep going up, and yeah, I know, 1:46:25.680 --> 1:46:28.439 and and and just and if you don't keep up, 1:46:28.640 --> 1:46:31.680 you know, keep with the the going trend, you know, 1:46:31.800 --> 1:46:34.920 the going price, and then there's something wrong with you 1:46:35.000 --> 1:46:37.040 as an outfit or and that, uh, why aren't you 1:46:37.160 --> 1:46:41.360 charging as much? You know? Yeah, exactly, you don't know. 1:46:41.439 --> 1:46:44.760 One wants some bargain basems. So it's not not that 1:46:44.880 --> 1:46:47.080 I'm greedy I'm just trying trying to stay with it. 1:46:47.200 --> 1:46:50.519 And I've had other fightersers come up and say, man, 1:46:50.600 --> 1:46:52.760 you need to right your prices because they see that 1:46:52.920 --> 1:46:55.479 and of course there uh you know, they don't want 1:46:56.080 --> 1:47:01.080 a quality outfit or given away a cheaper hunt. Have you. Um, 1:47:01.680 --> 1:47:04.400 I feel like you told me this, you've kind of 1:47:04.520 --> 1:47:10.599 lost your You've lost your taste for hunting personally. Yeah, 1:47:10.720 --> 1:47:13.519 that's so much like being with you like guiding more 1:47:13.600 --> 1:47:15.479 than you like hunting now and I just kind of lost, 1:47:15.920 --> 1:47:20.600 you know, the enthusiasm you do uh nothing, Yeah, the enthusiasm, 1:47:20.640 --> 1:47:23.439 I guess because I've been I've hunted so much and 1:47:23.720 --> 1:47:26.160 and just have taken everything and gone through the whole 1:47:26.680 --> 1:47:31.080 the whole thing. My myself personally, going on a personal hunt, 1:47:31.400 --> 1:47:35.840 it just doesn't um throwing me as m as much 1:47:35.880 --> 1:47:37.760 as I used to. Just just like trapping too. I 1:47:37.840 --> 1:47:40.560 trapped for you know, years and years and years and 1:47:40.920 --> 1:47:43.680 and I loved it and it's not that I but 1:47:43.880 --> 1:47:47.960 now you know, been there, done that, that doesn't really 1:47:48.040 --> 1:47:51.120 hold that much appeal for me anymore. There's a lot 1:47:51.200 --> 1:47:53.400 of times at the end of a hunt, I'll have 1:47:53.760 --> 1:47:56.240 a client say, hey, you need to come down after 1:47:56.280 --> 1:47:59.479 the hunting season and come whitetail hunting with us, and 1:47:59.720 --> 1:48:03.160 you know, sitting in a um, sitting in a tree 1:48:03.280 --> 1:48:06.000 stand at you know, twenty degrees in the Midwest, looking 1:48:06.040 --> 1:48:08.720 out over a cornfield. Man. Last thing I want to 1:48:08.760 --> 1:48:14.160 do is, uh, you know, after after hunting for a 1:48:14.240 --> 1:48:16.519 full season, go hunting again. I'm gonna go lay on 1:48:16.520 --> 1:48:20.920 a beach in a yi or something. Yeah. Well, what 1:48:21.040 --> 1:48:25.640 age did that start to fade? The enthusiasms fade? I 1:48:25.720 --> 1:48:29.400 don't know. I guess, Uh, I don't know. I guess 1:48:29.439 --> 1:48:35.840 I really first noticed it probably six seven, eight years 1:48:35.920 --> 1:48:40.080 ago maybe. And it's not that not that I if 1:48:40.120 --> 1:48:42.560 I go out and do it, I enjoy it. And 1:48:42.840 --> 1:48:46.280 and maybe it's because too that, uh, I lived at 1:48:46.360 --> 1:48:48.360 lifestyle every day I've got I've got it any any 1:48:48.439 --> 1:48:50.320 day at day of the week I want. So maybe 1:48:50.400 --> 1:48:55.519 it's just just kind of a thing where I'm not 1:48:57.479 --> 1:48:59.160 it's not something I'm never gonna be able to do 1:48:59.240 --> 1:49:01.320 it and do again. And you know, and and there 1:49:01.920 --> 1:49:03.760 there's times I get up, just like we were talking 1:49:03.840 --> 1:49:06.880 talking about about moves, I still get just the biggest 1:49:06.960 --> 1:49:10.360 thrill about going out and calling and moves. I mean, yeah, well, 1:49:10.400 --> 1:49:12.920 you're all excited about You're all excited about our hunt 1:49:13.040 --> 1:49:15.960 right now? Oh absolutely, I am. Yeah. You act about 1:49:16.000 --> 1:49:18.840 other people's hunts the way people act about their own hunt. Yeah, 1:49:18.880 --> 1:49:22.040 because I know what you're gonna be seeing when you 1:49:22.120 --> 1:49:24.040 get out there. I know where you're gonna be, the 1:49:24.160 --> 1:49:28.720 country you're gonna be in, and you me knowing you 1:49:28.880 --> 1:49:32.040 the way I do. It's just it's right up your alley. 1:49:32.240 --> 1:49:37.439 You're just gonna You're just gonna be um uh, pleasantly 1:49:37.520 --> 1:49:40.479 surprised what you're gonna see out there. You know that, 1:49:40.640 --> 1:49:44.439 the that the country, to beauty, the rug, ruggedness, you 1:49:44.520 --> 1:49:48.599 know of it, of the whole thing. So how much 1:49:48.640 --> 1:49:51.559 long do you think you'll run your business for? Um? 1:49:55.240 --> 1:49:57.240 Probably till I die. I mean the only way, the 1:49:57.360 --> 1:50:01.240 only way I can afford to retires, if I dyeing. Yeah, yeah, 1:50:01.280 --> 1:50:03.320 But how much money you're making off those birch bowls 1:50:03.360 --> 1:50:07.599 you make? I'm not making us because I give him 1:50:07.640 --> 1:50:11.439 a way to people like you we feel guilty about. 1:50:12.080 --> 1:50:14.000 And we made up a deal today. We made up 1:50:14.000 --> 1:50:16.240 a little wager by which we would determine which of 1:50:16.360 --> 1:50:18.200 us got the first picks out of the two bowls. 1:50:18.280 --> 1:50:20.360 But I thought you already picked out the way he wants. 1:50:20.520 --> 1:50:21.800 I know the one I want, but I haven't picked 1:50:21.840 --> 1:50:25.240 it yet. And then you know I caused recently, I 1:50:25.280 --> 1:50:28.240 caused great physical harm, to be honest, and um so 1:50:28.400 --> 1:50:30.479 that's weighing on my mind. But then we made this 1:50:30.760 --> 1:50:34.000 side wager by which we were determined who gets which bowl, 1:50:35.000 --> 1:50:36.639 and the wage you kind of fell apart. So we're 1:50:36.640 --> 1:50:42.479 gonna keep struggling with it. Yeah, but Buck cuts burrels 1:50:42.520 --> 1:50:46.320 off old growth birch and hobbles it out into beautiful bowls. 1:50:46.840 --> 1:50:49.439 Do you think about selling them online direct instead of 1:50:49.479 --> 1:50:53.120 selling the tourist shops. I'm actually, uh yeah, really thought 1:50:53.120 --> 1:50:55.760 about doing my own website with it, and uh dude, 1:50:55.760 --> 1:50:57.760 it'd be so much better. Here's the thing. When you 1:50:57.840 --> 1:51:00.320 take you take that beautiful bowl he made up at 1:51:00.360 --> 1:51:03.679 your lodge, okay, and you bring it to some terrorist 1:51:03.720 --> 1:51:09.000 shop and some holser comes off cruise ship and buys it. 1:51:09.360 --> 1:51:13.439 He don't know you, You don't know the story behind it. No, 1:51:13.680 --> 1:51:16.120 you're right, he does it. Then he dies and his 1:51:16.280 --> 1:51:20.080 kid brings down to Goodwill. What if you had it 1:51:20.920 --> 1:51:24.920 that you had a place where you sold him for 1:51:25.080 --> 1:51:30.280 more money. I'll sell the damn things for you where 1:51:30.320 --> 1:51:33.040 it was like, here's what the guy, here's the story 1:51:33.040 --> 1:51:35.320 of the guy that made this, and here's how he 1:51:35.400 --> 1:51:39.559 goes about it, and this is a buck bolden damn 1:51:40.000 --> 1:51:44.280 bull would be way better because that way it wouldn't 1:51:44.280 --> 1:51:47.120 be falling into the hands of the undeserving. You're you're 1:51:47.240 --> 1:51:49.760 probably it is likely to fall into the hands of 1:51:49.840 --> 1:51:52.280 the undeserving. One of my guys that have been guiding 1:51:52.360 --> 1:51:55.439 with me, he's been with me for this would have 1:51:55.520 --> 1:52:00.599 been twenty three year. He makes knives now and each 1:52:00.880 --> 1:52:05.120 night he's the European right, uh, yeah, from Sweden. Yeah, 1:52:05.760 --> 1:52:09.640 he uh, every night he sells. There's a little biography 1:52:09.760 --> 1:52:12.200 with it that that he goes and put puts with 1:52:12.680 --> 1:52:15.519 it and and tell it a little bit how it 1:52:15.600 --> 1:52:19.080 happened to his his uh you know, background of making 1:52:19.160 --> 1:52:20.920 knives and everything, and how the knight came to be. 1:52:21.080 --> 1:52:24.080 And so yeah, I think I think you're right that. 1:52:25.040 --> 1:52:28.040 I don't really know if that's foot yeah something, but 1:52:28.200 --> 1:52:30.120 it is because I don't know if people are like that, 1:52:30.200 --> 1:52:33.880 I don't think they're picturing how the bowl came into existence, 1:52:34.640 --> 1:52:37.600 because yeah, isn't there the whole backstory of the like 1:52:37.720 --> 1:52:40.599 the birch in your area happen to have more of these, 1:52:41.280 --> 1:52:45.560 Well they're old growth. Yeah. Basically a burrow is just 1:52:45.760 --> 1:52:50.560 a fungus, you know, and so they'll be uh the 1:52:51.400 --> 1:52:55.120 burrows as a reaction to the the fungus, right yeah, 1:52:55.360 --> 1:53:00.560 and and they're actually pretty rare. But but um, you know, 1:53:00.640 --> 1:53:03.280 when you when you find a birch that's going to 1:53:03.400 --> 1:53:06.320 have a burl on it, stay it's just like hunting 1:53:06.400 --> 1:53:09.800 mushrooms or something. You know, stay right there and look 1:53:09.840 --> 1:53:12.320 around at the other birds because there's gonna be probably 1:53:12.360 --> 1:53:14.439 other birds that have have them, you know, being a 1:53:14.479 --> 1:53:17.800 little yeah yeah, because that that that that fungus will 1:53:18.160 --> 1:53:20.759 will have affected those trees in that in that area. 1:53:21.400 --> 1:53:23.400 You know what what kind of mark up to these 1:53:23.479 --> 1:53:26.599 cruise ship tourist shops? What are they? What what kind 1:53:26.640 --> 1:53:28.560 of mark up they put on your birch bowls? I 1:53:28.880 --> 1:53:31.080 have no idea. I just know that it's this like 1:53:31.320 --> 1:53:35.360 a they get thirty nine where they come up with 1:53:35.400 --> 1:53:38.479 a figure nine percent? I don't know, but that's what. Yeah, 1:53:38.760 --> 1:53:45.120 that's where they Yeah, ye have sella bowls there, but 1:53:45.240 --> 1:53:49.120 it doesn't There was one time that I uh uh 1:53:49.720 --> 1:53:53.400 this um guy to make make makes some nice I'll 1:53:53.400 --> 1:53:56.120 tell you about he. Uh he talked me into getting 1:53:56.120 --> 1:53:59.280 a booth at the Saturday market there, and I just 1:53:59.600 --> 1:54:02.840 finished thirty bowls, so I thought, okay, I'll try it. 1:54:02.960 --> 1:54:05.560 I'm thinking I'm gonna have to go there and just 1:54:06.040 --> 1:54:08.519 sit there and and you know, maybe one or two 1:54:08.560 --> 1:54:11.599 bowls or something. But I wentn't there and and uh 1:54:12.160 --> 1:54:15.000 sold like twenty five of those bowls just in one day, 1:54:15.120 --> 1:54:19.120 just just like that. And some of them were yeah, 1:54:19.479 --> 1:54:22.879 but I mean they went just like. I was amazed 1:54:22.960 --> 1:54:26.360 at the at the reaction of them. But that's acceptable 1:54:26.400 --> 1:54:29.600 to me to do with that, and and it was 1:54:29.880 --> 1:54:33.240 it was fun too, and and but um, you know, 1:54:33.360 --> 1:54:36.680 I've never since that I've been been able to get 1:54:36.720 --> 1:54:39.720 ahead enough with that that that that much of an inventory. 1:54:39.800 --> 1:54:43.280 How many can you make in a year? I mean, 1:54:43.320 --> 1:54:47.160 if I dedicated myself to uh right now, I should say, 1:54:47.160 --> 1:54:50.320 how many do you make in a year? Um? Back 1:54:50.360 --> 1:54:53.120 before the fire. I've been recently consumed with the last 1:54:53.160 --> 1:54:56.280 few few years and doing some rebuilding out to lodge 1:54:56.320 --> 1:55:00.880 after the fire, But uh, I could probably if I 1:55:01.000 --> 1:55:04.680 dedicated uh, just going full time on making the bowls, 1:55:06.280 --> 1:55:12.240 probably at different stages about a hundred hundred and fifty 1:55:12.960 --> 1:55:15.760 in a summer, probably I could do. If so, if 1:55:15.800 --> 1:55:17.800 you had to give up moose hunting or give up 1:55:17.920 --> 1:55:26.480 carving birch bowls, what should you pick? Give up moose 1:55:26.560 --> 1:55:30.600 hunting or give up birch bowls. Yeah, well, I don't 1:55:30.680 --> 1:55:32.920 understand why I would have to give one of one 1:55:33.000 --> 1:55:36.440 or the other. God came down and put a gun 1:55:36.520 --> 1:55:39.480 to your head. Yeah, I just said, okay, yeah, damned 1:55:39.480 --> 1:55:44.600 if you do, or damned if you don't. Huh, I 1:55:44.960 --> 1:55:47.040 I guess that kind of question. I guess I would 1:55:47.080 --> 1:55:51.080 just have to give up the Well, yeah, because it 1:55:51.160 --> 1:55:52.960 doesn't make any sense to me. I could see, I 1:55:53.000 --> 1:55:55.360 could I can shoot a moose and come back and 1:55:55.440 --> 1:55:59.720 make a birch bowl the same day. That's fair enough, man, 1:56:00.280 --> 1:56:02.440 It's fair enough to call the question. It's a question 1:56:02.560 --> 1:56:09.160 the question. But yeah, I suppose I would give up 1:56:09.240 --> 1:56:15.240 the the moose hunting. What. I'm sorry. I just really 1:56:15.360 --> 1:56:20.200 enjoy making those bowls. They're beautiful bowls, man works of art. 1:56:22.160 --> 1:56:23.440 And I like it because I look at it and 1:56:23.520 --> 1:56:25.720 I think about you know, I look at and think 1:56:25.760 --> 1:56:29.240 about you, you know, the stories you told me, and 1:56:29.400 --> 1:56:32.400 kind of like your place and you know big Pilo 1:56:33.920 --> 1:56:39.400 burrels yet the Janny what do you? I don't know 1:56:39.440 --> 1:56:42.480 if you remember this. First time I went out to 1:56:42.560 --> 1:56:47.200 your place, there was a moose shed antler land right 1:56:48.720 --> 1:56:51.560 basically right where you park. You're playing yeah up on 1:56:51.640 --> 1:56:54.400 the and then and then when you had the fire, 1:56:56.480 --> 1:56:58.920 that antler got all burned up. It did, Yeah, it 1:56:59.040 --> 1:57:06.200 did that. That is displayed that burnt charred moose handler, 1:57:06.400 --> 1:57:08.960 charred moose handler which stank the high Haven, Dan, you 1:57:09.000 --> 1:57:12.000 remember this when I brought it out but eventually dried 1:57:12.040 --> 1:57:15.800 out in Danny's woodshop. That is displayed in a very 1:57:15.880 --> 1:57:21.040 prominent place in my home, like where well, the one 1:57:21.480 --> 1:57:24.360 piece of heirloom sort of furniture that my wife has 1:57:24.440 --> 1:57:27.800 from her family is this. I can't remember what you 1:57:27.920 --> 1:57:31.840 call it, man armoir. It's not a word I use 1:57:31.960 --> 1:57:36.000 lightly an armoir. It's up on top of that. And 1:57:36.040 --> 1:57:38.440 I've had people try to buy it from me. But 1:57:38.760 --> 1:57:44.240 why cup giant moose handler. Man. You look at it 1:57:44.320 --> 1:57:46.600 and you're like, I haven't seen one of those before. 1:57:46.680 --> 1:57:48.800 Plus is a crazy andler. And the way it's got 1:57:48.880 --> 1:57:52.520 that weird extra time and holds it up and so 1:57:52.640 --> 1:57:56.280 it's like it's like a flame itself because that drop 1:57:56.400 --> 1:58:01.200 time holds it up, so the paddle, the pad reaches 1:58:01.360 --> 1:58:05.280 up to the sky, but it flames out in the 1:58:05.480 --> 1:58:10.080 shape of a flame, and it's flame scarred and burnt. 1:58:10.680 --> 1:58:12.680 And people come in and I just had someone try 1:58:12.760 --> 1:58:15.400 to buy it off me. Wow for why, I mean, 1:58:15.520 --> 1:58:17.920 my process selling, during the process of selling my house. 1:58:18.320 --> 1:58:20.160 What was the appeal of that thing to him? Then? 1:58:20.200 --> 1:58:24.560 Because it's crazy looking. Yeah, that's beautiful. It's like, uh, 1:58:24.840 --> 1:58:26.640 it's found art. Man. You don't know what you gave 1:58:26.720 --> 1:58:29.440 up and when I want it back now, I was 1:58:29.480 --> 1:58:31.720 gonna say, you might as well set all your sheds 1:58:31.960 --> 1:58:36.280 into another building that you yeah. Oh, and man, that 1:58:36.480 --> 1:58:39.400 was so sad. But that when when the barn went up, 1:58:39.440 --> 1:58:42.800 because that that the whole uh upper barn, that the 1:58:42.920 --> 1:58:46.120 loft was just stacked with years of sheds that I 1:58:46.280 --> 1:58:49.400 found there was there was a whole pile of them 1:58:49.480 --> 1:58:52.680 up in there. Just sad. I guess I don't know 1:58:53.040 --> 1:58:54.960 from what they are, but to me it was more 1:58:54.960 --> 1:58:57.440 and more sentimental thing all these years of these sheds 1:58:57.480 --> 1:58:59.920 and now they're gone. And then I remember I had 1:59:00.160 --> 1:59:03.160 just uh, there was a hundred and thirteen of the 1:59:03.240 --> 1:59:06.760 birch bowls that I had back in the barn done that. Yeah, 1:59:06.840 --> 1:59:08.720 they were almost done. I just had had to finish 1:59:08.760 --> 1:59:14.200 and finished standing on him all up in flames. Man. Hey, 1:59:14.320 --> 1:59:18.560 Danny talked about the great antler staff that you suffered. Yeah, 1:59:18.720 --> 1:59:23.240 I uh, I had been accumulating both shed and shot 1:59:23.800 --> 1:59:28.200 moose antlers and the head quite stack of them. Yeah, 1:59:28.240 --> 1:59:32.960 like my friends called it the pile of shame. And 1:59:33.360 --> 1:59:35.920 uh when I moved over to this house, say, yeah, 1:59:35.920 --> 1:59:37.760 they took up residents like under the eve of my 1:59:38.000 --> 1:59:41.520 workshop out him around the spruce tree. Yeah, and he 1:59:41.600 --> 1:59:45.840 had to stay. You know where'd you find him on? 1:59:45.920 --> 1:59:48.240 I mean just when your travels out there, Yeah, just 1:59:48.400 --> 1:59:51.560 traveling for work and traveling for hunting trips and you know, 1:59:51.600 --> 1:59:53.040 and then a lot of them are just moose side 1:59:53.040 --> 1:59:56.840 shot or bad people with people as cariboo handlers and 1:59:56.880 --> 1:59:59.320 you name it. Just a good big pile handlers out there. 1:59:59.360 --> 2:00:02.520 So we just stole him. Yeah, somebody came over the 2:00:02.600 --> 2:00:04.600 fence from the park out back. And you know it's 2:00:04.640 --> 2:00:06.560 a market for him now, for the like the dog 2:00:06.840 --> 2:00:10.640 to trade, you know, and it's been a hot ticket 2:00:10.720 --> 2:00:14.320 for theft around Anchorage. Man, and a friend of mine 2:00:14.400 --> 2:00:16.400 that lives right in the neighborhood here. He had something 2:00:16.440 --> 2:00:17.720 he came up and work one day as guy in 2:00:17.720 --> 2:00:19.879 a ladder trying to take him off inside of his garage. 2:00:22.040 --> 2:00:24.720 Hardcore Jeffy got ripped off. That's what I'm talking about. 2:00:24.720 --> 2:00:26.880 You put a chain around that one you got outside 2:00:26.920 --> 2:00:28.640 your door up there, and then oh, every time I 2:00:28.680 --> 2:00:30.920 come home, I check and make sure it's still there. Yeah. 2:00:31.040 --> 2:00:37.160 I love that. I love hand gade up comes to 2:00:37.240 --> 2:00:42.400 the man. Yeah, but yeah, they were I I uh yeah, 2:00:42.480 --> 2:00:45.760 one morning I was just knocking around in the yard 2:00:45.800 --> 2:00:47.640 and something didn't feel right. Look, the whole pile is 2:00:47.760 --> 2:00:53.320 just gone, just gone. How many how oh, maybe like 2:00:53.480 --> 2:00:57.440 a six or eight sheds and then probably no more 2:00:57.480 --> 2:01:00.720 than that man, you know, including cariboy was probab maybe 2:01:00.760 --> 2:01:05.080 a couple of dozen sheds, and then uh, probably eight 2:01:05.200 --> 2:01:09.320 or ten just you know, like sets of candlers together 2:01:09.400 --> 2:01:11.360 on a skull plate that were shot, you know, just gone, 2:01:12.240 --> 2:01:19.040 just gone. Yeah, some therapy dogs somewhere chewing on You're stolen. Yeah, 2:01:19.960 --> 2:01:22.880 and then yeah, hardcore Jeffy got interviewed for like an 2:01:22.920 --> 2:01:25.600 a p r N story that ran locally here on 2:01:25.680 --> 2:01:28.000 the radio about stolen moose andlers, and I got picked 2:01:28.080 --> 2:01:33.360 up nationally and he was, yeah, yeah, we helped pack 2:01:33.440 --> 2:01:36.160 that bull out that got stolen off his garage and 2:01:36.280 --> 2:01:38.680 then uh yeah, and then he told that story about 2:01:38.720 --> 2:01:40.400 his buddy who got all handlers stole out of his 2:01:40.480 --> 2:01:42.840 backyard and that was me. So that kind of the 2:01:42.880 --> 2:01:50.000 story made the rounds. Yeah, so watch watching moose andlers? Man, 2:01:50.400 --> 2:01:52.920 what do they what do they do? These people take 2:01:53.000 --> 2:01:55.200 what what what you said? Dog? Choose? Are are they? 2:01:55.760 --> 2:01:58.080 Are they? Because some of them are pretty popular for 2:01:58.200 --> 2:02:00.760 carving too, right? I mean people the people that could 2:02:00.800 --> 2:02:02.680 be the same market. I don't know, yeah, I think 2:02:02.760 --> 2:02:07.680 that the market well, well, the chandelier ship the shandon 2:02:07.760 --> 2:02:12.400 like antler chandeliers became fashionable enoughfore they started like casting antlers. 2:02:13.720 --> 2:02:17.360 Antler chandeliers started to establish a market. And then there's 2:02:17.400 --> 2:02:21.160 the Asian apperdisiac thing too, that's round up belt but 2:02:21.280 --> 2:02:27.400 that's like like a that's there. And they raise in 2:02:27.520 --> 2:02:33.160 New Zealand they raise red deer to harvest vela velvet. 2:02:33.360 --> 2:02:37.440 But I was living a gnome. Every summer they'd come 2:02:37.800 --> 2:02:41.160 up there and they ring bring the rained reindeer herds 2:02:41.200 --> 2:02:43.680 in and have big old loppers and and take take 2:02:43.720 --> 2:02:47.400 their antlers off, and there'd be uh a lot of 2:02:47.480 --> 2:02:52.520 the Asians stand stand around buying them. They stander bind them. 2:02:52.560 --> 2:02:54.720 And then the chew toy they just take. They buy 2:02:54.760 --> 2:02:56.960 elk antlers and chop them up in like three four 2:02:57.040 --> 2:03:00.520 inch pieces and they kind of sand the edges. All yep. 2:03:01.480 --> 2:03:06.200 Dudes walk in and yeah, it's like each little chunk, 2:03:06.360 --> 2:03:09.560 each little chunk seven eight nine dollars. I mean, it 2:03:09.600 --> 2:03:11.880 probly defends where you are. This friend friend of mine 2:03:11.920 --> 2:03:16.000 is Selsie, uh makes some n eyes. Every every year 2:03:16.160 --> 2:03:20.000 him and his daughter go up there early summer, I think, 2:03:20.120 --> 2:03:23.360 I guess it's early summer, early summer, up off the 2:03:23.680 --> 2:03:26.040 Hall road. They go in there and they and they 2:03:26.440 --> 2:03:29.080 come back with truckload, a big truck truck load of 2:03:29.800 --> 2:03:33.680 shed cariboo antlers, you know. And uh, that's what he does. 2:03:33.800 --> 2:03:37.560 He just he has a band. So he just boxes 2:03:37.600 --> 2:03:39.520 and boxes and these little cut up there. What do 2:03:39.600 --> 2:03:41.360 you won the world? Do you do with these? And 2:03:41.600 --> 2:03:43.960 and he has these little packages a little dog treats. 2:03:44.640 --> 2:03:46.280 That's a hard working dog. You can get through a 2:03:46.360 --> 2:03:50.880 cariboo way different. I know it. And I would like, wow, 2:03:50.920 --> 2:03:52.800 where'd you come up with that idea? He said, it's 2:03:52.800 --> 2:03:55.320 to go on trend, you know, that's what the and 2:03:55.400 --> 2:03:57.480 I think it too. I think it's like, I don't 2:03:57.480 --> 2:04:01.240 want to blabor this too much, but I think it's 2:04:02.120 --> 2:04:06.839 as those markets emerged and they became a dollar value. 2:04:06.960 --> 2:04:10.040 This is my own personal theory. As the markets emerged, 2:04:10.080 --> 2:04:13.560 the chew toy, the chandelier market, et cetera, and there 2:04:13.600 --> 2:04:17.200 started to bet a dollar value placed on antlers. I 2:04:17.320 --> 2:04:22.200 think it also drove interest and recreational antler pickers who 2:04:22.280 --> 2:04:25.160 just pick them for their own collections. And I brought 2:04:25.200 --> 2:04:27.480 this up before the same way like Morrel's. I think 2:04:27.520 --> 2:04:30.840 that with a market from Morrell's, where Morrell's are like 2:04:30.920 --> 2:04:33.760 worth you know, X dollars or a pound three dollars 2:04:33.760 --> 2:04:36.960 a pound on up and you know dried mushroom prices, 2:04:37.280 --> 2:04:39.680 I think people are like, oh wow, I'd like to 2:04:39.760 --> 2:04:41.760 go find some of those and eat them if they're 2:04:41.840 --> 2:04:45.160 that value. And so it's like, it's just kind of 2:04:45.200 --> 2:04:49.680 funny the way that the antler, like antler collecting in 2:04:49.760 --> 2:04:55.320 our lifetimes has become just become this like obsessive thing 2:04:55.400 --> 2:04:59.640 and just be a chef head antlers. Of a sudden, 2:04:59.680 --> 2:05:01.880 there's a US attention that isn't drawn to them and 2:05:01.960 --> 2:05:06.040 there and they're considered a valuable thing to go after 2:05:06.400 --> 2:05:09.080 once while time people walk past into narrowheads and didn't 2:05:09.080 --> 2:05:12.480 stoop over to the Yeah yeah, you just looked at 2:05:12.480 --> 2:05:15.680 it like a beer can laying there. Yeah, Dan, you 2:05:15.760 --> 2:05:22.440 got any last things you want to ask about? Comments, questions? No, 2:05:22.600 --> 2:05:25.880 it's been it's been interesting conversation. I am uh, I 2:05:26.000 --> 2:05:29.760 am very excited to get out in the last range 2:05:29.800 --> 2:05:32.160 and poke around your home turf a little bit. Yeah, 2:05:32.240 --> 2:05:34.200 I call I call flight service. So look, it looks 2:05:34.200 --> 2:05:35.720 like we're gonna have a good day for flying Mars. 2:05:35.760 --> 2:05:38.040 We're actually gonna be able to get out. Good to hear, 2:05:38.160 --> 2:05:43.040 this is not how I envisioned spending my day, I know. Yeah, yeah, well, 2:05:43.080 --> 2:05:45.120 I tell you what. It's actually a good thing though. 2:05:45.160 --> 2:05:48.640 I mean that it's gonna be this way that you're 2:05:48.640 --> 2:05:51.360 stuck here and not stuck out there and you know, 2:05:51.560 --> 2:05:54.040 on the airstrip just sitting there waiting for the you know. 2:05:54.280 --> 2:05:57.080 Oh yeah, yeah, I did look group exercise today. We 2:05:57.160 --> 2:06:00.920 had nice dinner, pink pok tournament it Yeah, it's been fun. 2:06:02.000 --> 2:06:05.600 Dirt Yeah, final thoughts. It might be too long to 2:06:05.640 --> 2:06:09.800 get into, but I'm curious with the rebuild, how has 2:06:09.840 --> 2:06:12.920 there been some nostalgia with rebuilding your cabin, you know, 2:06:13.880 --> 2:06:18.040 decades after you did the initial build or you know 2:06:18.080 --> 2:06:20.800 what I mean. Just has there been some positive out 2:06:20.840 --> 2:06:24.640 of that experience after the fire? Actually? Yeah, I mean 2:06:24.800 --> 2:06:28.800 I um, I was actually actually be able to build 2:06:28.920 --> 2:06:32.880 something to improve on probably what you know, some of 2:06:32.960 --> 2:06:35.880 the drawbacks. I saw what I had before, I was 2:06:35.960 --> 2:06:39.480 able to put something up and and uh, you know, 2:06:39.600 --> 2:06:44.440 improve on what what it was there. But um, I'd 2:06:44.440 --> 2:06:46.760 still I would still much rather have have the old 2:06:46.800 --> 2:06:48.960 barner and have to have a time that I've had 2:06:49.000 --> 2:06:53.360 to invest in rebuilding. I was. I was just I 2:06:53.480 --> 2:06:57.760 was perfectly satisfied with what was there. But um, but 2:06:57.960 --> 2:07:01.800 it's a At first, it was overwhelming trying to start, 2:07:01.960 --> 2:07:04.760 you know, doing the rebuilds, Like, man, where do I start? 2:07:04.960 --> 2:07:07.960 And then now that I'm seeing the end of it too, 2:07:08.160 --> 2:07:13.480 it uh it's kind of um rewarding and satisfying knowing 2:07:13.520 --> 2:07:16.560 it's almost done. It's almost you know, it's almost back 2:07:16.600 --> 2:07:20.880 the way it was. Yeah, but man, you gotta you 2:07:21.000 --> 2:07:22.920 lost all the stuff that it was filled with. Two 2:07:24.400 --> 2:07:27.240 there were so many, so many people and they're right, right, 2:07:27.440 --> 2:07:29.680 right rightly. So you know, after the fire, they said, well, 2:07:29.720 --> 2:07:33.760 at least you didn't loot lose the lodge. But um, 2:07:34.640 --> 2:07:38.240 the real value of the place wasn't the lodge and 2:07:38.360 --> 2:07:40.160 was in at the real value of the place was 2:07:40.200 --> 2:07:43.600 everything that was in the barn and the shed. I mean, 2:07:43.880 --> 2:07:46.840 so if you're talking monetary, if the lodge would have 2:07:46.920 --> 2:07:49.480 gone up, it had just been a bunch of food 2:07:49.480 --> 2:07:51.120 and a bunch of dead animals on the wall that 2:07:51.160 --> 2:07:55.160 would have burned up, you know. But um, but the 2:07:55.200 --> 2:07:58.000 barn at all, the snow machine, the four wheelers, the 2:07:58.120 --> 2:08:03.720 airplane stuff. Um, I mean, just on and on. And 2:08:04.120 --> 2:08:08.000 I remember remember the after the fire, were sitting out 2:08:08.040 --> 2:08:12.000 there on porch lodge, justice offted. We've been fighting it 2:08:12.080 --> 2:08:16.720 all night and uh um, I thought, man, we got 2:08:17.600 --> 2:08:22.480 I needed something, and I needed the chainsaw. I remembered, 2:08:23.400 --> 2:08:25.160 I'm gonna go grab the chains jumping up out of 2:08:25.200 --> 2:08:27.000 the chair and running back to the barn. And also, 2:08:27.240 --> 2:08:31.040 oh wow, there is no barn, there is no change. Uh. 2:08:31.360 --> 2:08:33.840 And then and then uh it was funny I needed 2:08:34.000 --> 2:08:37.040 uh uh, I needed a screw driver. It's something simple, 2:08:37.040 --> 2:08:39.640 a screw driver. Everybody has a screwdriver, like laying around. 2:08:39.680 --> 2:08:41.520 I need a screw d I didn't have a screwdriver 2:08:41.680 --> 2:08:44.760 to just just a simple little thing that I needed 2:08:44.840 --> 2:08:47.520 right right there anyway, you know, just the stuff that 2:08:47.600 --> 2:08:50.320 you're you're used to having on hand, like a hammer, 2:08:50.400 --> 2:08:53.160 and I had no hammer. I had no nothing. You know, 2:08:53.800 --> 2:08:55.520 I had a fork that I had he used to 2:08:55.600 --> 2:09:00.840 try and you know, but anyway, that's all. Uh you 2:09:00.880 --> 2:09:03.920 don't think, you know, I thank God had you know, friends, family, 2:09:04.040 --> 2:09:06.720 and and uh you know that that helped with with 2:09:06.840 --> 2:09:08.800 the rebuild too. You know, there are a lot of 2:09:08.880 --> 2:09:14.280 generous people out there that that donated time and and money. 2:09:14.360 --> 2:09:17.600 You know, the family, they got together a benefit to 2:09:17.640 --> 2:09:22.400 help raise money to rebuild and on there. Forget that. 2:09:22.600 --> 2:09:27.120 I mean that that was really something that everybody panded 2:09:27.160 --> 2:09:34.960 together to help me rebuild. Yeah, Pounder, you're cool, dude, Buck, 2:09:37.560 --> 2:09:39.720 I like it. I like you to half dude. I 2:09:39.840 --> 2:09:42.760 like that. I wish you'd let me trade you something 2:09:42.840 --> 2:09:48.560 for it, and uh, hit in Alaska. I just want 2:09:48.600 --> 2:09:50.880 to see if see if there's any any truth to 2:09:50.960 --> 2:09:54.480 all this resiliency I hear about you. Dude, He's got 2:09:54.520 --> 2:09:56.480 a tremendous amount of resilience. Man, You think we'd call 2:09:56.560 --> 2:10:04.120 him Rich Pounder. If he didn't, we'd call him Chris Gil. Yeah. 2:10:04.440 --> 2:10:13.160 Well there you go, it's right over Chris Gil. Uh Ny, 2:10:14.160 --> 2:10:17.320 what's the longest you ever stayed out there without without 2:10:17.400 --> 2:10:20.840 going back to town? It wou about six months. It 2:10:20.960 --> 2:10:23.959 was remembers, uh like I think it was about seventy 2:10:25.560 --> 2:10:30.160 seventy six or seventy eight, maybe even seventy five. Uh, 2:10:30.280 --> 2:10:37.680 it's when Saint that the volcano uh st Augustine Blue Helens. No, No, no, 2:10:37.880 --> 2:10:40.040 it was Augustine because that was all his ash in 2:10:40.120 --> 2:10:44.880 the air. Is that a well known volcano? Yeah, yeah, 2:10:44.960 --> 2:10:48.640 we were. I was actually scheduled to come out in 2:10:50.400 --> 2:10:53.920 December after being in their trapping. Then that when the 2:10:54.000 --> 2:10:56.720 volcano blue all this ashes in the air, planes couldn't fly, 2:10:57.160 --> 2:11:00.480 you know, it was pretty thick, and I got stuck 2:11:00.520 --> 2:11:04.280 out there until February. So it would have been September 2:11:04.400 --> 2:11:12.200 through February, I guess, yeah, bransome time. Yeah. I would 2:11:13.360 --> 2:11:17.160 perfectly uh happy. I mean I wouldn't have any I 2:11:17.240 --> 2:11:20.160 didn't have any uh you know, sweethearts in town that 2:11:20.240 --> 2:11:21.880 I was missing or anything. I was out there with 2:11:21.920 --> 2:11:25.760 the dogs and the horses and just happy with you know, 2:11:26.320 --> 2:11:31.400 my every day meat diet. Just man, one of the 2:11:31.680 --> 2:11:35.200 you know, one of the crazy craziest things that I'll 2:11:35.360 --> 2:11:38.760 always remember that that still this day, I just pictured 2:11:39.080 --> 2:11:42.400 um after that time, after being out there for so long, 2:11:43.200 --> 2:11:46.120 when you're out in the woods, you see no right angles. 2:11:46.400 --> 2:11:51.800 You said, everything is symmetrical, the curves you compounded. There's 2:11:51.840 --> 2:11:55.640 nothing you ever seen and that's naturally a complete right angle, 2:11:56.200 --> 2:11:59.000 you know. And I remember jumping the plane and after 2:11:59.320 --> 2:12:01.000 living out there, jumping in a plane, all of a 2:12:01.040 --> 2:12:04.600 sudden we're flying the anchors. I'm flying over anchors looking 2:12:04.720 --> 2:12:13.400 down and wow, everything's right angles. It just looks so unnatural. 2:12:13.400 --> 2:12:17.760 It's really surreal, and it was just really felt weird. Yeah, 2:12:17.960 --> 2:12:21.800 and and I'll never ever forget thing. Wow this is 2:12:22.320 --> 2:12:24.280 it just looks like it looks like a science fiction 2:12:24.400 --> 2:12:27.240 movie or something. And then just dammy, you just come 2:12:27.280 --> 2:12:29.920 from a world where everything round, every you know, there's 2:12:30.800 --> 2:12:33.720 everything has a curve. That and I kept trying to say, 2:12:34.120 --> 2:12:38.480 what what have I seen out there that is a 2:12:38.600 --> 2:12:40.960 natural right angle? And I couldn't come up with anything, 2:12:41.720 --> 2:12:45.280 you know, and in nature that's a perfect right angle, 2:12:45.440 --> 2:12:48.400 like white white light, like the streets and trails, you know, yeah, 2:12:48.440 --> 2:12:53.040 the Meso Americans, they like they're like some hard edges, 2:12:53.080 --> 2:12:55.480 you know. But even like most the most the Native 2:12:55.480 --> 2:13:01.720 American groups, all the structures they lived in, round structural structures, 2:13:01.840 --> 2:13:04.560 no corners. Yeah, you couldn't lean anything in the corner. 2:13:04.720 --> 2:13:09.160 Can Can you think of anything natural that that that's 2:13:09.200 --> 2:13:14.440 in nature, that that that has a natural complete right 2:13:14.480 --> 2:13:20.480 angle my tooth, just that tree branch that Danny was 2:13:20.560 --> 2:13:26.040 standing on when he shot that. No, you're right though, yeah, 2:13:26.520 --> 2:13:30.120 and and and it's funny that we stumbled that, like culturally, 2:13:31.280 --> 2:13:34.600 we hit on this idea that we really like a corner. Yeah, 2:13:34.720 --> 2:13:36.240 but I imagine it comes from it's not that we 2:13:36.320 --> 2:13:38.920 really like a corner. Imagine just comes from Yeah, it 2:13:39.000 --> 2:13:44.760 just comes from a structural right. Structurally yeah, probably, I guess, 2:13:44.800 --> 2:13:47.760 I don't know, but it it just it just hit 2:13:47.880 --> 2:13:51.240 hit me. It just really spooky. That was not expecting 2:13:51.320 --> 2:13:54.280 to see that. I'm just hey, going to town and 2:13:54.720 --> 2:13:58.000 all said, wow, this is looks so weird. Everything it's 2:13:58.040 --> 2:14:02.120 just a checkerboard to a lecture one time by this 2:14:02.240 --> 2:14:07.040 is my concluding thought. You got on concluders, Johnny Um. 2:14:08.360 --> 2:14:10.000 I went to a lecture one time by a guy 2:14:10.040 --> 2:14:15.520 who'd done these um huge canoe expeditions, you know, like 2:14:15.680 --> 2:14:18.120 he paddled the whole north Shore Lake Superior and did 2:14:18.160 --> 2:14:21.640 all these other crazy canoe trips, and you're saying that 2:14:23.160 --> 2:14:26.040 he was asking the audience He's like, you know when 2:14:26.080 --> 2:14:27.920 you go out in the woods for a week, how 2:14:29.520 --> 2:14:34.680 everything kind of slows down right in your senses pick 2:14:34.800 --> 2:14:38.320 up and you feel that you're hearing kind of either 2:14:38.400 --> 2:14:40.720 improves or it becomes more in tune, and you smell 2:14:40.840 --> 2:14:43.280 things you didn't smell, and there's sort of that you keep. 2:14:43.320 --> 2:14:49.120 You kind of fall into this slower, more contemplative, deliberate 2:14:49.600 --> 2:14:54.080 rhythm over the course of a week. And he was saying, uh, 2:14:54.960 --> 2:14:59.520 he says, you know, when you're out for six months, 2:15:01.800 --> 2:15:07.440 it still keeps happening at that same pace, like he 2:15:07.600 --> 2:15:12.720 hadn't found the end of it yet, which is, uh, 2:15:13.360 --> 2:15:16.000 you know something I think most people aren't gonna experience, No, 2:15:16.200 --> 2:15:19.920 probably not to see it, go to see that quietness 2:15:20.040 --> 2:15:25.520 go that long. For me, Um, it was the terrorist 2:15:25.640 --> 2:15:35.600 text changed Um really changed things for me about being 2:15:36.160 --> 2:15:41.320 gone on longer trips, because you got this sense we 2:15:41.480 --> 2:15:45.720 one time went to where you didn't the thing was happening, 2:15:46.800 --> 2:15:49.880 and you didn't want to be gone longer. It became 2:15:50.040 --> 2:15:53.600 like I became more aware of the fact that you 2:15:53.840 --> 2:15:58.000 might have stepped out, but the but the world moves still. Yeah. 2:15:58.360 --> 2:16:00.200 We went on a long we went on a lot 2:16:00.240 --> 2:16:02.160 trip for deer one time when they were trying to 2:16:02.240 --> 2:16:08.120 settle the Gore George the Gore the Gore Bush election 2:16:09.000 --> 2:16:11.480 and we we they didn't know. We actually put off 2:16:11.560 --> 2:16:13.720 departure way to see how the election was going to go, 2:16:14.680 --> 2:16:18.280 so well, we better go anyway. Um went on a 2:16:18.360 --> 2:16:20.880 float trip, got back. They still hadn't figured it out yet, 2:16:22.160 --> 2:16:27.160 you know, and then you had and then the terror attacks, uh, 2:16:27.680 --> 2:16:30.040 and then it became like being I just remember like 2:16:30.120 --> 2:16:34.480 being away was just different, different because you were about 2:16:34.520 --> 2:16:37.360 that's something had happened, that's some horrible thing had happened, 2:16:38.000 --> 2:16:40.040 and you weren't in tune to it. And then that 2:16:40.160 --> 2:16:43.840 kind of segued for me into having kids. And then 2:16:43.879 --> 2:16:46.920 when you have kids and you're going along trips, there's 2:16:47.000 --> 2:16:52.080 always this this nagging sense that like something would happen right, 2:16:52.320 --> 2:16:55.160 you know, like something would go wrong and you wouldn't 2:16:55.200 --> 2:17:00.200 be there or or whatever that that that like you 2:17:01.160 --> 2:17:06.840 it became harder to divorce yourself from this sort of societal, cultural, 2:17:07.000 --> 2:17:11.600 global momentum that was going on and now it is. Man, 2:17:11.959 --> 2:17:16.199 It's it's like it's not difficult to feel at Pete. 2:17:18.200 --> 2:17:23.160 There is a peacefulness still, but it's hard to for me. 2:17:23.560 --> 2:17:25.959 It's hard to just get the sense that like everything 2:17:26.160 --> 2:17:29.160 stopped and I'm just here now, Like I have this 2:17:29.320 --> 2:17:33.400 like thing in my head that something could be happening, 2:17:33.800 --> 2:17:36.480 something horrible could be happening, right, yeah, and you have 2:17:36.600 --> 2:17:40.400 no control over it either. It's it's just a thing 2:17:40.520 --> 2:17:43.880 that like, you know, it's part of the falling from grace, right. 2:17:44.720 --> 2:17:48.600 So I think about especially with kids, man, like I 2:17:48.720 --> 2:17:55.160 found that, um, there's a huge element of there's a 2:17:55.240 --> 2:18:01.760 huge element of guilt that goes into having kids entails 2:18:01.800 --> 2:18:06.760 like a level of guilt. It becomes uncomfortable, just self 2:18:06.800 --> 2:18:08.800 and pos It's just I think that I'm just governed 2:18:08.879 --> 2:18:11.440 by it in a way, you know, governed by it 2:18:11.480 --> 2:18:18.160 in a way with kids, right that Like, I don't know, 2:18:18.360 --> 2:18:20.360 it's not nice, but it is because it's like I 2:18:20.360 --> 2:18:22.200 guess that's what keeps you on track. That's what keeps 2:18:22.240 --> 2:18:23.920 me on track. Different people have different things to keep 2:18:23.920 --> 2:18:25.880 me on track. And it could be and I've I've 2:18:25.920 --> 2:18:28.080 talked about this before. I think like it could be 2:18:28.280 --> 2:18:32.160 that I'm not using the right word that what that? 2:18:32.360 --> 2:18:34.760 What that? I'm like, Oh, it's guilt. But maybe it's 2:18:34.800 --> 2:18:39.840 just um commitment to your obligations. And I just think 2:18:40.080 --> 2:18:42.400 I'm just articulating it wrong. Maybe it's just like a 2:18:42.520 --> 2:18:45.400 sense of duty, like you could you can make it 2:18:45.520 --> 2:18:48.200 sound better than than just like it's like this vague 2:18:48.240 --> 2:18:51.240 sense of guilt, a sense of duty, sense of obligation. 2:18:52.040 --> 2:18:57.480 So being gone is different now. And I'm not talking 2:18:57.640 --> 2:19:03.520 six months shit either. I'm talking quick, you know. Yeah, 2:19:03.920 --> 2:19:07.640 you got any last thoughts you'd like to add? No, 2:19:08.280 --> 2:19:11.680 I think i think I'm about bready to ready to 2:19:11.720 --> 2:19:14.720 hit the rack and get up and get to get 2:19:14.800 --> 2:19:21.240 everybody out into the woods. Sounds good to me, all right, man, Well, 2:19:21.240 --> 2:19:25.440 thank you for sitting down for so long that I've 2:19:25.480 --> 2:19:28.080 had a blast with you guys, just in a lot 2:19:28.080 --> 2:19:30.040 the last two two days I've hung out with you. 2:19:31.080 --> 2:19:34.280 Thanks man, great dinner last night and then uh and 2:19:34.360 --> 2:19:37.080 then this thing to night first time. Yeah, you had 2:19:37.080 --> 2:19:39.640 a little captain little Captain's plaid, a little Danny Ranella, 2:19:39.680 --> 2:19:46.119 Captain's hall of it salmon who again everything I said 2:19:46.160 --> 2:19:50.120 that no hush puppies. Yeah, yeah that uh, we're a 2:19:50.520 --> 2:19:52.360 dose for the hohol again that you had deep fried 2:19:52.480 --> 2:19:55.360 right there? Y Yeah, they were Oh they were delicious, 2:19:55.480 --> 2:19:58.160 especially when they're fresh out of there and the tails 2:19:58.160 --> 2:20:01.879 were crispy, you know. Yeah, Hey, the trick is baking 2:20:01.920 --> 2:20:05.040 those for a while after you deep Brian. Is that 2:20:05.120 --> 2:20:06.480 what you did then or yeah, a lot of the 2:20:06.520 --> 2:20:09.160 grease comes out and they crisp, bought real nice like that, man, 2:20:09.240 --> 2:20:10.360 But yeah, we eat a lot of them like that, 2:20:10.480 --> 2:20:16.640 my kids especially. Just is that pretty rank oil? That's 2:20:16.640 --> 2:20:19.320 probably fine? Yeah, yeah, I think they were the star 2:20:19.440 --> 2:20:22.760 of the show. Really. They were pleaser man. Yeah, what 2:20:23.360 --> 2:20:26.400 were they? What were the longer ones then? Because you 2:20:26.480 --> 2:20:30.760 had that, didn't where there was a candlefish? Yeah, same thing. Yeahah, 2:20:30.800 --> 2:20:33.600 those are all hooligan yeah okay, because yeah, one was 2:20:33.680 --> 2:20:36.400 just smokes and one was fried. Right, That's that's that's 2:20:36.440 --> 2:20:39.000 what the different. Yeah. Yeah, some we're smoking someone fried. Yeah. 2:20:39.040 --> 2:20:41.240 And the ones had their heads on, so they were 2:20:41.440 --> 2:20:44.680 they were bigger fish that way. What the the fried ones? 2:20:44.760 --> 2:20:48.000 They the heads on them too, didn't they? No, yest, 2:20:49.120 --> 2:20:50.800 you're looking for a chore. I told him. The headn't 2:20:50.800 --> 2:20:53.960 got the all the ones we fried, okay, Yeah, but 2:20:55.120 --> 2:20:58.480 then and then they the King salmon chunks, and then 2:20:58.520 --> 2:21:01.240 I think you had helmet chunks, did you. I mean 2:21:01.320 --> 2:21:07.480 it's just a real you know, it's morg board fish. Yeah, 2:21:08.840 --> 2:21:12.400 flatter man. Yeah, you want hooligan dipping next, may get 2:21:12.520 --> 2:21:14.200 in touch man. We'll go out and I would let 2:21:14.440 --> 2:21:17.040 you know after having that in that left, I've already 2:21:17.080 --> 2:21:19.400 seen everybody you know, gathered around the creek down there 2:21:19.520 --> 2:21:23.320 doing it that. You know, what's that? What's up with this? 2:21:23.480 --> 2:21:26.119 What's what's the big deal with the only white guy 2:21:26.200 --> 2:21:31.640 down there? That's he takes those hooligans down. He takes 2:21:31.680 --> 2:21:34.520 those hooligans down. Well, we were catching bourbon on hooligans 2:21:34.560 --> 2:21:37.440 through the ice open the interior, and then he takes 2:21:37.480 --> 2:21:43.320 the hooligans down and catches uh halibut halibant and salmon 2:21:43.360 --> 2:21:46.800 on hooligans. Yeah, it's so so it's it's uh there 2:21:47.000 --> 2:21:50.280 there's good baits Harring. Then they're real oily like Harry 2:21:50.680 --> 2:21:53.000 put out a good sent you know. But the thing 2:21:53.120 --> 2:21:55.080 Harring have up on them, those Harring it that real 2:21:55.200 --> 2:21:59.600 shiny flash, you know. And yeah, there's shapes just different. 2:21:59.640 --> 2:22:04.560 It's more like harry is kind of a more usable shape. Yeah. Yeah, there, 2:22:04.720 --> 2:22:06.960 and they got that that real nice sheen. You know 2:22:07.040 --> 2:22:09.120 they catch us us. You see that harring spinning like 2:22:09.160 --> 2:22:12.360 when you're moving. Yeah, I know, man, A lot a 2:22:12.440 --> 2:22:14.560 lot of times that I'd be, uh, you know, we'd 2:22:14.600 --> 2:22:16.959 be hooking up harrying on there and I'd be looking 2:22:17.000 --> 2:22:20.800 around here. Anybody say if I one of these man, 2:22:20.840 --> 2:22:24.520 I wanted to eat the bait. My brother he spends 2:22:24.560 --> 2:22:26.000 our other brother spends a lot of time down in 2:22:26.000 --> 2:22:29.840 the Bahamas fishing, and he heard a story about he's 2:22:29.840 --> 2:22:31.320 talking to this guy down there. It does a little 2:22:31.360 --> 2:22:35.160 guiding and he goes out with some he's talking about 2:22:35.200 --> 2:22:39.400 taking some Italians out fishing and pulls out some squid 2:22:39.920 --> 2:22:44.720 for bait. Those Italians like, would not bait a hook 2:22:44.760 --> 2:22:49.080 at that squid? Why because they eat it? Like you're 2:22:49.120 --> 2:22:57.440 not gonna put that Yeah, let's just eat that. Yeah. 2:22:57.800 --> 2:23:01.760 Another one is octopus to octopus babe bases good bait, 2:23:01.840 --> 2:23:04.320 but man, they are sure sure good, you know, cooked off. 2:23:04.680 --> 2:23:06.520 I really like, you know, I don't know if we've 2:23:06.560 --> 2:23:09.760 ever We used to put octopus chunks, octopus arm on 2:23:09.879 --> 2:23:13.320 halbut hooks I can't do anything do that a long time. Yeah. 2:23:13.920 --> 2:23:17.400 The nice saying is that the octopus will stay on 2:23:17.840 --> 2:23:20.480 pretty easy too. Yeah, you know that's something about it. Yeah. 2:23:20.959 --> 2:23:22.600 We use a lot of salmon fins too. Man. They 2:23:22.680 --> 2:23:24.240 got some stand You get that through the skin and 2:23:24.320 --> 2:23:27.000 through the sort of the thin raise and they got 2:23:27.400 --> 2:23:30.039 real star. You can put a harring on a halbut 2:23:30.080 --> 2:23:34.600 hook and then tip it with a salmon fin where 2:23:34.640 --> 2:23:38.080 you running through that cartilage and it's basically like a 2:23:38.200 --> 2:23:40.960 retainer holder. Yeah, that holds it on. Where'd you come 2:23:41.040 --> 2:23:44.280 up with that idea? That's not pretty cool? I can't 2:23:44.360 --> 2:23:48.440 claim just it's not. It's not a ranella. Think it's 2:23:48.480 --> 2:23:53.440 something that's been thought of thoughts, you know. Yeah, all 2:23:53.520 --> 2:24:01.160 right man, good night SA