You know guys, everyonce in a while something happens that just sort of smacks you and says "This would be considered unbelivable by people that don't live here in Alaska" . And to us that live here it is almost mundain. Like last night, I let my beagles out when they did not come right back as usual, I put my coat on to go and check on them. I found them about 300 yards out back trying to climb up into my son's old tree house. I picked up one, and sent the other one to the house. As I walked to the house I looked back when about 40 yards from the treehouse and a large Lynx jumped out of the treehouse.
This fall during our fall hunt while drifting Beaver Creek. One night I was having a hard time sleeping, I got up and set up one of the camp chairs. I put my feet up on a log, leaned back and relaxed and fell asleep. Something bumped the bottom of the chair, got my attention. Here I was sitting with my feet up, something unseen around the bottom of the chair, I could see something dark but it was too dark there under the trees to tell what it was. Scared the heck out of me. The chair was sitting in the path coming up from the river. I managed to tipp the chair over backwards, throwing me into the small willows off the trail. What ever it was took off heading for the river. I grabbed my rifle that was leaning on the log I had my feet on and looked towards the river. It was a big Beaver. But you know having just been rudely awakened, I had no idea what it was bumping that chair.
Later in October, I went for a ride on my fourwheeler to an area I had never checked out before. Around noon I saw some sheep on the side of a mountain. I got off the fourwheeler and walked about 100 yards to a good spot to ly down and watch the sheep. I watched the sheep, some Caribou, and took a short nap for two hours. Finally got up and started walking back to my machine, suddenly a BIG BULL MOOSE jumped up, looked at me snorted, shook his head at me, stamped the ground a couple of times and then lucky for me walked away. He had came in after I had started watching the sheep.
Then while we were on our last hunt, one of my partners was sleeping on the bottom bunk. About an hour after we had gone to bed, suddenly he screamed, rolled off the bunk onto the floor, screaming all the while as he climbed out of the end of his sleeping bag. It was funny, and serious at the same time, to see a grown man screaming and tearing his sleeping bag apart trying to get out. A tiny Vole had run down into the bag as he slept. He was awakened with something crawling around inside the bag with him. That was more than he could handle, no way he was going to sleep on that bunk again. I've had them run across me as I slept in the same bunk at night, but luckily never go into my bag.
One of the miners I know burns all his trash in a fifty-five gallon drum. That way there is nothing left to draw in bears to his camp. The drum is 300 yards from camp and across the creek. I go over during the spring and sit on the front porch and watch the bears come to the drum. There is nothing left, due to the miner pouring fuel into the drum to assure a complete burn. But the smells are still there. That is enough to draw the bears to the drum. With 20 to 22 hours of daylite that is enough to keep someone entertained all day.
Ran into Johnny McCarty yesterday at the gym. He looks pretty good, I should say normal. You would never know to look at him that four years ago he was badly mauled by a Grizzly. Tore up pretty bad, almost died. If I did not know about it I would never see the scares, or know he had almost been killed.
That's our way of life here, just part of our everyday routine.
