AlaskaExpert

DEADLY FUN

2012-01-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

An Arizona friend and his wife took an Alaskan vacation not long ago. Yes, in the dead of winter. They skied down steep slopes at the Alyeska Resort http://www.alyeskaresort.com/ in the finest deep powder in anyone’s memory, cross-country skied in an untouched wilderness, and learned that Alaska, indeed, is a true winter wonderland. Anchorage was interesting as well, and, to their delight, there were great restaurants. Oh, and don’t let me forget to mention the shopping wasn’t bad either, since the city’s jewelry shops sell the best gold nugget bracelets and watchbands in the world.

My friend truly loves adventure, and he likes survival challenges as well, even if it sometimes means getting in over his head. Snowmobiles, of course, were on his short list of fun things to do while he was in the Far North. Who wouldn't want to race over the snow at rocket speed?

One day, he and his wife went riding in Turnagain Pass, a steep pathway first used by Native Alaskans to access the Kenai Peninsula. Later on, prospectors used it to find gold at Hope and Sunrise in the 1890s, where people still work placer mines. Most locals know better than fool around in snow up to your neck. What seems like lots of fun when you’re zooming around on a snowmobile can suddenly turn into the biggest mistake of your life.

My friend went off a snow bank into a frozen creek in the blink of an eye. Going fast, everything is fuzzy white—the last thing in the world you would expect is a five-foot drop-off. He ended up wet to the bone, which means freezing to death unless you warm up in a hurry. Thankfully, he was with an experienced guide and other people, so he got rescued in time, but he learned a lesson. “Boy, one second you’re having a blast,’ he said, “and the next you’re dead.” I heartedly agreed with him, then added the Last Frontier never takes any prisoners.

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING

2012-01-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

Alaska is getting hammered this winter with thick sea ice and never-ending snowstorms. Nome, which sits on the Bering Sea, is facing fuel shortages if a Russian tanker doesn’t reach town soon, and Cordova, a fishing town that sits on Prince William Sound, is so buried in snow the National Guard has been sent in to help people who can’t even get out of their doors. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration, along with the Anchorage Daily News, keeps preaching global warming. Oh, yes, and I forgot to tell you that Lonnie Dupree, a well-known adventurer and eco freak, was forced to abandon his second attempt to climb Denali in the wintertime because of 100-mile-an-hour winds and 100-below-zero temperatures at 16,000 feet, which is way short of the peak. Some people never learn, or better said, it’s clear that lots of people never learn.

Nome needing to be rescued by Russia isn’t setting well with most Alaskans, precisely because it shows how badly the Obama Administration, along with the past Bush Administration, has let this nation sink into oblivion. Things have gotten so bad we can’t even function without Chinese loan sharking and Russians riding to our rescue. As far as I’m concerned, you’re not a true American if you aren’t ashamed and embarrassed by what’s been done to us by the fat cats and unrepentant sissies who run Washington D.C. A pox on both of our political parties, and it’s time for real leaders to step forward and tell the big spenders and professional crybabies to sit down and shut up. The country is at stake.

The Nome fuel crisis shows how low we’ve sunk. We have one Arctic icebreaker while the Russian have 25, Finland and Sweden have seven each, and Canada has six. Canada, Denmark, and Russia are busily making their claims to the Arctic Ocean, and we can't even patrol our share of it above Alaska.

The laughter you hear isn’t because those three countries are throwing a block party, it’s because we’ve ceded everything to them with nothing but a whimper. The only problem they have is China holds liens on everything, which will need to be paid.

MAN-KILLER MOOSE

2011-12-18T20:26:00.000-08:00

It’s not often in America that you must worry about being attacked by wildlife in your own backyard, but Anchorage is an exception. The city is loaded with moose, particularly in the wintertime, and if you’re stupid enough to step outside your home without looking around first, it could be curtains for you. They set up housekeeping in the suburbs long ago and aren’t about ready to leave, since urban living suits them just fine. Where else can you find tasty ornamental bushes and trees to eat and no wolf packs to worry about?

Years ago, a woman heard a dog barking behind the house where she was staying and stepped out to see what was wrong. A moose stomped her to death. The same thing happened to a college professor who bumped into one on campus. Folks think they look clumsy and slow, but they’re anything but. They are cat-quick and can kick with all four feet at once, killing their victims with lightning blows.

Almost a dozen Anchorage residents are injured each year by moose, mostly because of carelessness or their dogs decided to chase one and the moose would have none of it. To the owner’s horror, he or she see his or her dog running back for protection from a pissed off monster weighing 1,000 pounds. Not a healthy situation under any circumstance.

Once I got a call from a fellow about his floatplane being damaged on Lake Hood, the world’s largest seaplane base that’s an integral part of the Anchorage International Airport. I left my office only to learn a rutting bull moose had vented its frustration on a half dozen airplanes tied down around the lake. The damage was awesome—twisted tail assemblies, bashed in sheet metal, and ripped fuselage fabric. Several airplane owners were facing big repair bills.

Stay away from Alaska’s largest ungulate if you know what’s good for you.

ESKIMO BLANKET TOSS

2011-12-07T09:08:00.000-08:00

Alaskan winters are long and cold, although they differ greatly depending on where you live in the state. For example, Ketchikan’s winter is like Seattle’s, Anchorage is warmer than Northern Minnesota, Fairbanks sits forever at 20 below, and Barrow is black for months. It all has to do with the Last Frontier being so big that different climates exist.

Contrary to popular misconceptions, people don’t live in igloos and they stay
busy with everyday life just like in the Lower-48 states. Getting to work on time, sending the kids off to school, housework, and looking forward to the weekends are the same as you would find in Minnesota or Montana. Anchorage in particular, since it holds half of the state’s population, always has something interesting going on, with year-round cultural events rivaling any big city’s fun things to do. Ballroom dancing, celebrity appearances, concerts, museums—it’s easy to knock yourself out, and that’s not to mention the world-class skiing, snowmobiling, and endless fishing and hunting opportunities.

About the time you get a little tired of the cold and snow, the Fur Rondy, the 2,000-mile Iron Dog snowmobile race, and the Iditarod Sled Dog Race begin. All three are international events with folks coming from all over to join the fun, if not to take a shot at winning the prize money. First place, new pickup trucks, and celebrity endorsements hang in the balance.

Wintertime contests that have always amazed me, and the photograph above shows what I mean, are the ice sculptures that artists carve. Many are truly wonderful, and it’s easy to spend an entire afternoon walking from one to another and guessing how they were built.

Never let anyone tell you that Alaskans suffer from cabin fever in the wintertime, because there’s hardly time to stay home.

WHAT IS IT?

2011-11-22T09:31:00.000-08:00

A bronze object was found in August on Cape Espenberg, which is near Kotzebue, Alaska, a coastal town along the Chukchi Sea. This part of the High Arctic has been home to the Inupiat Eskimos for eons, and their subsistence culture is still busy with berry picking, fishing, and hunting. Old ivory, stone, and wooden artifacts are commonplace and easy to find in the ancient earthen homes they left behind.

Early Native Alaskans didn’t melt metal and pour molded castings, so the recent discovery of this artifact in a 1000-year-old mizzen was shocking, especially since the leather on its one end dated 1,400 years back. Archaeologists are left scratching their heads, without any good explanation for what they found. Maybe it came from China, they think.

Recently, a Chinese coin minted between 1667 and 1671 was found along the Yukon River 150 miles northwest of Whitehorse. Old Chinese coins have been regularly found along Alaska’s southeastern seacoast, but to find one so far inland blows everyone’s mind. Added to this great mystery is a Chinese coin from the early 1400s was found at Beaver Creek, the border point between Alaska and Canada. A pig bone was also found, except there weren’t any pigs in the North until after the 1898 Gold Rush. This has thrown archaeologists for a loop as well.

I’ve always believed the Chinese discovered Alaska long before any Europeans did, and now there’s proof. It’s fact the ancient Chinese knew about Siberia, so it stands to reason they would have been told about another land just across the Bering Strait, which is only 53 miles wide. I think they started exploring and trading in Alaska long ago. Would-be experts will call me crazy, but I have more proof than they do. How in hell else did these artifacts get to the Far North?

THE INCOMPARABLE BUSH PILOT

2011-11-04T18:56:00.000-07:00

One afternoon, I saw Bob Curtis, who had started bush flying in Alaska after World War II, loading his Aeronca Sedan floatplane at my dock on Lake Hood, which is an integral part of the Anchorage International Airport. He was getting ready to fly out to Tikchik Narrows Lodge, a premier wilderness fishing retreat that he and his wife, Gayle, had opened in 1969. They were expecting their first summertime guests and Bob was filling the back of the plane with grocery boxes of every kind. Rhoda, the gal who ran their gourmet kitchen, was standing nearby, along with Bob’s stinking, good-for-nothing, Chesapeake dog named Chief. I left my office to say good-bye, since Bob and I were good friends and I wouldn’t see him again until fall.

Before I go on, I must explain that Bob, who’s no longer alive, was one of Alaska’s legendary characters. He was the epitome of the hard-drinking, fun-loving pioneers who had opened the state to big game hunting and world-class fishing. When he wasn’t working, he was raising hell, and few have cut a wider swathe in the Last Frontier.

He filled the Sedan almost to its back headliner, leaving only a foot or so. I was beginning to wonder . . . then to my amazement, he grabbed Chief with his left arm circling the dog's neck and his right arm beneath the dog's belly and out between the legs with his hand clenched around the poor dog’s testicles. In one swift motion, he stepped onto the pilot-side pontoon, squeezed Chief’s family jewels, and torpedoed him into the cramped space above all the boxes. “Yip, yip, yip,” the dog cried.

In the next instance, he turned to Rhoda and asked, “You want some help getting in?”

Rhoda shot him a look that could kill, which flew right past Bob because he was that kind of guy. After a moment, she said, “Don’t you dare touch me.”

I walked back to my office, laughing and shaking my head. I’d seen it all.

CLOSE CALL

2011-10-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Three friends and I ate dinner and visited about their departure for the Reno Air Races on the following day. I had never attended them and felt jealous. Little did I know . . . .

I was shocked, then terrified that I’d lost all three when Fox News started streaming the P-51’s awful crash during one of the main events. My friends are the sort who always has front-row seats, and I was scared they were gone. Finally, I got in touch and learned they were okay, but just by inches.

I’ve flown all my life and even performed air-show aerobatics when I was younger, so sometimes I look at things from the viewpoint of, “There but for the grace of God, go I.” On the other hand, maybe not, since I was always as careful as a cat when it came to zooming around at warp speed next to the ground. Be it an airplane or helicopter, you’re usually toast if something comes off in flight. Clearly, that was the case with the P-51, since its elevator trim tab was videoed breaking off. A pilot has almost no chance of recovering his plane when that happens.

The above photo shows how close my friends came to getting killed. The debris is still smoking, people are lying on the ramp, and lots of onlookers are stunned by what has just happened. Boy, did they come close.

BEACH LANDINGS

2011-10-13T23:38:00.000-07:00

Everyone admires bush pilots, but I often wonder if the common guy fully appreciates the hazards of their work. It’s not so easy once you’ve left a known aviation facility such as Lake Hood, the world’s largest seaplane base in Anchorage, and set course for a wilderness location. You’re on your own once you get there.

Alaska and Canada are bigger than Russia when combined, with an astonishing lack of airports. Consequently, pilots are forced to land on anything they can find that doesn’t have obstacles blocking their approach and departure. But that always leaves the question of what the surface must be like, along with the wind direction. Crosswind and downwind takeoffs and landings are for the birds . . . on second thought, they don't even like them.

Bush pilots are the best because they’re free thinkers. All have the ability to look down and read the wind, measure the waves, see the rocks, and determine the safest way to land their planes. In every case, it means landing in the shortest distance possible, which translates into lots less danger. Rolling out 1,000 feet on rough ground is asking for trouble.

Some pilots are just better than others at bush flying, and it has to do with judgment. There are men and women who mysteriously have a mind’s eye for finding airstrips where none exist. Experience is critical, but God-given talent is better, since not everyone is cut out for the job. At times, it’s like playing Russian roulette, which is why the big flight operators are really picky about whom they hire.

My favorite bush airstrips are beside the Bering Sea, which has a black-sand beach that runs along the Alaskan Peninsula all the way to the Aleutian Islands. As remote strips go, they’re the best, with the only challenge being in landing with one wing lower than the other during the roll out. It means cross-controlling the airplane in a goofy way or running into the water, which always makes your passengers mad as hell.

It’s hard to describe the satisfaction that comes with climbing out of a plane in a wilderness setting where no one has landed before. It’s something few people get to do.

CARIBOU CROSSING

2011-09-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

Alaska’s caribou herds are the lifeblood of the state, inasmuch as there are very few roads and a great many native villages dotting its vast interior. Most people in the Lower-48 can’t conceive of how hard it is for “bush residents” to put food on the table. Usually, there’s some kind of store in most places, but the only things on the shelves are canned goods, with everything priced sky-high. It all boils down to a subsistence lifestyle dependent on hunting and fishing, and so the wife and kids go hungry if you can’t shoot enough caribou to feed them.

There are 32 different caribou herds in Alaska comprising of one million or more animals at any given time, but those are fuzzy numbers. Herds come together in the winter and then split up in the spring. Sometimes deep snow and wolves decimate their numbers, and at other times herds grow exponentially and no one knows why. They are like lemmings in some respects, and not a lot smarter. Much is made of potential oilfields threatening them, such as in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but that’s complete nonsense. Caribou aren’t smart enough to let humans bother them, and anyone who doubts this can drive the “Haul Road” to Deadhorse and see them calving, grazing, playing, and sleeping right beside the pipeline. Actually, sport hunters often bow hunt alongside the Dalton Highway because there are so many.

I’ve had caribou herds almost run over me, and there’s nothing stopping them once they’ve made up their minds to go someplace. I’ll never forget hearing a big herd clicking their hooves and grunting as it approached the Kokwok River where I was rainbow fishing. As my photograph shows, they stopped on the shoreline and looked at me, then swam across on both sides of my boat in long streams. I could have knocked some of them on the head.

Alaska’s wildlife managers have done a great job of managing the state’s caribou herds. There are plenty of them to go around, and their future looks bright. Thank goodness, because sometimes there’s nothing else to eat.

TERMINATION DUST

2011-09-16T10:47:00.001-07:00

All good things must end, and in the case of Alaska it begins with an autumn storm that leaves the Chugach Mountains east of Anchorage covered with snow. Alaskans call this termination dust, and for bush pilots it means their floatplanes must be pulled out of the water before they get frozen in and the pontoons are damaged. As you can see on the right, the fellow in the picture has waited until the last moment and is now paying the price by having to bust his way through inch-thick ice to reach a landing where his seaplane can be lifted out of the water. It's all part of daily life in the Last Frontier and makes up a lifestyle that's unlike anywhere else in the world. It's not unusual to see bankers and lawyers in three-piece suits wearing hip boots when they fly their airplanes.

This particular picture was taken from the public landing at Lake Hood, which is the seaplane base that's part of the Anchorage International Airport. It's a fasinating place where bush pilots are talking to the same tower operators who are clearing passenger jets for takeoffs and landings right next door. Lake Hood is the world's largest seaplane base with 500 floatplanes coming and going 24-7 in the summertime. Go kick a beehive if you want to know what it's like flying around there.

I've known several people who abandoned everything to fly in Alaska, since that's how much bush flying gets into your blood. A wealthy Iowa farmer gave up his wife and kids to move there, much as it didn't make sense, and one of the most beautiful young women I've ever known simply told her husband she wasn't coming back home after she'd delivered a floatplane to Anchorage. She was flying for a friend of mine in the Lake Clark National Park the last I knew, which might be the most wonderful place on earth. Soaring with eagles over snowcapped peaks, buffalo-sized brown bears catching salmon below, gleaming glaciers everywhere, why would anyone want to give up his or her past life for that?

But it all comes with a terrible price, and someday I'll write about the sad losses of so many bush pilots I've known. Their better angels are the only things that fly anymore.

ALASKA CABINS

2011-09-08T14:25:00.001-07:00

Alaska has over 200 federal and state cabins for rent. They are located in every part of the state along alpine hiking trails, lakes, ocean shorelines, and rivers. No matter whether you like to fish, hunt, or just commune with nature, there’s a perfect place for you.

All are in wilderness locations where they can’t be reached except by boat, floatplane, or foot, so reasonable outdoor skills are important. You’re on your own once you get dropped off, so don’t forget to bring sufficient supplies. And, yes, there will always be bears, so carry a 30-06 rifle or something bigger, pepper spray, an emergency locator beacon, and a first aid kit, preferably one put together by your family doctor. Search and rescue has enough to do without you adding to their workload with silly mistakes.

There are lots more remote cabins scattered across Alaska that only the locals know about, and they’re available as well. They usually cost nothing but for the price to fly there. I often used an old trapper’s cabin in the Chugach Mountains that regrettably got washed away in a big flood, there’s another on Rock Lake in the Wrangell Mountains, and then there’s the oddest I’ve ever seen on the Alaskan Peninsula. All it takes is the ability to befriend an old-time Alaskan who has the smarts to know where they are and how to get there. The adjoining picture is of the weird one I mentioned, and notice the anchor ropes on its nearby shed. What does that tell you?

Adventuring in Alaska isn't as expensive and hard as you think. All you need to do is click on http://www.alaskacenters.gov/cabins.cfm and contact the appropriate agency.

ALASKA'S LABOR DAY CURSE

2011-08-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

Alaska’s Labor Day weekend is something to be dreaded. It’s the last great hurrah for everyone before the “termination dust” snowcaps the mountains, if it hasn’t already, and it signals the opening of all the hunting seasons. Anchorage and Fairbanks, in particular, are almost abandoned with their citizenry heading off in every direction with their boats, pickups, and planes. Unfortunately, the weather is often bad, people drive too fast and drink too much, and those with airplanes haven’t flown them all summer, leaving them fumbling around in the cockpits looking for things that should come as second nature. It’s a recipe for disaster.

The adjoining picture is a Cessna 207 that crashed near McGrath in Alaska’s vast interior not long ago. Sadly, the pilot and a passenger were killed and four others were seriously hurt. It took place because of what I call, “get-home-itis,” which resulted in a popular village schoolteacher and a veteran bush pilot meeting early deaths. I tell people, at least those who will listen to me, that I worked for twenty years in Minnesota and knew two people who killed themselves in airplanes, and then I worked in Alaska for two years and knew twenty people who killed themselves in airplanes. That’s exactly how bad it gets when the Labor Day weekend rolls around. I pray this time will be different.

Put the booze in the trunk and lock it up, commit yourself to driving less than the speed limit, and take the old bird around the patch for a few touch and goes before you head off on Friday. The life you save may be your own.

DUMBEST BANK ROBBER EVER

2011-08-23T12:31:00.000-07:00

On July 29th, a KeyBank employee walked into a cash vault at an unnamed Anchorage location, stuffed three computer boxes with $4.3 million, rolled it out of the bank on a cart, and loaded it into a car. He was a bank services manager named Gerardo Adan Cazarez Valenzuela, or Gary Cazarez to his coworkers. He did this at 6:40 p.m. in full view of security cameras, although he’d switched off the vault’s lights during his “withdrawal.” From his point of view, step one was a snap.

Next, he drove home, packed the money into several suitcases, and took off with his girlfriend for the Anchorage International Airport, where he’d chartered a business jet to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. There, he caught a cab to a gun shop where he bought an AK-47 assault rifle and a hand gun for $4,000. Later on, his companion, Leysa S. Bindas, borrowed a BMW from her sister and both drove to Auburn, Washington, where they rented a hotel room. Security cameras saw them carrying numerous suitcases from their borrowed car. So far, so good.

On the following day, they bought a new Ford Fusion from a car dealership and hightailed for California with their ill-gotten gain. Soon after, they decided to visit Bindas’s uncle in Mexico, wonder of wonders as that might be. The thought probably came to them in a flash, something like a lightbulb switching on, I suppose.

Upon phoning the uncle about their proposed visit, they were told their car couldn’t handle Mexico’s roads and so it was decided they’d take a bus to Sonora. Apparently, it never occurred to them that climbing into a cheap Mexican bus with about a million suitcases might arouse someone’s suspicions, not to mention they now had it backward, seeing as this is where they needed the jet the most. Oh, well, some people are just stuck on stupid.

It didn’t take long for the couple to be pulled aside at a security checkpoint with authorities asking to see inside their luggage. Mexican law enforcement, of course, found the guns, some ammunition, and $3.8 million, or so it was reported. Frankly, it’s my opinion someone else made a “withdrawal” as well, “Si senor?”

I won’t get into all the mistakes these two made, since I’ll just let you run with your imagination, but let me suggest starting with the idea that you charter a jet and then take a bus. What's wrong with that picture?

BEAR BELLS AND HOG CALLING

2011-08-15T18:52:00.001-07:00

Nowadays, it has become avant-garde for adventurers and hikers to wear bells on their backpacks and yell at the top of their voices when they're in bear country. Almost everyone believes that noise scares them, although there's not one bit of evidence or research to prove it. Who started this foolishness is a good question, but rest assured it was some would-be bear expert sorely lacking in common sense, outdoor skills, and respect for other wildlife.

Regardless of the different species, black bears, grizzlies, and polar bears hear sounds more or less like people, but their ears play second fiddle to their noses. More important, though, there's hardly a place left anymore where they don't hear humans every day--airplanes and helicopters, chainsaws, highway traffic, and freight trains, for example. To suppose that hearing "ting-a-ling" and "Hey, bear, hey, bear" frightens them is complete nonsense. Even in Alaska and the High Arctic, all that does is put them on full alert and gets them curious. Sneakiness and separation are the keys to bear safety, not noise making.

Native Americans coexisted with bears for millennia, but it wasn't because they wore tinkling bells and war danced through the woods. They survived because of their stealthy vigilance, which means they always stopped, looked, and listened before risking themselves on the trail ahead. Bears can't attack if they don't know you're there.

SLEEPING LADY

2011-08-09T11:01:00.000-07:00

No one knows who gave the name, Sleeping Lady, to the low mountain just northwest of Anchorage. Officially, the 4,000-foot landmark is called Mount Susitna, which is the name of the major river that runs beside its base, but you only have to see it for the first time for its Native Alaskan name to become a lasting memory. Legend has it the Indian woman will wake up when her lover comes home from the warpath. I have gazed at it countless times and never grown tired of its wonderful silhouette.

I’m not sure it’s active anymore since cell phones have changed everything so much, but for the longest time there was a diesel generator on top of Sleeping Lady that ran a telecommunications tower. Of course, the place needed fuel, and the only way to get it there was landing on a garden-sized bush strip with a Piper Super Cub equipped with a belly tank. This wasn’t a job for an ordinary pilot, because if you overshot the runway you’d go over a 1,000-foot cliff, or as a friend of mine says, “It’s so damn far down you’ll starve to death before you hit bottom.” There was only one man for the job, and his name was George Kitchen, who held the refueling contract even as an old man. There really wasn’t anyone else up to the job.

To show you how difficult it is to land on Sleeping Lady, an Alaskan who has a great talent for getting his name in the news as being a hotshot pilot decided he’d land his Super Cub up there to prove that old Kitchen wasn’t the only fellow with special skills. Well, luckily, he didn’t kill himself, but he did end up with his Super Cub on its back. Not an auspicious demonstration of piloting, to say the least.

Next time you see Sleeping Lady, remember there are actually a couple of legends that go with the mountain.

ALASKA SHEEP HUNTING

2011-08-01T21:21:00.000-07:00

Alaska’s sheep hunting season always opens on August 10th, which is the end of summer for all practical purposes. The mountains get nippy at night and the rainy season is in full bloom, leaving hunters stranded at airports waiting for their guides or stuck in tents in downpours that won’t stop. I’ve often told people to dress in rain gear, run the cold water in their bathroom showers, and crawl around on their hands and knees in the spray if they want to know what sheep hunting is like. It’s amazing how long bad weather can last.

The biggest challenge for sheep hunters is their physical conditioning, and the only way to properly prepare yourself is to climb up and down mountains. Otherwise, it makes no difference how long you jog, do sit ups, and work out in a gym you’re never quite in shape for rough terrain. I would always drive to Flattop Mountain, located in the Chugach State Park just east of Anchorage, and work out for at least a month on its slopes so I was ready for what lay ahead of me. The Alaskan Range, the Chugach Mountains, and the Wrangell Mountains take no prisoners, and the Brooks Range, although not as precipitous as the first three, still requires top conditioning. Legal rams live in steep places.

There are three things you have to carry on a sheep hunt—great binoculars, a powerful spotting scope, and a flat-shooting rifle. The reason for the optics is obvious, but choosing the right artillery is a bit more complicated. Dall sheep aren’t any harder to kill than deer, but the windy distances that bullets must cross can be challenging. What’s more, you’re always in grizzly country and don’t want face one with something like a .243 or .308. Carry a cannon that can shoot 300 yards in crosswinds and flatten bears in one blast.

Nothing compares to taking a full-curl ram, so make that your next goal.

ALASKA GRIZZLY ATTACKS SEVEN TEENS

2011-07-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, an Alaskan grizzly attacked seven teenagers who were camping and hiking in the Talkeetna Mountains. All were completing their last week of a leadership and survival program taught by the National Outdoor Leadership School of Lander, Wyoming. Fortunately, they were carrying a personal locator beacon, which I've always stressed is mandatory equipment when adventuring, and a 16-year-old boy was trained in first aid. The Rescue Coordination Center picked up the emergency satellite signal and the Alaskan State Troopers quickly responded with a helicopter. Two teens had life-threatening injuries and were medevaced, two had serious injuries requiring hospital care, and the rest were banged up in all the mayhem. It was a Godsend that no one was killed, and clearly one teen is a hero. He had sense enough to start kicking the grizzly when it had one of his friends down and chased the bear away, doing exactly what I tell people in my book, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears. You must not let bears knock you down without clubbing them, kicking, punching, and stabbing them with a knife, throwing rocks, and whatever else you can do to defend yourself. Never, never lie down and play dead because there’s no way of knowing that’s not exactly where you will end up.

The seven were crossing a creek in single file and were “hog calling” to scare bears away, something the National Outdoor Leadership School mistakenly teaches their students. For some ridiculous reason people think bears are scared by humans making noise, but the opposite is true. They go on high alert when they hear things and wait to see what’s making all the racket, much as any curious person would do. Rather than adding to safety, noise-making does the opposite. I tell everyone to copy what Native Americans did for 10,000 years to avoid bear attacks. They always acted as if they were on the warpath when they were in bear country and carefully moved from vantage point to vantage point, stopping, looking, listening, and staying on guard along the way. They knew bears couldn’t attack if they saw them first. Sadly, our modern outdoor experts have forgotten how to be real outdoorsmen, not to mention they’re spoiling everyone’s wilderness experiences with silly hollering. It’s time to stop this nonsense.

ALASKAN PHOTOGRAPHY

2011-07-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

Opportunities for outdoor photographers are boundless in Alaska, whether your preference is for scenery or wildlife. The mountains, glaciers, and valleys are forever backlit by the midnight sun, and wildlife thrives in environments like it did in prehistoric times. Getting great pictures comes down to a matter of endurance, patience, and wilderness skills, and there’s never a time in the Last Frontier when the perfect photograph isn’t just over the next hill.

Access to Alaska’s wonders is fairly convenient with just enough roads and waterways to let photographers pick between alpine settings, glaciers, seascapes, stupendous mountains, and thick forests. I recently blogged about driving to Homer, and there are roads running to McCarthy, Valdez, and all the way to Deadhorse on the north side of the Brooks Range. Professional photographers can even apply for commercial access to Denali Park, which is a Jurassic Park if there ever was one. And where else in the world can you visit places like Brooks Falls or McNeil River and see brown bears wandering around like cattle? Idiot photographers like me can even come up with good pictures in places like that.

The grebe picture above is one of my favorites, since it shows wildlife parents caring for their chick. The father has caught a minnow and the baby is snuggled under its mother’s wing, waiting to be fed. We humans like to think we are surperior to animals, but that’s not true at all. Life and love are the same everywhere.

BEST DRIVE IN ALASKA, PART THREE

2011-07-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

The drive from Kenai to Homer follows Cook Inlet south, with the Chigmit Mountains 50 miles to the west. Augustine Island and Mounts Iliamna, Redoubt, and Spurr are clearly visible across the seawater, along with their streaming smoke and steam since all four are live volcanoes. The entire trip is an amazing landscape of snowcapped peaks, gleaming glaciers, green forests, and blue water that is arguably the most wonderful sight in the world. Binoculars and cameras are absolute necessities along this beach road.

There are friendly little towns along the way—Kasilof, Clam Gulch, Ninilchik, and Anchor Point—offering everything from bed and breakfasts to the best razor clam beaches on the West Coast. Kasilof is a secret hot spot for king salmon that rivals the Kenai River, Ninilchik has a wonderful Russian heritage that dates back to 1841, and Anchor Point launches boats, interestingly enough, with farm tractors, which then lets fishermen hook onto giant halibut. National parks, state parks, RV parks, campsites, world-class fishing and sightseeing, and family-run shops where you can buy smoked salmon—I can’t think of anything that’s missing on your way to Homer.

The town got its start as a phony gold strike in 1896, except rich coal seams were what made the money. Later, small farmers, commercial fishermen, and subsistence hunters filled the hilltops above Kachemak Bay where they eked out a living from the natural resources around them. They loved their independent lifestyles and the area grew as word spread about it being one of the prettiest places on earth. Then in the 1960s hippies started moving in and establishing an arts-and-crafts community that has thrived ever since. Lots of well-known artists get big bucks for their work.

Alaskans think of three things when they hear about Homer—Harley-sized halibut, the “Eagle Lady,” and the Salty Dawg Saloon at the end of the Homer Spit, except not necessarily in that order. Suffice it to say that some folks like to get into adult beverages first and then work their way up to other things.

Jean Keene, a.k.a. the Eagle Lady, moved into a campground on the Homer Spit in 1977 and never left. She started feeding the local bald eagles with fish scraps from the cannery where she worked and created a virtual chicken yard of them until her death in 2009. Her hard work gained her international fame, right along with her fiery personality in protecting her pets from anyone wanting a close-up picture of them. Let’s just say that lots of photographers have been told they would get their butts kicked by a schoolgirl-sized old lady since that’s how nasty she could get. Now that she’s gone to bird heaven, the state has stopped people from feeding eagles, which, of course, is the best for them, but in any event the chances of you getting a great picture of a bald eagle are better than 100 percent when you visit Homer.

Otherwise, 300-pound fish aren’t uncommon on the halibut charters that sail out of the harbor, assuming sportfishing is your thing. That’s a lot of fine eating, let alone the thrill of pulling something so humongous off the bottom of Lower Cook Inlet or Kachemak Bay. Half-day to overnight trips are available, so take your pick based on your time and pocketbook. And, once again, don’t forget your binoculars and camera, since you will have the chance to see how Alaskan sea captains make their living. Oh, by the way, did I mention you’ll also see cod, dogfish, jellyfish, octopus, porpoise, puffin, rays, rockfish, salmon, sea otters, and whales too.

Like I said in part one, the drive from Anchorage to Homer is arguably the best in Alaska.

BEST DRIVE IN ALASKA, PART TWO

2011-07-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

Seward is a seaside town that buzzes all summer with cruise ships, fishing, and flightseeing. Alaskans and travelers alike fill its harbor, restaurants, and gift shops; and boats sail in and out around the clock. There’s never any shortage of things to do, including the three-mile Mount Marathon Race and the $10,000 Silver Salmon Derby. Camping, hiking, kayaking, and photography are only a few of the things to do.

The biggest attraction, however, is the Kenai Fjords National Park where you can see marine wildlife such as humpback and killer whales, porpoises, puffins, seals, sea lions, sea otters, and more. A daylong cruise on a tour boat is a must before you leave town, since you will see Resurrection Bay, Fox Island, Holgate Arm, and the Northwestern Fjord. All the major marine tours provide park rangers who describe the wildlife and scenery, so education and entertainment are key parts of the voyage.

Once you’re back in town, drive to Mile 3 on the Seward Highway, then 8.6 miles to the Exit Glacier Nature Center. Ranger-guided walks are available, along with trails that let you explore the face of a living glacier (be very careful) and the 300-square-mile Harding Icefield, which spawns 40 glaciers.

Afterward, you’re back on your way to Homer, but with about a million stops along the way. The highway crosses and then parallels the Kenai River, which is world famous for its 50 to 90-pound king salmon. Fishing lodges and guides fill the area from Cooper Landing to Soldotna, so there is never a time when you can’t fish for kings, sockeyes, silvers, or rainbow trout to your heart’s content. Otherwise, you can hike the Resurrection Pass Trail with its seven public recreation cabins all the way to Hope if you wish. Watch out for bears!

Once you reach Soldotna, you should visit Kenai before going on to Homer, since it’s always busy with the daily commerce of Alaska. I particularly like stopping at the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center, which overlooks the mouth of the Kenai River, and then finding a place to eat seafood. Lastly, drive the Kalifonski Beach Road south on the final leg to Homer, which I’ll blog about soon.

BEST DRIVE IN ALASKA, PART ONE

2011-06-22T07:38:00.000-07:00

There aren't many roads in Alaska, but each one offers opportunities to see scenery and wildlife unique to a certain part of the state. Arguably, the drive from Anchorage to Homer is the best, especially if you branch off and visit Whittier, Hope, and Seward as well. This lets you see Prince William Sound, the site of the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill, and the Kenai Fiords, clearly one of the wonders of the world.

The first stop you will make is at Windy Point (mile 106) on the Seward Highway not far from Anchorage. There are Dall sheep feeding along the road and on the cliffs above, and with a little luck you'll also see beluga whales, harbor seals, and a bore tide in Turnagain Arm. It's the only place in the world where 10-foot standing waves flood between towering mountains so beautiful they will bring tears to your eyes. Colorful windsurfers, who are the best on earth, ride the high tides, adding red and yellow to the wonderful scene.

Continuing on, you should visit the Alyeska ski hills and the Crow Creek gold mine in Girdwood, three miles off your left. It's a great place to shop for jade and then pan for gold, which can be a full day's fun in itself. By the way, bears are often seen around town.

Your next stop will be at the Begich Boggs Visitor Center at the Portage Glacier, which is on the way to Whittier and Prince William Sound. The center describes the geology of the neighboring lake and its glacier at the far end, and then there are plenty of places where you can hike and see things for yourself. In addition, a tour boat cruises the lake, icebergs, and glacier face, offering visitors a firsthand view of everything.

Next comes the almost three mile drive through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel to Whittier, which got its start as an army base in World War II. Now the town is seeing growing popularity as a cruise ship destination where tourists can see brown bears, blacktail deer, countless birds, mountain goats, porpoises, seals, sea lions, sea otters, and whales. ...did I mention Prince William Sound's tidewater glaciers are named after Ivy League colleges? Harvard, Yale, Wellesley, etc. Men's schools are on the northwest shorelines and women's schools are on the southeast shorelines, all except Princeton which was deliberately ignored.

It's southbound on the Seward Highway and over Turnagain Pass when you're through in Whittier. Stop and hike the high country if you get itchy feet, and now if you see a fork in the road you should take it, since it will lead you to the 1895 gold rush town of Hope. Known as "Alaska's Most Friendly Town," there are still grizzled prospectors who will help you with gold panning, and lots of big nuggets have been found here. You are now on Turnagain Arm's south side and can see across to Anchorage.

Once you're done bagging your gold, it's time to head for Seward, the gateway to the Kenai Fjords National Park. No place on earth is more blessed with better scenery or special wildlife, which I'll describe in a coming blog.

Wow, we're not even half way to Homer and I'm overwhelmed with memories.

BEST BEAR SPOTS, PART FIVE

2011-06-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

McNeil River is the best place in the world to see brown bears in the wild. It boasts the highest concentration of them on earth, and as many as 72 have been seen at one time. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Wildlife Conversation, can be proud of what it has done to preserve this wonderful wildlife sanctuary, and it’s become an international treasure of bear viewing.

They run this refuge with an iron fist, and you can’t visit without winning a lottery. Armed wildlife naturalists take ten people a day to a gravel pad where everyone is told to stay, and if someone decides he or she must leave, all have to go. Human activity is carefully restricted for safety reasons and the protection of a phenomenal place. No one has ever been hurt by a bear and vice versa since the start of the state’s McNeil River program, and there are special rules to make sure it stays that way.

Getting there will be no less thrilling than seeing bears walking within a few feet of you, which often happens. Access is limited to approved floatplane operators based out of Anchorage, Kenai, King Salmon, and Homer, so in most cases you’re facing a long stretch over ocean water. Fear not, though, since the scenery by itself will make the flight worthwhile, as you’ll have snowcapped mountains and deep fjords off your right and the Augustine Volcano blowing steam above Kamishak Bay. Awesome doesn’t describe it well enough.

Go to http://www.wildlife.alaska.gov/ and click McNeil River, because if there’s a lottery you want win, this is it.

BEST BEAR SPOTS, PART FOUR

2011-06-06T08:56:00.000-07:00

Almost everyone has seen my “second-best” bear spot on television and in glossy magazines, except almost no one realizes the bears are at Brooks Camp in the Katmai National Park. Every TV producer and wildlife photographer travels there when he or she needs pictures. Brooks is a surreal zoo where people mingle with brown bears, making it one of the most remarkable places on earth.

I have a special place in my heart for Brooks, since the exclusive lodging concession is run by Sonny Petersen, a friend of mine and the son of Ray Petersen, an Alaskan pioneer bush pilot and “Father of Alaska’s Sportfishing Lodges.” Not only did I have the privilege of knowing a living legend before he died at 96 in 2008, Sonny bought my hangar on Lake Hood at the Anchorage International Airport.
Lake Hood is the largest seaplane base in the world with almost 800 airplanes and go kick a beehive if you want to know what it’s like in the summertime. My life was blessed for the 20 years I spent there.

July and September are the best months for visiting Brooks Camp, and since the place is so popular it’s important to plan your trip ahead of time. Access is pretty much limited to floatplane flights from King Salmon, which is 30 miles away, and rooms are always at a premium. It’s smart to contact Brooks Lodge a year or two ahead of time, since you’re competing with tourists from around the world for 16 rooms. The alternative is camping, but that requires careful planning as well because you’re sleeping with the bears, so to speak. The campground is usually full in July, and there are park rules that apply.

Everyone who visits Brooks Camp is required to check in at the visitor center for a safety course. Afterward, the best place to go is the viewing platform at Brooks Falls, wonderful in its own right, and for crying out loud, don’t forget your camera. Otherwise, remember to bring good raingear, warm clothing, waterproof footwear, and fly fishing gear, since the Brooks River is a world-class rainbow and salmon stream. Lastly, there is the bus tour to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, site of the largest volcanic eruption in the Twentieth Century. Novarupta’s 1912 explosions were heard 140 miles away and Seattle was hit by ash. Talk about having a blast….

BEST BEAR SPOTS, PART THREE

2011-05-31T09:38:00.000-07:00

Hallo Bay is probably the most surefire place in Alaska to see bears throughout the summer, whereas everyplace else can be hit and miss. It mostly has to do with the salmon runs, although berries, clams, sedges, and dumb luck play important parts as well. For example, don't expect them to stick around where you can see them if there's a whale washed onshore, even though they might be knee deep in fish. One whiff, despite it being miles away, is enough to trigger a stampede, and you'd better get out of the way because otherwise you will get run over. Bears aren't stupid, and they know one big fish is lots better than a bunch of littler ones.

Hallo lays on the eastern seacoast of the Katmai National Park, 50 miles west of Kodiak Island. The only sensible way to get there is either by taking an airplane or boat across Shelikof Strait, which boasts some of the highest tides in the world. This trip isn't for sissies, especially in stormy weather, so stay forewarned you might be in for the ride of your life. An alternative is to fly out of King Salmon, 100 miles to the west, but that will be more expensive and no less thrilling.

Any number of air-taxi operators in Homer and Kodiak will fly you to Hallo Bay for bear viewing, and there's also a tent camp that provides accommodations and guided tours. The long beach that comprises the shoreline is called the Hallo Bay International Airport by the bush pilots who fly back and forth, so although it's an isolated place, don't expect solitude. Lots of Alaskans only have four months in which to make a year's money, so sometimes the place gets noisy.

Hallo is popular with "bear experts," so there are often federal and/or bearded college biologists studying the browns that frequent the place. They camp inside electric fences and scribble observations until hell wouldn't have it, since Hallo holds one of the biggest concentrations of Ursus arctos in the world. The point I'm trying to make is if they can do it, you can as well. Pack your favorite tent and sleeping bag, hit Walmart for some dehydrated food, then grab your camera and zoom lens. Otherwise, all you will need is good rain gear and my PackAlarm.

Hey, there's never been a bear attack at Hallo yet, so be a man!

BEST BEAR SPOTS, PART TWO

2011-05-22T22:12:00.001-07:00

Most people think of Alaska when polar bears are mentioned, but the greatest numbers of them in North America are found along Hudson Bay, not far north of Minnesota. Churchill, Manitoba, which calls itself the polar bear capital of the world, has now become famous for its tundra buggies that take tourists out along the Bay's coast to see them wandering around like milk cows. I used to see as many as 60 or 70 on a single flight between York Factory and Churchill back in the 1970s, and I wouldn't have stood a chance if my engine had quit. Not because I couldn't have set my seaplane down safely, since there are lakes all over, but because there were so many bears it would have been like landing on an anthill. That was back in the days when Churchill's townspeople would literally go to war with them every summer, and it was every man for himself. They are ferocious predators that aren't usually one bit afraid of humans.

Polar bears don't really hibernate like other bears do, and so they spend their summers loafing around Hudson Bay's shorelines eating seaweeds, careless seals, waterfowl and their eggs, and whatever else that comes along. In October and November, they gather at Cape Churcill and wait for the pack ice to freeze so they can go back to sea. This phenomenon was first recorded by explorers in the early 1600s and was one of the reasons the Hudson Bay Company was founded, North America's oldest enterprise. Polar bear hides were a hot commodity in merry old England.

Nowadays, Churchill's frontier streets are busy each fall with people from around the world who want to see polar bears, and they are seldom disappointed. The bears are accustomed to the tundra buggies, tourists leaning out of their windows, and often stand with their front paws along the sides, so it's bear viewing at its best. What's more, there are about a billion beluga whales in the Churchill River, the 1731 Fort Prince of Wales, and an Eskimo Museum with priceless artifacts if you get bored with getting eyeballed by bears. The weather will be cold and nasty, but you won't mind.

BEST BEAR SPOTS, PART ONE

2011-05-16T11:41:00.001-07:00

The Alaskan Peninsula is the Florida-like isthmus that points at the Aleutian Islands, ending at False Pass where the Bering Sea meets the North Pacific Ocean in a skinny channel. There are a half-dozen native villages sitting along its 350-mile length, all of them dependent on commercial fishing and subsistence hunting for their survival, meaning everyone goes hungry unless they catch and/or kill something. There are no roads and transportation is limited to boats and bush planes, so don't try living there unless you like isolation.

The entire length of the Alaskan Peninsula isn't very wide, probably 50 miles or so, but don't let its small size fool you. There are snowcapped mountains and red-hot volcanoes along its North Pacific side and about a million lakes, rivers, and salmon streams on its Bering side. What's little known is this may be the best ecosystem in the world, with the Alaskan brown bear sitting on top of the food chain. It's all because of the nutrient-rich ocean waters that replenish the seacoasts with lots of good things to eat, letting its ever-present bears grow to enormous sizes.

Early explorers first saw the Alaskan brown bear on Kodiak Island, thus the name "Kodiak" became popular, and it was believed for the longest time they were the biggest bears of all, but in fact it's their skulls that are the biggest, not their body sizes. It's all because the Kodiak brown was isolated long ago and became a subspecies of their buddies over on the mainland. But don't get me wrong, we're splitting hairs and no one wants to start measuring them. I suppose it has something to do with their grumpy dispositions.

The good news about the peninsula is you see bears everywhere, but the bad news is there's almost no place to stay, not unless you want to camp out and risk your airplane in warp-speed winds. The North Pacific and the Bering Sea weather systems have never liked each other and consequently fight it out over the Alaskan Peninsula on a daily basis. Not a good place to fly unless you know what you're doing, and there's really no other way to get around, which leads me to telling you about Bear Lake Lodge. It's an unbelievable place, besides where else can you watch bears while you're enjoying adult beverages or get someone to fly you over to see the walrus on Cape Seniavin or go for a bath in a hot spring next to an archeology site dating back 8,000 years?

Bear Lake, which is a hundred miles north of False Pass, was discovered by Don Johnson, a well-known bush pilot and master guide from Alaska's territorial days. He was flying around a defense department spymaster on a top-secret mission to find suitable places for White Alice sites, which were the tropospheric and microwave radio link facilities that served the DEW-line radar stations in our Cold War with Russia. Don ran into some shitty weather and had to land before he got trapped by fog. Walla, he found Bear Lake and its giant browns. It didn't take long before he was building a hunting lodge, helped by his son, Warren, no better pilot or charismatic character than he. For example, when Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, the ambassador to the United States until 2005, wanted to go bear hunting, guess who he called?

I've visited Bear Lake Lodge several times, flying there both with my Cessna 185 and Robinson R22B helicopter. Bear watching, beach combing, the hot springs beside the ancient Aleut mizzens, and the walrus--it doesn't come any better.

PUEBLO CANYON, PART THREE

2011-05-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

The footpath that leads to the north side of Pueblo Canyon cuts behind the waterfall falling off the rim country high above. It’s important to watch your step on the uneven ledge and not get careless, since the ground is wet and slippery. Afterward, you’re clambering over a deadfall and nearing the Indian ruins on the rock face you saw from the south side. All are cleverly built in caverns with bricklike rock that was quarried nearby. The only mystery is how pint-sized people like the Anasazi carried the ceiling beams and the orange mud they used to cement everything together up and down such vertical terrain. In addition, what must it have been like to chop down pine trees with nothing but sharp stones?

The cliff dwellings are still in decent shape, considering they’re a thousand years old. Some were three stories high, and it’s easy to examine the construction methods that were used to house a great many people. You can almost hear children laughing, women grinding seeds in their metates and chatting back and forth, and men greeting everyone after coming home from hunting. It was an enviable lifestyle in primitive times.

Watch for rock paintings and pottery chards as you explore each ruin and examine how the pines were cut, split, and fitted together to construct multilevel rooms. Peek inside the cubbyholes that were used for storage and watch for places where the kitchen fires were kept burning. I’m always fascinated by Pueblo Canyon's cliff dwelling whenever I visit them, and my only disappointment is the graffiti scratched in so many places. I’ll shoot the first person I ever catch doing that and throw his or her body off the nearest cliff.

The picture above proves the Anasazi worshipped deities as well. One room in particular has churchlike symbols, with my favorite being for rain. It’s painted on greenish rock with vermillion, which all primitive people held sacred. There’s a white, ghostlike figure and an adjoining zigzag line as well. Look for them.

Pueblo Canyon is the place to go if you want to have a wonderful time with your kids, just stay safe and use common sense along the way. I can’t think of a better way to teach them about the things that led to our modern world.

PUEBLO CANYON, PART TWO

2011-05-01T16:47:00.000-07:00

The first part of the climb to Pueblo Canyon’s cliff dwellings starts on a narrow footpath that winds its way back and forth up a steep mountainside. You are often treated to vistas of Arizona’s high desert along the way, and if you’re good with binoculars you’ll see other Indian ruins on the far side of Cherry Creek, which will now be way below your location. There are three lookouts that let you survey your destination, which is a long line of cliff dwellings on the rock face north of you. So close, but yet so far will be your constant thought.

The hardest part of the climb is over once you are straight across from the ruins, and you will be surprised by the green forest growing on the steep ground as you enter the chasm itself. There are tall trees, dripping springs, and small caves to look at as you walk along. Finally, you will come around a corner and see two fallen ruins right in front of you. There will also be an old mining tunnel running back into the mountain as well. Uranium was discovered there long ago, and then the mine was abandoned. Don’t go inside, not unless you have a death wish, since deserted mining shafts are notorious for killing people.

The footpath continues on its way along the southern rock face and runs up and down on an uneven ledge. Finally, you’ll hear something—cascading water, and then the west end of Pueblo Canyon will come into sight, along with the prettiest waterfall in Arizona and a wonderful pool at its bottom. Fill your water bottle and take a swim, because you’re now in paradise, and there won’t be any doubt in your mind why the Anasazi made this canyon their home.

Next week, we will cross behind the falls and explore the ruins on the other side.

PUEBLO CANYON

2011-04-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

It’s a tough hike where you must climb half way up a red-cliff canyon on a winding footpath. There are lots of places where the sudden loss of your footing could send you off a 500-foot precipice into terrain so rough that search and rescue might not find your body. Other than in the wintertime, you’d better be tapping like a blind madman with a walking stick so the rattlesnakes get spooked and you can see them, since they hide in the brush and weeds right beside your feet. This adventure isn’t for crybabies, sissies, or people scared of heights, but the payoff is huge for those who are physically fit and enjoy the high desert.

Pueblo Canyon lies in the Sierria Ancha Mountains northeast of Roosevelt Lake. You take the road north to Young, Arizona, then turn onto the Cherry Creek Road not far from the Salt River bridge. Twenty-some miles later on a dirt road from hell, you come to Cherry Creek itself, where you must have a four-wheel drive and fully expect your right-side passengers will start shrieking because they’re looking over cliffs as you wind your way up to Devil’s Chasm, where there are nice places to camp and great cliff dwellings on its south wall. The trail-head for Pueblo is a couple miles farther along and marked by a rocky ATV trail leading up a steep hillside. You can’t miss it, but once again, it’s a long, hard hike after a frightening drive.

Next week, I’ll write about the wonderful things you will see, like a waterfall you walk under to get to the some of the best Indian ruins in Arizona.

THE SIGN POST FOREST

2011-04-17T08:35:00.001-07:00

I clearly remember the first time I visited Watson Lake back in the early 1970s. I’d left Minnesota with a Cessna 206 floatplane for Bethel, Alaska, and was running on gas fumes by the time I landed at its seaplane base. I had made the mistake of gassing up at Fort St. John and thinking it wasn’t that far across the northern end of the Rocky Mountains. Well, things didn’t work out as planned because the Liard River country is exceptionally rugged, the 206 was an early model with limited fuel range and power, and I’d never before faced snowcapped peaks that you couldn’t climb over with a heavily-loaded airplane. This was my first introduction to Hell’s Gate, the Rapids of the Drowned, and Boiler Canyon along the fearsome Liard River, and it’s a butt-puckering stretch of real estate if there ever was one. I once had a grizzly attack me in this country, which I wrote about in my bear book, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears. Lucky for me that you can back up with a helicopter or else I’d been turned into mincemeat. Watson Lake was nothing but a dusty road with a few rundown buildings back then, but now new hotels are being built along its main street. Mineral exploration, oil and gas, and tourism have turned it into a boomtown of major importance, so whatever you do, don’t forget your favorite sign when you visit. It's not often you can become part of history.

THE PEOPLE WHO COULD FLY

2011-04-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

The problem with exploring Arizona’s cliff dwellings is they’re often built on rock walls meant only for mountain goats. How and why the Anasazi constructed two and three story houses half way up dangerous precipices is a great mystery, and it’s no wonder the Navajo called them, “the people who could fly,” when they first saw their deserted ruins about a thousand years ago. What has always baffled me is how ancient humans the size of schoolchildren carried 30-foot logs up and down sheer cliffs so they could use them as ceiling beams. It defies imagination.

Arizona’s Mogollon Rim is full of Indian ruins, some of which are yet to be discovered. Years ago, I found a couple with my helicopter, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to reach them, short of having someone sling load me on the end of a long line below my helicopter and then swing me onto a narrow ledge. No thanks, since I don’t like adventure that much, and even the thought of it scares the crap out of me.

I go alone when I explore cliff dwellings, mostly because I’m tired of getting last-minute phone calls from fickle buddies telling me they’ve suddenly learned they can’t go. Besides, I’m as fussy as a cat when it comes to climbing to cliff dwellings, and I don’t like to be pressured into doing something that I don’t think is safe. I take my time, carry a personal locator beacon, backpack enough food and water to last me a couple of days, and so on and so forth. When it comes to rugged mountains, it only takes one mistake and it’s all over except for the funeral music, and that presumes somebody figures out how to find you at the bottom of a 500-foot cliff. Nevertheless, it’s my favorite sport.

Hope to see you out there someday.

A BEAR'S NOSE KNOWS

2011-04-03T15:01:00.001-07:00

On August 28, 2008, JoAnn Staples of Kentucky was mauled by a grizzly inside her tent in the Gates of the Arctic National Park. She was getting ready to fly out after a week of watching caribou as a client of Anne Dallenbaugh, owner of Her Wild Song in Brunswick, Maine. One of the reasons she'd joined the Alaskan expedition of seven women was to overcome her deep fear of bears. Dallenbaugh and her camp cook had brought along a shotgun, bear spray, and "bear-proof" canisters as precautionary measures, and they had also pitched their base camp on a gravel bar with their cooking tent off to one side. The only discord among the women was Staples had wanted to carry the shotgun wherever they went, but she'd been told that wasn't necessary because there wasn't any bears nearby.

The grizzly ripped into Staples' tent and seriously injured her, and it was only because of her screams and Dallenbaugh's and the camp cook's timely diversion that she was saved from certain death. Both distracted the bear with pepper spray, even though they missed to one side, and also by banging pots and pans, although it didn't leave without damaging two more tents as it walked away. Everyone pitched in to stabilize Staples and request a medevac on a satellite telephone.

An Arctic National Park ranger investigated and reported the grizzly had at first flattened the cook tent, ripped into some coffee and tea, tried breaking into the food barrels, and then attacked Staples. Steve Herrero, a well-known Canadian bear expert was consulted, but contributed little more than he believed bears were often attracted to bright colored tents and that he didn't know of any research that would show Staples' great fear of bears had somehow triggered the attack. The park ranger finally concluded the coffee and tea, plastic bags of human waste, cosmetics, and assorted personal medications had provoked the mauling; and he followed by advising, ". . . all items that have smells be stored in bear resistant containers." At the risk of offending him, most people are way too big to fit inside them.

Numerous national parks, Yosemite being the best example, demand that you must keep your food in "bear-proof" containers, which has led to serious misunderstandings about their true purpose. Accordingly, I'll give it to you straight--they're for the bears, not you. What's more, one can make a half-decent argument they put campers at greater risk, not the other way around. One of the biggest problems is they give people a false sense of security.

Bears can smell things hundreds of times better than humans, which lets them scent food from miles away. I said in my latest book, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears, that you could encase something in lead as if it were kryptonite, sink it underwater, and bears could still find it. That's hardly an exaggeration when you study them in the wild. To think that bear cannisters diminish a bear's ability to smell you and your campsite is ridiculous, and every dope smuggler in Mexico would be buying them by the thousands if that were true.

Why do our national parks insist that campers use bear-resistant containers, and what are their real value? Let's see who knows.

DYING OLD WALRUS

2011-03-28T22:17:00.000-07:00

It was such a sad sight, and I suppose that’s why I’ve never shown this picture before. Somehow I knew it was a harbinger of what might happen to me someday. We only get to enjoy life for so long and then we reach a point where our lives are finished. Sadly, I learned the last moments for an old walrus are no less painful than when my mother died. What a hell of a wake-up call that turned out to be.

I’ve been blessed beyond belief with opportunities to see wildlife in their natural settings that most people can only dream about. It was only dumb luck that got me into flying bush planes after I left high school, and then moving to Alaska was little more than a midlife crisis getting out of control, although I’ve never regretted my choice.

I was on my way to visit my friend, Warren Johnson, at Bear Lake Lodge on the Alaskan Peninsula. A big herd of walrus always hauls out at Cape Seniavin, not far north of his place. I landed my helicopter where I wouldn’t scare them and walked back up the beach to take some pictures. It’s one of the few spots on earth where you can sneak into the middle of hundreds of them and they don’t really get all that excited about it. Sure, they slash at you with their long tusks if you get too close and flop toward the Bering Sea like drunken hippos, but somehow they know you’re nothing but an annoying pipsqueak.

Lord only knows why this particular stop turned out so differently. The old bull just laid there with his long tusks buried in the black sand. All he wanted was for me to move on and let him die in peace.

THE TUNDRA GRIZZLY

2011-03-20T21:57:00.000-07:00

The grizzly is much more widespread than most people think, seeing as they are found all the way from Hudson Bay to Western Alaska. For some strange reason, the High Arctic, especially Canada’s Northwest Territories and Nunavut, is thought to be polar bear country. Even so-called bear experts don’t realize that you can land your floatplane in Churchill, Manitoba, gas up while you’re under significant threat of a polar bear attack, and then fly northwest to Baker Lake and see nothing but grizzlies along the way. They can’t seem to get it in their heads that lots of Ursus arctos horribilis live north of polar bear habitat. In their minds, it’s always the other way around.

The grizzlies of the High Arctic are called tundra grizzlies and are noted for their lighter, longer hair and smaller size, but don’t let that fool you. What they lack in dimensions, they make up for in ferocity. Native peoples all across the Far North call them man hunters, and for good reason. For example, two people I knew were killed by one of them.

Rich and Kathy Huffman were successful Anchorage professionals who loved adventuring. One summer, they rafted the Hulahula River north of the Brooks Range. When they were almost out to Kaktovik, the Inuit village on Barter Island, they pulled out and pitched their tent for the night, sadly never to wake again. A tundra grizzly was eating them when another rafter came along and notified the Alaska State Troopers of the predation. I tell the story in my bear book, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears, along with some others just as scary. Though it will get you into big trouble with the law, it’s probably best to shoot first and ask questions later when it comes to the tundra grizzly.

An odd wrinkle to the tundra grizzly is they interbreed with the polar bear, which produces what’s called the “grolar bear.” A couple of them have been shot in recent times, which has stirred up trouble where none belongs. Would-be bear experts have blamed this hybrid on global warming, as absurd as that sounds. Seems like they’ve missed the fact the Inuit have known about grolars since time immemorial, let alone zoos have let grizzlies and polars interbreed as well. Once again, lots of grizzlies live north of polar bears, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone the two species crossbreed.

One of the great drives in Alaska is what’s called the “Haul Road” north to Deadhorse. There’s not many places in North America where you can see grizzlies and polars dumpster diving side by side.

RECORD-CLASS BROWN BEAR

2011-03-12T12:48:00.001-08:00

“That’s no sow and cub,” Don said, “that’s a big boar.”

I glassed the snowcapped peak where we’d spotted what we had thought at first was a sow nursing a cub. Suddenly, it was clear the distant mountain had fooled us into believing a front leg had been a baby bear. The sunlit snow was gleaming with snakelike beams, leaving dark objects floating in space. Don was right, and maybe my luck was about to change.

It was the last day of bear hunting on the Alaskan Peninsula, and the chances of seeing a legal brown, let alone a monster, were slim to none. We had only boated down Bear Lake to enjoy the sunshine. At this point in the season, any self-respecting bear was long gone or hid away in its favorite foxhole. It never takes long for them to figure out when season’s open. I had hunted for several days and come up empty.

“We’ll climb the draw where he can’t see us and sneak around the alders behind him.” I grabbed my backpack and Winchester .375. We had our work cut out for us, since it was more than a mile up a steep, snow-covered mountainside. God forbid, the bear would get up and leave.

It’s bad enough to keep stomping uphill on slippery snowpack, but it’s quite another when you realize you’re getting yourself into a face-off with a 1,500-pound killer that can break a moose’s neck with a single bite. You’re never sure why your heart keeps pounding—exhaustion, fear, or both? One mistake and it would be all over except for the funeral music.

Finally, I could see the brown still lying in the snow a little below me. I crept around an alder patch to within 30 yards, sighted between its shoulders, and took a deep breath. Now’s not the time to go wobbly, I thought. BLAM! In one motion, I jacked in another round and fired again. BLAM! A second puff of dust lifted from the bear’s back. It had died instantly.

We worked for hours skinning a brown that was over ten foot square. Then we nearly killed ourselves getting off the mountain and back to the lake in the dark, and thank God some friends came and helped us. The hide alone weighed 150 pounds, let alone our other stuff. But it was all worth it, for now I have a record class Alaskan bear to call my own.

WORLD'S BEST BUSH PILOT

2011-03-03T09:54:00.000-08:00

Don Braun was the greatest bush pilot who ever lived, and what was so remarkable is he died of old age when most of his contemporaries had crashed and burned. The Bristol Freighter in the adjoining picture, often called 50,000 rivets flying in close formation, is now a memorial to his skills. He was the first pilot to ever land a wheeled airplane at the North Pole, and a bomber-sized one at that. No one had thought it possible until he did it in 1967.

Don started flying in my old hometown, St. Cloud, Minnesota, in the early 1900s and eventually became Wardair’s chief pilot in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. By the early 1960s, he had extensive flying experience in the High Arctic, including landing on the Arctic Ocean with single-engine ski planes. He began to think he could safely land a cargo plane at the North Pole, which was important because Canada wanted to explore the top of the world.

The historic feat was done somewhat by accident. Don landed with the Bristol at Alert, which is 520 miles south of the Pole, to ferry fuel barrels to Greenland. Instead, he was met by several scientists who told him they had made arrangements with his boss to fly them north, and there would be two ski-equipped Otters to help them along the way. Don was incredulous, as it was news to him, then to make matters worse, the support planes never showed up.

He left at midnight on May 6th, circled the Alert Airport and lined up with its runway so he could check his directional gyro, since compasses are useless in the High Arctic, and set off across the glacier-like bleakness. He could only find the North Pole by using what’s called “dead reckoning” in pilot’s lingo, with the emphasis on the “dead” part rather than the “reckoning” if he screwed up, since he was pretty much restricted to navigating by time and distance. Five hundred and twenty miles divided by 150 miles an hour and that sort of thing, hardly an exact science because there was no way of knowing if his groundspeed was correct. Who in hell knew what the winds aloft were farther north?

Three and a half hours later, he was over the Pole. He found a lead that had opened in a blizzard and afterward frozen smooth. He made several passes to measure its length and the surface winds with a stop watch, then clipped a big snowdrift with his landing gear to blow it apart so he’d have a clear runway. Finally, he landed the Bristol and kept its engines running while his crew tested the ice with a power auger. The lead was six-feet thick and plenty strong to support his 44,000-pound plane. He was now famous for doing what was thought to be impossible.

BULL CARIBOU AND BIG RAINBOWS

2011-02-24T07:29:00.000-08:00

Caribou are only a little smarter than rabbits, but that doesn’t make them easy to hunt. They frequent open spaces and are almost always on the move, making it hard to catch them. Ambush with a long-range rifle is the smartest way to go, but that means you must predict where they might show up. Not so easy in a state as big as Alaska.

My favorite place for caribou hunting is Moraine Creek, but not necessarily because it’s a secret hotspot. Almost every fancy fishing lodge in Southwest Alaska uses a floatplane pond named Crosswind Lake to access their clients to some of the best rainbow fishing known to God. You are guaranteed to catch lots of “bows” in the 26 to 30-inch range, which means ten-pounds for sure, and on good days you’ll catch and release a couple dozen. As with this paragraph, it gets hard to remember you’re there for double-shovel caribou. Oh, by the way, thousand-pound brown bears are wandering around like milk cows, so don’t forget your camera.

Moraine isn’t known for red-hot hunting, but the dirty little secret is some good-sized bulls hang out on the snowfields of the coastal mountains along Cook Inlet. The offshore winds and cold snow keeps the bugs off of them, and so they’re happy. Every so often they wander down and feed on the alpine tundra along the creek, and that’s when you let fly with your .338 or .375. “What in hell,” you say, “I don’t need a cannon to kill caribou, so what’re you talking about?” Let me warn you right now that you will be camping near the McNeil River Bear Sanctuary, which is famous for the largest concentration of browns in the world. Carry a deer rifle if you want, but that's not for me. I didn’t write, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears, for nothing, and what’s more, I didn’t invent the PackAlarm (http://www.packalarm.net/) for nothing, either. Go right ahead if you wish to sleep zipped up in a sleeping bag and zipped up in a tent with fresh caribou meat hanging outside, but I prefer not to.

Plan around Labor Day and make arrangements with Katmailand, Lake Clark Air, or Rust Flying Service. All three will fly you there and back safely, which isn’t always the norm.

BETTER FUTURE

2011-02-17T10:22:00.000-08:00

People think it’s always dark in Anchorage in the wintertime and often believe its residents live in igloos. All look at you in disbelief when they're told the city’s daylight hours aren’t a lot different than in Duluth, Minnesota, and it's warmer because of the tidewaters of Cook Inlet. Oddly, the name, “Anchorage,” causes people to imagine the North Pole.

Anchorage, Eagle River, Palmer and Wasilla (often called “The Valley”), include half of Alaska’s population and make up an economically thriving and culturally busy urban area. There aren’t many places in North America where you can fish and hunt by day and attend concerts at night. I love living there, since it was the only place in the world where you could see a well-dressed banker or lawyer wearing hip boots as he or she is getting ready to fly his or her floatplane at Lake Hood, the seaplane base at the Anchorage International Airport, and then see them later downtown. It’s hard to describe the funny side of formal wear and hip waders, especially on an attractive woman.

Alaska is on the only state in the union that has reverse taxation, inasmuch as the permanent fund is worth almost $40 billion and every man, woman, and child gets his or her fair share of its earnings, $1,281.00 in 2010. That’s a lot money for a family of five, and give Alaskans a big edge when you realize there's no state taxes either. Furthermore, Alaska is one of the few states that isn’t going broke, which in the coming years might be a Godsend, since our federal government might very well fail with rioting and shortages across the nation. Protest marches are already starting in states like Wisconsin just because its governor has said it must live within its means. WHAT PART OF BROKE DON'T PEOPLE UNDERSTAND? We’re living in dangerous times where the pioneer spirit might just save you and your family in the tough times to come.

Are you tired of being unemployed or are you looking for an opportunity to start your own business? Do you love the outdoors and wildlife and want to fish and hunt for a living? Take a hard look at moving to Anchorage or it surrounding area. Alaska's future can be yours, and in any case it will be a lot better than where you're living now.

DISTANT STUPENDOUS MOUNTAIN

2011-02-10T20:56:00.000-08:00

Alaskans call it Denali, which means the “The High One” in Athabaskan, but the Washington cocktail crowd still says Mount McKinley. No mountain should be named after a politician, especially one who as president robbed the hard-working prospectors of the fabulous gold strike they’d made in Nome. My best-selling novel for the Penguin Group in New York, "Whispers of the Wind," tells the story of how our 25th president and his crooked cronies stole many of the richest mines in 1901. The only redemption is lots of miners will still be getting rich in Nome this summer, mostly because they’ll hide their gold and keep their mouths shut.

Back to Denali. Captain George Vancouver, one of England’s greatest explorers, reported seeing a “distant stupendous mountain” from Cook Inlet in 1794, but it wasn’t until 1910 that Denali’s true height was known. Incredibly, four gold prospectors carrying a box of Fig Newtons and a 12-foot spruce pole climbed to within 200 feet of its peak. They left the pole behind as a marker, except no one believed them, but in 1913 Hudson Stuck, the man who led the first expedition that officially reached Denali’s summit, saw their marker with his binoculars. Talk about tough!

Denali is the world’s tallest mountain by vertical height, rising 18,000 feet from its foot. Mount Everest rises only 12,000 feet above its base, although it beats Denali’s 20,335 feet by a bunch. Never mind, because Denali is the coldest mountain on earth with recorded temperatures of 100 below zero. It’s no wonder the Minnesotan adventurer and global-warming freak, Lonnie Dupre, failed in his attempt to reach its summit in January. Some people never learn.

There are a couple things you should do before you die, and the first one is to see Denali Mountain. Alaskans don’t worship it for nothing.

ALASKA DEER HUNTING

2011-02-04T10:34:00.000-08:00

Every year, Alaskans look forward to deer hunting on Kodiak and its sister islands of Afognak, Raspberry, and Shuyak. All four are heavily populated with Sitka black-tailed deer that are prized for their tasty meat. Deer are usually pretty gamy, but not the Sitkas because their diet of grass and seaweed make them the best venison in the world. Hunters charter floatplanes or fishing boats to access Prince William Sound, arguably the prettiest place on earth, and stay in state cabins (http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/cabins/index.htm) at Shuyak Island, for example. The most popular is called “Deer Haven,” so I’ll let you guess why on your own.

The black-tail deer is small compared to the whitetail, with a big buck’s antlers seriously challenged to score 100 or more on the Boone and Crockett scale. Offsetting their littler size is the limit is often six in years that suffer minimal winter kill. Cold temperatures aren’t much of a problem around Kodiak, but snow often piles so high deer starve before the spring thaw comes.

Deer hunting around Kodiak comes with bonuses not found elsewhere—world-class beachcombing, bald eagles and sea otters, seals and sea lions, and lots of bears . . . big bears, which can be a dangerous problem. Unfortunately, brown bears have learned that gunfire means free food, and sometimes they come running when they hear the ka-boom of a rifle. A few deer hunters have lost their lives because they weren’t paying attention to their surroundings when they were gutting their deer, and I wrote about two such instances in my bear book, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears. Smart hunters carry elephant-sized calibers and use the buddy-system in order to stay safe.

Get your friends together, rent a cabin, and deer hunt in Alaska this coming fall. You don’t need a guide, Prince William Sound has lots of black bears as well, and enjoy the adventure of your life. It doesn’t come any better.

ALASKA'S BIGGEST GOLD NUGGET

2011-01-27T18:51:00.000-08:00

Barry Clay has a colorful, if not inimitable history, though now he's the epitome of success. He found Alaska’s biggest gold nugget and was named Miner of the Year in 2010. A 294-ounce chunk of Au will do that for you, except it isn’t like he didn’t work for it.

Gossip has it that Barry came to Last Frontier long ago with a sidekick to work on the Alaskan Pipeline. He and his buddy made big money, but blew all of it in Fairbanks on booze, drugs, and whores, the usual occupational hazard back then. That was in the days when I first started flying floatplanes to Alaska, and so I can vouch for the “good times.” Once, a friend of mine was sitting at a bar and saw $100,000 get dropped on the floor. He got $10,000 of it and no one came forward to complain about the loss. . . . Drug deal gone bad? All I can say is Fairbanks was unbelievable back then.

Anyway, as with all good things, pipeline construction came to an end and Barry went home to California and resumed a normal life. His buddy went to work driving a Cat at a placer mine near Ruby, which sits on the Yukon River. Another fellow and he supposedly stole a bunch of gold nuggets and hid them along a gravel road, which then was reconstructed at the worst possible time. Later, the buddy got killed in a car crash and Barry returned to Alaska to find the nuggets and stake some mining claims along Swift Creek, where his grandfather had prospected in the early 1900s. He never found the nuggets, but as they say, the rest is history, and just look at the picture of the Alaskan Centennial Nugget if you don’t believe the story.

Barry’s story is Alaskan as they come, and this can happen to you as well if you have the ambition and balls to move to the Last Frontier like he did.

EAGLE PARK

2011-01-20T19:10:00.001-08:00

Alaskans mostly take bald eagles for granted because they see them so often, but not many of them know there’s actually an eagle park. In 1982, the bottom flats of the Chilkat, the Kleheni, and the Tsirku rivers were set aside to protect the world’s biggest rendezvous of birds of prey. It’s a sight to behold in the wintertime, which is when they gather in the largest numbers, and what’s so great is the area is right alongside the Haines Highway between Mile 18 and Mile 24. Hop a flight to Haines, Alaska, rent a car, and, walla, you’re in the middle of raptor heaven. Don't forget your camera!

Bald eagles migrate to the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve because of its open water all winter long, which lets them feed on spawned-out salmon, let alone the other tasty things they see. They can spot a dead fish from a mile, and so it’s bye-bye to any duck that gets stupid and lands. As many as 3,000 eagles are suddenly on the attack.

Female eagles are bigger than the males and they mate for life. At maturity, most weight as much as 12 pounds and sport seven-foot wingspans, big birds by anybody’s standards. Courtship starts in April with amazing aerobatics where pairs lock their talons together and spiral earthward at 100 miles per hour. After all the horseplay (foreplay), the females lay two or three eggs and both parents share incubation and feeding of their newborn eaglets. Fledglings pretty much stay near their parents for a year, and it takes five years for them to grow the regal white heads that’s the reason for their name.

The 48,000 acre Chilkat Preserve is where wildlife photographers go to die.

ALASKAN PTARMIGAN

2011-01-14T12:41:00.000-08:00

The ubiquitous ptarmigan is Alaska’s state bird, and it’s often found in flocks of thousands at certain times of the year. There are three kinds—the rock, the white-tail, and the willow, which is the commonest one that you see. All turn white to camouflage themselves with a magical transformation that hides them in the wintertime. The picture on the right is of one after an autumn snowfall, so it has kept part of its blotchy brown to blend with the weeds that are sticking out of the new snow. Later on, a beady black eye will be the only thing you can see once the undergrowth is hidden by deep snowfall. Don’t tell me animals are dumb, because that’s not true.

There’s nothing more enjoyable than waking in the morning to calling ptarmigan, crawling out of your tent, and seeing them all around your campsite like so many farmyard chickens. Somehow the Far North seems like a friendlier place with them feeding nearby, and I’ve lost count of the times when I would just stand by my fire and soak in the sights. And then there would be caribou in the distance or sheep on the mountains if I was lucky.

Ptarmigan hunting is usually easy and the season long and generous. Alaskans fly their Super Cubs on skis in the wintertime to well-known hotspots and limit out while slogging around on snowshoes. Dogs aren’t necessary for success once there’s snow on the ground, since their tracks give them away. Often, it’s laughable how close you get to them before they flush.

I’ll never forget the first ptarmigan I shot, because it made me feel like a fool. I had been asked to appraise an airplane at the Tok Airport, and so once I was done and standing outside its hangar, I asked the local fellow who had let me inside where I could find some birds. To my surprise, he answered, “Why don’t you shoot those right there?” and then he pointed at the weeds beside the building. I couldn’t believe my eyes, since there were a dozen pecking at seeds. I got my 20-gauge shotgun, walked over, and shot one. The rest fluttered off a short way and went back to feeding. I walked after them, shot one more, and quit, as I had all I could eat. Season was over for the mighty hunter.

ALASKA ICE CLIMBING

2011-01-06T12:43:00.000-08:00

Alaskans love danger, and there’s never a mountain too high or a river too fast for them. One of their favorite winter sports is ice climbing, and on any given day you can find them scaling the steepest glaciers in the world. Portage Lake, which is 85 miles southeast of Anchorage and at the end of Turnagain Arm, is a paradise for people who like this sport. I never stopped being amazed by the risks these death-wish daredevils would take to reach the top of a towering iceberg (see the guy at the foot of the ice cliff).

Ice climbing isn’t an inexpensive sport, since specialized ice tools (axes), boots with crampons, and ice screws are required, right along with ropes, warm clothing, and hard hats for head protection. As with many other sports, such as bicycling, bright colors identify you as a climber, and there are never-ending online discussions about what’s the best boots and ice tools to use. Suffice it to say, a week’s paycheck probably won’t buy everything you need.

Winter and summer, Turnagain Arm is arguably the most beautiful drive in North America, and there are a million things to do from the point where you leave Anchorage and start along the Seward Highway to Portage Lake itself. First, stop at Windy Point and look for the Dall sheep living there. Afterward, visit Girdwood and the Alyeska Resort and Ski Area, which offers world-class heli-skiing in the Chugach Mountains. Finally, visit Portage Lake and climb an iceberg. Take your winter vacation in the Last Frontier next year, as there’s no place on earth that offers greater adventure.

INSOMNIAC BEARS

2010-12-27T04:17:00.000-08:00

Almost everyone believes that bears hibernate all winter, but that's not true. For example, one-fourth of the bears on Kodiak Island often don't hibernate at all, and although the portion isn't known, it's not unusual to see bears wandering around on the Alaskan Peninsula in the wintertime as well. It all has to do with their magical ability to flip their switches on and off, or better said, deliberately regulate their heart rates and breathing, along with plugging their bowels and recycling their urine as they so choose. No other animal, let alone human, is quite as gifted as the bear, but, of course, who didn't know that?

An additional thing that's not well known is mother bears wake up in their dens, give birth, often to twins or triplets, and then nurse their babies until springtime comes and it's safe to risk them to the wilds. Once again, bears are almost magical, especially since female bears breed in May and then use "delayed implantation" to decide whether they want to be pregnant or not in October. Also, the twins or triplets often have different fathers. --Oh, those slutty sow bears, and have they no shame?

The key to wintertime bears in Alaska is the relatively mild winters on Kodiak Island and the Alaskan Peninsula. Although it's not like Arizona by any means, it's always lots warmer than Fairbanks where temperatures are often subzero for weeks on end. What's more, they have thick fur coats and there are lots of good things to eat along the seacoasts like rotten old salmon, seaweeds, slowpoke seals, and dead walrus and whales that have washed ashore.

The noise you hear tonight might not be Santa Claus heading back to the North Pole but a bear instead. In any case, whether you were naughty or nice in 2010 will all count the same.

Have a Happy New Year everyone!

MAN-KILLER MOOSE

2010-12-16T09:18:00.000-08:00

MAN-EATER WOLVES

2010-12-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

Alaskan Peninsula wolf packs are on the prowl again and killing pets in Port Heiden, a native village on Bristol Bay with 100 residents. Interestingly, these folks only live 30 miles or so across from Chignik Lake, the little community where Candice Berner, a young schoolteacher, was killed and eaten by wolves back in March. I’m familiar with this area because I’ve often flown it with the airplanes and helicopters that I owned. It’s an isolated wilderness that’s heavily populated with the biggest brown bears in the world, but also with lots of wolves. Just so there’s no misunderstanding where I'm going with this, 30 miles isn’t anything more than an easy trot for a wolf.

Bear Lake Lodge, which belongs to a friend of mine and is shown in the adjoining picture, sits about 40 miles south of Port Heiden and Chignik Lake, and so this has given me an additional resource for knowing this place well. I’ve camped, fished, hiked, and hunted there many times. It was once a wildlife haven, but not so much anymore. The caribou and moose have been decimated by big wolf packs, and so the wolves are now threatening people. Mother Nature is never as pretty as most folks would like to think, and sometimes living in the bush can get downright dangerous.

The State of Alaska sent a helicopter last spring and wildlife officers shot two wolves to assuage the predation of Candice Berner. Two wolves! My God, there are probably 200 in the area we’re talking about. It’s time for the Department of Fish and Game to get serious about its responsibilities and cull the wolf packs back to just a couple or let someone else do it. Port Heiden has reported three separate packs have been attacking their village, with one 20 strong. It’s no wonder there are no caribou and moose anymore.

The problem you have, though, is the Juneau pencil pushers are a lot more worried about looking good to the wolf lobby than to the people on the Alaskan Peninsula. So what if a few Native Alaskans can't let their kids out to play. Who cares?

BABY SEAL

2010-12-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

One of the nicest surprises I’ve had in my life was finding a baby seal waiting for its mother along the Bering Sea. I was beachcombing for Japanese glass fishing balls, spotted something in the distance, and discovered the small seal in the adjoining photograph. It was unafraid and let me take pictures and look at it carefully, which doesn’t often happen with most wild animals. Most flee for their lives when they see something coming, which is understandable since they are normally the favorite meal for some predator like the bear or wolf.

Mother seals leave their babies behind when they go fishing, then come back and suckle them with their super rich milk. Their indifference differs from most wildlife mothers, since you’re generally in big trouble if you find a bear cub, a moose calf, or a wolf pup and dare approach it. That’s a good way to get your butt kicked, if not bitten off and eaten like prime rib, red in the center. I stressed in my bear book, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears, to stay at least one hundred yards away from wildlife. Get any closer and you might become a depressing statistic, since almost all animals can cover that same distance in only four or five seconds.

My greatest regret in life has been forgetting my camera on so many of my adventures in Alaska and the High Arctic. Please don’t make the same stupid mistake when you explore the great outdoors, since you never know when you might bump into something new.

ALASKA FLYING: A WAY OF LIFE

2010-11-29T09:57:00.000-08:00

Airplanes are like second cars to most Alaskans, and a big percentage of the state’s residents are licensed pilots of one sort or another. There is little choice if you want to get around, and in many incidents you must pile the family into some kind of Cessna or Piper and head out if you want to go to grandma’s house for the holidays. The Last Frontier has two insurmountable problems—it’s a huge place and there aren’t many roads, so learning to fly is a rite of passage for most people.

Anchorage, Eagle River, Palmer, and Wasilla hold half the state’s residents and so there are small airports all over the place. Rather than folks having a garage attached to their home, they have hangars instead, and it’s fairly common for traffic to stop so someone can use a road as an airstrip. It’s all part of life in Alaska, and I’ve always found it fun and refreshing as opposed to how people are forced to live in the “lower-48,” the acronym that Alaskans have given the rest of America. A little freedom goes a long ways, no pun intended, is my favorite thought.

There is a tragic downside to all the flying that takes place in Alaska, and it’s a nagging problem the FAA has often tried solving, except there’s no easy remedy. I illustrate it this way—I spent 20 years flying in and out of St. Cloud, Minnesota, and knew two people who killed themselves in little planes, and then I flew for two years in Alaska and knew 20 people who killed themselves in their planes. Sadly, the state is a bit of a slaughterhouse when it comes to flying. It’s caused by Alaskans being very young (27-years-old on average) and thus believing they’re invincible, and the vast mountain ranges that obstruct every place you want to go, complicated with nasty weather and warp-speed winds. You must know what you’re doing when you fly in Alaska or the grim reaper will come get you.

The accompanying picture is only a fraction of the airplanes tied down on the Lake Hood airstrip, which is an integral part of the Anchorage International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the world. I will always treasure the time I spent “shooting the breeze” with the countless pilots who were always coming and going from this place. It was my rite of passage to becoming part of the greatest place on the planet.

ARIZONA INDIAN RUINS

2010-11-19T11:57:00.001-08:00

Arizona is full of Indian ruins thought to have been built by the Anasazi around 1,200 years ago. My favorites are their cliff dwellings that are found in the red-rock canyons along the Mogollon Rim. Many are located in impossible places inside rock-face caverns, leaving you wondering how on earth they got their building materials 500 feet in the air. The Navajo, who migrated from Alaska sometime after these ancient people had disappeared, were astonished when they first saw abandoned villages perched up on cliffs and believed they were built by “the people who could fly.” It’s doubtful they could really fly, but it’s absolute fact they weren’t afraid of heights. I can’t imagine raising little kids where one misstep by “little Johnny” meant the end of him, except for the bloody mess way down below.

It’s amazing to examine most Indian ruins, since they have withstood the ravages of time because they are so well built. Lots of them were three stories high, built from pine logs used as ceiling beams, which were then covered with split-wood flooring and rock slabs cemented into place with mud. What’s more, cliff dwellings are almost always located where the morning sun warms them and the afternoon winds and shadows work as air conditioners. The Anasazi were ingenious when it came to exploiting high desert mountains.

Folks think the Anasazi were isolated early humans who didn’t get around much, but that’s not the case. You often find Pacific Ocean seashells, and satellite photography has discovered footpaths running all over the Southwest, including Mexico. Trade, woven cloth, and pottery were all highly developed in their reign over Arizona and nearby states. The only blemish on their culture is archeology has discovered cannibalism played some kind of role in their lives, which makes folks squeamish nowadays. Religion run amuck—think Salem witch hunt and Jim Jones if you think the Anasazi were the only ones . . .

I spend as much time as I can exploring Arizona’s cliff dwellings, with the accompanying picture showing my favorite ones. There’s a 100-foot waterfall at the end of the red box canyon where these are found, leaving me spellbound every time I visit the place.

BERING SEA BEACHCOMBING

2010-11-11T15:44:00.000-08:00

Beachcombing on the Bering Sea side of the Alaskan Peninsula isn’t something that many folks get to do, since there aren’t any roads that even come close to this area. Access is limited to boats and planes, and even those must be a special type or you most likely will need search and rescue to come save you. There aren’t a lot of places where you can land a boat without the surf pounding it to pieces, and the risks aren’t a lot less for most airplanes. Ultimately, it all boils down to you owning a Piper Super Cub on tundra tires and having the skills necessary to safely land on the black sand beach that runs from Naknek all the way down to False Pass, the start of the Aleutian Islands. This is extremely wild country where the wind often blows at warp speeds, so nasty accidents are the norm.

The flotsam that you find along the Bering Sea isn’t from America, it’s from Asia. The so-called Japanese Current, or Kuroshio (Black Tide), picks up everything that goes overboard and eventually washes it ashore along the Alaskan Peninsula. The grand prize of this debris, which is becoming harder and harder to find because the Japanese have quit making them, is their glass fishing balls. My picture shows three of the commonest ones you find, although it’s getting difficult to find anything bigger than an ordinary baseball these days. The dirty little secret that even most Alaskans don’t know is that it takes Japanese glass balls at least seven to ten years at sea before they ever get blown ashore, so they’re becoming scarcer. Back in the 1950s and the 1960s, intrepid bush pilots sometimes found glass balls the size of basketballs, but those don’t exist anymore. Find one of those puppies and you’re into big bucks.

Japanese fishing balls were hand made by old-time glassblowers from melted sake bottles, then tied to the tops of fishing nets. Storms would come along and tear everything apart and set them free to float the North Pacific Ocean. Some have even managed to make their way into the Arctic Ocean, where they’re frozen in and drift counterclockwise with the pack ice around the top of the world and across the North Pole.

My Japanese glass ball collection is one of the many reminders of the wonderful adventures I’ve had in Alaska, and I’ve been blessed beyond belief to find things few people get to see.

ALASKAN GOLD

2010-11-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

Gold has now hit $1,380 an ounce, which is great news for Alaskan miners. Most are small operators with two or three workers bulldozing top soil off of ancient river beds, waiting for the ground to thaw if it’s permafrost, and afterward feeding what’s called pay dirt into a sluice box to recover its gold contents. Gold is heavier than anything else and so it settles behind the riffles of the sluice, and then periodically the miners shut down, pick out the visible nuggets, and stockpile the remaining “concentrates,” which consists of black sand, garnets, and fine gold. Concentrates are later run over shaker tables and spiral wheels to recover every last possible speck of Au. In the old days, miners used mercury to catch what’s called “fines,” but nowadays that would get you thrown into jail.

An ounce of gold can be hammered into a sheet that measures 300 square feet, it’s never affected by corrosion of any kind, and it’s an outstanding conductor of heat and electricity. We’ve all seen the exquisite artistry of Tutankhamen’s death mask, old coins as good as new coming out of saltwater, and gold electronics being sent into space, which all exhibits its indestructibility and magical qualities. There’s never been a time in human history where you didn’t want to have all your money tied up in gold, and in today’s world that’s probably never been truer.

One thing that’s generally unknown is gold has fingerprints, or in other words, knowledgeable miners can instantly tell where raw gold has come from. For example, gold from Nome, Alaska, looks very different from the gold found at Dawson City, Yukon Territory. You’ll see what I mean if you ever compare Black Hills gold to Alaskan gold. The color difference is remarkable.

Nugget gold is much more valuable than fine gold, since collectors and jewelers buy it for extra money, usually three or four times the spot price given by commercial buyers. The two nuggets in the accompanying picture are worth several thousand dollars each. Another thing that’s not well known, small-time gold miners don’t pay taxes on their gold until they sell it, and they’re all a secretive bunch, so you never know what in hell they’re worth. Once again, that’s probably not a bad idea in today’s failing economy.

My favorite gold miner story is about an old-time Alaskan family who has a chest freezer full of gold in their home in a Yukon River village. When they run short of money, they grab a handful, sell it, and go about their business. Once, someone said, “For crying out loud, how come somebody doesn't rob them? They’re worth millions.” Of course, the answer is gold is very heavy, so no one could run off with more than a few pounds anyway, but beyond that, every sled dog in town starts barking the moment a stranger comes within a mile, plus villagers always look out for one another. You try stealing those folk’s gold and you’ll get shot to pieces, and there's no way it can be done.

Gold miners have always bellyached, "There’s always too much dirt in that there gold," but that’s not true anymore at $1,380 an ounce. Trouble is . . . it all means our dollar is going to hell.

TWENTY MILLION DOLLAR RIPOFF

2010-10-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

Families are facing foreclosures on their homes at record numbers, unemployment is almost 10%, twice that when you factor in underemployment, every man, woman, and child in this country owes $42,000 in national debt . . . and what does our federal government do but buy $20 million in new toys for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw what our government has done, since the Office of Aircraft Services (the bureaucracy where Fish and Wildlife hide their vast air force) is just around the corner of Lake Hood from my old hangar at the Anchorage International Airport. Talk about conspicuous consumption without any redeeming value, this is it, and while the “little guy” has to do without and watch his kids go hungry, a bunch of greedy pencil pushers and their lackey pilots sneak behind everybody’s backs and buy nine brand-new Quest Kodiaks on amphibious floats at a couple million bucks each, all on borrowed money from the Red Chinese. I’m hopping mad about it and everyone else should be as well, and it’s time we put a stop to this crazy spending by these self-centered bastards. They need these expensive airplanes like a hole in the head.

Here’s a press release from Fish and Wildlife that illustrates their duplicity, let alone their stupidly: “For over fifty years, teams of U.S. Fish and Wildlife pilot-biologists have taken to the skies each spring to survey North American’s waterfowl breeding grounds, conducting in cooperation with the Canadian Wildlife Service the largest and most reliable survey in the world. Flying more than 80,000 miles and crisscrossing the country just above the treetops, they and observers on the ground record the number of ducks, geese, and swans . . .”

Look at the airplane on amphibious floats in the picture. It’s a big turboprop, which is the worst thing in the world to fly at treetop levels. It guzzles jet fuel and pollutes like there’s no tomorrow when you fly it at any less than 10,000 feet, and that’s not to mention it’s a noisy ten-passenger airplane. Can you imagine what happens to waterfowl when you buzz overhead with something like that? . . . Let’s put it this way, at least you don’t have so many live birds to count, not to mention the rest have the crap scared out of them forever. I could continue ad nauseam about the morons who run the Fish and Wildlife Service, but suffice it to say one last thing, “Let Canada do its own damn bird counting, because we can’t afford to be doing it for them any longer.” And what’s more, what about simply making do with the countless Cessna and Piper floatplanes you already have on hand? Everyone else is having to use older stuff.

Fish and Wildlife picked up their brand-new toys at the EAA Convention at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on July 30 . . . at your expense, of course. Once again, can you imagine how wonderful it would’ve been to take your kids to the greatest airplane show on earth, all expenses paid by the taxpayer? The people at Fish and Wildlife are despicable, and you need to start screaming at the top of your lungs at the president, your congressman, and your senator. This crap must stop.

DANA PRUHS FOR GOVERNOR

2010-10-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

I’ve known Dana Pruhs for a long time and he has always made heads turn because he’s so charismatic. He’s smart, well-educated, successful, and one of the few pilots who’s licensed to fly everything from business jets to helicopters, yet despite his achievements he’s always had time to say “hello” and something positive to everyone he meets. He doesn’t care if you’re rich, poor, or otherwise, since it’s important to him that he listens to what you have to say. I want him to become Alaska’s governor a few years from now, and later maybe even president. Lots of well-known Alaskans would probably agree with me, since he’s someone who might save us from ourselves. He has everything Sarah Palin has and more . . . except maybe for her good looks.

Dana grew up in Fairbanks in the 1960s as the oldest son of a hard-working businessman, the kind of father who would dig into his own pockets and grubstake a gold miner who was down on his luck. Dana learned to fly while he was still in high school and then spent his summers flying floatplanes all over Alaska, and when he wasn’t working as a bush pilot he was driving dump trucks for his dad. He attended California Polytechnic State University and got his degree in civil engineering, then went to work for an oilfield and mining services company. He specialized in managing the different aircraft it took to keep everything running in northern Alaska, where, of course, there are no roads. He also worked in Juneau during legislative sessions to keep the state government from crippling big and little businesses alike with regulations and taxes. From the Alaskan pipeline days to space-age telecommunication installations, along with just finishing the construction of an airport on Kodiak Island, he’s done it all. When our current president talks about shovel-ready jobs, Dana knows better. It often takes years of planning and engineering, let alone infinite meetings with government officials before a shovel of dirt can be turned, if at all. Alaskans desperately need someone who can lead them away from the mess they’re getting into or someday soon there won’t be any decent jobs for anyone. Not many people know it, but the Alaskan pipeline is running dry, and it won’t be long before it must be shut down. Can you imagine what will happen to the state and our nation then?

I’m hoping someday soon Dana will step forward and offer Alaska the leadership it needs before it’s too late. It’s like what I ask my friends who believe in big spending by state and federal government, “What part of ‘broke’ don’t you understand?” We don’t have many more chances to keep Alaska, let alone the rest of the nation, from going down the drain, and I believe Dana is the man for the job.

LAKE HOOD

2010-10-14T16:49:00.000-07:00

Lake Hood is the largest seaplane base in the world and part of the Anchorage International Airport, which makes it unique in about a jillion ways. Almost 500 floatplanes of every imaginable description are based there, and in the summertime it roars with activity. It’s not often that you find a major airport where floatplanes mix with cargo and passenger jets from around the world, with a single control tower talking to an Alaskan bush pilot in one breath and then a China Airlines 747 captain in another. Flying in and out of Lake Hood with the many seaplanes and helicopters that I’d bought and sold as an aircraft dealer always gave me a thrill like nothing else. The white and maroon Turbo Cessna 206 on floats in the adjoining picture is one that my company sold to a well-known Alaskan banker many years ago, and I found it tied down in it old familiar place this past summer.

There’s a Piper Super Cub in the photo that’s departing Lake Hood Strip, which is a gravel runway just on the north side of Lake Hood. Countless other bush airplanes on wheels are tied down there, and they’re used by people like pickup trucks, since there are no roads in Alaska to speak of, and so if you want to spend the weekend at your cabin or keep your fishing lodge supplied with the things it needs there’s no alternative to hauling everything inside an airplane. Alaskans are ingenious in the ways they’ve found to carry ATVs, boats, household furnishings, lumber, and snowmobiles inside and/or outside of bush planes and seaplanes. I’ve seen living room couches sticking out each side of deHavilland Beavers as they depart Lake Hood for someone’s wilderness homestead. Bush flying is a necessity of life in the Far North.

You can fly on any number of major airlines to the Anchorage International Airport, walk out of its terminal building, and then walk a few blocks north to the Lake Hood Seaplane Base, or grab a taxi if you’re a lazybones. Once you’re there, you can walk full circle of the place on walking paths, which many Alaskans use as jogging trails. And don’t forget your camera, since there’s no other experience quite like it in the whole wide world, including a first-class air museum that you must visit.

ALASKA GLACIERS

2010-10-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

People travel from around the world and pay lots of money to see them, but they aren’t a big deal to most Alaskans. The state has large ones and littler ones, galloping ones and hanging ones, tidewater ones and valley ones, and more than 100,000 in all. I suppose you start taking things for granted when you have so many of something.

Glaciers are born because of great accumulations of snow, with an excellent example being the Juneau Icefield near the state’s capital. Over 100 feet of it piles up on the coastal mountains each year, which compresses upon itself and turns into thick ice that grinds downhill because of gravity. The mass becomes an irresistible force that bulldozes everything in its path, mountainsides included. It’s only in the last 10,000 years that glaciers have receded enough to let life flourish on the flatlands they’ve left behind. Today’s scientists wring their hands over global warming, which is now called “climate change” because their politics are so fraudulent, but in any case I’d be more than happy to recommend any number of glaciers for them to try living on if they think our planet should cool. "Betcha no one will come back alive!"

One of my favorite “glacier” stories is about the time I left a trapper’s cabin I had in the Wrangell Mountains and flew into McCarthy, which is a frontier town that got its start in the Gold Rush days. The midnight sun was in all its glory by the time I reached the Kennicott River just outside of town, and the only way to cross the raging brown water was to pull yourself over on a cable car not much bigger than face-to-face toilet seats. Wouldn’t you know that two New-York-City girls in their twenties were waiting for someone to take them across, since both weren’t about ready to touch the inch-thick rusty cable that held the hanging car. Somehow I sensed this wouldn’t be a loving relationship, although I put on my best face and asked if they wanted me to help them reach the far side.

The first part of the crossing was always fun, at least if you liked circus rides over a glacial river with four-foot standing waves the color of coffee and cream. You rocked from side to side and raced downhill to the low center of the long cable, except then there was the nightmare of pulling 400 or 500 pounds up the other side. You did the best you could, hopefully with being smart enough to bring along leather gloves and catching your breath while using your fingers as brakes to keep from rolling back to the middle once again. It wasn’t long before I realized I’d taken on more than I should have, since it would take a Herculean effort to get across. I persevered, despite the young ladies demonstrating they were unwilling to help me in the least. Nonetheless, I kept my friendly face at its best.

Both started working on me with only a short way left to go, and I suppose it was because of the way I looked—unshaven, a plaid shirt and faded Levis, a bear rifle and backpack, and clearly Alaskan to a fault. “Isn’t it outrageous what they left behind?” one said, “because look at the miles and miles of beautiful wilderness they ruined. Look at the mess they left behind.” The other answered, “I’m glad the copper mine was closed in 1938, because you can’t imagine what this place would look like if they were still mining today? This state would be one big toxic dump.”

Suddenly, I was pissed.

“For crying out loud, what are you guys talking about?” I asked. “You’re looking at glacier moraines that have been here a thousand years. You couldn’t identify the mine dump if I showed it to you.”

They looked at me as if I might use my bear rifle on them, and I let the cable car slip back for effect. I was overtired and in no mood for getting lectured by a couple of morons who didn’t know the difference between Mother Nature and mining dumps. No one loves wilderness areas more than I do, except I love people just as much, coupled with the full realization that stupidity has never fixed anything at all. Even now, we can’t change the face of the earth with our nuclear weapons as much as glaciers can and do. Study the last ice age if you don’t believe me and tell your great, great, great grandchildren to get ready for the next one. We haven’t any records of it getting too warm, but we sure have ones where it got way too cold. Take your pick!

Both young women took off once I reached the far shore of the Kennicott like their hair was on fire, their butts bouncing like little pigs in gunny sacks because they were walking so fast. They kept their mouths shut, but I could tell they didn’t like being confused by the facts. Neither had been smart enough to see the ancient ice that was peeking through the gravel and rocks left behind by Alaska’s recent birth, and they were mad because they’d made fools of themselves.

Alaska’s glaciers will be here long after we’re gone, and we won’t even be a memory in the scheme of things because they’ll get so massive once again.

CARIBOU CROSSING

2010-09-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

Caribou mean the difference of eating or going hungry all across Alaska and the High Arctic. From the Bering Sea to Labrador, natives and whites alike depend on them for meat, and when the different herds of the Far North shrink in numbers because of deep snow, disease, or wolf predation thousands of little villages get into real trouble. Not only do people sometimes face starvation, but an essential part of their culture is lost, which is like telling Californians they can’t drive their cars anymore. Understandably, there are suddenly lots of pissed off people.

It never fails to amaze me how many people in the lower forty-eight states and the southern half of Canada who are ignorant of the enormity of the Far North, but also that there are virtually no roads. I like to sum it up by saying, “You can’t buy it if you can’t fly it,” which means everything in the Far North depends on either commuter airlines, or more often, bush planes that come and go from the countless dirt strips in the middle of nowhere. For some strange reason, most folks can’t get it in their thick heads there are still vast wildernesses where there isn’t even a hiking trail for hundreds of miles. Everyone keeps thinking that if you get hungry all you have to do is hop into your car and run downtown to the grocery store. You can’t do that if you live in Venetie, Alaska, or Baker Lake, Canada.

Fortunately, caribou are only a little smarter than rabbits, which let most hunters shoot one in short order, presuming there are any around. The first rule in caribou hunting is you don’t chase them. They are almost always on the move, and it’s impossible to catch them in any event. The trick is to sit on a hill near your campsite and glass your surroundings until you can ambush an oncoming herd, otherwise forget about it. I don’t know how many times sports hunters have hiked a dozen miles from camp, stalked a couple nice bulls, shot and butchered them, only to learn the hard way that carrying all the meat back to where it belongs means repeated trips across soggy tundra with 50 to 100 pounds of meat on your aching back. The alternative is getting slapped with a big fine for wanton waste, which is probably law enforcement’s favorite violation. The thing to remember about caribou hunting is you can sit by your tent for a week and never see hide or hair of one, and then the next morning wake up to ten thousand running you over.

Caribou weigh about twice as much as deer, taste about the same, and the big bulls, especially when they have their white, winter capes and double-shovel horns, make exceptional trophies for your game room. They are also one of the few animals that can be hunted on your own in Alaska, since guides aren’t required for harvesting one, unlike most of the other game species.

The caribou is the quintessence of the North, and their low grunts and clicking hooves will never leave my memory, let alone the sight of thousands streaming by me. They’re like a religion once you’ve seen them in real life.

SHEEP HUNTING

2010-09-22T17:09:00.000-07:00

Some of my most enjoyable adventures in Alaska were when I’d fly into the Wrangell Mountains around Labor Day and hunt sheep. The weather at that time of year is often dangerous with low clouds and rain, which fills the Chitistone Canyon and the Skolia Pass and stops you from flying up onto the Russell Glacier and then down the White River to Rock Lake, where I’d pitch camp. It was a matter of patience to wait for the right weather so the trip could be made safely, then tying down my airplane so it wouldn’t get destroyed by nighttime winds. Glaciers have a bad habit of cooling the air over them after the sun goes down and then dumping it downhill at warp speed once it’s pitch dark. Rock Lake is a nice place to hunt, but it’s not meant for floatplanes, and it was given its name for a good reason. The Cessna 185 that I once owned is shown in the only safe place on the lake.

There is something about sheep hunting that has always intrigued me. First, it’s physically challenging to say the least, and really the only way to prepare is to climb mountains for a month ahead of time. Secondly, it was always frustrating trying to outsmart the old rams with legal horns. They would be bedded down on the mountaintops watching your every move, and more often than not you’d climb all day to sneak up on them from above, only to find them long gone. They have eyes like eagles and seldom are fooled by the best laid plans of mice and men. It’s hard to keep telling yourself that you’re having fun when you’ve climbed four or five miles and a few thousand feet for nothing.

And then there’s the weather. You would wait and wait until the weather was just right and it was safe to fly, then you’d make the trip only to find out the following morning that you were pinned down in a sopping rain that wouldn’t quit. I’ve always told people to put on your rain gear, get into a shower with the cold water running full blast, and crawl around on your hands and knees for a couple of days pretending that you’re in a tent if you want to know what sheep hunting is like. God, I can remember there was once a foot of new snow on the ground when I got out of my tent. Needless to say, once that happens you’re in big trouble unless you know how to survive in extreme conditions.

Nonetheless, there’s nothing more satisfying to a man's or a woman’s soul than sheep hunting, even if you don’t get anything. Glassing wildlife, sitting on mountain peaks and looking down, the clear Alaskan air—how could you not want to go. It's adventure at its best.

ALASKA'S WALRUS

2010-09-17T08:39:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press has recently written that the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice has receded to its third smallest size and forced thousands of walrus ashore in Alaska, thus they’re doomed. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I’ve reached my snapping point with duplicitous scientists and newspaper reporters (none of whom have ever seen a walrus in real life in the first place) misleading everyone for no better reason than the furtherance of their political agendas.

The largest walrus haulout in the Western Hemisphere hasn’t had a single ice cube within 1,000 miles of it all summer, with the exception of the nearby barrooms in Dillingham, Alaska, and this has been true since time immemorial. As many as 14,000 gather there each summer. All of the would-be experts and reporters can’t seem to get it in their thick heads that ice is the walrus’ enemy, not their friend. They will only be doomed if there’s too much of it, not because there’s not enough. They are among the world’s best swimmers and divers, but they’re not ice dwellers by any means. Look at it this way, they’d be living at the North Pole if they liked ice.

The only time they use ice, and it’s limited to scattered ice floes, is when it suits their needs. Once the sea ice starts freezing to a solid mass, they flee for their lives. Conversely, if winds and warm weather carry the ice floes north of where they like living, they head for shore with full bellies, haul out, then head back to sea when they get hungry again. To prove my point, the walrus herd at Cape Seniavin, which is near a hunting lodge that belongs to a friend of mine, doesn’t see any ice for several months each year, and they’re the biggest ones on earth. They couldn't care less that the nearest pack ice is the more than 1,000 miles away.

The two best places in North America to see walrus is on Round Island, which can be reached by flying to Anchorage, then to Dillingham, Alaska. From there, you must arrange for bush pilots and charter boats to take you out to see them, but be forewarned this is a hazardous trip that’s not meant for crybabies and sissies. See http://www.wc.adfg.state.ak.us/index.cfm?adfg=alaska_guide.walrus for details about this great adventure. The alternative is Bear Lake Lodge, which is near Port Moller, Alaska, and belongs to Warren Johnson, a friend of mind. He can reached at 907-398-1335, although his cell phone’s mail box is often full because he’s so busy. Bear Lake offers all the comforts of home, along with a short bush plane flight to see bull walrus lying around on a sandy beach. It isn’t cheap, but it’s sure lots of fun.

Don’t let yourself get fooled by so-called experts and their pals in the press, since the walrus is one of the most enigmatic creatures on earth. Little is known about them because of the extreme environment they call home, with the Bering Sea being the best example. Go see them if you can, but don’t expect to meet any scientists or newspaper reporters, because I never have. They’re sitting on their butts behind some desk, with most of them too disingenuous, let alone too scared, to go see things for themselves.

THE SIGN POST FOREST

2010-09-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

Carl Lindley started everything in 1942 during the construction of the Alaskan Highway. He was homesick, stuck in the middle of nowhere, and so he nailed up a sign showing the distance to Danville, Illinois, his hometown. Folks have been copycatting him ever since and now these signs have become the main attraction of Watson Lake, a frontier town of almost 2,000 people not far northwest of where the Yukon Territory starts. It won’t be long and there will be 100,000 of them from all over the world in what’s called the Sign Post Forest, since that’s how popular the custom has become. City fathers erect more posts every year for tourists to leave their signs of every size and description, and the place has become world famous.

I clearly remember the first time I visited Watson Lake back in the early 1970s. I’d left Minnesota with a Cessna 206 floatplane for Bethel, Alaska, and was running on gas fumes by the time I landed at its seaplane base. I had made the mistake of gassing up at Fort St. John and thinking it wasn’t that far across the northern end of the Rocky Mountains. Well, things didn’t work out as planned because the Liard River country is exceptionally rugged, the 206 was an early model with limited fuel range and power, and I’d never before faced snowcapped peaks that you couldn’t climb over with a heavily-loaded airplane. This was my first introduction to Hell’s Gate, the Rapids of the Drowned, and Boiler Canyon along the fearsome Liard River, and it’s a butt-puckering stretch of real estate if there ever was one. I once had a grizzly attack me in this country, which I wrote about in my bear book, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears. Lucky for me that you can back up with a helicopter or else I’d been turned into mincemeat.

Watson Lake was nothing but a dusty road with a few rundown buildings back then, but now new hotels are being built along its main street. Mineral exploration, oil and gas, and tourism have turned it into a boomtown of major importance, so whatever you do, don’t forget your favorite sign when you visit. It's not often you can become part of history.

THE KING SALMON QUEEN

2010-09-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

I wrote a blog, ALASKA AT ITS BEST, not long ago, which told about a fishing lodge that a good friend of mine owns 100 miles north of Anchorage. His name is Dana Pruhs and he runs a company that builds everything from airports to underground fiber-optic systems. He uses the place to entertain business clients, employees, and friends, but if truth be told it would be all for naught if it wasn’t for his wife, Deanna. Everyone would go hungry and the bears would tear the place down if it wasn’t for her hard work. She’s quite a lady, with her beautiful face once being featured on Alaska Airline’s advertisements years ago, but her heart is in the outdoors, especially when it comes to king salmon fishing. Now she’s hooked another big one that weighed 58 pounds. The fellow with her is a guide who helps with everything on a daily basis.

She caught this “hog” near McDougall, a commercial fishing lodge and old-time settlement on the Yentna River, which is a tributary of the Susitna River, the major waterway that flows into Upper Cook Inlet. All of these waters see significant king runs every summer, along with sockeye and silvers that follow behind. Most of this country is as wild as it was 1,000 years ago, and if you don’t like flying or boating for hours on end, there’s no way to see it. I have a gold claim just a few miles north of there.

I loaned my Remington 30-06 to Deanna just before I left Alaska a couple of weeks ago. A black bear had tried raiding the lodge and she’d taken a shot at it with a shotgun and missed, so I told Dana that she needed a good bear rifle for her protection. There has been a few women who have been killed and eaten by black bears in Alaska, and they are not to be trusted. It doesn’t take much for a good-sized one to rip through a door and waltz right into a home if it decides it wants something. Then what do you do, especially at night?

I fully expect to get a photograph of Deanna in a “Captain-Morgan” stance over a black bear soon, and she’ll probably be wearing a coonskin cap as well, since this lady never backs down.

BACK IN ARIZONA

2010-08-27T08:06:00.000-07:00

I finally bailed out the day after Anchorage set a new record for having the coldest and rainiest summer ever. What was even more demoralizing was I drove five days in steady rain and temperatures that never exceeded 60 degrees until I reached Provo, Utah. Never in my life have I seen anything like it, especially with the death of Senator Ted Stevens, along with four others, in a weather related seaplane crash near Dillingham, Alaska, not to mention several other deadly aircraft accidents. I’ll punch the next person in the nose who dares mention global warming to me because I'm so mad about everything. For crying out loud, there was fresh snow on the mountains all the way through Alaska and the Yukon.

I didn’t see a lot of wildlife because of the bad weather, although I had one of my most interesting experiences of my life by getting trapped on the Alaskan Highway by a buffalo herd. It was just like the Old West with a couple hundred feeding along the road and wandering back and forth in front of me with total disregard for oncoming traffic. Bulls weighing 2,000 pounds were eyeballing my Ford F-150 and me and saying, “Bring it on if you don’t like it, buster.” Frankly, I was frightened one would decide to headbutt my pickup and there would go my front end. They aren’t known to be particularly friendly nor afraid of people, let alone pickups.

Ordinarily, I’ve seen Stone sheep along Muncho Lake, which sits at the end of the Rocky Mountains near Fort Nelson, British Columbia, but, sadly, not this time. All I saw was one young woodland caribou, and he was beautiful but wouldn’t stand still for a picture. Frankly, one can make a good argument the stretch between Fort Nelson and Watson Lake is one of the best wildlife areas in North America, besides being one of the prettiest. The only problem is that gas is incredibly high priced at over $1.30 a liter, which is more than $5 a gallon. Gas is $1.12 a liter in Whitehorse and $.95 a liter in Grande Prairie, so I’ll let you make up your own mind what’s happening between those two places.

I’m sitting on my patio in Fountain Hills, Arizona, this evening, enjoying a glass of merlot. It’s 85 degrees, there are no bugs, and it’s not raining. Paradise, and could I have another glass of wine please? By the way, what’s that big bright thing in the sky? Is that what’s called the sun?

ALASKAN CHARACTERS

2010-08-08T13:59:00.000-07:00

Single women in Alaska have a favorite saying, which was first voiced during the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush when it was proven they could survive and prosper in the Far North too. Men have always outnumbered them five to one since then, so it’s undoubtedly the reason this catchphrase has lasted so long. It goes like this, “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.” Married women laugh as well when they hear this, indicating they have some familiarity with this problem.

The one thing Alaska can boast about more than the other 49 states is it’s surplus of unusual characters, men and women alike. You run into them all over—out in the middle of nowhere and in downtown Anchorage. For example, I wrote about “Cliff” in my bear book, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears. He’s a hermit I met when I tried buying a log cabin on a bush strip at the mouth of the Chitistone Canyon in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I gasped when I saw the inside of his one-room place, since it was filled with so much junk you couldn’t walk without shuffling sideways between ceiling-high piles of everything imaginable. He lived by his wits, a razor-sharp machete, and a .22 rifle, and needless to say, he was skinny as a rail. It’s not easy living off the land, and it’s funny a bear hasn’t eaten him.

Men have no monopoly on Alaskan individuality, as there are lots of women who are bigger-than-life characters as well. My favorite is an exceptional bush pilot who has flown Cessna floatplanes and an amphibious Grumman Widgeon almost everywhere, including around Siberia and South America. She’s not much bigger than a schoolgirl but can whip twice her weight in wildcats, and to my knowledge has never bent an airplane. That’s saying something for the nasty weather she faces nearly on a daily basis. What is more, two of the prettiest women I’ve ever met were big-game guides, with one hunting brown bear as big as buffalo on the Alaskan Peninsula. One mistake and it would have been all over except for the funeral music, presuming we could have found her remains.

My photograph of a homemade motorhome on the Homer Spit is a great example of the things you see in Alaska. Too bad I didn’t get the chance to meet its owner, who is no doubt a unique character in his or her own right. Clearly, this person marches to a different drum, but that’s what makes the Last Frontier so interesting, and there’s no place like it on earth.

MONTANA CAMPER KILLED AND EATEN

2010-08-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

Last week’s grizzly attacks in Montana are yet another example of people getting into dangerous situations where they are either horribly mauled or killed by bears. Sadly, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen campers set themselves up for trouble of the worst kind and then afterward wonder why they were ripped to shreds, or why a friend was killed and eaten like prime rib, red in the center. In addition, the news media reported victims’ statements about the attacks that just piss me off, since all were wholly indicative of people’s ignorance about bears, which now has cost a middle-aged Michigan man his life. I’m only left to ask, when will people ever learn?

First, it’s way past time for everyone to realize that bears have two-inch fangs and three-inch claws for ONE reason, and that’s to kill and eat things, humans included. Bears, especially the grizzly species, are the biggest predators on earth, and the ridiculous belief that they only eat “berries and things” is complete nonsense, sadly passed on by wildlife officials who would much rather be politically correct than tell everyone the truth, or maybe they, themselves, are completely stupid when it comes to them.

Let’s explain it this way, you can’t get people to camp in lion and tiger country at the point of a gun, yet they do it all the time in bear country without the slightest precautions. Bears, particularly the Alaskan brown and the polar bear, outweigh the big cats by two to three times, yet that seems to go right over people’s heads. Moreover, bears are exceptional hunters, they’re much smarter than wolves, and, horrifically, they can crush a deer’s or a moose’s spine in a single bite. Sure, they eat berries, and, of course, they eat grass, but just like humans, they aren’t about ready to pass up a ham sandwich when they see one. Think of it this way, picture a black bear feeding in blueberry patch and it suddenly finds a deer fawn nearby. What do you think will happen next, regardless of how stuffed the bear is with berries? Then picture what would happen if that same bear found a baby who his or her mother had accidentally left behind. Actually, that once happened, and Google Ester Schwimmer of New York City if you don’t believe me.

Lest you think I’m saying every bear should be shot on sight, think again. The Soda Butte tragedy in Montana proves what I’ve preached time and again, especially in my book, Fighting for your life: Man-eater Bears. The grizzly sow and her cubs would still be roaming free if the three campers who were attacked had done the right things in the first place. It’s just plain stupid to camp in an old established campground where every fire pit stinks to high heaven of hamburgers and hot dogs without setting up some kind of perimeter alarm, which will then let you wake up, get out of your sleeping bag, and protect yourself with a flashlight, bear spray, and/or a firearm. Frankly, I’ve never seen a bear that didn’t hightail it out of there when I let fly with my Remington 30-06 bear gun over its head. In all my experiences in Alaska, the High Arctic, and Northern Canada, I’ve never had to shoot one bear. Not once. But I sure scared the hell out of a few of them.

Deb Freele, one of the victims who was lucky enough to survive the grizzly attacks reportedly said, “She couldn’t understand why the bear attacked her, because she posed no threat.” Her statement is breathtaking, and how about that she was red meat and it wanted to kill and eat her? For the life of me, I can’t understand people’s stupidity. She also said she played dead and the bear let her go. Well, maybe so, and I’m sure Kevin Kammer of Grand Rapids, Michigan, played dead too, but now he’s playing dead forever. And by the way, his body was partly eaten. Play dead if you want, but I’m fighting back with everything I have, except I wouldn’t have gotten myself into the situation that Freele and Kammer had gotten into in the first place. There’s a damn good reason why I invented the PackAlarm and why I use it when I’m sleeping in a tent. I’m not letting a bear or anything else ever sneak up on my campsite and start chewing on me before I start figuring out how to save myself.

A wildlife official made the statement that the three victims had stored their food in containers and he couldn’t understand why the attacks had taken place. Again, I’m left shaking my head in disbelief. Bears can smell 1,000 times better than humans, and it makes no difference if you sealed your food in lead as if it were kryptonite and sunk it in ten feet of water, bears can still smell it. Don’t delude yourself that you can somehow hide your food and body orders from them. It can’t be done.

Buy my PackAlarm, string a fishing line around your tent with bells on it, or post a companion on guard as if you were in enemy territory, but whatever you do, don’t sleep in bear country without taking the right precautions. The life you save may be your own, and besides, we won’t have to be euthanizing grizzlies for no good reason.

HALIBUT FISHING

2010-07-24T15:54:00.000-07:00

King salmon fishing is like casting out and hooking onto a Harley-Davidson speeding down a highway, and it isn’t a lot easier to land one than a pissed off biker either. Sockeye salmon don’t bite, so catching them is a matter of snagging them, hopefully in the immediate area of the mouth so a wildlife officer can’t slap you with a big fine. Silver salmon are a beautiful, fighting fish that give you a ton of action, right along with great eating afterward. But then we come to the halibut, which is a whole different deal. Playing football might be easier.

For whatever reason, I had lived in Alaska for twenty-some years and never gone halibut fishing, and it’s the only fish my wife loves eating. There’s almost nothing tastier than fresh, deep-fried halibut, breaded and seasoned to taste. We decided that it was past time to correct our ways when we visited Homer a few days ago, so off we went on a half-day charter in Kachemak Bay on a beautiful, but blustery day. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into, other than it was pretty pricey with licenses and derby tags that let you win $10,000 if you land a tagged halibut. Things started getting dicey on the 25-mile voyage out, especially when a couple of our fellow fishermen turned pale white.

Finally, our captain stopped and dropped anchor, but that’s when the action began, but I don’t necessarily mean fishing. Our two ailing shipmates bailed out of the cabin on the run, despite the boat pitching around like a carnival ride, and puked their lunch overboard. “Well,” the captain shouted, “looks like pizza. You’ll probably feel better now, so grab a pole and let’s get this show on the road.” What a show it was, since one pizza lover slunk back into the cabin and laid down, while the other sat on the bow, took deep breaths, and looked wistfully back toward shore.

We caught halibut one after another, meanwhile banging off the railing, the cabin, fellow fishermen, and the crew. It was hard work keeping your balance and cranking on a heavy-duty fishing reel in gale-force winds. Then the tide turned and things got even harder, since you had to release lots more line to keep the bait on the bottom, meaning it was even more work to reel everything back in. I’m not sure it was an experience I couldn’t have missed, now that I have the benefit of hindsight. It was one of those situations where you keep asking yourself, “Are we having fun yet?”

Actually, the captain and crew were great, we had a good time, and caught plenty of fish. I was particularly impressed with a pretty young woman who worked harder than anyone. However, here’s my plan in the future. Next time when I want to go halibut fishing, I’m going to call my nephew who runs the Carrs food store in Anchorage. I’ll simply ask him to buy some halibut from his store, I’ll visit him at his home and have him and his two boys beat the crap out of me, and then I’ll go on my merry way. At least that way, I’ll save a few hundred bucks, won’t be any worse for wear, and it’ll take lots less time.

HOMER, SWEET HOMER

2010-07-19T11:13:00.000-07:00

Homer, Alaska, is a quaint drinking village with a fishing problem . . . or that’s what its townspeople like telling you. Actually, its commercial fishing activity doesn’t amount to much, at least compared to Kodiak or Dutch Harbor, but when it comes to sportfishing for halibut, Homer is king. Tourists have been flocking to the Homer Spit for fishing charters longer than most old-time Alaskans can remember.

Halibut run from what’s called “chicken-sized,” 15 to 20 pounders, which are the best eating, to monsters weighing 300 pounds. These are right-eyed flatfish the size of kitchen tables, except lots thicker. Just to let you what you’re facing, I caught three “chickens” and my arms felt like they might fall off. It’s not easy to crank something weighing 20 pounds off the ocean bottom that’s 200 feet down. I can’t imagine what something weighing as much as a professional football player might be like.

It’s easy to fall in love with the Spit, which is a long finger of sand reaching almost five miles into Kachemak Bay. You get a good look at it as you come off the hillside above Homer, and so you typically shoot right through town and onto the narrow road that stops at “Land’s End,” where you can catch a ferry to Kodiak or Seldovia. The roadsides are something to behold—old boats, rundown buildings, junky travel trailers the locals live in, and hole-in-the-wall shops offering everything from jewelry to fish processing. Lots of things are derelict and dirty, so don’t visit the place if you’re fastidious, because you’ll have a heart attack. Folks could do a lot better by cleaning up things, but on the other hand all the clutter gives the Spit a certain charm.

I knew enough about Homer to wait until the tide went out, and then I walked the mud flats searching for coal. It didn’t take long for me to find a chunk the size of a big cow pie, which I promptly threw into my campfire. There isn’t anything like a red-hot fire and some merlot to make the cold wind go away.

ALASKA IS

2010-07-11T16:35:00.000-07:00

Beautiful white swans are commonly seen on the drive between Tok and Anchorage. For whatever reason, they like the littler lakes in the high tundra country around Glenallen, which is a frontier town at the halfway point. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve pulled off the highway and snuck like a thief in the night through dwarf spruce and pucker brush to take their picture. Too bad they’re always lots smarter than me.

Almost everyone in the “Lower 48” doesn’t know that Native Alaskans have what’s called “subsistence rights,” which is the deal Congress made with them to get possession of the oil on the North Slope back in the 1960s. Although I’m oversimplifying things and skipping lots of facts, basically Washington, D.C. said the federal government would keep one-third of Alaska for itself, one-third would go to the state, and one-third would go to the indigenous people of Alaska. Along with that, folks who were still living by fishing, hunting, and gathering were guaranteed that way of life wouldn’t be taken away. —I’m sure this will be no surprise to anyone, but not much of this is settled yet, nor will it be anytime soon

To give you some comic insight into what’s happening at the present, I’d like to tell you a story, and it goes like this: Once a federal wildlife officer jumped out of the bushes and arrested an old Indian woman for shooting a swan for food. She was hauled into court and found guilty of a federal crime, much to her chagrin, since she believed she was entitled to her ancient ways. After her conviction, a $50,000 fine, and a jail sentence, the judge couldn’t help asking her what swan tasted like. She answered, “Well, your honor, I guess halfway between bald eagle and spotted owl.”

If you think it’s easy to live where there are no roads, think again. There are lots of folks in Alaska and Canada who can’t eat unless they go fishing and hunting. Our Wi-Fi world has left them behind . . . or maybe way ahead.

ALASKA AT ITS BEST

2010-07-06T16:38:00.000-07:00

There aren’t many roads in Alaska, and the ones that exist don’t usually take you where you want to go. The best fishing and hunting, the biggest lakes and rivers, and the prettiest scenery can only be accessed by airplanes and helicopters. For that reason, flying is a way of life in the Last Frontier.

A good friend of mine flew me to his fishing lodge shortly after my arrival in Alaska for dinner with his wife and a couple of her friends from Nevada. What a knockout place with all the modern conveniences—big diesel generator, solar panels, WiFi, great boats and motors, freezers, refrigerators, you name it and it was there. I was truly impressed with its beauty, let alone its wonderful comforts. You would have a hard time getting me back to Anchorage if I owned it, especially since it sits on a world-class salmon stream. I was truly privileged in visiting the place.

After dinner, we flew his helicopter a few miles north and checked my gold claim, which I want to mine this summer. The wind was such that we didn’t dare try landing in the canyon where it sits, but even with a low pass I saw that I need to get dropped off on nearby a bush strip and hike down so I can clear off the landing pad. There’s been lots of rain and everything has grown up like a jungle. Most folks don’t understand how green and lush vegetation gets under the midnight sun. There’s a good reason why farmers in Palmer, Alaska, grow cabbage and pumpkins the size of Volkswagens.

Giant brown bears, king salmon weighing as much as 100 pounds, gold nuggets the size of your fist, there’s no place like Alaska.

ALASKA AT LAST

2010-07-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

The road to Tok, Alaska, from Chicken changes just enough to tell you that you’re coming into different country. Snowcapped mountains rise ahead and then you turn onto the Alaskan Highway, which is always busy. Afterward, it’s smooth sailing and you cross the Tanana River, one of Alaska’s biggest rivers, though not many folks use it anymore, at least not like the gold prospectors, the Indians, and the trappers from the past. Finally, you’re in Tok, which is a growing community that doesn’t look like a town, but don’t let that fool you. There’s a lot more going on there than meets the eye, and it’s an important stop for travelers, truckers, and pilots on their way to Anchorage, Fairbanks, and everyplace beyond.

Tok always saddens me, since not much happened there without Charlie Warbelow, who owned 40-Mile Air, for the longest time. He was a famous Alaskan bush pilot my age, and I’d sold airplanes and parts to him for many years. I would always stop, buy gas, and say hello whenever I passed that way, and it was a mandatory stop whenever I was flying my Robinson R22 helicopter back and forth between Phoenix and Anchorage. One time, Charlie wouldn’t leave me alone and wanted to know everything about flying helicopters, something he’d always wanted to do. I encouraged him to take lessons and buy one. It was only short time later that he crashed and killed himself in an Enstrom, and to this day I wished I’d kept my big mouth shut. Not a lot of guys can fly both airplanes and helicopters and stay safe, although that had nothing to do with Charlie’s skills, because he was one of the best bush pilots around. It has to do with airplanes and helicopters being very different, and when something goes wrong highly experienced pilots often start flying like they have wings rather than rotors. It’s a matter of old habits, but nevertheless the smallest mistake can cost you your life. I’ll never stop blaming myself.

I stopped at a grocery store, bought a steak and some merlot, then headed south on what’s called the Tok Cutoff for a secret spot I knew. There were hardly any clouds in the sky and the midnight sun was swinging along the horizon. After an hour or so, I parked my rig, cooked supper, and soaked everything in. There were Dall sheep on the mountainsides above me and not another soul around. I must admit tears came to my eyes because I'd finally come home.

DAWSON CITY, PART THREE

2010-06-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

Dawson City is where you must decide which way to go. You either return to Whitehorse and the Alaskan Highway or cross the Yukon River on the George Black ferry and drive the Top of the World Highway to Alaska. I’d go back if I had to do it all over again, since the road and scenery are much better in that direction. I thought I’d never get to Chicken, Alaska, and the best you can do is 15 or 20 miles an hour on the last 30 miles. It’s simply awful.

But crossing the Yukon was thrilling because I’ve read so much about the famous people who used this great river to open the Far North. It’s almost impossible to describe in mere words what this waterway has meant to Alaska and Canada, since it’s one of the most powerful rivers on earth, which can even be seen in my unprofessional photography. It was tricky to drive up the ferry’s ramp within inches of another big rig while watching the loadmaster guide you aboard. There isn’t a lot of room and it’s not something for the chickenhearted, so either man up or turn back the other way.

U.S. Customs at the border of Alaska and Canada sits on a high, barren mountain and is arguably the bleakest place in North America. This is clearly where you get sent if you’re naughty or the boss doesn’t like you. Once you leave, the asphalt ends and the road from hell begins, busy with pickups racing to their gold claims in the Fortymile River country. This is where prospectors first found gold in the late 1800s before the rich strike was made at Dawson, and there’s been mining here ever since. I was once told that an hard-working young man took 40 ounces out of Fortymile with his dredge, which nowadays isn’t a bad payday for a summer’s work.

I’ve visited Chicken before and it hasn’t changed much. It’s a pricey gas stop where you can park overnight with your RV, buy groceries, or pan for gold. There isn’t much to see, but at least the road turns into asphalt when you leave town and it’s a nice drive to Tok, Alaska, where you once again hit the Alaskan Highway. This part of Alaska has been ravaged by wildfires so the scenery isn’t great, and you seldom see anything more than a lonely moose here and there. Like I said, go back the other way since it’s a much better drive.

But despite my whining about the Top of the World drive, I sold lots of my PackAlarms and bear books on the way to Dawson City and then got to see history still in place. The museum, Jack London’s cabin, frontier buildings, playing poker and watching cancan shows at Diamond Tooth Gerties made it all worthwhile.

DAWSON CITY, PART TWO

2010-06-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

Dawson City was like going back in time, especially with the paddlewheel, Keno, sitting beside the Yukon River. You could almost hear her whistle and see the smoke streaming from her stack. It’s hard to imagine, but riverboats supplied everything people needed from Whitehorse to Dawson until the 1950s, with men cutting and riverboats burning 100 cords (eight-foot by four-foot by four-foot ) of spruce logs on each round trip. Men worked year-round cutting firewood into four-foot lengths and stacking it along the Yukon so the steamboats had fuel throughout the summer. The Far North was 100 years behind the time, but, of course, it was only because there were no roads through its vast wildernesses.

Dawson has a big museum that displays artifacts from the Klondike Gold Rush days, and you come away with a good insight into the hardships, but also the great wealth that people earned, provided they were willing to work hard and risk everything. Everybody from bankers to prostitutes bet they could “mine the miners,” and many of them succeeded. There were great fortunes made in Dawson City from 1898 to the early 1900s, and the town became sophisticated in a hurry, with opera houses, good schools, and every luxury readily at hand. There’s nothing like a gold strike to inspire people, and the museum has photographs of stacks of gold bars that are hard to believe. I would have gone to Dawson as well back then, since it was richest strike ever.

Nowadays, what most people don’t know is the easy gold was gone by the time most gold seekers reached Dawson. Miners began to dig down through the permafrost and tunnel along the bedrock all winter long, pulling up buckets of pay dirt to the surface. They would pile great mounds of gravel and then sluice everything during the summertime. It paid off beyond belief for those who could endure the underground fires they used to thaw the frozen soil. Later, prospectors figured out the hillsides around Dawson City were ancient riverbeds that were rich in gold as well. Believe it or not, folks are still making big money mining gold around Dawson City, but they keep their mouths shut and pretend it’s slim pickings.

Gold is $1,250 an ounce, but the Dawson country has lots of nugget gold, which sells for three or four times the price. People showed me nuggets worth $4,000, and they travel to such places as San Diego in the wintertime and sell their treasure to jewelers who specialize in gold bracelets, necklaces, and watch bands. There is a thriving underground economy for those who are lucky enough to own a claim that produces good-sized nuggets, and those mines are highly prized. Mining is hard work but it has very special rewards, since it’s nobody’s business what you find in the dirt and shove in your pockets.

Dawson City hasn’t changed much from its bygone days, since there are still boardwalks, muddy streets, and lots of buildings from its illustrious past. Even though gas runs $5 a gallon and very little else is cheap, I’m still glad I made the trip. It’s not often you can see things that haven’t changed in 100 years.

DAWSON CITY, PART ONE

2010-06-20T14:58:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to see Dawson City since boyhood because it was the last boomtown of the 19th Century and the swan song of several legendary Wild West characters, with Wyatt Earp being the most famous (actually he got frozen in on the Yukon River short of Dawson and never quite made it). Arizona Charlie Meadows, Bat Masterson, Calamity Jane, and John Clum were among the many gamblers and gunslingers who joined the Klondike Gold Rush and took their final shot at striking it rich . . . or maybe they just didn’t give a damn about fame and fortune and only loved gold towns, saloons, and dancehall women, Calamity not included. She could curse, drink, drive horses, shoot, and chew tobacco with the best of them, but she didn’t dance or sleep for hire. It was said she was never the same after Wild Bill Hickok got shot in the back in Deadwood, since she loved him more than life.

Dawson City is booming again, since there’s still gold being mined today. I was told that a miner can make $500 a day just sluicing the tailings of old claims that were supposedly worked out. I don’t doubt it, because it doesn’t take a lot of gold at $1,250 an ounce to make a decent living, and besides it’s all about the lifestyle again. I played poker at Diamond Tooth Gertie's casino with a fellow who was washing pay dirt by day and playing cards at night, and I must say he was one hell of a lot happier than most guys I know. You can buy a claim for $10,000, so it might not be a bad deal. In any case, it’s kind of hard for the IRS to audit your income, so my new friend wasn’t at all worried about taxes and those kinds of things. He was free as a bird, as they say.

The first thing the 1898 gold seekers saw as they rounded the last bend in the Yukon River just before Dawson City was a big landslide above town. It’s still there, like the eye over the pyramid on a dollar bill. There’s no doubt in my mind that George Carmack, Tagish Charlie, and Skookum Jim saw it as a good omen and prospected Rabbit Creek, which was later named Bonanza. It was literally filled with gold nuggets, and then the surrounding hillsides were discovered to be almost as rich. Even today, it’s said that if you can find ten square feet of original ground it will produce $1,000,000 in nuggets. I remember reading about an old-timer telling a newspaper reporter when he was asked about a bucket of gold nuggets being used as a doorstop, “Go ahead and take one. Pick out one of the bigger ones.” Nothing like it has been seen since.

God, I wish I could go back in time, since I think I could fit right in. But then, who couldn’t?

Next time I’ll write more about Dawson City, since it’s a very special place.

FIVE FINGER RAPIDS

2010-06-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

Highway 2, nicknamed the Klondike Loop, runs north from the Alaskan Highway to the legendary places of the 1898 Gold Rush. You drive west of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, a few miles, then take off through the same wilderness that our great grandfathers crossed. It hasn’t changed much, and men and women are still dreaming of striking it rich, since there’s lots of gold left in “them there hills.” Placer mining is going hot and heavy now with gold at $1,200 an ounce, and it was fun to see folks making money in old-fashioned ways.

The highway is good two-lane asphalt with plenty of campgrounds, rest stops, and Klondike Gold Rush historical markers. Carmacks is the first little town along the way, named for the man who made the first big gold strike. He found five dollars of coarse gold in a single pan when a few cents worth was worthwhile. The news stunned the world, and a hundred thousand people stampeded north. Too bad they didn’t realize that many of them would drown, freeze, and starve to death in their quest to get rich. Pelly Crossing and Stewart Crossing are the two other small settlements that you will pass through.

I wrote a historical series for Penguin in New York starting in 1996 with my first novel titled, Whispers of the River. One of the things I had written about was my fictional characters shooting the Five Finger Rapids. I can’t tell you how thrilling it was to see this deadly torrent in real life, since I’d written my story based on old descriptions and photographs of this white water. Lots of gold seekers lost everything at these rapids, including their lives.

The Yukon, the Pelly, and the Stewart rivers are wide, fast, and dangerous, and one only has to see them on this drive to understand how courageous the Canadian natives, then the white pioneers who followed them were in their commitment to conquer the Far North. Folks still run up and down these wild rivers to their fish camps, gold mines, and traplines to earn a living. Nowadays, most people don’t realize millions still survive in total isolation with only their independent spirits and survival skills to get them by. I guess I’ve never settled in my mind why I enjoyed meeting my New York publisher so much while my heart was still in the North, and there’s something about the midnight sun that mesmerizes you.

It took me three days to reach Dawson City, which was a kick in itself. Everywhere I stopped people wanted my PackAlarms, so I ran out and had to assemble more along the way. You can’t imagine how exciting it is to invent something and then see it sell successfully. God Bless if a PackAlarm saves only one life in the bear county I love so much, and where I’ve always felt at home.

WHITEHOUSE, YUKON TERRITORY

2010-06-11T06:56:00.000-07:00

The first half of the 450-mile stretch of Highway 37 through British Columbia is nice. It’s two-lane asphalt, smooth, traffic free, and there are plenty of rest stops with toilets. But the last half is a different story, starting below Dease Lake and running all the way to the Alaskan Highway. There are still lots of rest stops, but it’s filled with potholes deep enough to break an axle off a travel trailer. Forty miles an hour is way too fast in some spots.

I took my time, saw a bunch of black bears, camped out at an abandoned airstrip in the middle of nowhere, and then at the Dease Lake airport. No one bothered me, and I slept and ate like I wanted. Jade City, which is almost out to the Alaskan Highway, is a must stop, and there’s a gold mine across the road for those who want to play prospector. It’s a beautiful drive, but go slow.

Once you turn onto the Alaskan Highway, it’s clear sailing. The road is fairly flat and you can go like hell, but I ran into a different problem. I started stopping at the roadside gas stations and it wasn’t long before I sold all the bear books and PackAlarms I’d brought along. Fortunately, I’d hauled along enough unfinished assemblies so I could make some more, but I was stuck in Teslin two days keeping up with demand. Continental Divide Lodge bought ten PackAlarms all alone, so the interest far exceeded what I had expected. In any event, I finally made it to Whitehorse and parked at Walmart, a new experience for me. I lost count of the motorhomes and travel trailers at thirty-some, and people were running around and clucking like barnyard chickens. Too bad I was stuck making more PackAlarms. Dawson City is next, which is what the 1898 Klondikers once said. Some of them made fortunes, and maybe I will as well.

NASTY PEOPLE AND NICE ELK

2010-06-08T08:31:00.000-07:00

Stewart, British Columbia, was disappointing, right along with Hyder, Alaska, which I drove into by accident. I thought you needed to take a ferry, but that’s not the case. You drive between Canadian Customs and road construction barriers and, walla, you’re in Alaska. I did a U-turn, asked a young couple who were unloading cardboard boxes at a rundown store, “Why’s Canadian Customs back there? Where am I?” Both answered, “In Alaska, but don’t worry about it, because people do it all the time. Just drive back because customs ain’t gonna do nothing.”

“Where’s U.S. Customs,” I asked. They just laughed and said, “Where do you think you are, Arizona?” I drove away, since I knew they’d only seen my "keepsake" Alaskan license plate up front, not my “real” Arizona license plate in back. They’ll never know how right they are.

The experience tied a bit with a bad one I had into Jasper, which is the busy small town that headquarters the national park with the same name. It was rainy, the streets were narrow and choked with traffic, and I saw that I’d have to visit on another day. I headed back west and just as I reached the park’s entrance checkpoint ten miles or so west of town, my insulin pump beeped that I needed to refill it. I pulled over, went into my travel trailer, and found that I’d somehow lost all my insulin. I was in a bad fix and would soon face a life-threatening emergency. I did another of my infamious U-turns and headed back to Jasper as fast as I could.

I pulled into Jasper’s emergency care at its hospital, went inside, and told the woman at the desk about my crisis. She took my name, address, and the usual stuff and then said, “The emergency care will be $589, the doctor will be $300, and then there will be additional charges for the medical supplies you’ll need.” Needless to say I was stunned. “My God, I can’t afford $1,000 just for insulin,” I answered. “What are you doing to me, you know my life’s at risk if I don’t get some insulin right away.” She simply gave me a cold stare and said, “What would you like to do, sir?” I won’t get into the rest of our brief conversation, but I walked back out to my pickup and travel trailer as upset as I’ve ever been. The bottom line was I’d been told to either cough up $1,000 or drop dead.

I calmed myself as much as I could, found the refill insulin prescription my Arizona doctor had given me, and marched back into emergency care. “Here’s my prescription for additional insulin, and you need to help me right now.” The woman gave me another snotty look and answered, “Sorry, sir, but I’ve already told you what the charges will be.” I took a deep breath, gave her my own coldblooded stare and said, “Call the police. My pickup and trailer are parked out front, it’s not safe for me to drive, and I’m not moving until I get the medical help I need. Call the police because we’re getting this straighten out right now.”

It took her a moment to realize that I really meant it and the police would soon get involved in one way or another and that probably wouldn’t look so great for her and the Jasper Hospital. She grabbed the phone and started talking in careful words to someone I took to be the doctor working emergency care. It was late afternoon and almost no one was around. I waited. Finally, she hung up and said, “The charge will be $200 and the doctor will see you in the clinic around the other side of this building. He’ll unlock the door in a moment. Reluctantly, I paid the $200, found the clinic, met the doctor, spent five minutes with him, and left with a prescription for three bottles of insulin, which Rexal Drugs a couple blocks away filled for me. Minutes later, I was on my way to Alaska again. So much for Canada’s much-praised health care. Me thinks it stinks and is a lot better at extortion.

On my way out of the Jasper National Park, I spotted two good-sized bull elk feeding right beside the road. I stopped and took pictures of them from about 20 feet away. Suddenly, I felt something sniffing my back. I turned and here was a young elk right behind me so close that I had to back up to take a picture.

Isn’t it amazing that a wild animal was treating me much more kindly than Canada’s socialized medical care system, and by the way, the young elk refused to charge me a thing. At least someone in Jasper loves Americans, although it has four legs

THE BANANA BELT

2010-06-06T00:49:00.000-07:00

Osoyoos is where you get sent if you die and go to heaven, at least if you’re from Canada. Apples, grapes, peaches, ornamental plants and trees, along with about a million wineries—it’s one of North America’s most magical places. The western shoreline of Okanagan Lake, which is north and a little west of Spokane, is something to behold. One gets an indication of what it’s like when you learn that two of the lake’s towns are named Summerland and Peachland. God forbid Ted Turner and the Hollywood crowd find out about this place, because this seventh heaven is way too good for them.

I checked through Canadian customs and took my time on the way to Kamloops, which is the top of this “banana belt” of Canada, and once again, probably our northern neighbor’s best-kept secret. Afterward, I drove north on Highway 5 and then turned into Jasper National Park, which, along with Banff, are Canada’s two most important parks. Trouble is, it was mostly raining, and besides, like an idiot, I overlooked that I could’ve taken Highway 1 from Kamloops into Banff and then driven two magnificent wildernesses in one big swoop. Not one of my smarter moments.

Yesterday, I drove Highway 16 through Prince George, Smithers, and Kitwanga until I reached the infamous Highway 37, the long desolate stretch north to the Alaskan Highway, where it pops out west of Watson Lake. Except, don’t drive these roads unless you like two-lane tar, big trucks, isolated towns, and endless forests. All these places are like going back in time, and forget about Wi-Fi, cell phones, and most normal amenities until you reach towns like Vanderhoof, or spots like that, because they simply don’t exist.

Bears—I’ve already lost count. This time of year they’re in the ditches eating grass in the evenings. But be careful, because they’re a lot smarter than you think, and they like prime rib, red in the center, just like people. Always take into account they can cover a football field in three or four seconds. Want to take a close-up picture? In any case, read my bear book, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears, before you start schmoozing with bears.

Stewart, Canada, is next.

COUGAR LAKE LODGE

2010-05-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

I’m in Steptoe, Washington, which is not far north of Lewiston, Idaho, on Highway 195. It’s open farm country with a million big hills. I’m an hour or so out of Spokane, and I should be in Canada tonight.

I drove from Jackpot to a place called Cougar Lake Lodge the day before yesterday before I crapped out. The people who run the place were kind enough to let me park my travel trailer and get some sleep. I’d forgotten about Memorial Day weekend and all the traffic headed north on Highway 55, which is a snake trail if there ever was one. Narrow, treacherous, and the crazies sometimes pass you on the right, even though it’s only single lane with no-passing signs. It’s wonderful country with the road paralleling the north fork of the Payette River, which is full of rainbow and cutthroat trout. Yesterday, I followed Highway 95 along the Salmon River and the Clearwater River until I got to Lewiston. There were about a million fishermen standing along the shorelines, especially around Riggins, Idaho, so something was biting. One thing, though, forget about your cell phone and wifi, since there are no such things along this stretch. You’re kind of like back in the crank-telephone days, which, frankly, I enjoy.

It was interesting to see the Nez Perce country where the Lewis and Clark expedition faced starvation and so many other problems, and there were so many historical sites it wasn’t possible to pull over and see all of them. I would have liked to stopped for a couple of days, since it was my kind of country. Mountains, beautiful pines, wild rivers, and folks who are glad to see you, except my laptop was deader than a doornail. I hurried to Lewiston to see Dan, The Computer Guy, before he closed his shop. Anyway, what a great young man, and he didn’t charge me a thing for the repair of my computer. Come to find out, all that was needed was to pull the battery, reinstall it, and, walla, it came back to life. Was I ever happy, since I was almost sure the RV park’s electrical power in Jackpot had surged and killed my computer. There's no good explanation for why it decided to quit, just one of those things, but it will good for everyone to remember that if his or her computer won’t start, try pulling the battery, then putting it right back in. It worked for me. Hooray, I'm alive again.

See you up the road a ways.

STARTING NORTH

2010-05-27T19:04:00.000-07:00

Finally, Jackpot, Nevada. Cold, howling winds, spitting rain, and I can’t wait to get farther north so I can warm up. I’ve always wanted to see Ely and its high country, and now I’m completely satisfied. Think I’ll wait a while before I come back. Got out of Arizona a day late and the temperature was pushing 90, but they’ve posted a sign at Cactus Pete’s RV park they want everyone to disconnect their water hoses tonight. Wonder what that means? More global warming?

But I love Highway 93, and it’s worked out great since I’m striving for good gas mileage. It must be the best two-lane in America—glass smooth, almost no traffic, and mostly long flat stretches through high valleys with snowy mountains on each side. I’m setting my cruise control at 50 mph and getting 14 miles @ gallon. That’s impressive with a four-wheeler in back, a Mercury outboard that weighs a ton, and 200 pounds of other junk, let alone a 22-foot travel trailer towing behind. Love the Ford F150 5.4 Triton XLT I bought, and a guy can’t do better when he’s headed north. Got an old Alaskan plate up front and everyone comes over and says “howdy and how far is it?” when I gas up. Nice folks and the kind who made this country great.

I tried blogging the last two nights, but things didn’t work out for me. Got connected “wifi” but then got fooled because my laptop kept telling me it was offline. I was so tired, I couldn’t figure it out. Last night, my stick told me it didn’t like Ely, Nevada, and there were no other options. Tonight, I finally fixed my “offline” problem and I’m enjoying the RV park’s generous wifi connection.

Tomorrow, I’m off to the Spokane country. Couple more days and I’ll be in Canada, so keep posted since it’s a really long trip.

NORTH TO ALASKA

2010-05-16T08:27:00.000-07:00

Alaska is 4,000 miles from Arizona, the width of North America for all practical purposes. I’ve driven it a dozen times and flown it 30-plus times and have loved every trip. Other than running into bad weather while I was flying, I’ve never so much as had a flat tire. The Alaskan Highway is great and hardly different than driving anywhere else in the U.S. or Canada, and it’s a wonderful drive by anyone’s standards.

I’m always surprised by the number of people who believe it’s still a dirt road filled with potholes. Actually, most don’t realize the legendary road doesn’t really start until Dawson Creek, Canada, which is farmland, and the only mountain driving is limited to crossing the northern end of the Rocky Mountains between Fort Nelson and Watson Lake. Otherwise, you’re driving mostly in flatland and forest, then in a wide valley that stretches all the way to Fairbanks. I’ve driven it in the wintertime and it was a piece of cake.

You’re almost guaranteed to see bears beside the highway, stone sheep at Muncho Lake, which is west of Fort Nelson, and buffalo anywhere from the Liard River to Whitehorse and beyond. Caribou, deer, elk, and moose are commonplace as well, so carry a good camera with zoom lens, rather than getting into trouble by walking up to wildlife. Remember, animals can run at 30 miles an hour, which means they can attack you in just three or four seconds, hardly enough time for you to escape.

On this trip, I’ll be pulling a travel trailer with all the necessities of home so I can stop and enjoy the sights, promote my PackAlarm (http://www.packalarm.net/) since I now have the retail packaging completed, and renew old friendships with the bush pilots I sold airplanes and helicopters to in the past. My planning has included fully servicing my pickup and trailer and making sure there’s nothing mechanically wrong with either, buying the Alaska Travel Planner, The Milepost, and making common sense decisions on my clothing, since I want to camp, hike, and maybe float the Copper River, which isn’t without its risks. Light winter underwear, wool shirts, good raingear, waterproof hunting boots, hip boots, my satellite personal locator beacon, and my bear gun—I’m not leaving anything to chance. I’m even carrying jacks and tools so I can repair things myself, since the road from Dawson City, Canada, to Eagle, Alaska, isn’t known for its gas stations, which is one of the northernmost roads I intend to drive. Oh, and I have AAA as well, since it’s better to be safe than sorry.

My initial route will be the Cassiar Highway, which runs through the middle of British Columbia and pops out just west of Watson Lake in the Yukon Territory. This stretch has a little gravel and lots of trucks, but runs through a magnificent wilderness not far from the seacoast. I once saw 30-some bears, along with four wolves, on this route. It was a trip worth remembering.

FISHING HEAVEN

2010-05-11T03:48:00.000-07:00

Alaska’s salmon runs have started and everyone is waiting for them. Commercial fishermen are setting their nets at the mouth of the Copper River on Prince William Sound and sports fishermen are trolling for early kings in the Kenai River. People, bears, eagles, fox, rainbow trout, seagulls, and even wolves are lined up in anticipation of the coming spawning seasons. Five species of salmon, along with gold and oil, are what makes our 49th state a great place to live.

I had the good luck of selling floatplanes to lots of the best fishing lodges in Southwest Alaska near Bristol Bay, which is the greatest salmon fishery in the world. Some were kind enough to invite me to their places for a few days of fishing, and those trips were always exciting beyond belief. You don’t forget catching 30-pound kings one after another on the Nushagak River or 26-inch rainbows at Kulik Lodge, and that’s not to mention the gourmet food they serve their guests morning, noon, and night. Then throw in seeing brown bears at Brooks Falls in the Katmai National Park and you have a true world-class vacation.

Almost all Alaskan fishing lodges use barbless hooks and practice catch and release, especially for rainbow trout. This has helped preserve a veritable paradise for fly fishermen along the countless streams in Southwest Alaska. It’s hard to believe the state at one time paid bounties for rainbows because they ate so many salmon eggs. Times have surely changed.

Alaskans go after kings first, then follow by catching as many sockeyes as they can, since they’re considered the finest eating, then finish the season with silvers in the late summer and fall. The two other species are the chum and the pink, which aren’t fished as much. As an aside, chums are often called dog salmon, which is the name that old-timers gave them because they were used for winter dog food.

I’m getting ready to go back to the Last Frontier, except I’ll take my time along the way, see different country, and write about my trip whenever I can. Next week, I’ll describe my preparations.

$10,000 FOR JESSE CAPEN

2010-05-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

So, let’s get some facts straight about me finding a piece of bone and a Haines waistband along Tortilla Creek. Curiously, some people have been criticizing me and the possible clues that have surfaced in the area where Jesse Capen disappeared. I had once thought lots of folks wanted to find him, but now I not so sure. There is a variety of agendas at play, with law enforcement seemingly having its own.

On my first trip, I couldn’t get my Jeep up the first part of the Tortilla Trailhead and I hiked into where the old T-poles are and turned back. I could see that Tortilla Creek was flooded and guessed that Peter’s Trail was washed out in places. On my second trip, I used my ATV and camped near where Jesse had left his vehicle. I lucked into meeting my “spy” and he led me along Peter’s Trail, since I hadn’t hiked that particular stretch of the Superstition Wilderness. He knew about Jesse and the search that had taken place, but had his own opinion about the whole affair, which was critical of the supposed “100-man-search” that had taken place. Later, Jim Hatt confirmed by e-mail the reports of the Capen search didn’t seem altogether right. Let’s just say that moving 100 guys into the Superstition Wilderness by “high-rise” trucks and small helicopters for a one-day search is a bigger challenge than most folks would think, and the real number may have been smaller. Regardless, no one came up with anything.

On that second trip, I searched from Kane Springs to where Jesse Capen had parked, finding a quarter-sized piece of bone not far downstream from where I started. It was bone, no doubt about it, but whether it was human or otherwise, I couldn’t tell. I continued on, but with so much water in Tortilla Creek, it was impossible to complete a thorough search, which had been a problem all winter long. There were rocks and brush piled everywhere and no way to look at things without getting half drowned.

I took my piece of bone to the Fountain Hills Sheriff’s Office and spoke to a deputy. He was unfamiliar with Jesse’s disappearance and was annoyed that I’d bother him with a little piece of bone from what he said was Pinal County’s problem, not his. It was the old, “I got lots of better things to do than waste my time on some idiot who was looking for the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine.” After asking what part of a skeleton my find could be, he asked me to wait and he’d call a detective. Fifteen minutes later he came back and told me the detective thought it was wood, which left me incredulous. For crying out loud, the detective hadn’t even seen it. Obviously, I was getting blown off, and I instantly wondered why I wasn’t given my “wood” back if it meant absolutely nothing. Why in hell was the deputy keeping it? Was I now being investigated? Pinal County's problem? . . . I was baffled, to say the least. Things were getting a bit strange.

On my third trip, Tortilla Creek was mostly dried up, and although a few places were still impossible to look at without getting soaking wet, I could now search dry ground. My first find came quickly and indicated no one had yet snooped around on the bottom of what was once the flooded Tortilla Creek. There was the bone that I’d shown on “Clues to Jesse Capen’s Disappearance” lying in plain sight at what I call the “Three Forks,” which is just below Kane Springs. There were lots of coyote tracks, and it was clear they’d dropped it. Whether it had gotten there from upstream or downstream wasn’t clear to me, let alone whether it was animal or human, but I picked it up because I knew it wouldn’t be there long. Various critters work that area and bones usually get moved.

It was late afternoon by the time I reached the lower part of Tortilla Creek near the start of Peter’s Trail. I’ve written before that if you fall into flash flooding it’s like jumping into a wood chipper. Actually, it’s a lot more like a ball mill, since softball-sized rocks pound you into little pieces. I was amazed at all the damage along the creek’s length, with rocks four feet off the ground in brushy debris. I knew that the most anyone would ever find of Jesse would be broken bones and clothing remnants if he had, in fact, gotten swept off his feet.

I was searching the creek’s west bank when I saw something dangling three feet high in thorns. I examined it. It was a 42-inch Haines underwear waistband. Not many guys wear that size, let alone take off their shorts and throw them into a flash flood. I had found something that deserved investigation.

The next morning, I called the Pinal County’s Sheriff’s Office and told them about my find. At first, I got the runaround, with the dispatcher asking me where Jesse’s tent had been located, in Maricopa or Pinal. I said I didn’t know, but believed the items in question had come from Maricopa (the county line is in the general area). She said jurisdiction would depend on the tent’s exact location, but in any case she’d get someone in touch with me. I waited.

Finally, my doorbell rang and in walks the same deputy that I’d seen before, and he didn’t look pleased. He examined the bone and waistband I’d found, then asked me what kind of bone I thought it was. I answered that it must be part of an arm or leg bone if it was human. Next, we talked about whether or not Jesse’s mother would know what kind of shorts he may have been wearing, and then he told me that Jesse had been bipolar, his disappearance might have been staged, and I shouldn’t be disturbing crime scenes. Meanwhile, he barely took time to write down where I’d found both items, leaving me stunned. There are probably things you shouldn’t be telling people if you’re a law enforcement officer. In any event, it was now my turn to be annoyed and I told him I wouldn’t be searching for Jesse anymore, since I had better things to do with my time. Anyway, at this point I’m only left to conclude there are things going on that I don’t know about, the Maricopa Sheriff’s Office doesn’t like this Jesse Capen situation one bit, and they don’t like freelance searchers complicating their lives either. I can only guess why, but what pisses me off the most is I’m a big supporter of “Sheriff Joe,” and I can’t believe this is his actual policy. As far as I know, law enforcement isn't out there looking for anybody.

I wrote in my last blog that I had a surprise for my critics, and here it is. I’m pledging $1,000 toward a $10,000 reward that I want Jim Hatt, Mrs. Oroblanco, Silent Hunter, and Superstition Guy to establish for the recovery of his remains, which, frankly, should have been done long ago. Rather than wasting their time badmouthing me and what I’ve done, why don’t they contribute money, get others to do the same, and post Jesse’s picture and a $10,000 reward at the Tortilla Trailhead, rather than blog endlessly about where he might be? Show everyone you really care.

I’m ready to send a check the moment I’m shown a $9,000 cash account managed by a bank for the recovery of Jesse Capen, so let me know when that takes place. I don’t care if people only donate five bucks or $500, just so there’s a $10,000 reward established. Sadly, though, I'm afraid all I’ll see is never-ending blogging about why it can’t be done.

JESSE CAPEN AND WOULD-BE EXPERTS

2010-04-26T23:52:00.000-07:00

Frankly, I don’t know where to start, but let’s begin with “Mrs. Oroblanco” just for the hell of it, since it’s an indisputable fact that she hasn’t examined the bones and the underwear waistband that I found along Tortilla Creek, and even if she had she isn’t a forensics expert by any stretch of the imagination and plainly would be best served by minding her own business until she knows what she’s talking about. And her comments on Jim Hatt’s DesertUSAForums are disingenuous, to say the least, since I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her searching for Jesse Capen when the weather has been perfect and Peter’s Trail and Tortilla Creek are wide open once again. Granted, I’ve only been out there four days, but let’s just say I have a spy who’s been hunting all winter for the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, despite me telling him that he’s crazy. —Funny thing, he hasn’t seen “Mrs. O” either, but I’m sure she has some excuse for her absence.

Now let’s move on to the “Superstition Guy.” He’s the fellow, although he lives in Utah, who knows all about Alaska because he once helped a cousin build a cabin north of Denali Park, as opposed to actually living in that state for any length of time. He’s an expert on the Superstitions as well because he writes, “Yet I never considered heavy leather boots (except in snow and cold of winter) or snake gaiters while traveling through this wilderness and have never had a snake strike at me. I have found myself standing next to them, stepped over them and even once found myself staring at one only six inches away from my face, he sitting on a ledge in an old prospect tunnel. Dangerous yes but not to the extent that you think they are.” Without getting into the rest of his writing where he doesn’t even know that “rattlesnake” is spelled as one word, rather than two, I think he’d be incalculably better off by consulting a physician who has saved people from poisonous snake bites to learn that his outdoor safety practices need a little “improvement” so he doesn’t end up with search and rescue hunting for him. There’s almost no chance you’re coming back alive if you are bitten by a rattler in the Superstition Wilderness when you’re alone and a long way from Highway 88. But, of course, what do I know, so go ask your family doctor if you don’t believe me. Anyway, people usually expose their ridiculousness when they think they’re doing just the opposite. And thank you, “UhillEm,” for telling “Bryan” on my blog, “Rattlesnake Country,” that rattlers aren’t deaf at all. I never stop being amazed at how little most people know about wildlife.

Oh, and now we have “Silent Hunter,” who would have everyone believe, right along with “Mrs. Oroblanco” and “Superstition Guy,” the Superstition Mountains are loaded with man-eating bears. Nothing could be further from the truth, but in any case I looked at Arizona’s Game and Fish Department’s Website to make sure I had remembered correctly, and, sure enough, their black bear habitat delineations doesn’t include the Superstition Mountains. But what do they know, since they only make their living at it? However, there actually is a small black bear population that does, indeed, live in the "Superstition Wilderness," as opposed to "Mountains," near Globe in the high chaparral country where they have sustainable food resources. In addition, a few of these bears come down into the Reevis Ranch foothills to feed on prickly pear fruit in season. At any rate, I guess I haven’t learned that when Arizona maps spell out this particular area as Iron Mountain, the Music Mountain, the Pinal Mountains and so forth that I should ignore those names. My bad, so I won’t make that mistake again. And before I forget, I’ll also rewrite my bear book, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears, which is selling well, thank you everyone (Amazon), to say that since a black bear was sighted in Scottsdale a few years ago, that particular community should be considered as dangerous bear country as well, right along with Apache Junction. —I guess because I lived in Anchorage so long, which has 300 black bears and 60 or more brown bears within its city limits, somebody seeing a lone bear once in a blue moon represents a proven statistical population, and that’s, of course, with my various critics totally forgetting bears are hibernating in November and December so how could they have been a threat to anyone in the first place? And by the way, “Silent Hunter,” my name is right out front and center, along with Jim Hatt’s (although I have my issues with him as well), so is there some reason you want to hide behind some phony name? Come on, tell us who you really are, because lots of folks would like to see if you really have a pilot’s license, let alone what you’re certificated to fly.

Next week we’ll get the “bone” facts straight, rather than the baloney these three would-be experts keep blogging back and forth on DesertUSAForums. I’ll be adding a surprise as well, so stay tuned.

ANASAZI CLIFF DWELLINGS

2010-04-20T08:57:00.000-07:00

I love exploring Anasazi cliff dwellings and admiring their genius in building their homes in strategic places. They were the first North Americans to use solar heating, and their masonry work was incomparable since much of it is still standing today. What’s more, they built everything so they were well protected against enemy raids. It’s hard to attack a village when access is nothing more than a skinny ledge halfway up a cliff.

Some of what amazes me the most was their ability to chop down good-sized pines with nothing more than stone tools, then afterward carry these heavy trees up and down 500-foot cliffs. You must remember these were small people, with adults not much bigger than modern-day schoolchildren. The Navajos, who migrated to Arizona from Alaska long ago, called them “the people who could fly” because they were so astonished at their engineering skills. For whatever it’s worth, I’ve added the comic story that the Navajos kept moving south until they met someone who asked what their snowshoes were used for.

Earlier, I had blogged about loving to fly helicopters, and one of the reasons was being able to find Indian ruins that no one else knew about. For example, I’ve found mountaintop lookouts—high rock circles that clearly were used as signaling posts. Satellite photos have proven the Anasazi had trail systems covering the Southwest all the way into Mexico, and it’s not unusual for archaeologists to find seashells when they’re digging in cliff dwellings. Another thing that’s been discovered, although it's not politically correct to mention it, is cannibalism played a mysterious part in their lives. Anybody want to guess why they might have wanted to live up on cliffs?

There are no more interesting adventures than trekking to Arizona’s countless cliff dwellings, particularly those along the Mogollon Rim. Many are tough to explore because they’re in the middle of nowhere and require a couple of days or more of camping and hiking in high-desert country where there's little water and lots of rattlesnakes, along with mountain lions to worry about. Then you throw in the rabid bobcats that are plaguing Arizona and you have a true challenge. Regardless, I love it, and I’m getting ready to go again next week.

RATTLESNAKE COUNTRY

2010-04-16T10:40:00.000-07:00

I spent two days in the Superstition Mountains last week looking for Jesse Capen, the missing Lost Dutchman’s Gold enthusiast. Finally, Tortilla Creek had dried up enough where I could search from what I call “The Three Forks,” which is just below Kane Springs, to the old windmill at the start of Peter’s Trail. Flash floods had inundated the area from Thanksgiving until this March, and it was my opinion that Jesse had been driven from his campsite by dangerous thunderstorms. Everyone else had come up with all kinds of nonsense that he’d gotten lost (you’re sandwiched between cliffs, so how can that happen?) to a bear had killed him (there are no bears in the Superstitions). In any case, I’ve been the only one who’s spent any significant time looking for him and come back with anything at all, whether it passes forensic testing or not. No one else has spent any amount of time where Jesse disappeared—not law enforcement or anyone else. Frankly, I’m mystified, to say the least, because I would have posted a reward long ago, since I have sons the same age.

But the real point of my story is something entirely different. I knew the moment that I started my search for Jesse that Tortilla Creek would be crawling with rattlesnakes. The water’s now low and the geckos are out and you don’t know you’re in danger until you almost step on one. The creek is noisy and the wind is blowing so you can’t hear them until it’s too late, let alone see one since they’re always so well camouflaged. They’re hard to spot even on open ground, let alone when they’re hiding in the weeds. This is a situation where you need to know what you’re doing.

I don’t go into rattlesnake country without wearing heavy boots, snake guards that reach to my knees, a walking stick with a copper tip that makes lots of noise, and a personal locator beacon that alerts the satellite emergency system. I’m always into what I call “power camping,” which means I’m all alone a long ways from nowhere and if I get bit by a rattlesnake, an Alaskan grizzly, or anything else I’m doomed. My mother only raised a couple of fools, and I’m not one of them. Pay attention to business when you’re pretending to be Daniel Boone.

The secret to snake county is noise. They can’t stand the “tap, tap, tap” of a copper-tipped walking stick on rocks or anything similar. The noise scares the crap out of them and makes them move, which is the key to seeing them in time to save your life. Always make like a blind person when you’re hiking in rattlesnake country, since the life you save may be your own. All it takes is a copper-plumbing cap that you can buy at any hardware store, a sturdy wooden stick, and some J-B Weld. Is that too much to ask of you?

CLUES TO JESSE CAPEN'S DISAPPEARANCE

2010-04-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

I first learned that a gold prospector named Jesse Capen had vanished in the Superstition Mountains at around Christmastime. He was a 35-year-old Denver, Colorado, bellhop who had become obsessed with finding the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, which in my opinion doesn’t exist. In any case, different news stories caught my attention because I’ve hiked in those mountains and I knew where he’d gone missing.

Search and Rescue didn’t get organized for a full-scale search until January 17th, and by then there had been a couple of big rainstorms that had hit the Superstitions. Supposedly, 100 people had run around on foot and in helicopters looking for Jesse but had come up empty handed. All sorts of speculation started flying around about murder and mountain lions and why had Jesse left his billfold and personal things inside his tent, which was smashed to the ground. I started putting two and two together.

On my first trip into the Superstitions along what’s called Peter’s Trail, I saw that the adjoining creek looked like a freight train had roared through it. Flash flooding! All the signs were there, and suddenly I was sure what had happened to poor Jesse. He’d been caught in a terrible storm—thunder, lightning, high winds—and his tent had been flattened in the middle of night. It was clear to me that he’d grabbed his flashlight and took off for his Jeep which was only two miles away, since it’s impossible to get a tent back up in a storm. The problem is flood waters knocked him off his feet, and it’s no different than jumping into a wood chipper when you fall down in a rocky creek, or should I say flood-driven river. He had gotten torn to pieces . . . and then finally I found a little piece of bone. I gave it to the sheriff’s office, but the deputy said it looked like wood and nothing more happened.

I went out a second time last week and returned with two more items that indicate what had happened during that fateful night almost four months ago. Once again, I gave the sheriff’s office the things that are shown above, and now it’s time to search Peter’s trail with cadaver dogs. I'd like to see Jesse rest in peace and for his parent to know what had taken place, rather than worry without end.

THE ROAD TO McCARTHY, PART FIVE

2010-04-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

McCarthy, Alaska, is the jumping off point for the vast Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Once again, this is a stunning wilderness that’s six times the size of Yellowstone Park and boasts nine of the 16 highest mountains in the United States. Everything from smoking volcanoes to massive glaciers fill the sky in every direction, so flightseeing from the local airport is a must for most folks.

I once tried buying a trapper’s cabin with its own bush strip twelve miles east of McCarthy at the mouth of the Chitistone Canyon and spent two years working on the deal, so I learned lots about the area. World-class backpacking, searching for copper and gold nuggets, big-game hunting for mountain goats and Dall sheep, and white-water rafting are only a few of the things to do. For example, if you’re the adventurous type, have a bush pilot fly you into Hidden Lake across from the Kennicott Mine, stay in a hunting shack at the end of a bush strip, and climb to an old tunnel that terminates in solid copper. There’s a Volkswagen-sized copper boulder nearby with old Alaskan names carved on it as well. Get that thing out of there and you’re set for life, but in any case there are fun things to do in all directions.

The Kennicott mine, itself, is a mandatory visit, especially when you learn it was all constructed and producing copper before the railroad ever got there. How early twentieth-century workers freighted all the humongous machinery from Valdez is a miracle in itself and an outstanding example of how hard our forefathers could work. You couldn’t get people to do that now at the point of a gun, and most of it was done in the dead of winter. There’s a nice lodge near the mine, besides places to stay back in McCarthy. I’ve always found Kennicott really interesting, and now the park service is restoring the rundown buildings and offering tours to make it even better.

Arguably, the hardest hike in Alaska is called “The Goat Trail,” which starts in the Chitistone Canyon and climbs past a waterfall onto the Russell Glacier. From there, you can mini-raft down the White River to the Alaskan Highway in Canada. This isn’t a trip for scaredy-cats or those who aren’t in great physical condition, so don’t try it unless you’re half gorilla.

Several years ago, I landed in Glenallen with my Cessna 185 for fuel and was approached by a young man from the East Coast. He was a strapping fellow who wanted me to fly him to the trapper’s cabin that I’d mentioned earlier. I told him that I was heading for Anchorage, not where I’d just come from, and asked that he wait for a friend of mine who would be glad to take him, since bush flying was his business. I looked the part of a grizzled Alaskan, since I’d spent a week in the backwoods, so the young man started asking me questions, including would I look at his gear. I agreed but was aghast. In my kindest terms, I told him that he was backpacking too much, didn’t have a gun or bear spray, and his clothing and equipment weren’t really suitable for what he wanted to do. Right away, he got huffy and took my criticism as personal. I assured him that I was only concerned about his safety and stressed that he should be extremely careful if he climbed the Goat Trail, crossed the Russell Glacier, and floated down the White River, since the trip was fraught with danger. I stressed that under no circumstances should he launch his raft until he was well below all the icy moraines, otherwise he’d get sucked under a glacier wall and that would be the end of him. Well, long story short, he didn’t listen to me or my friend who flew him into the Chitistone Canyon. After several days of searching with a helicopter, search and rescue finally found his corpse. He’d done just what he’d been told not to do.

The Road to McCarthy is one of the best trips in Alaska. The locals are friendly, knowledgeable about everything, and an exciting time will be had by all. Oh, yes, don’t forget to have some coffee and pie before you leave town. You never know, you might face starvation on the way back to Anchorage.

THE ROAD TO McCARTHY, PART FOUR

2010-04-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

It’s 60 miles on a dirt road to McCarthy after leaving Chitina, with all of it through raw wilderness. Plan on spending two or three hours because of bumpy washboard and narrow corners where you must slow down, and it can even take longer if you stop at Strelna or Sculpin Lakes for rainbow trout and silver salmon fishing. This is a drive where you should take plenty of time to sightsee at the Kuskulana Bridge that crosses a deep gorge and farther along at a century-old railroad trestle. I like stopping at Long Lake as well, since there’s a wonderful cabin where pioneers once raised vegetables for the mining town ahead.

The Kennicott Copper Mine was discovered by four Minnesotans during the Klondike Gold Rush in 1900. They had met some Indians the year before and saw they were carrying copper nuggets, but the Indians wouldn’t tell them where the copper had come from. By the following year, the Indians were starving and out of tobacco so a deal was struck. The four lucky prospectors took off and pitched camp along the Kennicott River near what’s now the abandoned mine. Two of them kept looking at a green mountain in the distance, but the other two kept saying, “Naw, ain’t nothin’ but sheep pasture.” The two smarter ones finally climbed up to check it out and, lo and behold, found an absolute fortune in pure copper ore, which would turn out to be the richest copper mine in the world.

There’s great camping on your left just as you come off the last hill onto the flat stretch of road that ends at the walking bridge into McCarthy. I like pitching my tent on this hill because there’s endless trekking along the Kennicott Glacier, Fireweed Mountain, Fourth of July Creek, and all the way north to Hidden Lake, but you had better be a Billy goat because most of it is super rough. By the way, you will see real mountain goats along the way, so don’t forget your binoculars. Also, be very careful if you fool around on the glacier moraines or you will fall to your death and never be seen again. This is also prime grizzly country, so don’t be surprised if you bump into one. This is all dangerous wilderness where you need to know what you’re doing. Use my PackAlarm!

Park at the end of the road and walk into McCarthy. It’s not far and there are things to see on the way—a real-for-goodness glacial river, old cars and assorted mining junk, a mineral-water spring, then storefronts right out of the Old West. I love it here—maybe because this was where the drinking, gambling, and whoring were done. Kennicott, itself, was a mining settlement four miles away and these particular adult activities were strictly prohibited. Always somebody spoiling the fun.

I’ll close out “The Road to McCarthy” next time with stories about everything else there is to do. This place is paradise and you can spend an entire summer enjoying yourself.

THE ROAD TO McCARTHY, PART THREE

2010-03-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to the fork in the road, take it.” Wise words, indeed, since I don’t want you to miss seeing what I call “death-wish dipnetting” on your drive to McCarthy. What’s more, a little side jaunt will tell you lots about the history of Alaska, including the Trans-Alaska pipeline.

The famed pipeline runs alongside the Richardson Highway between Copper Center and what’s called the Edgerton Cutoff, so you’ll have the chance to see one of the greatest engineering marvels in the world. It’s an impressive sight and likely bigger than you think.

The Edgerton shoots straight to Kenny Lake, an area with a Devil’s Triangle aura that supposedly serves as a hideout for folks who need anonymity. In any case, all I ever saw of questionable value was a rundown homestead with a pole tepee and an old man who herded about a million goats alongside the road. Actually, there’s some nice-looking farmland beyond Kenny Lake, but not much activity. It’s hard to earn money by raising crops in this part of Alaska.

It takes an hour or so to reach your next destination, Chitina, which is a historic whistle stop along the Copper River & Northwest Railroad that ran to McCarthy and the Kennicott Copper Mine in the early 1900s. The mine was abandoned in 1938 and the railroad bed became the road from hell, at least until it was fixed up, but that was only on the portion running east, not the longer stretch that ran all the way to Cordova on Prince William Sound. That part is still the road from hell, and most of it is only navigable by mountain goats. However, the first several miles are through the Wood Canyon, which is one of the best salmon holes in Alaska. All you have to do is pretend you’re a cliff diver, cling to sheer rocks, and hold onto a long-handled dipnet in swirling eddies colored like coffee and cream. I call it death-wish dipnetting, because there’s no chance you will ever live if you fall into water that’s running so fast. And this is all assuming you survived the trip into Wood Canyon in the first place. Some years it’s safe to drive there in a Mini Cooper, other years with an ATV, and then I’ve seen it where I didn’t even feel safe on foot. My advice is to ask the locals before you take this particular fork in the road, but it’s well worth visiting this fascinating place. I especially like Haley Creek—it has a small waterfall, a sandy beach on the river, an old train tunnel that was blasted through a mountain in 1908, and top notch camping and fishing.

Once you’re finished with Wood Canyon, check out Chitina’s new bar, hotel, and restaurant, buy a souvenir or two, and take some pictures of storefronts straight out of the Old West, since this is one of the places where it all ended. Afterward, drive through a V-shaped notch in a rock wall, cross a long bridge, and then camp overnight by the confluence of the Copper and Chitina Rivers. There’s good fishing, Native Alaskans tending their fish wheels, and other travelers just like you enjoying Alaska. What more can you ask for?

THE ROAD TO McCARTHY, PART TWO

2010-03-22T06:51:00.000-07:00

It’s almost time to stop again after leaving Glenallen and turning onto the Richardson Highway. As I wrote earlier, Copper Center is your next destination, a dozen miles down the road, which has now become a “not-so-secret” salmon hot spot. Not long ago, it was unusual to see fishermen chasing kings and sockeyes along the Klutina River, which runs right through town, but now the lively action is visible from the main bridge that crosses one of the prettiest rivers in Alaska. Its glacier-blue water will leave a big impression on you, especially if you fall in. This river has a bad reputation for claiming lives way back to the 1898 gold rush days.

A little history before I go on—the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a headline in 1897: Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! 68 Rich Men on the Steamer Portland, STACKS OF YELLOW METAL! —Needless to say that got lots of people’s attention, and 100,000 took off for Dawson City on the Klondike Gold Rush. Unfortunately, few knew that Dawson City was actually in Canada, not Alaska, and it was almost impossible to get there without a superhuman effort. Oddly enough, Copper Center fit into the scheme of things. And scheme it was, since it got some slick-talking crooks very rich.

Passenger ships were advertising that Dawson City could be reached by sailing to Valdez (a single log cabin at the time), climbing to the top of the Valdez Glacier, descending the Klutina Glacier onto the Upper Klutina River, and lastly by floating down the length of Klutina Lake and its lower river to where Copper Center now sits on the confluence of the Copper River. Blowing off people’s heads with a shotgun would have been far prettier than what happened to the gold seekers who tried this ill-advised route, and more than 300 men died before the deadly saga was over. Four thousand got dumped off in Valdez, but only four made it to Dawson City via the dangerous Copper River. Nasty little challenge, wasn't it?

You are faced with some interesting choices when you pull into town. First, it’s easy enough to self-guide yourself and fish near the highway if you want. Trouble is, your chances of landing a king from the shoreline of the Klutina River aren’t a lot better than landing a speeding Harley Davidson up on the road. They bust off almost every time in the powerful currents. Second, you can hire a jet boat and a guide, but that will put a big dent in your pocketbook, though on the other hand you’ll have the best time of your life. Thirdly, you can buy a permit across native-owned land, drive what’s called the Klutina Lake Road, which, at best, is nothing but a boggy mess where you need four-wheel drive, except this gives you access to 23 miles of great camping and fishing, including the chance to see the wonderful Klutina Lake and remnants of the log cabins where so many Klondikers starved to death. A raft and outboard is the best way to fish this stretch of river, and then you’ll have some prayer of landing a good-sized king when you catch one. All of this is adventuring at its best and, yes, there are hungry bears everywhere, but don’t worry since they’re after sushi, not you. But buy my PackAlarm just in case! And by the way, the locals tell tourists to carry pepper spray, since their bears love spicy meat, red in the center. They’re a laugh a minute, let me tell you.

Once you’re done catching salmon, visit Copper Center’s log museums, which display artifacts from its bygone days. Last but not least, walk across to the Copper Center Lodge, a National Historical Roadhouse from the 1930s, for, yes indeedy, more coffee and pie.

Look, by now you must have worked up an appetite for the best home cooking in Alaska. Besides, you still have a long ways to go through a real frontier wilderness, so start with a treat.

THE ROAD TO McCARTHY, PART ONE

2010-03-16T04:50:00.000-07:00

I’ve driven it about a thousand times and never got bored. It’s a long drive and pretty much takes all day, or maybe two or three if you like snooping around on side roads for everything from gold panning to salmon fishing. There are a jillion places to camp, so it isn’t necessary to make room reservations, and the summers are usually warm and dry so you’re even comfy at night. And in the end you will find yourself in the middle of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, America’s biggest by far. Would you believe 13.2 million acres, which is more land than in some lower-48 states? I’ve always called this drive the everyman’s trip, since it really doesn’t matter who you are, because you’ll have a good time whether you’re young or old, rich or poor. Everybody is friendly and doing his or her own thing, so what more could you ask for?

You start in Anchorage and drive to Palmer, where I always find an excuse to stop. Coffee and pie, then maybe a drive out to the airport to look at airplanes and see if any sandhill cranes are feeding on the neighboring farm fields (carry your zoom lens as they’re always spooky), but in any case it’s easy to use up a couple of hours around town. And I always keep my eyes peeled for the 1,000-pound pumpkins the locals like to grow. Big jack-o-lanterns by anybody’s standards.

Next, I head up the Glenn Highway through Chickaloon Pass, which whipsaws its way ever higher between the Talkeetna Mountains and the Chugach Range. It seems like you’re driving north, but you’re really heading east. The scenery is often breathtaking and follows the mighty Matanuska River that flows from a four-mile-wide glacier further up the road. There are countless places to park and four-wheel in the mountains, fish on glassy ponds, or white-water raft. And watch closely along the way, because there’s even a road sign that shows you where to pan for gold near a fishhook turn with a bridge. Good camping spots, lots of bed and breakfasts, family-run lodges with restaurants, Dall sheep on Sheep Mountain, moose in the bottomlands, and Glacier Park at Milepost 102 where you can explore the largest accessible glacier in North America, it’s all right in front of you. Doesn’t make any difference what your age is, there are lots of things to do. Want to go ice climbing—you can do that as well.

Once you pass Gunsight Mountain (see the picture above), the highway is mostly a flat stretch all the way to Glenallen, a country town where you have one of your last chances to buy gas and groceries, and, of course, another helping of coffee and pie. Hey, we're dealing with a wilderness here, so you never know when you might face starvation. And don’t forget to stop on the way to Glenallen and look at Tazlina Lake and its massive white glacier off to the south. It’s spectacular to point of being scary, and someday I’ll tell you a rescue story involving old friends of mine that no one will believe. Talk about courage!

After filling your fuel tank and tummy, drive a couple miles and take a right turn onto the Richardson Highway. Your next stop will be at Copper Center, which I’ll write about next time. Hope you didn’t forget your fishing pole.

THE WOLVES ARE BACK

2010-03-11T06:39:00.000-08:00

The wolves that killed and ate Candice Berner, a 32-year-old Pennsylvania schoolteacher, have been seen near Chignik Lake again. A hunting party on snowmobiles chased them but got cut off by a creek too deep to cross. Everyone in the area is astonished by the wolf pack's aggressive behavior and its cunning ability to escape. The Native Alaskans in the small village of 100 are keeping a close eye on their children and living in great fear of their lives. Wolves have decimated local caribou and moose populations, but haven't targeted humans before. The state has approved liberalized wolf hunting in the area, but the program doesn't start until July, leaving the villagers on their own.

Originally, it was reported that a villager on a four-wheeler had discovered Berner's mutilated body beside the road to the airport, which is seven miles from town, but actually four snowmobilers found blood stains on some fresh snow that had fallen earlier. They followed a blood trail and wolf tracks downhill until they saw Berner, then alerted everyone in town. The wolves circled in the distance but refused to leave, which alarmed everyone involved in recovering the remains.

Berner was based in Perryville, another native village on the Alaskan Peninsula, but had come to Chignik Lake to work with special-needs children. She was less than five-feet tall, loved to run, and thought her teaching job in Alaska was a grand adventure. The men who found her said it was clear from the footprints and blood stains in the snow that she'd been unable to put up much of a fight. Her parents in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, are devastated by the loss of their daughter, who had loved to travel. Wolf predation is rare around the world, with the only significant incidents taking place in India in the 1900s. Wolf packs killed and ate dozens of children on three different occasions before they were hunted down.

Chignik Lake will stay on high alert until the wolves are no longer a threat, and the state troopers are still waiting for the medical examiner to finish an autopsy so their report can be completed. Meanwhile, everyone needs to remember that Alaska is still a very unforgiving wilderness, so don't go there unless you know what you're doing.

WOLVES KILL AND EAT SCHOOLTEACHER

2010-03-10T04:52:00.000-08:00

State troopers are reporting they're investigating the death and predation of 32-year-old Candice Berner near Chignik Lake, a native village on the Alaskan Peninsula. She was a special-ed schoolteacher from Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, who had just come to town and went for a run on the airport road, where she was attacked by wolves on Monday evening. A local man riding an ATV found blood on the ground and then a partially eaten body in some brush several steps away. The Alaskan Peninsula is heavily populated with brown bears and wolves (see FIFTH IN MY "FAVE FIVE" OF BEAR SPOTS in an earlier blog), and the townspeople have often complained about these dangerous predators.

Alaska has seen a frightening increase in wolf attacks in recent years, including packs that were killing and eating dogs in Anchorage and Fairbanks. Joggers were suddenly finding themselves and their pets under attack and there was nothing they could do about it. In 2006, another schoolteacher was attacked along the "Haul Road" leading to Prudhoe Bay, and a hunter shot a rabid wolf that had bitten him in 2009. I have often told people who ask me about camping and hiking in America's Last Frontier that as many as 40 wolves have been seen in one pack and they are not to be trusted. A big club will work against one, but not two or more.

The state troopers flew Berner's body to Anchorage for an autopsy, despite the obvious signs of predation, so their investigation can be evaluated and completed by a medical examiner. Meanwhile, various wildlife experts are speculating as to why wolves would attack a human, which is rare and has only been taking place in more recent times. A young man was killed and eaten in Saskatchewan in 2005 under similar circumstances to Monday's tragedy, since he was alone on an isolated road as well. My opinion is everyone is forgetting there's less hunting than in times past and wildlife is becoming more aggressive around people. And my second opinion is that you NEVER go running in a wilderness area, not if you know what's good for you. Stealthy vigilance is the key to safety around man-eaters, whether it's in Alaska or anywhere else.

THE "KUNG FU" BEAR

2010-03-04T08:54:00.000-08:00

For years, I had heard rumors about the brown bears on Kodiak Island and the Alaskan Peninsula that would stand and try picking fights with helicopters that were maneuvering at close quarters to dart them for research purposes. Fish and Game often works in the field to examine the health, size, and populations of its different bear species and nothing works better than something like the Bell JetRanger. That's a good-sized ship that sounds something like a full-blown hurricane when it's hovering overhead, so I was always curious as whether or not this could be true, but I was never able to find anyone who had witnessed it.

Twice, my wife and I flew our Robinson R22 helicopter on round trips between Phoenix, Arizona, and Anchorage, Alaska, which is maybe more adventure than anyone deserves in his or her lifetime. It's 4,000 miles each way and takes you over some of the wildest parts of the world. The toughest part of the trip is always the cross-country leg between Fort Nelson, British Columbia, and Watson Lake in the Yukon Territory, which takes you down the last part of the Toad River and then over such fun places as Hell's Gate, the Rapids of the Drowned, and Boiler Canyon on the fearsome Liard River. This is a Class V white-water river that whipsaws its way through the northern end of the Rocky Mountains, then off into the Yukon wild, and it's never failed to make my hair stand on end whenever I'm flying it. Then you throw in some bad weather and high winds to make things lots more exciting and you have yourself a real circus ride. Once a friend asked me what I'd do if my engine ever quit over this butt-puckering stretch and I simply answered, "Roll my helicopter over and kill myself as fast as possible." There's never much room for an emergency land no matter what altitude you use.

On one particular flight the weather wasn't a factor, since it was an electric-blue day without a breath of wind. It was one of those times where you can sit back and relax as a pilot and watch for wildlife. I looked it up in my logbook and it was on April 14, 1997, and so the mountains and bottomlands were still covered with snow, but that just made things all the more beautiful.

As I headed westbound on the Toad River at only two hundred feet or so, I spotted a black spot on the snow in the middle of the channel. I knew instantly what it was, although I felt it was unusually early. I punched the intercom button. "Sharon, look at what's up ahead."

She put down our map and peered ahead, then shot me a dirty look. "Why didn't you let me bring my camera? I just knew this would happen."

"Because we're a hundred pounds over gross as it is with our gas cans and stuff, and we just didn't have the room."

She wasn't buying it, and to make matters worse she sensed that I was up to something. "So now what do you think you're doing?" she asked in a snotty voice.

"We'll stop and take a look at him, since I can't figure out why he's up so early."

I did a quick stop, which is where you drop the collective control and stand a helicopter on its tail with the cyclic control and let the main rotor slow you down, and in the case of a R22 you're going from 90 knots to nothing in the matter of seconds. Once you're zeroed out, you shove the cyclic forward and level the ship, meanwhile lifting the collective to go into hover. It's quite a ride when you're going full blast and then suddenly stop . . . especially in front of a grizzly that's furious that somebody woke him up from his lunchtime nap. We had found one that had run down a moose on the river, fed on it, and was defending it with its spread-eagled body. It was just like Sharon said on the intercom, "He looks like a big flying squirrel."

I still can't say whether a brown bear will kung fu with a helicopter, but I can tell you a grizzly will certainly charge one. And it's a good thing you can fly backwards in a flash, because otherwise this one would have smashed out the Plexiglas bubble to get at us. Actually, it got pretty scary, and it's hard to believe how enraged a bear can get. There's a good reason why you shouldn't surprise one on its kill.

I LOVE HELICOPTERS

2010-03-02T10:05:00.000-08:00

I love flying helicopters, and it's the closest that humans can come to copying hummingbirds. They are technical marvels, and getting more so because microprocessors now help fly them. For example, put a modern-day helicopter pilot aboard a 1950s Bell 47 and he'd kill himself in seconds, since that's how hard it is to fly one. Fortunately, the really tricky things are done automatically for you these days.

In times past, the main rotor rpm had to be kept within limits by hand, and the only way you could do that was with the coordination of a motorcycle-like throttle and the pitch angle of the main rotor blades, which were controlled by a lever called the collective; or in other words, by watching the rotor rpm indicator out of the corners of your eyes. And if that wasn't bad enough, your feet controlled the tail rotor for maneuvering while hovering, which, in turn, took its toll on engine power. Suffice it to say, all the moving parts sucked lots of performance from the helicopter and it was a high-wire act to keep everything from killing you. There was an old saying that if a helicopter pilot got to the point where he could fly and smoke at the same time, he was an ace. And there was a second old saying that was even more germane--there's no such thing as having too much money or too much power when you fly helicopters. They're always expensive to fix and weak on engine performance.

Airplanes are a piece of cake to fly compared to them, since once you take off with a plane you can pretty much sit there and pick your nose, whereas in a chopper you don't dare let go. Their cyclic (stick) is so sensitive flight instructors tell their student pilots to just think about turning and don't actually move the controls. Pilots can literally drive a helicopter out of control if they jerk around on its cyclic, particularly in the Robinson R22 like the one above. They are so vulnerable to self-destruction in high winds and turbulence that pilots must maintain their speed at 60 knots or less to keep the main rotor blades from cutting off the tail boom. Not a pleasant thought.

The other problem with helicopters is the restrictions that federal and state officials put on them. You can't land in national forests and parks, for example, so it becomes difficult to make cross-country flights in places like Alaska where the distances are so great. Bureaucrats like nothing better than seizing perfectly good helicopters for one phony reason or another, so you must be careful where you land. I always followed a third old saying--always throw an oily rag and a wrench on the ground when you land. "Sorry, sir, but a red light came on and I had to set 'er down." Remember, it's always easier to apologize than ask permission, especially with government pencil pushers.

Do you want the challenge of a lifetime? Learn to fly helicopters, besides Alaskan air-taxi operators are always looking for pilots. I can't think of a more exciting career.

TESTING THE PACKALARM

2010-02-24T11:09:00.000-08:00

It’s one thing to invent something but quite another to make sure it works, especially when it’s used as a bear alarm. The first problem you run into is when you want bears around you can’t find one to save your life, and then when you don't want them around a whole herd shows up. They’re aggravating creatures, mostly because they’re lots smarter than most people think. Given enough time, they’ll figure out things you wouldn’t believe, which makes them very dangerous if you make mistakes.

I conducted my tests in the Tonsina wilderness, which has the far-flung boundaries of the Richardson Highway, the Edgerton Highway, the Copper River, and The Tiekel River. It’s an interesting place, since part of its access road is actually the old pack trail that ran from Valdez to Eagle in the 1898 Klondike gold rush. The nice thing about this area, besides an abundant bear population, was an old trapper’s cabin eight miles in. I saddled up my ATV and headed for the boondocks.

I set up housekeeping in the cabin and then rode ahead searching for just the right place for my test site. I wanted a location where I’d get lots of action from both blacks and grizzlies, which are the two that give campers the most grief. In addition, I wanted an area that was relatively open, yet where bears wouldn’t feel threatened, which means a long way from cover. Lastly, I wanted someplace where I could sit on a hill with my binoculars and keep an eye on things.

My test site consisted of my North Face tent, burnt bacon, and the smoked salmon strips I’ve written about earlier in Three Bear Limit. If that doesn’t draw them in, there are likely no bears within several miles. The very next day, I already had a midsized black try raiding my “let’s-pretend” campsite, and on a second trip a “teenage” black tried the same dirty trick. The PackAlarm worked like a charm and scared both half silly and into headlong retreats.

Finally, I had something that would let me sleep at night, although I kept testing it on sheep hunts and similar adventures. Other than having to replace the sensor line when the two blacks tangled it, and the time a moose wrapped everything around some trees, it never let me down.

Here’s a new's flash for you--rutting bulls will attack tents too. Sleep tight!

INVENTING THE PACKALARM

2010-02-21T09:14:00.000-08:00

My first scary experience with a bear was when one sniffed the back of my head as I was sleeping with my whole body against a tent's sidewall. “What’s a dog doing out here?” I wondered, except then it occurred to me that I was in a Canadian wilderness where there were no people. I screamed so loud that my fishing buddy almost died of a heart attack, and then both of us hollered and beat the inside of the tent until the bear retreated far enough for me to crawl out and restart our campfire. It was a good-sized black that stole our fish and finally left us alone. We had no weapon other than an axe, so we moved our campsite to a distant island.

Next, I moved to Alaska and learned firsthand about the dangers grizzlies can present, particularly since I sold bush planes to people who made their living in bear country. Every year, a half dozen or more people are mauled and/or killed in that state, so it’s an ever-present threat when you’re working in the wilds. I never worried much about getting attacked while I was awake for the reasons I wrote about in my book, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears, but sleeping in a tent always bothered me. You don’t know that you have a bear problem until it’s too late, since you’re zipped up in a tent and zipped up in a sleeping bag and it’s windy outside and pitch black as well. The first sign of trouble is when one jumps on you, so now what do you do? You’re in real trouble even if you have a gun.

I started experimenting with garage door beams and motion detectors but nothing worked in the real outdoors because of the brush, rain, squirrels, weeds, wind, and whatever else that makes up the typical campsite. All the fancy stuff triggered an alarm whenever a rabbit hopped by, plus it turned out too expensive to manufacture besides. The only way I could get anything to work was to clear off something the size of a tennis court, which isn't practical at all. I was stumped.

One day, I happened to be fishing in a salmon stream and got snagged around a rock, yet I could feel a fish nibbling on my bait. Eureka, I had finally stumbled onto something and KISS, I told myself, “Keep it simple, stupid.” I had learned the threadlike superlines that fishermen love so much are almost frictionless and stretch free. It didn’t take me long to invent something half the size of a coffee cup that weighed less than eight ounces, protected 6,500 square feet, and was reasonably priced. I’ve been selling my invention on http://www.packalarm.net/ ever since.

I will tell about field testing the PackAlarm next, since I wanted to see what bears would do when they tripped the alarm.

TERMINATION DUST

2010-02-16T14:31:00.000-08:00

THREE BEAR LIMIT

2010-02-13T05:48:00.001-08:00

Alaska’s Game Management Unit 16, which sits above Anchorage, is an Arkansas-sized wilderness that’s full of black bears. Usually that’s great news to most folks, but not so much when lots of families rely on subsistence hunting and fishing. The kids and sled dogs go hungry unless mom and dad can shoot a moose, and not many are left anymore. It’s the old story, people get pissed, put pressure on the politicians, and then the word gets passed down to Fish and Game to get rid of the bears. Consequently, non-resident hunters can take three black bears from spring to fall with few restrictions, so it’s open season on them for all practical purposes.

But this opportunity comes with sizable challenges, and so before you shout, “Eureka,” and jump into your pickup you must take the following things into mind. First, game management unit 16 is a rugged wilderness of thick forests, bottomless bogs, countless lakes, and powerful rivers—complicated by the fact there aren’t many access roads. Don’t go there unless you know how to live in a tent for days on end where the woods gets so wet you can’t keep a fire going with fuel oil. And the mosquitoes can get pretty thirsty in the meantime, if you get what I mean. This is backwoods country where you need to buck-up or stay at home. Search and rescue has enough to do without you adding to their worries.

Second, presuming you are limited in time and budget, it’s not so easy to find bears when you’re hunting them, and then, as I write about in my book, Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears, when you don’t want them around a whole herd of them are breathing down your neck. Alaska’s hunting regulations tell how you can bait them, which is challenging when you’re short on time. However, here’s a secret formula, but it ain’t cheap—smoked salmon strips. Bears love them even more than people do and will literally roll around on top of them. They smell so strong that you can’t wash the stink off your fingers. Tie a bunch to a tree branch, build a smoldering campfire and throw some of them onto hot ashes, along with a little bacon, let the smoke ride the wind, maybe leave some old sweet rolls lying around, and, walla, it shouldn't be long before you have a visitor. Words of caution, though, don’t shoot any brown bears (grizzlies) unless you have claw marks on you. Alaska gets mighty upset with non-residents who shoot brown bears without a big game guide. Once again, read the regulations and follow the rules.

The best hunt, in my humble opinion, would be to drive to Alaska with a hunting boat and short-shaft outboard (jet boats are much preferred), drive off the Parks Highway to the Deshka Landing near Willow, then motor down the Susitna River to the Yentna River, and hunt up from there. There are lots of sandy islands to camp on, and an idiot can figure out how hunt black bears all the way to the little settlement of Skwentna. An alternate is the Yentna to the Kahiltna River, which really takes you into some wild country. Other than that, do lots of homework on the Internet, study Google Earth, be extra careful, and don’t forget your fishing pole.

Good luck!

THE BEST DRIVE IN ALASKA, PART THREE

2010-02-08T17:10:00.000-08:00

DEATH-WISH DAREDEVILS

2010-02-04T16:34:00.000-08:00

Alaskans are often fearless, which explains why so many die at an early age. Bush flying, crab fishing on the Bering Sea, and mountain climbing account for most of the untimely deaths, but water sports take a serious toll as well. For example, windsurfing on Turnagain Arm near Anchorage is one of the most dangerous things you can do.

There’s no place in the world that challenges windsurfers more than the gale-force winds and the 30-foot riptides that race between the mountains just east of Anchorage. If it isn’t deadly enough for death-wish daredevils to launch from sheer rocks and bottomless quicksand, then consider they also must dodge everything from icebergs to beluga whales once they take off. This isn’t an activity for the faint of heart, to say the least, and then you throw in the 10-foot bore tides off Cook Inlet to make things even more exciting. People have disappeared forever in silty saltwater that’s too thin to plow and too thick to drink.

I was stunned when I first saw the colorful sailboards ripping back and forth across Turnagain Arm when I first moved to Alaska. I’d flown floatplanes across the same waterway and was well aware of the afternoon winds that blow at warp speeds from the east, and the turbulence was often enough to loosen your teeth. I once had to crab 45 degrees into the wind to make the Anchorage International Airport. That’s a lot of wind, but there were several windsurfers down below. The red, yellow, and green thrill seekers were having the time of their lives, and going almost as fast as me. Incredible.

All I can say is there’s never any shortage of dangerous things to do in Alaska.