Photos compliments of AHS

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Spring bear season is in full swing here at Icy Bay. So far the Alaska Hunting Specialist crew is  batting a thousand three  bears over seven foot and the rest over six foot six. I’m working some stories on individual hunts, but with one computer in camp and seventy eleven people needing their daily facebook fix it hard to get much computer time. Plus it has been a busy spring and it’s going to be a short summer for me. I head home on the Alaska ferry on the 8th of June then turn around and head back to Icy Bay for fall moose and brown bear in mid August. Not much time for work on our new cabin and firewood. Oh well I’ll have some hunting storie and lots of pictures soon.

Later Chuck

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Winters last blast

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I’ve had my disagreements with Don Young Alaska’s only congressman, but the other day he did something that should make every Alaskan proud. A while back he was given an award by the Humane Society of the United States for his work in his Marine Mammal Assistance Amendments. Even though the amendments fail muster the HSUS decided to honor him with their Humane Award, which Congress Young promptly turned down HSUS calling them (HSUS) the hypocrites that they are.  HSUS has been Young’s nemeses for the better part of Young’s  stint in congress. Congressman Young has been an avid supporter of consumptive use of wildlife his entire career. Congressman Young recognizes Alaska’s rich traditions of hunting, fishing, and trapping  a stance that has put him at odds with many animal rights groups like HSUS. You got to love a politician who is willing to take a stand against the gia worshiping folks and back those of us who live closest to the resources.  If the other 534 members of congress had Rep. Young’s tenacity America’s resources would be the better for it.

The Anchorage Daily News article.

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Melting snow for hot chocolate

Mid-winter is my family’s favorite time of the year the highbush cranberry and alder is covered with a few feet of snow so we can go almost anywhere. Eight months out of the year they are so thick you have to hack your way around, with several feet of snow covering them we are free to explore and wonder anywhere our feet take us. Our favorite way to do it is on snowshoes so at least one day a week we put on our snowshoes and head out. Last Saturday was clear with the mercury in the thermometer headin’ south toward zero after several warm snowy days. With more warm temperatures and snow in the forecast we decided it would be a good day for a walk about. We suited up, loaded a backpack with an old pot, cups and some cocoa mix then headed out for the hundred acre woods. The boys took the lead and broke trail while ma and pa  brought up the rear, they go five miles to our one mile. It’s amazing watching them as they grow; it just seems like yesterday they wouldn’t get more than a few feet from either Jenny or me. Now it’s hard to keep them both in sight they are always in the exploring and learning mode.  They make more discoveries in a few yards than Henry Hudson and Capt. Cook did in their entire lives. Each new discovery they run back and tell us about it in five hundred words or more. If they are not telling us about something they are asking about something their curiosity is without end; Why did that tree grow crooked? Why do squirrels eat spruce cones and how come they left half of it on  that stump? Our boys at seven years know almost every plant in their backyard, if it is edible, if it has medicinal value, if it makes good fire starter or what ever if it has a use they know it. In the spring Jenny can send them out to pick wild salad greens and not worry about picking something that will do us in. That’s for another day though I’m getting off on a rabbit trail here anyway back to last Saturday. After a couple of hours wandering around exploring and taking pictures we ended up where I had been cutting firewood a few days earlier and had left piles of spruce branches.

Drying gloves

The boys and I gathered branches while Jenny got a fire going to dry gloves and fix some hot chocolate. For the next hour or two we sat around the fire getting smoky and drinking hot chocolate while we listen to the boys recap our latest adventure. When the chocolate runs out and the fire dies down we pack up and head home. Winter time explores and hot chocolate has become one of our family traditions. A tradition that will make the memories Jenny and I will have of the boys in our old age. One, hopefully, the boys will carry on with the next generation when their kids are breaking trails and doing the exploring.

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If it weren’t fifty miles to the nearest road I would head to the local Mom & Pop for an espresso-IV to give my brain some motivation. After I get the fire going again I figure work is a lost cause so I close down the laptop and  grab an old Louis L’amour novel while I sit by the stove to enjoy the last bit of quiet before it’s time to start rousting the everyone out for the day. When it is time to get everyone else up I put on a CD then start cooking breakfast while the crowd is getting dressed. All goes well I get breakfast going I didn’t burn anything, at least not to bad. Now it’s time to go to work for the day. Today I planned to get some firewood in for one of our neighbors who has a vacation cabin over at the lake. I always love getting their wood in every single tree on their place is on a hillside. So I load up the snow machine with snowshoes, chainsaw and gas and head out their cabin is only about half a mile of alder away. This year has been a low snow year so far we have only had about eight or nine feet. I know that sounds like a lot to you folks down  in Georgia but it takes a good fifteen feet to cover the alder patches up here. Fifteen feet will usually translate to about seven feet on the ground after it settles.

After weaving my way though the alders I get to the neighbors back yard their cabin is in a little bowl on the lake surrounded by hills. On one side the hills are about a sixty degree incline the other side are less radical they are closer to thirty degrees. So they are the ones I use to get to the top. Thirty degree slopes usually aren’t to bad even with a foot or two of powder on the crust. I pick out one that looks like a clear shot to the top and blast off. About half way up one of the ski’s finds an alder that wasn’t buried nearly as deep as it should have been. I left my sled with my snowshoes setting back at the cabin a couple of hundred yards away. So now I’m wading through four feet of snow going back to the cabin to find a shovel (I left my shovel at home) and my get the snowshoes. The only shovel I could find was a tiny #2 round point so I grab it and my snowshoes and head back to my buried snow machine. After an hour or so I finally get the snow cleared enough to cut all the alders wrapped around the snow machines ski’s but I’m still no better off than I was an hour earlier. So it’s back home to get a come-a-long and a good shovel. I load everything on a plastic sled and go back to my snow machine.  Another hour of digging a hole the size of Rhode Island I’m able to start maneuvering my seven hundred pounds of machine around, thank heaven for reverse. When I finally get it turned around headed down hill it’s four o’clock I’m soaked with sweat, yes your sweat glands work in the cold. I figure it’s time to pick up and call it a day. Today’s is another day and it’s time to get the rest of the clan up and going.

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