00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything. Um, first thing I want to talk about, I want to revisit some of your time about earlier, earlier today, Danny, I didn't know that when when you uh, I knew you shot a mule deer out of a tree with your recurve. I don't know that you were in a tree stand you literally climbed up and shot it off the branch of a tree. No, like, you're not into the whole safety hirness scene and all that. You're just like sitting up in the limb of a tree with a recurve. Yeah, I mean, mostly out of necessity. But that's that's so old school man. Well, it was a cottonwood, you know, and had these giant horizontal branches, and I mean it felt I had I was kind of surrounded by branches and real tucked in there, and it wasn't I never felt like I was gonna fall out of it. So how'd you like nobody ever does? Yeah, I think it catches people by surprise, falling out of trees. So how did you like pull back and swing the bone everything up there, just standing on a branch. Yeah, standing on a big big I've done a lot of that. Actually that's my m O hunting down south for a long time. Uh yeah, I don't know. I just make it work. How can you keep your balance and and being full drawing, especially with a ree curve. But it's like it's it's just it was this cotton with the well dirt probably knows the tree. But yeah, I would always muled your hang out in your dad's place. But um, yeah, it's a big that cotton when it has like a couple of branches that swing out horizontally and then go up and it's just like this kind of a true standards shimmying up in there, settling and shot with your screwed in a few steps to get up there, you know. But yeah, she meet up in there, and didn't you tie a little piece of para cord around? I might have. I think I've had a string to pull off. Was one of those Nascar harnesses five point harness. That's all, um, Buck Bowden, can you first off do you mind first off telling about uh how you how you got the name buck? Oh yeah, because you were born Mike Bod Yes, I was born Mike Boding hidden Alaska outfit. Yeah, that was my first winter and nome um as at school there. It was right when locking buck knives had first come out. So so there I am the new kid in town in high school and I'm taking this buck knife at night, just been given and um, I think it was my uncle. You know, that guy's living. He was trying to, uh, you know, get me to be uh you know, an Alaska native kind of a thing, you know. So so first knife, you have the first thing. Uh, you know, a young boy neat needs a knife. So so he gets me this locking buck knife and I'm at school and I'm flipping it around and catching it by the blade. So um, I catch him by the blade. But then so then I sliced my thumb open, had to go to hospital. They had to sew the tendon bent back together, and then there I am at school the next day. But because I heard the story originally just because people can't see when you hold up your thumb. I heard this story originally because I was watching you working with the chainsaw and I asked you if you were double joined because I couldn't figure out why your thumbs were cocked off at such wild angles? Yep, ye hand up for a minute. It's so weird. It's so cocked off at a while, the angle if people almost could see it through the right it was in the air. And and ever since then, so yeah, so so there I am at school the next day my thumb owned the bandage had they had just sown attending together, and so me and all my infinite wisdom, there I am at school the next day doing it with my other hand. Okay, so and the same thing happened there. So there I am with with you know, I still have the scars here to show it. But um, so there I am at school now with both of my thumbs bandaged up. And ever since then they gave me the name Buck and it stuck. It was just kind of like the big joke in school, and then it just followed me on, even even on my It's like, there's so many questions that brings up. So what hand did you do it to? First? I think it was my left hand because I'm left handed, So I was with my left hand and the next day you got the bandage on that hand and you're like, I'm gonna master that same trip with my other hand exactly and cut it the same way. Yeah, the same yeah, yeah, trying to catch up late late, the same way. And of course me being left handed and trying to do my right hand, I'm not near as coordinated, you know, with my right hand. Of course. What did doctors say? Uh? He actually said that I had the brains of a cabbage, he thought. So they bandage that hand up, and when it comes out, you wind up with two what looked to be double jointed thumbs, full range emotional with the end. Uh yeah, yeah, I can't bend them forward, but they automatically spring back to the ninety degree position of work for a place called professional tree service, you know, climbing trees and doing arborst work. And he had, uh he cut off his middle finger. I assumed it was from a chainsaw. He cut it off on a log splitter. Oh really, Yeah, But when he was holding the when he's holding his chainsaw, he's always giving you the middle finger because the glove, you know, his leather glove would always be sticking out. Man. Quick side note. The same guy he bought a house and someone told him when he bought a house and someone said, man. The lady that lived here before you buried a jar full of money somewhere in the yard. We don't know where and when. When I would show up to work in the morning, I think I'm supposed to be there seven, I can't remember. He'd always be out digging around in his yard. It's like his part of his morning routine would be to go out and dig around looking for his jar of money with nine fingers. But with it with this sad, I mean that's an actual fact or it's just just lords in there. Yeah. Someone told him he ran a type of chainsaw called a sax dolmar. You know that's teeth throat out of your head. Yeah, yeah, run good, but they'll rattle the teeth out of your skull. Think I think there's Stiller German made. But yeah, I haven't heard of sax dummer for a long time. Everybody runs huskar barn, isn't husks and stills? Yeah? Uh so talking about how you wind up and you know, because you were born in the Midwest, right, I was born in the Midwest. I was born in the You know, um, I was not a model perfect child when I was growing up. You know, it was in the late sixties and uh, part of the counter culture. Yeah, I was, yeah, yeah, and there was a you know, there were a lot of h you know, they were the peace marches going on. There were there was racial tension everywhere, you know, uh pure Illinois. Yeah. And so anyway, I was at a little bit bit of a rogue. And I've always been uh you know, had to be in the outdoors and uh just a live lit to being outdoors. And I was frustrated, I guess when I was a kid, because I just didn't have, you get, getting near as much as I wanted to. So I ended up if we're into it, nah, they well, I mean they knew I always was always wanted to be any outdoors and and I was always uh you know, running away and going living in the woods, and they had to send somebody to find me and everything else. And then at one point I finally uh uh got the hanging out with U with some bad people. We broke into our my grade school, went into the science room and had our way with it, had fun with it. And so anyway, got caught doing that. So I was taken before the uh the courts, you know, the juvenile courts, and for the vandalism, for the vandalism exactly. And of course, you know, my my recent history had preceded me a boy throwing away, so apparently I was a problem child. He had to do something with me. And I'll never forget that. Uh. The judge said, well, we're gonna put you in to the Gifts Gift Home, which at the boy's home there and uh um, so I remember the judge looked looking down at his papers, and my parents said, well, if his godparents live and nom Alaska, can we send him to no nom Alaska. And the judge looked up and he looks at me over his glasses. Then he looks over my parents, looks over his glasses and says, I don't care where you're send him, just get him out of my town. And so there I am on the way to nom Alaska. So what but what did your parents think about that? What was their plan to see you again? Well, they just wanted to see me, rehability that you know that I would just thought, if you want to be in the outdoors here right, well, I don't know if there you go, buddy, so much saw that they just saw that I needed some sort of a change, you know, that they needed to get me out of the element that I was in. And actually, you know, I tell you the truth that it was the best thing ever happened to me. They put me up in an eld element that that it was nothing but outdoors. It was hunting, basically living off the land, just doing all this off the wall of stuff that I would just dreamed or read about. You know, at what age were you when you hit hit up? And um, I think it was fourteen? Yes, And did you know No, No, I was thirteen because I turned I remember landing in on me with July four and I turned fourteen July twenty four, So yeah, I was thirteen when I got there. And were your parents were there? Was there the plan that you would see your parents still? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I mean that it wasn't the thing where yeah, yeah, where they just wrote wrote me off and said, you know, good to good luck. You know, it was just they stayed in touch and then i'd uh. I think I think it was about a year later, No, a year and a half player because it was in wintertime, went down and um, you know, saw him in the family and and was with the family and and ever since then you know, we we we're still real real close our family is. So it wasn't like everybody just you know, way bye bye and they forgot So when you were when you were knowing, you fell in hanging out with the the native kids. That's what what what what like what adigitous group? Is it known? It would be the Inupiats. Yeah, yeah, the the Inupiats up there, and uh that's how you kind of fell in with yep yep. And you know my uh instantly had had a native girlfriend my year, my first year there, and I got to know their family real well, and I'd hang out with him and and it was it was just to me just the needest thing in the world, being able to go and you know, eat traditional native food. And I wasn't afraid for ready to try it, and I had actually ended up loving it, you know, uh d brook, which is you know seal that's soaked in seal oil, and I love that, uh you know, muck tuck uh oh shuck um. And then so I'd live but um, you know, I hung around with them quite a bit in their family. They uh, they spoke the native tongue more more and more than they did English, so you know, I got to uh learn a little bit about the culture and hang out with him, and and it was it was before the UM you know, the uh I could still at that that point hunt Seal with him and Morris and all assoor. I was able to go on those kinds of hunts. And that was before the UM the Act where yeah, yeah Marine Man Protection Act, right, you got a company him on hunts? Oh yeah yeah. How would you guys go as you shoot shoot Seal? How would you guys go hunt Walrus? Uh well, uh kind of the DAUM. The really neat thing was was that my my godparents stayed. One worked, Uh my my godfather worked worked for BLM not not not not b I a burial Bureau of Indian Affairs. And then uh my godmother should work for state Social services. So they were always having to fly to the real obscure villages like Selfunga, Gamble, Diamede, and uh I was able to go along with them. And at first it was it was like, oh, man, I don't want to go there, but but they would, uh they wanted me to see all this stuff, which which now I mean that I have no idea just just how fortunately really really was. So we'd go to uh. I remember my first of all or hunt. We went to Savunga and stay stayed with some people there, and uh they asked me if I wanted to go out with them and one of the umiaks you know the next day. So I did explain what us it's a water skin boat. It's a it's a wood frame boat and they take the uh, walrus skin they usually split it, you know, put it over the wood frame. It dries and and it's just a walrus skin boat. Yeah, so they wanted to take that and take you and go Yeah. Yeah, I mean what wasn't a um, it was just they invited me to go, So I said sure, Yeah, So I went went along and I did that a couple of once in Saboon, go once in Gamble and then uh which it's on St. Lord's Island. Yeah, real quick. How would they hunt the waters with with with rifles? They'd go, we'd it was you know, we we looked farm on the ice floes and we'd be going you know along and then we'd uh you know, binoculars and and we'd see them and then they'd get as closer they could and then they um usually take the one of the bigger bulls because they were not only not not after the meat, but tusk. We're pretty important to Yeah, yeah, yeah, when when you've heard when you hit walters and you gotta be careful because they'll sink, right, Uh, I suppose they do, you know, yeah, I've heard that too. But but the ones they took were always on the ice flows. And then uh, I remember there was one that that I um actually did get into the water and they got up close enough that they were able to tie a buoy to it before saying Yeah, that's like they but they know where where to place the shot. That's what this tupid guy I was telling us he was. Me and Johnnie were spend the time with the tupid out on Novak and Ny on him with the two twenty three. Wasn't that right Johnnie? I don't remember the saying like yeah, fifty or two twenty three and he said, you got it. You know they placed the bullet just to get him right in the brain pan, because they said if he goes in the water, you can lose. You can lose the whole rollers and sink down if you can't get over and get at it quick, so he says, you gotta you gotta slump He was saying, you gotta slump it right up on the ice. From what I would remembering, I think they were they were aiming for the ice hocket. They were aimed for the eye. That that was their favorite favorite place to shoot them, you know, anywhere else of course, you know that they have such such a thick skull that but the ones I remember, yeah, that they would get it right in the eye. Did you like eating that walrus? Oh yeah, it's really actually pretty good. Would you go inland? Would you go inland with them and hunt caribou? Or didn't they because they there were no caribou around there. That's a reindeer area, you know, the um you know, like the Seward Peninsula at that time that it was mostly all reindeer herds there, Um and Noon or St. Lawrence Island. I don't believe they had any kind of caribou or even reindeer there, But they'd hunt birds out there. Oh yeah, yeah, Burt bird and saw some of the most beautiful bird skin park as. They'd wear and they weren't you know, they would they would actually wear them because they were functional you know, they shed water well and and they were warm but but beautiful the same time too. I mean they were actually still in that day in the seventies and dressing and uh in the traditional native where you know. So, how did it work out that? How did it work out that you got involved in guiding? Like what was the first thing that started pulling you out of know them and bringing you kind of into the you know, into the big game world right well? And and and even though you had that like that exposure to subsistence lifestyle, like, what was it that drew you into you know, being out in the mountains and hunting moose and sheep and whatnot. Well, I'll tell you what that um. And even when I was a kids still in the Illinois you know here in the life of big game hunters and guiding big game hunters, it was always just kind of real romantic life for me. I always wanted to uh just uh hunt and fish and and uh so, so I always had that, you know, that that allure. And then when I actually went to know and was able to go out and hunt arm again and moose and and get the tape taste of it, I loved it. And when we moved to hunt, moves out of home. Oh yeah, uh huh yeah. And so when I got that Anchorage, we you know, and my my buddies in school, we'd be going hunting snowshoe hair, we'd be going out hunting anything anywhere, you know, moose. And then how did you wind up done an Anchor? Though? Um, well, it just ended up that they my godparents, they decided they had enough of the bush life and they moved to Anchorage. So I moved with him. And so you're a teenager then or whatever I was. Yeah, in fact that it was my junior year in high school. And then so then I graduated from high school and an Anchorage. Did you think did your view going from Nome to Anchorage as like a major setback in your hunting life? Oh? I hated it. I didn't want to go to Anchorage. Was having a blast. I had had all these girlfriends, I had honey, and I had everything. It was. I mean, life was a grand you know. And uh, but you got sucked into the big city. Yeah, I got sucked into the big city. I did not want to go just uh and then uh, and of course had get to know him, and then Anchorage and then had get adjusted to the big size city life at that point, a big high school, you know, the the we we called at the Green Box and Nome. You know at the Green Box, it was you know, um it was high school. It was it was junior high. It was great school. Everybody in the same box. And then they've already started the pipeline at this point. No, they haven't, No, seven the eight. Yeah, they started the pipeline believe seventy five, seventy six, and we're talking Bridge wasn't really Anchorage wasn't really here in the way we know it today. No, No, I mean it's you know, the change once the pipeline started up, Anchorge just manage had boomed. You know, it was amazing. I mean the hunting I'm joking about Anchors is the hunter run. Anchorage is still prettydamn good if you're you're ambitious. Yeah, a good place for lazy It's not a good place for lazy hunters. No, it's not, you know, but it's also one of these things where we've got hunters that they get into Anchorage and and they think, man, it's gonna be a snap because they see moose walking around downtown Anchorage and even bears and down downtown Anchors. So they're they're thinking, Wow, what's it gonna be like when I really get out in the woods if there's this kind of you know, animal movement, you know, wild game movement right in downtown Anchorage, you know, down and then what happens And then and then they get out there and they realized that, you know, it takes them a while, but they realize there isn't a moose or behind every tree, there isn't a bear behind every tree. These animals really don't care whether I see them or not. You know, Whereas the animals and anchors, they're they're used to people, so they're not a threat. Whereas uh, you know, they get out into the bush, all these animals still have that natural fear and they're gonna you know, they're they're they're ears and nose and eyes are telling them, you know, we don't want me to think that they need to do with you. We're looking animals. So what was the kind of hunting you guys are doing in high school? Uh? High school? Uh, it was mostly small game, I guess, you know, off off the road system. Uh, moose season would come on and we'd we'd go moose hunting in September, but like during the winter ptarmigan, snowshoe hair, spruce and any anything to get out and just play in the woods. You know, we had back then there actually was still a winter season for sheep and go back into chew catch and it hadn't gone to permit area in there yet, so um, you know, we could go in there and hunt sheep and goat in the winter. I never took took one in the winter, but I'd go with friends and they would. You know, that's pretty tough, huh. I actually no, it wasn't. You know. I'd go back there with a snow machine and wander around and so you know, and that's that and rightly so it's a good thing that they closed it. And of course now it's all it's all permit in there too. So so how old were you when you got your first moose? Um? Well it wasn't we were known. I suppose of fourteen. And how about when he came down here, when I came down here, Um, I myself didn't take any moose until I went out to um went out to where I took to the river where I started doing all my guide and and really got got into the hardcore bush lifestyle. So it was and then it would have been that winner, my first winner in there. After all the hunters had left. Then it was just me and there. I decided to stay the state of Winter, and I was going to be the Uh. I was going to trap for a living. I didn't want to go back to town. I just wanted to live out there because how old are you at this point? Okay, uh, my first year out of high school, so I'm going to be I'm going to be nineteen at this point. So then at that point you said, I'm gonna go off, I'm living the bush and try to become a guide and trapper. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean. And and that's when a pipe pipeline first start. When I graduated from high school, I had two choices. I could go up work on a pipeline and become filthy rich like everybody thought they would. Or I could go out living the woods, take care of horses and be a worthless mountain man. Let me see which way at the scales tilting, and they they tilted to me going out and being a worthless mountain man. And I succeeded. You just found an outfit or too. Yeah, um yeah, yeah, the uh the outfit that went out to work for. He would look for somebody to uh rotting and take care of the horses, and um, you know it was like you know, duh who who? Who would what? What? What? Kid wouldn't wouldn't want to go live out in the woods and his main transportation being mean horses living off the land and I mean that, So this guy was keeping his horses out over the winter. Yeah, we actually took took the horses, and ye had the we were The first thoughts were that we were going to be flying, you know, bringing the horses and riding the horses in and out every winter. But that tripped in with the horses was so miserable that that we decided to win or the horses in there. But now this isn't the same trip that you went in to find your lodge for the first time. Oh no, no, this is different. Yeah, this is this is early. This is before I didn't really stake uh uh the lodge land until seventies six. This is after I'd already been established further a valley about twenty five miles up from where to lodge is now so talking about So there's an outfitter that wants to get some horses back into the bush and he wants to use them to hunt sheep and mooth with. Yeah, and but there's no trail, there's no what's the take to get the horses in there? Like, what kind of journey is that? Um man, it's just for one thing, Alaska at least at least south central Alaska is really not good horse country. I mean it's swampy, there's willows. It's just it's just miserable, you know. Mean, uh, it's not not like you know, the West, where you've got solid ground, you know. Yeah. Now and uh so yeah, the uh we started heading out there, we're we're you know, having this vision of you know, the mountain men heading off into uh into the mountain. Everything's going to be rosy and and uh ends up to get getting stuck in a willow patches, getting the horses mired down and um the willows. We got to one one creek where we had to uh we couldn't cross it Hilton River, so we had to go clear up to Mountain McKinley across Hilton and glacier come down the other side. And then uh so how many miles does this trip went up being with these horses? Yeah, and well as the crow flies only about a about a hundred and twenty miles, but as if you follow the path and probably being two hundred and fifty three hundred, you know, just from all the detours we had to take, and how many horses we started out seven? I gather that means someone didn't make it. Yeah, yeah, we started started out with seven. And then we we we had had the the river destination in mind where we were going to go. And then when instead of a base camp, to start guiding exactly, and uh and of course I was just the gold for it. At this point, I was just you know, one um you know the other uh, two guys I was with, they were the they were the licensed guides. I was the new new kid on the block that was just there to help for for for the adventure. So they think at first like we'll bring these horses in dty miles or whatever and then we'll hunt all fall and then ride them back to town exactly at the winning closed never came back to oh no, no no, And then all the other horses that we took out there. We ended up flying in you know, to um. There was a mine strip that was quite a way down, so we'd bload horses up into a caribou and fly them out and then right ride them up valley. What in the hell are you feeding them out there in the wintertime on the wintertime, Well, you know, when we'd have the beaver come out, they would bring clients, and an empty plane would come out to pick up clients. We'd we'd fill a plane up with oats and uh, you know, compressed bales about falfa um. And then I remember many times having to lay on top of bags of feed in the plane, you know, to get get somewhere because we had to have feed in there. But then we supplemented further further roughage during the winter. I cut birch trees and drink dragon whole birch trees, and they would they would eat eat the birch limbs, even the whole tree for for their roughage. So at him once in the morning, once in the evening, um uh scoop of pellette, scoop of boats and then a leaf leaf about falfa. Then when they would get really cold when we're talking, you know, thirty five degree below zero would supplement their feed with molasses. You know that that would make sense with it. And you know, Steve, it was really crazy. These these horse the first horse that we had. Uh. We we bought them. Uh. They came from the Yukon, Yeah, and we bought them. They they were they were young, they didn't know what in the World War world to do. But when we went out there. I remember the first first year, we tried building him a shelter like a barn, may makeshift barn to keep going, and said, and they would not did no matter of freezing rain, freezing cold, uh snow, they would not go into any kind of shelter. They would just come and and stand with their butts up against the door of the cabin there and and uh, but but they were they were so tough, so rangy, you know that they were. Um, they were pretty amazing. And and we we we actually did try getting some horses from from the lower forty eight and brought them up and too of them didn't even like last the first winter. Absolutely, man, if a guy up here, if he won't won't want a horse for the type operation what we're gonna do if you can get it from Canada, that's the way to do it. Um. So eventually comes up like, well, someone's gonna have to stay here with the horses all winner because we can't ride them out, and that becomes your job. It's not my job. It was my wish. So then here you are. Now you're gonna spend You're spending the whole winter out in the bush by yourself. Oh yeah, man, here's this kid from Illinois. All his life he wanted to be Jeremiah Johnson, you know, he wanted to he wanted to trap and and uh you know, just just be be a mountain man. And here's my opportunity. I mean, right down to the horses and sawbucks and having to use the horses to run the trapline. You know, we there were no snow machines. The only mechanical thing we had out there was a change all the ram about half the time. You know, everything else was uh you know, either on old wooden snow shoes running the trap line when it got too deep for the horses, or know, the beginning the season, I have to have the horses to run and go ahead and string the steel and then i'd um go, you don't use the horses. I'd build a little lean twos that that uh, you know, out of spruce trees. You know, I'd cut across bar, put spruce trees on it and just just basically made made a little cave about the spruce trees. It was snow over the top top of that, and it'd be a shelter, you know. So I spend the night out in in those and uh, you know, and because so I had three I had three lines out. I had my up river line, my down river line, and my upper mountain line and the mountain mountain line. It was it was only about two miles straight straight up the mountain. That's the one i'd take on the you know what I wanted to break. And then the other ones were they were like five miles long, so ten ten miles round trip, which which when you have an established trail, snowshoot trail, I mean, you can scoop right right along. But when you have a fresh snow, of course, you haven't having to break break trail, so it can kind of kind of wear you out a little bit. It's your trap A pine Martin Lynx Wolverine, Uh, yeah. My big money makers were um Martin number one, wolverine, number two beaver. The price on beaver were high then. And uh, first I tried trapping beaver through through the ice. You know, all the all the romantic things you see in the books about cutting a hole and making your pole and wiring, you know, forget that. I just started trapping the bank beavers, you know. And when it was cold, you wouldn't see them. But as soon as you get a warm snap, the beaver would be out, like you know, they'd be coming out, you know, smelling the front fresh air, and and and they'd be everywhere, and they were a lot easier to take. Then focus on him in the spring, I'm sorry, you'd focus on him in the spring none, and in the fall, you know, early on and then and then even throws up and ride exactly yeah, and then and then even like like like I said, when there'd be a warm spell come up, you know, you'll have to have your chinooks come in and January, you know, late December, January, February, and be beaver will come out then and then they'll go back in once that warm warm spells over. But it was more I caught more in the fall, because usually had try and get out of there, um you know, the end of February and trying to hit the for rendezvous and hit the fur auctions and sell my furs. You know, So were you making more money trapping or more money taking care of these horses. I wouldn't getting paid to take care of the horses I had to. I was just out there, you know, voluntarily. I wanted to be there. So I wasn't getting paid to take take care of the horses. Um. It was who wanted to make any money? I had to trap, but I had had had no expenses. You know, they they paid for my food. You know what what food they would give me, of course, you know, all the prime stuff like uh, butter and potatoes and everything. It was always gone within the first month and then usually ended up the last couple of months. And I would be in there there, had nothing but a strict meat diet. You know. I'd have to shoot a moose and and then I live live on the moose. It was. I had a grinder out there, so it'd be like, you know, I'd grind up some mooseburger, had mooseburger in the morning, and then then moose steak for lunch, mooseburger in the evening, the moose steak for breakfast, and so it kind of altered. I'd always had have some some kind of a moose concoction. You know, your beaver meat. Oh, man, beaver is really actually pretty good. It is. Yeah. Um. And then I remember one time called Lynx, and uh, I tried eating the links and the Lynx was I was amazed. Lynx is really good, you know. Um. And I've tried a few other things. I remember, Uh, one time, Well, I'm gonna try some wolverine. I take the skulls like like the wolf wolverine, and I boil them, you know, to keep the skulls clean. So I thought, this ain't been boiling for a while. That meat's got to be pretty tender. So I pulled a skull out and I just kind of take it. Look at it looks pretty tender, kind of been into it like like an apple. Bad idea. It's like the muscle. No, it's not. Now would you eat pine squirrel, porcupine? Uh, pork? During the summer for for meat, Usually what I do in the spring I would shoot a black bear and then I had to make makeshift smoker that that I'd smoke up the black bear meat. And then for fresh meat, it would have to be uh uh ate a lot of grade in a rainbow out of the river. But but i'd also um eat a lot of porky pine, um you know, um snow, snowshoe hair, um, grouse anything. You know. Of course we wouldn't take it, take any mooser because it just wouldn't keep there any way way to preserve. But a lot of a lot of small game. And then eventually the fall comes and it's time to guide, right yeah, and that became kind of your you kind of oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Not not only the passion, but uh you know, at some point to a guy said well, you know, I need I need to make some money. So uh yeah, my first uh first first to your your guide now was um really scared nervous. But but once the guy guy got out there, um he was from Hungry, didn't um speak any English. Your first client was hungry. He was yeah, yeah, he didn't speak speaking any English, and and so um he pretty much depended on me. And it was kind of like, uh, you know, wow, there's somebody out there that depends on me, I have kind of had his life in my hand. I felt powerful because I was really secure and I can take this guy out and take take care of him. He sure couldn't take care of himself. And were you calling moves them? Uh? Yeah? Yeah? And I learned from the guys I first started without there. I'd listened to him, and the first time I saw it happened, I was like, Wow, this really works. And then a lot of it came to rip a cow call for us real quick. Oh, it gives me a little chub. Now do the do the do a bull call? Yeah? And and and you have to try and protect everybody wants to go out there with the birch bark cones and everything else. But to me, that's just just ridiculous. Yeah. And then and then there's uh under says some you know people have these um make make a hole in the bottle of coffee, can pull a rope through it, and none that ever ever, I sounded real to me, And a lot of the what I would do, I would actually be out there and actually here the cows or here the bulls. And then and then just try and mimic that. You know, I've yet to hear have yet to hear a Kyle never heard a call to a call call? Oh man, every every yeah yeah, bulls but every year pretty common. I mean me, I mean, but yeah, I remember I've been laying in in the sleeping bag at night in moose camp here in Kyls Colins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I say that man, But I gotta checking my older brother, my mother, not day any here, but my other older brother, because maybe the more I think about it, I think that I got talk to him about it. I think years ago we did. Yeah, I gotta I gotta ask Hi about that because I have like the vaguas recollection of it. But uh, back in this chat from Hungary, this is your first guiding experience. It is my my my very first son. Does the guy get a moose? Yes? He did, Yeah, and it was it was so so funny when I, uh, you know, he was scared to death of horses, and of course all the horses had different personalities, you know, and and so I tried put him on the uh most docile horse we had, but but still the same token. You know that a horse, a horse can really sense an inexperienced rider. You know, he'd an old punky. She'd kind of looked back and put it with her eyes and she said, yeah, I got this guy's ticket. I know what I can get get away with. And we we'd go off up the trail and punk you'd take him underneath branches, you know, and knock him off. Yeah, and of course yeah, he's uh like like with the rain, you're you're trying to teach him, well, the horses are net neck rain. But of course you know he's he's got the reins and he's trying to trying to pull him like uh, you know, pull the head one way or the next. And she didn't like that. It was like, you know, final life had enough, you know, the what what what what she's thinking and he just he just couldn't get it. Guy a great guy, and it was it was fun. It was a fun experience. And being able to just have somebody else's you know, life in my own hands and being able to to take him whatever was they were looking for was fun. Did you did you like being responsible for someone because you'd always perceived yourself as the troublemaker and the derelict, and here was sort of a way that of proving that that wasn't true, Like, what do you mean that you liked having? Now that's a that's a little deep. I never really thought about that. I mean it might be a little deep. I mean there's gonna be something going on. Why did you like having? I never really tried to analyze it, But to me, it was just, um, you know, I didn't see see it, you know, from my from my fault as a as a kid. I I just saw it just enjoying taking this guy out because because I'm really good at what I'm what I'm doing, and uh, something I've always wanted to do. Did you like that? Uh, like the teacher role, like show someone something you liked, you show someone something you love to kind of yeah, I guess I really enjoyed the uh, you know, especially beating being at at that that age somebody looking up to me, you know, somebody's older me, older than me, a senior looking up to me and and asking me these questions, how did we do this? How do we do that? Or just seeing me as uh, um, you know, the expert and what I'm doing and that that that that that felt good from from the client's perspective, was probably really cool to be hanging with someone that was that connected to the landscape. Oh yeah, because I think at least in this day and age and maybe then too, so many of these guys roll in just for a few weeks here in hunt and season somewhere in lower forty eight and yeah, and plus I I suppose I probably probably looked apart too. You know, here's this here's this guy with a longer hair and the cloak close a war. Not that I was trying to address the part. It's just that you naturally fall into into the look and the mystique, you know, the movement you do just somebody that's lived in the bush, and you know, you get these people from that come in that are pretty much city born and uh you know, d owing the city and they they can they can see that that you've been out in the bush and you're comfortable out there and you're confident and yeah, and that they don't have any problem and putting their life in your hand. How long did you guide for that outfit before going off and trying to start your own outfitting business. Oh. I was with him until clear through the clear through the eighties, and then I got my master guideline or and then I went into business from I think my first hunters were like n somewhere right by yourself. And at that point where you already you were already had experienced guiding the things like the main things you like to focus on now our doll, sheep, moose, and brown bears, right right, doll sheep, moose, brown bear, grizzly. They're they're what we're most noted for in that order. Yeah, and that was your order again, uh, sheep, moose, brown bear, grizzly. Yeah, and that that's basically more what you know, what we had out there, but what I cut my teeth on. And uh and in our area you know just has has a good, good population of all those. So when you went into business by yourself, that's what you focused on, right Yeah, Yeah, we advertise more for you know. Um and if you want to take care of Boo black bear, they're out there, and uh, you know you can go ahead and and take them and don't know, no extra charge out there. Because I've always been a firm believia. If you book a tent tent ten day hunt, you ought to be able to stay out there and hunt hunt for ten ten days, you know. But those times of changing now oh boy, big time. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, no one wants to hunt hard anymore. Yeah they yeah, and and that that that' say you just can't events a lot of these people that very rarely do these animals come in and surrender. I mean you've actually got to go out there and work for him. You have to get wet, you have to get dirty, you have to uh yeah, you've got to be uncomfortable some sometimes and you have to work work hard at it, and uh, you know, you have have to be able to accept disappointment sometimes. You know that animals aren't always going to move the way you want. And a guide can be out there and you can have all the experience and the expertise in the world, but sometimes, uh you know, there's uh, you know, that's not enough. These animals don't care whether you see them or not. They're going to do their very best to avoid you. And you were but you were involved in Alaska hunting at a time when there was still a bit of like exploration going on, right, I mean not like big like Matt making, but I mean that you could pioneer new hunting spots back then. Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, and that and that was part of the part of the fun I had when I went out out there there there too. And my uh to me, part of my job or my my obligations to were to take the horses and just head that way to see what's over there, you know, And they were they were still areas that are you know, wild word, nobody was hunting in. Nobody had really been in there and tried it out. And I'd take the horses and I'd head up and into the mountains for days, you know, uh, exploring new places. So did you find like a lot of little sheep spots and stuff that people just hadn't hunted sheep? Yeah, Well, the area where we hunted it was before the Donale National Park and Preserve was um um implemented. So we'd go up the head of the valley and we'd always heard they were sheep up there, and and so we took the horses up there. It took, you know, about three days went up there just to check it out. And I saw that the west sheep but there. So we went ahead and booked a couple of hunters and took them up there. Before that, it was just you know, I people would fly up there, but we we didn't really have access to airplanes or anything that things like like that, so it was just all everything we did exploring we did. We're all a horseback And what would be a long hunt for you guys back then? Ten days? Yeah, everything is usually based on ten days. But what about when you just messing around by yourself? Um me, as far as my hunting goes, I don't know. Pretty much just hunting every day. I mean, if there's a time where, like during trapping season or whatever, and I needed moose, I just go out there and I wouldn't get hardcourt with the clients. You know, you're obligated to hit it hard all day, every every day. And I just when I was out there by myself, hunting on my own, I just do it at my own convenience, you know, if I wanted to or needed it, or if I got hungry. What's a master guide license? Um? Well, it's basically just to uh. It holds the same weight as a registered guide license, but it's a it's a longevity thing that you qualify for it. Begat how many years you've had to been a master or a registered guide for so many years, had so many favorable recommendations been approved by the guideboard before they'll issue you a master guide license. So it takes a minimum of at least twenty two or twenty three years to become a master guide because you've had to do done your initiation as an assistant guide, which takes three years. Then you can apply to take your registered guide test at least that this Batmack when I did it in the seventies. And then then you've had to have been a registered guide book so many hunters had so many favorable recommendations from them, and then you can apply for your master guide license. And how many master guides do you think are in this state now? I'm not sure I know. Um uh, they don't reissue him uh a master guide license number. I've got one of the one of the lower active master guide numbers right right now. In fact, I remember it's it's eighty. Uh. I remember when I took my guy to become a master guide. Yes, yeah, yeah, I remember. Um, And of course there's they've all died, you know, sent a lot of times you reached some mass master guide status. That's, um, you're not around, but but longer after that. But when I took my registered guide test in n It was one of one of the yeah, the biggest accomplishments of my life to that that point. I remember, Um, I did that, I did, had the written and then I passed the orals and uh. And when I came out of the orals, I was out in the hall waiting in the and the gal that was given the test of work for the state, she came out and she said, Mike. She walked out to me, looked at me, she said, congratulations, You're the youngest registered guide in the state. So I was the youngest registered guide in the state at that point. Yeah, I thought, I thought that was a real So I took her out to dinner that night. I had some Yeah, there you go. Can you give us an example of like a question that you had answer in the in the orals or any any questions that test. Yeah, yeah, I remember, okay, Um for instance, some of the it was some of the questions, uh, what are the uh four four mammals in Alaska remained white year round? That would be a question. Let me let me do that one. I got three year round. It's always the port. Yeah. Yeah, there's a key there's a key word. Yeah, it's a trick question. Yeah, but I got it. Okay, Now I'm goofed up the question again. Question, what are the four mammals that remained white year? Dirtmouth? You got it? I think so ridge pounder. Don't we say mammals little over emphasize there's a whale that stays white. Yeah, we're just talking about dead ones a minute ago or an hour ago. Yes, the bluga whale. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know what the answer three are? It's amazing how so many people and they're sitting in my loge and some of them are hanging on the wall and they're looking up in the air. No, but but we got a goat, and we got a sheep on uh, you know. And then and of course the other one polar bear. And then I remember one of the other questions to what are the four uh for animals that change color with the seasons? Arm again, weasel, snowshoe hair, arctic care, arctic snow. There's three time against there's three right there. Now, come on your bone head. Okay, so weasels weasels. Yeah, it goes from a weasel to an ermine. Yeah, tarmy goes from regular one to a white one. Right, snows your hair goes from a regular one to a white one. Right. What was wanted to said a minute ago? It's the Arctic fox. Oh yeah, there. What did I say that you didn't like? Um? Oh, arctic hare, Arctic hare, snowshoe hair. They're all hair. That's a true question, Danny. Did you have all those? Um? What was the last one? That's what I hung up? Yeah, if I didn't have fox, the found it? Would you? Did you? Did you feel like you did good on any of those? I did good on the on the first one. You like that little mammal party. Mammal party. I got it because you were like, oh man, And remember I do remember. One of the questions I thought was a trick question on the Registered Guide test was that uh uh and I got it wrong too, but uh. The quick question was when you're standing around the campfire, uh, where does the smoke go? And you know, it was like but towards beauty. Yeah. And and the one that I thought thought thought was the stupid answer was because obviously, when you're standing around the fire, the smokes blowing in your face because you're creating a little you're creating a backdraft. Well, I'm not thinking. I'm thinking. I'm thinking, you know, they're just they're they're just trying to be funny, but but they're actually his truth. Yeah, your body creates a backdraft and the smoke yea, you're open smump, smoke goes up in your face. I was reading about when guys used to use the strategy you're talking about, the lean to, and you build a fire, you know, to try to fill it with some warmth. That oftentimes people will build that lean to that it's that the pitch is pitched into the wind, thinking that you gotta wind protection. Yeah, but how that causes all that smoke to peel up and you actually want to build it. So the winds moving across them across the mouth, right, and so it's not so you're not just filling the whole thing with smoke the whole time. Not only from smoke too, but drifting snow too. I mean it don't do the same thing with with snow. Yeah. A lot of times what I what I do? Keep just freezing your ass? Man. Did you have a good bag? Oh yeah, yeah, I had a Remember my mom one of my first uh gifts she got me when when I first moved up there in my first year. It was a a north face um expedition bag uh you know down and I've still got that to the you know, you know this day up in the loft at the lodge. But a lot a lot of times and I'm sorry, feet your head towards the fire. Um, I think using my head that wherever I'd laid down that you have the head's taken out, that that's what built them more. But my favorite one Steve where I'd be uh on trying and I decided I'd be spending night and then um, yeah, the snow is usually five six six ft deep and you get, um, you find these big spruce of course, you know, the the snow's falling on the branches, bringing the branches down, and there's a big void at the base of the tree and there's all the dry dead grass underneath there, you know, like a tree well yeah yeah, yeah, And and you know you'd cut spruce spruce bows, you know, the light land the bottom and you crawl up underneath there and you'd uh kick some of the snow out, you know, and at the well you get a fire going down there and you could actually get some pretty good warms come coming up underneath it because the fired you know, the um the branches would actually hold some of the heat down in there because the branch would have snow on them too, And and you're you're, you're surrounded. So basically a really a nice shelter. And then I'll never forget times just uh falling asleep you because I cut the spruce boughs and lay on top of the spruce bouch with a sleeping bag and just the smell of the spruce and the dead grass and smell of the fire. It should I mean right now I can still visualize it and since it, and it just really brings back some nice memories, you know, that kind of stuff. Would you ever come across critters and those those situations where they're down bedded in those warm spots or no, I can't say as I ever remember anither uh you know, times that you'd go along and you'd actually you know, either see Martin or Wolverine, you'll scare him up. But I've never actually chased one out of a hole like that. How many uh, how many times has been attacked by bears? Three times? There were how many bears? I mean close calls Um, I don't know quite a few. I mean there's quite a few. I've had brown bear that was tracking brown wounded brown bear and he had circled around, was coming up behind me in a willow patch, had a brown bear that had a client. We took a brown bear that was off of a moose carcass, and minute we shot, there was another brown bear was sleeping in the alders right next to us. We didn't know about. The came um came bound out. It was probably uh fifteen feet from us, and came bounding out and my client I turned at just turned around and I'll never forget that. The sound of that, this one still just makes her hair stand up on my neck. When she was coming at me, she was slobbering, and when she would pick up her pause you could hear the claws clacking when she'd pick up her paws, and she was running at us, and she was I have never, I have never in my life seen such a rage in an animals as this brown bear. Hat We had had time to shoot from the hip. We had turned turned around cheap from the hip, and when she dropped fortunately uh it was actually the client's bullet that that hit in the head. But when she dropped, her nose land landed on my hip boot. But and I don't never forget after that, him and I both sat down and we just started shaking, you know, the old what is because she was if she would have gotten hold of either one of us, we wouldn't you know, one of the others wouldn't have been here today because that I've never in my life seeing that kind of a rage out of an animal. How did you get tacked by three black Uh? Let me see one of them? Had my godparents come out when I first went went out to where I was, you know, staying. Um, they came out when one summer and brought friends of theirs from Texas. They were from from Texas. And it was, you know, a little solid roof cabin that that that we had built it. You know, it's been in the winter. So I just let them have the cabin and I slept in a tent outside and I was in the middle of the night. Um also I sleeping and all of a sudden, you know, and just being shooking drug and I was like, what the hell you know? Um? And and I'll never forget. Look that lady from the guide class. I'll never forget looking over and seeing the imprint of this baritone with I mean, it's still so so so vivid. And he's sent yeah you know, you know the nostril holes when you can see him. And he's backing up, trying to drag me off into the bushes, and and I was sleeping with my forty four and I just grabbed it real real quick, and you know, shot it in the head well through the tent, through the tent, yeah yeah, and it it fell on top of me. And and there I am all all tied up and sleeping back and tent and you know all. And I'll never forget my godparents that came out, and and my aunt Mary kept kept saying, um uh Lee, Mike's being attacked by the bear. Shoot it, shoot it, shoot it, and uh and what it is. I'm trying to push this bear off me. So the bear humping up and back up. You know, I'm trying to push it off, and I'm screaming, no, don't shoot it, don't shoot it, and shoot it because because of course they're dif from Texas, they weren't real woodwood savvy. They're just looking at they don't realiz that a bullet and go through a bear and into into what's underneath it, you know. So, yeah, did you have any when you were trapping the wolverines to any of those ever you just hear about how addressing they are, like had Yeah, there there was one time had a wool rain that um I had, I had gone on. I just had my seven mag with me and I was doing doing the upline trail. So I took the seven mag with me looking for a moose and I went back in, uh that bag in the cabin there and I've got I don't know, about half a mile away and was sitting at this um mineral lick, you know, hope hoping to see a moose come in. So I sat there for about an hour day and said, well, I'm gonna go ahead and check. Took my traps while I'm coming up here. And the night before it had uh it had rained, and then it had frozen hard. You know. Next morning about got up to my actually got my first set, had a Martin in it, and then got out to the second set and it was on a a dead snag. I had had had a number one and a half time at the end of a dead snag and the snag would broken off. When I got there, Wow, what happened to this? And I was looking looking for trash to see where the trap and every everything that they went, but everything was frozen so it couldn't really see much in the way of tracks. And then off in the distance, I hear this snarling and I knew right away then what had happened. A wolverine had got caught in the number one, broke off the snag and had taken off. So I started beating feet over to where the uh uh noise was and I got there and there was a wolverine that was caught by one toe and he was he was tangled up in the willows. So I've got my seven mag. I didn't want to shoot it with a seven mags, so I started looking around for a stick to hit him in the head with. Well, he was just going nuts, you know, trying to pull all that, and uh, I couldn't find sticking. And all of a sudden he pulled out of the trap and and just just for a split second, I'm standing there and he's standing here. We're probably ten ft apart. We were both just stare at each other and then and then all of a sudden he came running to me and he started I had car hard cut cover rolls on, and he he hit me and he started climbing up up my lace, you know, just shredding the car and the only thing I had in my seven mag So I had it by the barrel and I started swinging at it like a baseball bat with the barrel. Yeah. Well, and and it ended up ended up breaking the stock off, you know, then into the stock off the seven mac, you know, and when I hit it, so oh yeah, yeah, and not knocked him, knocked him out. He was intent on but but yeah, so, uh, that's that's the only time I've ever had a Wolveringe get ahold of me. So I want to get to some more stuff about your business and whatnot. But what are the other two black bear attacks? Uh? The other one? Uh, let me see, had uh had one where um when I was building the lodge and they had had the plane command it was full of full of lumber. And before we left, I always bringing my party four with me. Um, and so the plane lands and the pilot, who's real real good front front friend of mine. Now when we taxi up to the bank there we got got got out and we were unloading lumber, and um, all of a sudden he said, look out, and I turned turned around and there was some black bear that had come over the bank and was coming down on onto us there, you know, and and and then he stopped it. It was a fall fosse charge and then uh, and then he turned around and went back up into the shed where we kept all all the horse feed. And that's what what are you doing? So anyway, Uh, Jeff said, you're gonna be okay, and I said, oh yeah, I got got my party four here, it'll be okay. So he's okay, Well, I'll go ahead and take off. So he took off, and then I went searching around from my forty four looking at Everything's like, man, it's not here. Where is it? And come to find out I had I had it underneath the seat of the truck. And then I just forgot I got to get it. So I had no big deal. You usually go up there and just yell at him and then uh, you know, so go away. Well went up there and yelled at him, and he come, uh, stuck his head out of the door. He had chewed a hold through the door, was eating horse feed, and then he came charred charge of me. And the old thing I had was a tree to climb up to that It was probably right by the by the lake. So I skinnied up the tree and he hit that tree, and he tried crawling up after me, and uh, he made sure I was there then, and he would as long as I was there. Okay. He went back in, and every time I would try to come down out of the tree, he would hit it again, and Askecott got a want one point, and I was having to kick him in the nose. One time. He actually got out there and grabbed ahold of my foot and was trying trying and pull pull me dot dot out of the tree, and I was kicking him in the face. So I said, well, I'm I'm just gonna stand here. Let him get uncomfortable in the in the shed. So he went back and and there was a cabin um that was about two miles away. I knew it and had a rifle in it, and so I finally after twenty minutes, I'll never forget standing on the branches there and my my instep just really getting sore. I just couldn't harnita anymore. So I jumped down, and now or never I jumped down, I mean, I just started running for all it was worth to this cabin. And I looked behind me and he wouldn't following me. So I went there. It was a three oh eight. Uh, he only had three shells for it. Came back up and UM stuck my head up over the bank, and yeah, sure enough he was. They're eating all the food that I brought in. But he looked so much smaller, And I'm thinking to myself, Wow, maybe he looks smaller because I got a gun now, you know, so I want a hand. Took care of it and uh. And then I leaned the rifle up against the uh the tree, and I started carrying lumber. Made one load of lumbers and came back, got another little lumber Tuba six on my shoulder, and when I came up over the lip, all of a sudden, the big bear that had met treed come around the corner started running at me, and uh. I just took the Tuba six through it it real quick and it put on the brakes trying to avoid the tuba sick and me time to grab the rifle and get the right shoot it, get the right bear. Yeah. But it was really like, wow, big man, I got a gun. Now the bear shrinks, you know. Yeah, pretty pretty funny. So I gotta know now the third one to detected? The third one, I thought that was two and three. Yeah, I was. I was replacing a piling underneath the underneath the barn and it was out there. So I had gout the pine and I was laying prone on the ground and I uh had my head my shoulders down in the hole trying to dig out loose dirt front from the bottom. So I'm just standing lane land there there they're prone. I must have looked. It wasn't moving or anything, just my shoulders and uh. And then the all of a sudden, next thing, I know, something's pulling me back. I was like, whoa, something just grabbed ahold of me, just like I was on a bungee cord, you know, started backing up. I still still got the scars and my shins from it, and uh turned around and uh and it was a bare had hold of my leg. He was backing up. Yeah, another black bear, and it was he was backing off it. But you know in his defense. He just thought it was dead, you know, and I rolled rolled over and um uh and then then just started kicking at him and he was a surprise as why it was. And he dropped me like a dad and took off through through through the woods. So he lived to tell about it. Uh yo, yeah, yeah, I mean he wasn't his fault. You know, I was just supposed to be dead, you know. Once you found out was alive, it's like, okay, okay, I'm just kidding. And then and then uh, there there was one other time time with um, a small grizzly in sheep camp. I had UM during the spring I had and this was one thing I thought it was really cool. Um during the spring I had, I had broken my leg and they had to I had to be met of act out of the lodge with a chopper and and all that. Um. And so anyway I go in, they you know, get the cast, they set the leg and all that, and I ended up going back out to the lodge because I need needed to be there. That was home, you know. Uh. And you see, you know in the summer, you know, there are bears in the yard every day, just just about and you just get out there, you get along with him, you know, you don't approach him. Everybody get gets lunge just fine. When I got out there and the first pair of the kind of comes out, Oh look at this a bear, you know, and uh, um, I'm out out on the deck. He saw me, and all of a sudden he started chasing me and rant ran into the lodge. Uh and closed the door and he he hit the door. Then he got it, got off the deck, and then I went back out and again it was like, um, he was gonna get me, and finally he went away. And that that happened like two other times that that summer. I'm like, why are these bear so mad at me? All of a sudden? Then I go out to sheep camp and uh, the hunters are out on a sheep and I'm I'm at a camp I'm in uh and the kind of the kitchen area we have set us set up in the base camp and and all of a sudden, I see this little straggly grizzly walk around the outside of the weather port. And I don't have my rivle with me, so we're kind of the same distance from the tent. I run to a tent real quick. While he's going over there, he sees me starting heading over that way. I started over there, grabbed the gun, start running back into the so I can get some distance between me and him, back into the kitchen area. And next thing I know, this little grizzly had had got and and he had reached over and knocked me over with my paw and I fell on the ground and then rolled over and shot and I stood up. It's like, what is going on? Why are these bears all of a sudden so mad at me? And then the lightbulb came on. It's like, Dan, Dan, you look like a wounded animal. I'm in a cast. I'm hobbling around nature at its finest, you know. And I thought, yeah, that's what what's going on. I'm just hobbling around. They're seeing me as a as a you know, easy prey, wounded animal. At least that's my my theory on the whole thing. And it just seemed like it made sense to me all of a sudden. I'm a nice guy, you're like an little gunfighter. Man. I don't know about that gunfighter. So what talk about how you got your how you go off to start business? By yourself and ride off on a horse and go make a homestead and start a lodge, and that you're going to guide out of. Well that's because that ship that just doesn't happen anymore. Maybe it does, I don't know if it does or not. To me. Yeah, well on that not I was gonna ask you, did you ever through all these years did you ever meet someone that it was like a peer to you And you're like, oh, you've kind of done the same thing that I have all these years and became buds with them or knew of them. I actually did one time. And he's uh, he's pretty pretty high high profile. He's he dead now. But when I was uh doing my um float float instruction, I took took the flow plane plot to meeting once. But you got you got a pilot slicense. Yeah, Dick, Dick Park you know are always Ever since I was a kid, I had admired what he did at last, what he did by hand and drug everything. But in my hand, of course, he didn't have any horses or anything. But um, he had just gone out to Twin Lakes and built that beautiful cabin out there and lived out there by himself and that's what I wanted to be, what I wanted to do. He was. I guess he was somewhat my inspiration. I remember when I first got to know him. I read the book One One Man's Wilderness. Yeah, and I met him. And nice guy in the world too. You know. It wasn't like he was some kind of crazy hermit, you know that you show up and get off my land. He was just really a very, very very nice person. He's kind of older too, when he did that right or something else. I don't know how I found out about him, but I used to. There's like a you can watch like ten minutes of Alone in the Wilderness. It's like a PBS documentary. Some old dude washing gravel for his floor and whatnot makes a cabin. Yeah, everybody's dad likes that movie. Yeah, man, So I found out him on through that. Yeah, how do you spell his last name? What's that? No? How do you spell his last name? I can't e n K isn't isn't somewhere might be an agent there. I was gonna ask you about it, because yeah, I like everything that you're saying sounds exactly like yeah, yeah, yeah. When I'm a kid, I just really really enjoyed the I mean that that that book. I just lay it uh waiting and know him. I had to sleep in the broom close at that was my rooms. It was a little little room and I'd read read my book and that was one of my favorite favorite books. I remember. So there you are. You ride off into the woods to go set up your own to find your own property, right, Yeah, And it was that's when Jay Hammond was governor. And Dan Dan knows he's probably one of the best governors Alaska's ever had, Sure does he was? He was governor. Yeah, I mean he he was all for the for the people, you know, he wanted uh and of course he was. He was a guide, he was a pilot, you know, his name Bushrap, but he was he was dead sent on on um every lask and being able to have the opportunity to uh have their own peace of Alaska have to lant. So he came up with a land program called UM Remote Partial. It was a remote parcel program to where you could go out, you could stake up. They had certain designated areas you know that that they set aside for just for this program. You could stake up to forty acres. Um, you had to put your four corners, and you had to pay for the survey, and then um, after the state approved the survey, you paid what the state considered the fair market value. Now you've got a discount. You got a pitch for sent dis koind for being a long time a last and you got a discount. If there wasn't a road to you got a discount. There went power to a discount, discount, discount, discount. You were saying, there's even a discount. I think you're telling me this even a discount for whether it was a southerly or northerly. Yeah, and that that that was one of the and they listed the discounts. And you know that that I was given once I got the title to the land. Uh Um, I was gotten, had a percent taking off of what they considered the fair market value because my cabin faced north and not south. So they were doing every everything. They had no power discount, the no road discount right, the long time alasking discount. Right, So what'd you pay for what you pay for the place. So it ended up that I didn't. I thought I had a lot more than forty acres, But what I stay because I staked the whole south side of my lake. Um, but it actually only ended up being like twenty six acres. Yeah, I was what twenty one years old. I had no idea what forty acre or like that. Man, this is more Land and oliver Use. So anyway, after and I was shaking and how I'm just a poor trapper out there. I mean, I I don't have any money. So because she went off and found this place on horseback, yeah, just looking at a map, right, Yeah, that was before GPS is and all that, I just load loaded up all the horses and and uh, well, well let's go that way. It's gotta be over here somewhere. So we were sneaking our way through the trees, and all of a sudden I kind of saw an opening in the trees. I said, Um, that's got to be the lake over there. And the lake has actually glorified beaver pond. It's real small, oh man, grazing rainbow. Yeah. And uh, and so took the horses and started wandering over that way. And remember I came out in the north or uh uh, the upper end of the lake. And when we can't came out of the tree, right, beautiful sunny day. There was a moose out there. This was in into July. There was a moose out there. He'd be going under water and he'd come back and literally pads are dripping off of his antlers, and it was just wanted to say. I was like, this is it. This is where I want to be, you know, and I wanted the southern exposure. So I took the horses and I started riding around the other opposite side the lake. But it was just all swampy, you know. I mean he had to It was like, I don't know what yards of swamp before you actually got got to some dry land. And it was just really disappointed. And finally made the whole circle of it. Then I came to the outlet of the lake and came onto the uh the only place where you got dry land all the way down down to the lake, and that's where I went. I went ahead and decided to stake the land. And when I staked at um, I didn't know it know at the time that had that nice little bench you know where the lodge is now about bow the lake. I didn't find that out until later, and it it just ended up uh, you know, all the planets line and it just kind of made a drink contru So you stake the whole thing out and send your form off in the mail and you're sweating and thinking it's gonna be a show. Yeah, I'm thinking, how am I going to come up with thirty forty fifty dollars or whatever? And I opened it up and the envelopen it end up being six d dollars After that, Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, I can, I can. I can scrape up six hundred bucks somewhere. That's just a couple of wolverine. So you like start dragging cutting logs and dragging them with your horse, and of course I'm walking on cloud nine. I've got my own land, you know. Uh and um, the actually from where the lodges now, you can't even you couldn't even see the lake because it was that that heavily treed. So I started dropping trees and uh um, pouring them in to start building a lodge, and you know, just clearing the land and just everything starts snowballing, you know, just started you know, working on it. Because when you see lodge, it's like it functions as you're hunting lodge. But it's a cabin. Yeah, it's basically a cabin, but but you got out buildings and Webster definition, it would be considered a loge at the gathering place. Yeah. Well because you have you have other cabins you built for guests over the years and build the barn and plus I say it's a lodge, so it's a lodge. Yeah, but I feel that like people here lodge and they think that that kind of like fakey you know, that kind of like fake full Western kind of lodge where you where you cut out little Cariboan moves out of sheet metal and one everything. Yeah, he flaminoes, pink flamine goes in the yard, that kind of thing. Now it's like a it's like a bush cabin man, yeah, but very comfortable. But drinking. You drink to have all the comforts of home, and you drink rain water and it does have having out out but you know for you know, uh totally opt to grid. Uh. I've got solar power within birders, you know, so not not him to run generators to supply the thing. The refrigerator, freezer runs off propane. Uh, you know, the stove a course of pro pro pane, so flying it out on your own floor plane. Yeah. Gave up on horses. Uh yeah, we got rid of the last horses in n because it just died off. Well. Yeah, and you know, they were always just glorified pets. Anyway, they were worth a weight in gold in August and September. Other than that, they were just a pain in the ass, you know. And they're just a glorified pets. And yeah, we I mean they all had the personalities and we we you know, really enjoyed them. But it just stood there. You stood the lodge using horses all oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You use them to all the logs in for the for the lodge. Yeah, and lift them and lift them. Yeah, and have a rope pull over uh you know one end or one one side of it, and then on the other side have have old pomp poncho you know, just pull them up, you know, the skids from one side or the other. Yeah. How long would the horses last during these like we're as a working, functioning animal years wise? Uh? Well, I had I had heard that, I had heard the poncho. Uh. He didn't die until he was like thirty something years old, so he was pretty pretty tough as far as you know. All the other horses. I'm not sure when they died, but when we, uh we got rid of them, they were probably nine ten years old and they were still, you know, good, good, rainey working horses. Did someone come get him or how did you get him out of there? Uh? Yeah, let me see. He ended up riding them over to the other side of the up through rainy passing up up on the other side there, and then uh uh we actually sold some of them too rainy pass as well. So some of those horses. It wasn't just the one way ticket. Some of those horses made it back out. No, no, no, no, no, it was a one way ticket. They never saw town again. Oh uh yeah, they stayed in the bush. They just went went to the other side of the last range, you know, wrote them over there. How do you learn how to build your cabin? Watson? That old movie about the guy a Washington? Um remember getting a book? Who's the guy? What was his name? Um? Tom Walker? You remember? Uh? He had it was in seven He had a book on you know, how to on you know, to notch logs. Yeah, he kind of wrote wrote it a hot too, but but Tom Walker, he was actually a uh more noted as an as an outdoor photographer, but he did kind of the same thing. Him and his wife went out and built built a place out in the woods. You know, they just wanted to get get off the grid and live in the woods. And he made a book about it and had a lot of pictures of fortunately, had pictures in it. You know, so you're describing and saddle notch and all that kind of oh yeah, and and actually, you know there's nothing to it if you pay attention to it, there's nothing to it. You can make uh you know, you have to make make sure that that that you cove the inside of your saddle notch, you know, so when you compress them, it that compressed it together real well. And um, you know you just you know, you can do do the full sweet describe it, which which I didn't do. You know, I'd lay lay the logs on the ground, so I'd have three logs on the ground, take a chain saw running between them two, uh, get them cloak closer to you know, to where they were they were matching, and then you put one up and then you describe your saddle notch. And then you'd uh first rough it out with a with like a cheet sheet rock knife the line, you know, and you'd use your chisel and chisel out the wood and then use a the chainsaw to go go ouch it out and then um roll it over and there it is. You've cheeking with moss the old school weigh or no, now I used to strip the fiberglass. Okay, yeah, yeah, I didn't want to do the most thing I can imagine. And and they and actually, you know Dan, they were you know, doing that method of just running the chainsaw bar running between when they're they're close together, and then then you use like yeah, actually then you use log log dogs to hold them together and do it again and you yeah, you have to call log dogs. Are they're jaw dogs right their bars at a hook hook hooked at each end. You drive a man and holds the logs together. Yeah. Yeah. When when you talk about and I don't want to present this as though you disparage your clients, because you certainly don't. But when you talk about how hunters are becoming more and more a cupcakes all the time, are you doing it because you're comparing it to what you've been through or you doing you're comparing it to other hunters from the past clients. Yeah, I guess, I guess I still still live an old school. I know what I went through. I mean, if it would if it was raining, and you know, and and I mean I'm not you know, those days there wasn't no police or anything. It was either wool or blue jeans, you know. And and me, I'm hunting blue jeans. I just get wet, and I'd stay wet and just didn't care. Maybe it was just because I don't enjoy that now, but at the time I didn't didn't even even think about it. But it's just yeah, you know, wet all the time, or having to you know, slog through the alders or you know, uh, eat your food while waters running off your hat into you know, none, None of that stuff ever bothered me. Um, a lot of the change changing. Hunting has changed a lot, and you know, the traditional hunting ways and I kind of, for some reason, I want to blame it on the uh since since the electronic age has kind of kind of taken over. It's just things have just become too easy, you know, for for hunters. And you know, um, there's a couple of forces that are working here to you know a lot of a lot of the these hunts have gotten to where they're so expensive. You know, there's um some of the guys that, uh, they can't afford to go home without having been successful on their hut, you know, simply for the fact that they couldn't afford to do another one. They've saved all their life to do do this and um and so they she you got some of the more expensive stuff we do. Yeah, sheep, sheep, and and and moose moose. Now it's grown grown to be when when when the high dollar hunts, that of Cordon brown berry is too So the guys save up their whole life. Yeah, and so the the whole um, you know, the pressures on them when when they come up not to enjoy uh, you know, enjoy their hunt, enjoy their their whole surroundings, going out and and and just uh you know, legitimately hunt the animals, look for them. They need the animals to be there. They can't go home without one. And you know, unfortunately a lot of people, they're the uh loggers, farmer, blue blue collar workers that that that uh, that kind of money is a lot of money to them and um, you know, how in the world can they go home and face their family, face their wife, face their their friends with them thinking you spend all that money and you didn't get anything. Uh, the different set of expectations exactly right. Yeah, and then and then they're they're there's the other force to that. Uh, there's the ones that uh you know, that kind of money. Uh it's just pocket change, you know. They they leave, you know, they leave cocktail Hour, jump on a plane. Uh you know, two days later they're up there and they're shooting a predesignated sheep, you know, one that's already been picked out for him. And and then uh they shoot the sheep. The next day, they're right back down to cocktail Hour, you know, with with their friends. So if that person doesn't get a sheep, you know, there's the humiliation factor. How am I going to base my friends and tell them that, uh, you know, I didn't get a sheep. So a lot of people that this, you know, that the fun has got out of going out of the hunting because the pressure is on for them to be me successful. Now they're the technology issues. Uh well you know the um you know, back back in days I first started. Uh, the plane dropped you off. You waved by by said see in intent ten days, you know, and now you've got all that. You've got the end reaches, you've got the satellite phones, you've got the GPS is you know eaper everything. I mean, uh, you can't hide anymore. I mean, and it's a thing we're uh oh we're not seeing much. We need to call somebody to come in and either move us or look around or um. You know, it's it's too easy to quit it. Uh. You know, in the old days, you you were there, whether you're just there, yeah, if you got if you were sick. You know, they've had a hunter recently that uh after two days he wasn't seeing much. So all of a sudden he was sick and he need needed out. And uh, just as soon as he got out, it was a miraculous change. He was just fine. You know. Um, but I guess I guess the point being is that it's just, um, it's too too easy to give up where it. You know, back back before the electronity, if you have this disability to to come out, to call somebody to you know, come come come in and get you eat or hunted, or you're sat there and you're pouted, you know, Um, so what else you gonna do? And then and and it's it's uh, if you're if you're not seeing much, you know you, um, you just keep on it. I mean, you just don't quit and eventually it's gonna it's gonna gonna happen. So but but I feel like you're saying I understand you're saying two different things, but I just want to clarify the two things, because on one hand, you feel that it's gotten so expensive. Where a sheep punt, the doll sheep hunt, if you're if you're coming in, you need to hire an outfit ter guide dollars points well over twelve is right. Well, we're we're on the lower end of the scales of the Uh, the price of sheep punts were probably about average total lower end. There's some sheep hunts that, um, these outfitters, they they have a complete air force, you know, uh, super cups, so they have to pay for and they um, so they're sheep punts are going to be a lot higher. They're they're gonna be up for dollar range ten days. Yeah, But but you're andy and they do a lot of pre scouting, yes, before the season. Uh yeah, and you know, and I'm not I'm not gonna be gregrads those people to them. I mean, if they if they have the ability they have and some some something. They had to pay for all those airplanes, something, have to pay per all that, and they're catering to the people that that they will not take no per nancwer. You know, they pay for sheep hunt, they're going to get a sheep. And but I guess that that's the question I want to They don't understand because you're saying that with the money, people come and they have to get a sheep or else it's humiliating to them or not only or it's like an ego thing and they gotta get a sheep. The hunts of failure if they haven't. Uh there's the other hand, you're saying it's too easy to quit. Yeah, So how do those things co exist? They have to get a sheep, but then they don't have what it takes to get the sheep, and then they feel disappointed by the experience exactly. So then when that happens, then they're having to pass the buck to somebody, you know, so so then it's, ah, well, I didn't get my sheep because the river was high, so the outfitter shouldn't have had me going into when when the water was high, or I didn't get my sheep because um there was no manny in camp for my sandwich. You know, and I'm serious, you know that. I mean that they'll come up with all these ridiculous little reasons why the whole hunt was a pair and that coming up to all these little things that culminate into one big thing to where you know, the hunt hunt was a failure they uh, and it's all of this stuff instead of being honest with themselves that they either physically weren't able to do it or it was you know, beyond beyond their physical means to actually do it. Even though the outfit are provided a good sheep area, providing with a fair fare chase hunt. Um, you know, uh that we had a tough first couple of days. We didn't see any sheep. So obviously, uh, you know, I've been here two days and and I'm an expert on the sheep movements. Now you know there are going to be no sheep here. You know, get me out of here at yeah, and and it just told them going back and commencing the people that that that uh they um didn't get their animal because they themselves um had quit on it. It was uh, somebody's fault because and you feel that it's like that there's something that's happened where it's different than it was twenty years ago. Yeah, I mean because it was Yeah, I mean because it was you didn't have that uh uh you know, and not another thing when you were not jate. When you're going going out, you had to pretty much put everything anything in your back and you had had to go a lot of the um expectation. Then they went in knowing full well that that they were going to be miserable for ten ten days, but you know they were gonna hunt where Now it's that um, you know, with all the new equipment, with all this and that you know that everything's you know perfect, people feel like they solved the uncomfortable part. Yeah, and and and people feel like after I haven't spent this money that they have bought this animal, No, just the whole I don't know that they there's too much of this thinking that these animals are going to come in and surrender because they know they paid this much for this hunt, but you still like the business though, Oh yeah, I do want to people that want to book a home with you can't even book a home with you, And and that that that's not not all all hunters either. There's still the the hunters are out there that that that yeah, I mean, that's what they could be millionaires, but but that's what they're wanting to get away, Get get out there and do do the fair chase. They don't want a plane to fly around and spot that. They want to find that sheep on their own. They want to be the one going around the corner. Hey, nobody help help me find you know them in their guide And don't nobody help us find the sheep. You know, we hunted it on our own. Give me a bag of granola bar. Let's go out there, let's hit it. Let's let's uh, let's side wash up on the side of the mountain. Let's let's let's sleep underneath the tree, let's leap under the stars. Yeah that uh. And in this day and age, I'd say that it's maybe of a lot of the hunters you get that are actually and when they get get there, I'd say probably sev hunters. Now once they get there their animal, it's up. Okay, get me back to town. I gotta get home. You know. Uh, there's still the a good proportion of them like what we get. You know that I don't want to go home. I want I'm on vacation. I want to stay stay out here. But those those kind of hunters are getting further for there away. You know, in your mind, what makes a good client and what makes a good hunter. A good client is one that um is gonna go out there and uh and realize that, uh, everything is not going to be perfect. There's gonna be time when they're gonna be ncomfortable. It's gonna be times when when it's gonna gonna rain. There's gonna be times you know, you know deep dealing with with some of some of the elements, um, you know, more more than anything, it's a yeah, deep dealing that they're going to have to deal with elements that that are going to be uncomfortable. Um, They're gonna have to, um realize there there's gonna be times when the game isn't gonna be in particular area, isn't gonna be as plentible. I mean there's no fences around round rounting on these airs. They have to go in there and knowing that that they're going to have to hunt for their animal animals, not going to commit a surrender. You know, that's what makes a good hunter in your mind. Uh one one that uh um has a positive attitude at every day and um that when he when he's out out there they're hunting, hunting, he's he's happy and just and just having a great time and not uh you know, not stressed out thinking I've got to have this animal and you know when it when's it gonna happen. So the content you feel that the contentment pays off, you know. You know the hunter that wakes out, walks out of the tent in the morning and looks around, sees where he's at, see the mountain, whether it be in you know, moose country where you're you're either or a swampy area. But but you know you're outdoors that there's more to the hunt that killing the animal. You know, Uh, do you feel like optimism helps get animals killed? You're speaking his language if you say yes, Well, I don't, I mean optimism helps, I don't. I don't know if it draws the animal in it it. Oh, look, there's a happy person. I'm gonna go talk to him. You know, I don't think the same thing thing like that, but you know what I mean, I think you just said it. Prior to that, you said that, like you gotta have a good attitude. Yeah, and I think an attitude problem. Maybe there is just some something out there that you know that a person, Yeah, a person rewarded for going out there and being having a positive attitude. Person has rewarded for going out there and just enjoying being in the outdoors and and um, you know, and and and may maybe it's that attitude to that naturally makes him get out there and hit it harder and enjoy it more. Now you're speaking language, believes that you tell him what much what you believe? I believe a lot of things. Can you narrow down a little bit how you feel that, Um that you're not sure what the controlling mechanism is. You're not sure like what forces in the universe control this, But you feel that radiating an optimism. Oh no, no, not at all. I feel that like oftenism directly correlates to your success because you go out there and instead of being like probably ain't gonna see ship today and walking through the woods not you know, not like not expecting to see something over the next still not being ready to see something over the next, still not being like constantly thinking like, oh, it's about to happen, and actually being ready in the moment and like foreseeing it in your head just like they say, like you know you've never done something, If you run that scenario through your head at gazillion times, you're gonna perform better when that moment happens. So constantly in your head being ready and being positive because if yeah, if you wake up in the and look out your tango, probably not gonna see any sheet today, well guess what probably not? Probably not. You know, he really set a mouthful. I mean, I think he's onto something, because it really does feel that way some some sometime tied and you know, it kind of affects everybody in camp too, you know. But when when people have that attitude, you know, it can kind of slough off onto the guide or whatever, and that you just kind of get a little discouraged sometimes. But keeping that positive attitude and it seems like, yeah, maybe here's where it falls apart. Let's say there's a sheep hunter or whatever, there's a squirrel hunter, okay, and he's like so positive and so optimistic. He's like, I'm not even even the tent. I know, I know that if I sit right here looking out the door of this tent, the sheet will come up here. You just done that. Uh you know, you may laugh at that. That's probably actually happened. And it's happened with us a few times, and we've got lucky it doesn't happen all the time. But everybody's got those stories, I know. Yeah, but they're so far a few people. But be honest. Used to when Janest was guiding, he would have to give He would give pep talks to try to main He took it upon himself to maintain the client, to to feed the client the type of optimism that he felt is necessary to articulate it for him. Yeah, I didn't work, I thought so pretty used to do little pep talks for me. Yea. For some reason quit ran out of that. You still got a little pet, yea. You You'd be lost without you? Honest, he keeps, Oh yeah, man, he ranged you in every now and then. I bet Yeah, no, no, if you if you want, if you got out of the bills, I'm getting out of the bills. You already got a job, buck, I'd let you the only you're the only qualified candidate. I got a job. I mean, what hit in the last outfitters? Yeah, So let's say someone wants to come home with you, the kind of shot out of luck. Right, Let's they want to wait till twenty or whatever it is. Oh no, no, we got that. We We still got openings you know, here and there. Every Uh we usually pretty much stay booked up on the average for for a couple couple of years in bands. I mean, we've got hunters a right now, they're booked out into two thousand twenty two. How do they know what they want to be doing in two I don't know. And that's actually what I asked. This guy said, Uh, this was like two years ago when he booked. It's like, we can we can be dead by then, you know, and of course you have to have you need to put a deposit down to hold a hunt you know. So he's like in five years or four years, I would like to go sheep up. I mean yeah, I said, why why are you doing this now. He said, well, I just want to lock in the price now. And you know it's a good thought retiring or something. You know. Oh, so you honor that if he books it now even he gets for right, Yeah, if he books in two thousand and eighteen for the uh two, I'm going to honor that too. But he could be divorced or married. Hard things that could happen, Things that could happen to me too. You know what's mostly causing these big increases in the prices? Is it just gas? And I think I think it's just because they can, I mean, people pay them, you know, and just uh and then you know I did do the shows and and uh yeah, there's a lot of this. God, I can't believe how much he's hunts cost now. You know. Then they they keep going up, and yeah, I know, and and and just and if you don't keep up, you know, keep with the the going trend, you know, the going price, and then there's something wrong with you as an outfit or and that, uh, why aren't you charging as much? You know? Yeah, exactly, you don't know. One wants some bargain basems. So it's not not that I'm greedy I'm just trying trying to stay with it. And I've had other fightersers come up and say, man, you need to right your prices because they see that and of course there uh you know, they don't want a quality outfit or given away a cheaper hunt. Have you. Um, I feel like you told me this, you've kind of lost your You've lost your taste for hunting personally. Yeah, that's so much like being with you like guiding more than you like hunting now and I just kind of lost, you know, the enthusiasm you do uh nothing, Yeah, the enthusiasm, I guess because I've been I've hunted so much and and just have taken everything and gone through the whole the whole thing. My myself personally, going on a personal hunt, it just doesn't um throwing me as m as much as I used to. Just just like trapping too. I trapped for you know, years and years and years and and I loved it and it's not that I but now you know, been there, done that, that doesn't really hold that much appeal for me anymore. There's a lot of times at the end of a hunt, I'll have a client say, hey, you need to come down after the hunting season and come whitetail hunting with us, and you know, sitting in a um, sitting in a tree stand at you know, twenty degrees in the Midwest, looking out over a cornfield. Man. Last thing I want to do is, uh, you know, after after hunting for a full season, go hunting again. I'm gonna go lay on a beach in a yi or something. Yeah. Well, what age did that start to fade? The enthusiasms fade? I don't know. I guess, Uh, I don't know. I guess I really first noticed it probably six seven, eight years ago maybe. And it's not that not that I if I go out and do it, I enjoy it. And and maybe it's because too that, uh, I lived at lifestyle every day I've got I've got it any any day at day of the week I want. So maybe it's just just kind of a thing where I'm not it's not something I'm never gonna be able to do it and do again. And you know, and and there there's times I get up, just like we were talking talking about about moves, I still get just the biggest thrill about going out and calling and moves. I mean, yeah, well, you're all excited about You're all excited about our hunt right now? Oh absolutely, I am. Yeah. You act about other people's hunts the way people act about their own hunt. Yeah, because I know what you're gonna be seeing when you get out there. I know where you're gonna be, the country you're gonna be in, and you me knowing you the way I do. It's just it's right up your alley. You're just gonna You're just gonna be um uh, pleasantly surprised what you're gonna see out there. You know that, the that the country, to beauty, the rug, ruggedness, you know of it, of the whole thing. So how much long do you think you'll run your business for? Um? Probably till I die. I mean the only way, the only way I can afford to retires, if I dyeing. Yeah, yeah, But how much money you're making off those birch bowls you make? I'm not making us because I give him a way to people like you we feel guilty about. And we made up a deal today. We made up a little wager by which we would determine which of us got the first picks out of the two bowls. But I thought you already picked out the way he wants. I know the one I want, but I haven't picked it yet. And then you know I caused recently, I caused great physical harm, to be honest, and um so that's weighing on my mind. But then we made this side wager by which we were determined who gets which bowl, and the wage you kind of fell apart. So we're gonna keep struggling with it. Yeah, but Buck cuts burrels off old growth birch and hobbles it out into beautiful bowls. Do you think about selling them online direct instead of selling the tourist shops. I'm actually, uh yeah, really thought about doing my own website with it, and uh dude, it'd be so much better. Here's the thing. When you take you take that beautiful bowl he made up at your lodge, okay, and you bring it to some terrorist shop and some holser comes off cruise ship and buys it. He don't know you, You don't know the story behind it. No, you're right, he does it. Then he dies and his kid brings down to Goodwill. What if you had it that you had a place where you sold him for more money. I'll sell the damn things for you where it was like, here's what the guy, here's the story of the guy that made this, and here's how he goes about it, and this is a buck bolden damn bull would be way better because that way it wouldn't be falling into the hands of the undeserving. You're you're probably it is likely to fall into the hands of the undeserving. One of my guys that have been guiding with me, he's been with me for this would have been twenty three year. He makes knives now and each night he's the European right, uh, yeah, from Sweden. Yeah, he uh, every night he sells. There's a little biography with it that that he goes and put puts with it and and tell it a little bit how it happened to his his uh you know, background of making knives and everything, and how the knight came to be. And so yeah, I think I think you're right that. I don't really know if that's foot yeah something, but it is because I don't know if people are like that, I don't think they're picturing how the bowl came into existence, because yeah, isn't there the whole backstory of the like the birch in your area happen to have more of these, Well they're old growth. Yeah. Basically a burrow is just a fungus, you know, and so they'll be uh the burrows as a reaction to the the fungus, right yeah, and and they're actually pretty rare. But but um, you know, when you when you find a birch that's going to have a burl on it, stay it's just like hunting mushrooms or something. You know, stay right there and look around at the other birds because there's gonna be probably other birds that have have them, you know, being a little yeah yeah, because that that that that fungus will will have affected those trees in that in that area. You know what what kind of mark up to these cruise ship tourist shops? What are they? What what kind of mark up they put on your birch bowls? I have no idea. I just know that it's this like a they get thirty nine where they come up with a figure nine percent? I don't know, but that's what. Yeah, that's where they Yeah, ye have sella bowls there, but it doesn't There was one time that I uh uh this um guy to make make makes some nice I'll tell you about he. Uh he talked me into getting a booth at the Saturday market there, and I just finished thirty bowls, so I thought, okay, I'll try it. I'm thinking I'm gonna have to go there and just sit there and and you know, maybe one or two bowls or something. But I wentn't there and and uh sold like twenty five of those bowls just in one day, just just like that. And some of them were yeah, but I mean they went just like. I was amazed at the at the reaction of them. But that's acceptable to me to do with that, and and it was it was fun too, and and but um, you know, I've never since that I've been been able to get ahead enough with that that that that much of an inventory. How many can you make in a year? I mean, if I dedicated myself to uh right now, I should say, how many do you make in a year? Um? Back before the fire. I've been recently consumed with the last few few years and doing some rebuilding out to lodge after the fire, But uh, I could probably if I dedicated uh, just going full time on making the bowls, probably at different stages about a hundred hundred and fifty in a summer, probably I could do. If so, if you had to give up moose hunting or give up carving birch bowls, what should you pick? Give up moose hunting or give up birch bowls. Yeah, well, I don't understand why I would have to give one of one or the other. God came down and put a gun to your head. Yeah, I just said, okay, yeah, damned if you do, or damned if you don't. Huh, I I guess that kind of question. I guess I would just have to give up the Well, yeah, because it doesn't make any sense to me. I could see, I could I can shoot a moose and come back and make a birch bowl the same day. That's fair enough, man, It's fair enough to call the question. It's a question the question. But yeah, I suppose I would give up the the moose hunting. What. I'm sorry. I just really enjoy making those bowls. They're beautiful bowls, man works of art. And I like it because I look at it and I think about you know, I look at and think about you, you know, the stories you told me, and kind of like your place and you know big Pilo burrels yet the Janny what do you? I don't know if you remember this. First time I went out to your place, there was a moose shed antler land right basically right where you park. You're playing yeah up on the and then and then when you had the fire, that antler got all burned up. It did, Yeah, it did that. That is displayed that burnt charred moose handler, charred moose handler which stank the high Haven, Dan, you remember this when I brought it out but eventually dried out in Danny's woodshop. That is displayed in a very prominent place in my home, like where well, the one piece of heirloom sort of furniture that my wife has from her family is this. I can't remember what you call it, man armoir. It's not a word I use lightly an armoir. It's up on top of that. And I've had people try to buy it from me. But why cup giant moose handler. Man. You look at it and you're like, I haven't seen one of those before. Plus is a crazy andler. And the way it's got that weird extra time and holds it up and so it's like it's like a flame itself because that drop time holds it up, so the paddle, the pad reaches up to the sky, but it flames out in the shape of a flame, and it's flame scarred and burnt. And people come in and I just had someone try to buy it off me. Wow for why, I mean, my process selling, during the process of selling my house. What was the appeal of that thing to him? Then? Because it's crazy looking. Yeah, that's beautiful. It's like, uh, it's found art. Man. You don't know what you gave up and when I want it back now, I was gonna say, you might as well set all your sheds into another building that you yeah. Oh, and man, that was so sad. But that when when the barn went up, because that that the whole uh upper barn, that the loft was just stacked with years of sheds that I found there was there was a whole pile of them up in there. Just sad. I guess I don't know from what they are, but to me it was more and more sentimental thing all these years of these sheds and now they're gone. And then I remember I had just uh, there was a hundred and thirteen of the birch bowls that I had back in the barn done that. Yeah, they were almost done. I just had had to finish and finished standing on him all up in flames. Man. Hey, Danny talked about the great antler staff that you suffered. Yeah, I uh, I had been accumulating both shed and shot moose antlers and the head quite stack of them. Yeah, like my friends called it the pile of shame. And uh when I moved over to this house, say, yeah, they took up residents like under the eve of my workshop out him around the spruce tree. Yeah, and he had to stay. You know where'd you find him on? I mean just when your travels out there, Yeah, just traveling for work and traveling for hunting trips and you know, and then a lot of them are just moose side shot or bad people with people as cariboo handlers and you name it. Just a good big pile handlers out there. So we just stole him. Yeah, somebody came over the fence from the park out back. And you know it's a market for him now, for the like the dog to trade, you know, and it's been a hot ticket for theft around Anchorage. Man, and a friend of mine that lives right in the neighborhood here. He had something he came up and work one day as guy in a ladder trying to take him off inside of his garage. Hardcore Jeffy got ripped off. That's what I'm talking about. You put a chain around that one you got outside your door up there, and then oh, every time I come home, I check and make sure it's still there. Yeah. I love that. I love hand gade up comes to the man. Yeah, but yeah, they were I I uh yeah, one morning I was just knocking around in the yard and something didn't feel right. Look, the whole pile is just gone, just gone. How many how oh, maybe like a six or eight sheds and then probably no more than that man, you know, including cariboy was probab maybe a couple of dozen sheds, and then uh, probably eight or ten just you know, like sets of candlers together on a skull plate that were shot, you know, just gone, just gone. Yeah, some therapy dogs somewhere chewing on You're stolen. Yeah, and then yeah, hardcore Jeffy got interviewed for like an a p r N story that ran locally here on the radio about stolen moose andlers, and I got picked up nationally and he was, yeah, yeah, we helped pack that bull out that got stolen off his garage and then uh yeah, and then he told that story about his buddy who got all handlers stole out of his backyard and that was me. So that kind of the story made the rounds. Yeah, so watch watching moose andlers? Man, what do they what do they do? These people take what what what you said? Dog? Choose? Are are they? Are they? Because some of them are pretty popular for carving too, right? I mean people the people that could be the same market. I don't know, yeah, I think that the market well, well, the chandelier ship the shandon like antler chandeliers became fashionable enoughfore they started like casting antlers. Antler chandeliers started to establish a market. And then there's the Asian apperdisiac thing too, that's round up belt but that's like like a that's there. And they raise in New Zealand they raise red deer to harvest vela velvet. But I was living a gnome. Every summer they'd come up there and they ring bring the rained reindeer herds in and have big old loppers and and take take their antlers off, and there'd be uh a lot of the Asians stand stand around buying them. They stander bind them. And then the chew toy they just take. They buy elk antlers and chop them up in like three four inch pieces and they kind of sand the edges. All yep. Dudes walk in and yeah, it's like each little chunk, each little chunk seven eight nine dollars. I mean, it probly defends where you are. This friend friend of mine is Selsie, uh makes some n eyes. Every every year him and his daughter go up there early summer, I think, I guess it's early summer, early summer, up off the Hall road. They go in there and they and they come back with truckload, a big truck truck load of shed cariboo antlers, you know. And uh, that's what he does. He just he has a band. So he just boxes and boxes and these little cut up there. What do you won the world? Do you do with these? And and he has these little packages a little dog treats. That's a hard working dog. You can get through a cariboo way different. I know it. And I would like, wow, where'd you come up with that idea? He said, it's to go on trend, you know, that's what the and I think it too. I think it's like, I don't want to blabor this too much, but I think it's as those markets emerged and they became a dollar value. This is my own personal theory. As the markets emerged, the chew toy, the chandelier market, et cetera, and there started to bet a dollar value placed on antlers. I think it also drove interest and recreational antler pickers who just pick them for their own collections. And I brought this up before the same way like Morrel's. I think that with a market from Morrell's, where Morrell's are like worth you know, X dollars or a pound three dollars a pound on up and you know dried mushroom prices, I think people are like, oh wow, I'd like to go find some of those and eat them if they're that value. And so it's like, it's just kind of funny the way that the antler, like antler collecting in our lifetimes has become just become this like obsessive thing and just be a chef head antlers. Of a sudden, there's a US attention that isn't drawn to them and there and they're considered a valuable thing to go after once while time people walk past into narrowheads and didn't stoop over to the Yeah yeah, you just looked at it like a beer can laying there. Yeah, Dan, you got any last things you want to ask about? Comments, questions? No, it's been it's been interesting conversation. I am uh, I am very excited to get out in the last range and poke around your home turf a little bit. Yeah, I call I call flight service. So look, it looks like we're gonna have a good day for flying Mars. We're actually gonna be able to get out. Good to hear, this is not how I envisioned spending my day, I know. Yeah, yeah, well, I tell you what. It's actually a good thing though. I mean that it's gonna be this way that you're stuck here and not stuck out there and you know, on the airstrip just sitting there waiting for the you know. Oh yeah, yeah, I did look group exercise today. We had nice dinner, pink pok tournament it Yeah, it's been fun. Dirt Yeah, final thoughts. It might be too long to get into, but I'm curious with the rebuild, how has there been some nostalgia with rebuilding your cabin, you know, decades after you did the initial build or you know what I mean. Just has there been some positive out of that experience after the fire? Actually? Yeah, I mean I um, I was actually actually be able to build something to improve on probably what you know, some of the drawbacks. I saw what I had before, I was able to put something up and and uh, you know, improve on what what it was there. But um, I'd still I would still much rather have have the old barner and have to have a time that I've had to invest in rebuilding. I was. I was just I was perfectly satisfied with what was there. But um, but it's a At first, it was overwhelming trying to start, you know, doing the rebuilds, Like, man, where do I start? And then now that I'm seeing the end of it too, it uh it's kind of um rewarding and satisfying knowing it's almost done. It's almost you know, it's almost back the way it was. Yeah, but man, you gotta you lost all the stuff that it was filled with. Two there were so many, so many people and they're right, right, right rightly. So you know, after the fire, they said, well, at least you didn't loot lose the lodge. But um, the real value of the place wasn't the lodge and was in at the real value of the place was everything that was in the barn and the shed. I mean, so if you're talking monetary, if the lodge would have gone up, it had just been a bunch of food and a bunch of dead animals on the wall that would have burned up, you know. But um, but the barn at all, the snow machine, the four wheelers, the airplane stuff. Um, I mean, just on and on. And I remember remember the after the fire, were sitting out there on porch lodge, justice offted. We've been fighting it all night and uh um, I thought, man, we got I needed something, and I needed the chainsaw. I remembered, I'm gonna go grab the chains jumping up out of the chair and running back to the barn. And also, oh wow, there is no barn, there is no change. Uh. And then and then uh it was funny I needed uh uh, I needed a screw driver. It's something simple, a screw driver. Everybody has a screwdriver, like laying around. I need a screw d I didn't have a screwdriver to just just a simple little thing that I needed right right there anyway, you know, just the stuff that you're you're used to having on hand, like a hammer, and I had no hammer. I had no nothing. You know, I had a fork that I had he used to try and you know, but anyway, that's all. Uh you don't think, you know, I thank God had you know, friends, family, and and uh you know that that helped with with the rebuild too. You know, there are a lot of generous people out there that that donated time and and money. You know, the family, they got together a benefit to help raise money to rebuild and on there. Forget that. I mean that that was really something that everybody panded together to help me rebuild. Yeah, Pounder, you're cool, dude, Buck, I like it. I like you to half dude. I like that. I wish you'd let me trade you something for it, and uh, hit in Alaska. I just want to see if see if there's any any truth to all this resiliency I hear about you. Dude, He's got a tremendous amount of resilience. Man, You think we'd call him Rich Pounder. If he didn't, we'd call him Chris Gil. Yeah. Well there you go, it's right over Chris Gil. Uh Ny, what's the longest you ever stayed out there without without going back to town? It wou about six months. It was remembers, uh like I think it was about seventy seventy six or seventy eight, maybe even seventy five. Uh, it's when Saint that the volcano uh st Augustine Blue Helens. No, No, no, it was Augustine because that was all his ash in the air. Is that a well known volcano? Yeah, yeah, we were. I was actually scheduled to come out in December after being in their trapping. Then that when the volcano blue all this ashes in the air, planes couldn't fly, you know, it was pretty thick, and I got stuck out there until February. So it would have been September through February, I guess, yeah, bransome time. Yeah. I would perfectly uh happy. I mean I wouldn't have any I didn't have any uh you know, sweethearts in town that I was missing or anything. I was out there with the dogs and the horses and just happy with you know, my every day meat diet. Just man, one of the you know, one of the crazy craziest things that I'll always remember that that still this day, I just pictured um after that time, after being out there for so long, when you're out in the woods, you see no right angles. You said, everything is symmetrical, the curves you compounded. There's nothing you ever seen and that's naturally a complete right angle, you know. And I remember jumping the plane and after living out there, jumping in a plane, all of a sudden we're flying the anchors. I'm flying over anchors looking down and wow, everything's right angles. It just looks so unnatural. It's really surreal, and it was just really felt weird. Yeah, and and I'll never ever forget thing. Wow this is it just looks like it looks like a science fiction movie or something. And then just dammy, you just come from a world where everything round, every you know, there's everything has a curve. That and I kept trying to say, what what have I seen out there that is a natural right angle? And I couldn't come up with anything, you know, and in nature that's a perfect right angle, like white white light, like the streets and trails, you know, yeah, the Meso Americans, they like they're like some hard edges, you know. But even like most the most the Native American groups, all the structures they lived in, round structural structures, no corners. Yeah, you couldn't lean anything in the corner. Can Can you think of anything natural that that that's in nature, that that that has a natural complete right angle my tooth, just that tree branch that Danny was standing on when he shot that. No, you're right though, yeah, and and and it's funny that we stumbled that, like culturally, we hit on this idea that we really like a corner. Yeah, but I imagine it comes from it's not that we really like a corner. Imagine just comes from Yeah, it just comes from a structural right. Structurally yeah, probably, I guess, I don't know, but it it just it just hit hit me. It just really spooky. That was not expecting to see that. I'm just hey, going to town and all said, wow, this is looks so weird. Everything it's just a checkerboard to a lecture one time by this is my concluding thought. You got on concluders, Johnny Um. I went to a lecture one time by a guy who'd done these um huge canoe expeditions, you know, like he paddled the whole north Shore Lake Superior and did all these other crazy canoe trips, and you're saying that he was asking the audience He's like, you know when you go out in the woods for a week, how everything kind of slows down right in your senses pick up and you feel that you're hearing kind of either improves or it becomes more in tune, and you smell things you didn't smell, and there's sort of that you keep. You kind of fall into this slower, more contemplative, deliberate rhythm over the course of a week. And he was saying, uh, he says, you know, when you're out for six months, it still keeps happening at that same pace, like he hadn't found the end of it yet, which is, uh, you know something I think most people aren't gonna experience, No, probably not to see it, go to see that quietness go that long. For me, Um, it was the terrorist text changed Um really changed things for me about being gone on longer trips, because you got this sense we one time went to where you didn't the thing was happening, and you didn't want to be gone longer. It became like I became more aware of the fact that you might have stepped out, but the but the world moves still. Yeah. We went on a long we went on a lot trip for deer one time when they were trying to settle the Gore George the Gore the Gore Bush election and we we they didn't know. We actually put off departure way to see how the election was going to go, so well, we better go anyway. Um went on a float trip, got back. They still hadn't figured it out yet, you know, and then you had and then the terror attacks, uh, and then it became like being I just remember like being away was just different, different because you were about that's something had happened, that's some horrible thing had happened, and you weren't in tune to it. And then that kind of segued for me into having kids. And then when you have kids and you're going along trips, there's always this this nagging sense that like something would happen right, you know, like something would go wrong and you wouldn't be there or or whatever that that that like you it became harder to divorce yourself from this sort of societal, cultural, global momentum that was going on and now it is. Man, It's it's like it's not difficult to feel at Pete. There is a peacefulness still, but it's hard to for me. It's hard to just get the sense that like everything stopped and I'm just here now, Like I have this like thing in my head that something could be happening, something horrible could be happening, right, yeah, and you have no control over it either. It's it's just a thing that like, you know, it's part of the falling from grace, right. So I think about especially with kids, man, like I found that, um, there's a huge element of there's a huge element of guilt that goes into having kids entails like a level of guilt. It becomes uncomfortable, just self and pos It's just I think that I'm just governed by it in a way, you know, governed by it in a way with kids, right that Like, I don't know, it's not nice, but it is because it's like I guess that's what keeps you on track. That's what keeps me on track. Different people have different things to keep me on track. And it could be and I've I've talked about this before. I think like it could be that I'm not using the right word that what that? What that? I'm like, Oh, it's guilt. But maybe it's just um commitment to your obligations. And I just think I'm just articulating it wrong. Maybe it's just like a sense of duty, like you could you can make it sound better than than just like it's like this vague sense of guilt, a sense of duty, sense of obligation. So being gone is different now. And I'm not talking six months shit either. I'm talking quick, you know. Yeah, you got any last thoughts you'd like to add? No, I think i think I'm about bready to ready to hit the rack and get up and get to get everybody out into the woods. Sounds good to me, all right, man, Well, thank you for sitting down for so long that I've had a blast with you guys, just in a lot the last two two days I've hung out with you. Thanks man, great dinner last night and then uh and then this thing to night first time. Yeah, you had a little captain little Captain's plaid, a little Danny Ranella, Captain's hall of it salmon who again everything I said that no hush puppies. Yeah, yeah that uh, we're a dose for the hohol again that you had deep fried right there? Y Yeah, they were Oh they were delicious, especially when they're fresh out of there and the tails were crispy, you know. Yeah, Hey, the trick is baking those for a while after you deep Brian. Is that what you did then or yeah, a lot of the grease comes out and they crisp, bought real nice like that, man, But yeah, we eat a lot of them like that, my kids especially. Just is that pretty rank oil? That's probably fine? Yeah, yeah, I think they were the star of the show. Really. They were pleaser man. Yeah, what were they? What were the longer ones then? Because you had that, didn't where there was a candlefish? Yeah, same thing. Yeahah, those are all hooligan yeah okay, because yeah, one was just smokes and one was fried. Right, That's that's that's what the different. Yeah. Yeah, some we're smoking someone fried. Yeah. And the ones had their heads on, so they were they were bigger fish that way. What the the fried ones? They the heads on them too, didn't they? No, yest, you're looking for a chore. I told him. The headn't got the all the ones we fried, okay, Yeah, but then and then they the King salmon chunks, and then I think you had helmet chunks, did you. I mean it's just a real you know, it's morg board fish. Yeah, flatter man. Yeah, you want hooligan dipping next, may get in touch man. We'll go out and I would let you know after having that in that left, I've already seen everybody you know, gathered around the creek down there doing it that. You know, what's that? What's up with this? What's what's the big deal with the only white guy down there? That's he takes those hooligans down. He takes those hooligans down. Well, we were catching bourbon on hooligans through the ice open the interior, and then he takes the hooligans down and catches uh halibut halibant and salmon on hooligans. Yeah, it's so so it's it's uh there there's good baits Harring. Then they're real oily like Harry put out a good sent you know. But the thing Harring have up on them, those Harring it that real shiny flash, you know. And yeah, there's shapes just different. It's more like harry is kind of a more usable shape. Yeah. Yeah, there, and they got that that real nice sheen. You know they catch us us. You see that harring spinning like when you're moving. Yeah, I know, man, A lot a lot of times that I'd be, uh, you know, we'd be hooking up harrying on there and I'd be looking around here. Anybody say if I one of these man, I wanted to eat the bait. My brother he spends our other brother spends a lot of time down in the Bahamas fishing, and he heard a story about he's talking to this guy down there. It does a little guiding and he goes out with some he's talking about taking some Italians out fishing and pulls out some squid for bait. Those Italians like, would not bait a hook at that squid? Why because they eat it? Like you're not gonna put that Yeah, let's just eat that. Yeah. Another one is octopus to octopus babe bases good bait, but man, they are sure sure good, you know, cooked off. I really like, you know, I don't know if we've ever We used to put octopus chunks, octopus arm on halbut hooks I can't do anything do that a long time. Yeah. The nice saying is that the octopus will stay on pretty easy too. Yeah, you know that's something about it. Yeah. We use a lot of salmon fins too. Man. They got some stand You get that through the skin and through the sort of the thin raise and they got real star. You can put a harring on a halbut hook and then tip it with a salmon fin where you running through that cartilage and it's basically like a retainer holder. Yeah, that holds it on. Where'd you come up with that idea? That's not pretty cool? I can't claim just it's not. It's not a ranella. Think it's something that's been thought of thoughts, you know. Yeah, all right man, good night SA

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