Crispy Alaskan Capers: Gram-Pa's Cool Arctic Adventures

By Larry Rubin

Many readers are thrilled to immerse themselves in the tales of years gone by, concerning deeds they wished they could have done, but never did. When living in frigid Alaska, we submerged ourselves in almost any adventure that presented itself. The wild Arctic Alaska with its colder temps, thicker and more prevalent ice-fog, considerably larger moose, huge schools of lively salmon and seemingly unending miles of spacious tundra elicits a symphony of crisp adventures, unparalleled in any other state. They were presented to us on a platter. We didnt shy away. We attempted them with a near voracious appetite and claimed our fill. In fact, we went back for more; with gusto.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512733273

Larry Rubin

Living and working in the big wild West, especially as a timber faller in the rugged Montana forests, forces one to learn quickly or perish. The author had little choice but to keep extremely observant so as not to get injured or maimed and thus be able to work another day and provide for his family. Working during sweltering, hot summer days as well as frigid winter days of down to twenty-five degrees below zero brought vivid life to the old adage of “easier said than done.” In spite of his constant vigilance, occasional mishaps were in the making. The author worked for nearly twenty-four years as a Montana timber faller and made it through, alive.

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Copyright © 2016 Larry Rubin.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-3328-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3329-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3327-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016903591

WestBow Press rev. date: 3/8/2016

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. Unique Ways In Alaska

Chapter 2. A Huge Hunt On The Kenai

Chapter 3. A New Job : — On A Musk-Ox Farm

Chapter 4. A Guided Moose Hunt From An Air Boat

Chapter 5. Married In Alaska; First Honeymoon Excursion

Chapter 6. Capers At The Musk-Ox Farm

Chapter 7. Our Honeymoon: Second Excursion

Chapter 8. Fun Fishing & Hunting In Alaska

Chapter 9. A Horse For The Musk-Ox Farm

Chapter 10. The Black Bear Nuisance

Chapter 11. ‘Nailing’ My First Bull Moose

Chapter 12. Snow Machine Antics; Arctic Style

Chapter 13. Events With My New Pick-Up Truck

Chapter 14. Excursions Around Fairbanks

Chapter 15. Toklat River Grizzly Bear Hunt

Chapter 16. Musk-Ox Farm Capers

Chapter 17. Temporary Work - Fort Chimo, Quebec

Chapter 18. Care-Taking Cattle: Out To The Aleutians

Chapter 19. A New Job : Interior Airways

Chapter 20. Leaving Alaska: Moving To Colorado

Epilogue

About The Author

PREFACE

The completion of my first book, ‘His Eyes Were On The Starling’ began as a simple suggestion to jot down several ‘memories’ that I had lived through, when growing up. The many memories became quite vivid as I pondered them and subsequently put down on paper.

Although, somewhat laborious initially, the more I wrote, the easier it became. In a quick 3 years, I had ‘resurrected ‘ nearly 22 years worth of adventures of my life and ‘all’ over 50 years ago.

But as I glanced over my entire life, scores of events and deeds had yet to be told. Many of the most unusual or unique were those that occurred while I lived in Alaska. Residing in the crispy north-land for nearly 7 years witnessed a myriad of events that my children and grand-kids would never have a clue about, unless someone put them down on paper. Who better, than the person involved in them, the one who saw them 1st hand and often, struggled to ‘make it out alive’.

I made a quick list of several of the most vivid events over those 7 crisp years in Alaska. The following accounts are a few of the most memorable ones; ones that I would live over again, in a ‘heartbeat’. --That is: -- most of them.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A huge debt of gratitude goes to all my children who have always encouraged me to write the myriad memories down on paper. It is so very easy to ‘never get to it’ and ‘just keep putting it off’. Their friendly encouragement and frequent reminders have finally ‘paid off’.

One additional big ‘Thanks’ is to my 1st wife, Kathie, who bravely fought cancer for nearly 15 years before the Good Lord ‘called her Home’. We were married there in Alaska and she faithfully followed me, right by my side, through many of the several, challenging capers that comprised our ‘time in Alaska’. Many times, during the actual events, her insight, advice and recommendations were invaluable. So were her ‘avid’ admonishments. --Thanks so much, Kathie.

The biggest ‘thanks’ goes again to my faithful wife, Janet. Not only does she never complain about my ‘near absence’ of family life but quietly encourages me to keep on, as well as frequently ‘takes over’ on some of ‘my normal home duties’. What a precious ‘help-meet’. I couldn’t ‘do it and stick to it’ with-out her faithful help. From the bottom of my heart; thanks, my sweet-heart, Janet!

INTRODUCTION

In 1963, I had driven to the gigantic state of Alaska, all on the premise of attending the University of Alaska. I did indeed start and was faithful there, attending classes for several semesters but, as is typical, ‘things change’.

Not only was I married there near Fairbanks but quit attending college as I was seriously attracted to a unique job opportunity; that of working ‘full-time’ on an experimental musk-oxen farm. I experienced a ‘ton’ of unique adventures while working there but changed jobs again after nearly 3 & ½ years when a ‘better opportunity’ presented itself.

The volume on the following pages is strictly an account of several events that occurred while I and my wife Kathie were living there in cool Alaska. Several adventures were fairly typical or just ‘run of the mill’, but with an Alaskan ‘flair’ attached.

Others were completely unique to the frozen northland including those that could have ended my life or of my ‘assistants’ helping me. As such, most were intriguing enough, that I would live them over again, in a ‘heart-beat‘. The ‘life-threatening ones’; - (no hard feelings, but) - no thanks; I’ll take a ‘rain check’.

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Mt. McKinley in Alaska’s ‘Denali National Park’

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Author and his new bride, Kathie,

on our wedding day.

25 July, 1966

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Chapter 1

UNIQUE WAYS IN ALASKA

College at the University of Alaska started for me during the 1st week of September of 1963. Most of us new students there, were all in the same ‘boat’, having left home and were now, ‘out on our own’. Invariably, we all quickly made several new friends.

Directly across the dorm hallway from my room was a new student that I quickly became friends with; Mr. Wes Hillman. Wes possessed many of the same interests that I had. We both loved hunting, fishing, and all that the great outdoors had to offer. Living in the ‘city’ and ‘confinement’ was not our ‘cup of tea‘. It was not surprising then, that Wes invited me down to spend the Christmas ‘vacation’ days with him and his family in Anchorage, that 1st year in college of 1963.

After rounding up a few extra clothes, etc. and packing my little 1959 VW Beetle, we hit the highway heading mostly ‘south’ and eventually down to Anchorage nearly 430 miles away. The temperatures were averaging about 10 to 15 below zero the day we left.

Since the little 4 cylinder ‘bug’ was air-cooled, the heater unit of the vehicle never did put out any heat that we could readily discern. By necessity, we had to wear our heavy winter outer clothing including winter boots for the duration of the nearly 8 hour frigid journey.

It was great to be able to spend the entire Christmas season with the Hillman family that year. Wes and I were chomping at the bit, to get out of town, however and whenever we could, we headed for the ‘hills’ of the frosty, snow covered far northern land.

One of our first excursions was to go out to the foot-hills of the taller mountains in the vicinity and attempt to harvest a few of the crafty ‘Ptarmigan’ game-birds. Wearing their completely white winter plumage, the usually, stationary birds would blend in with the totally snow covered terrain and be nearly impossible to see.

Hunting them required extreme patience in both listening for their occasional ‘calls’ to each other, as well as keeping a sharp eye out for a momentary glimpse of their black eyeballs as they sometimes scurried across the fluffy snow. Once you spotted one, they typically would stop and remain motionless for a minute or more, giving the hunter ample time to get a good ‘bead’ on them and hopefully, make a clean kill. Using a shotgun would ‘pepper’ them with too many tiny ‘shot’, thus damaging too much good meat so we always used a handy .22 rifle to bag our quarry.

The secret to success was to never miss. If you missed, the small covey of the nearly invisible birds would typically fly off in unison. If your initial shot was on the mark, the small flock, not hearing any of their companions hastily flying off would ‘hold tight’, often affording the wise fowler a second shot on another 1 or more birds.

Wes and I happened upon about 3 random coveys that day and were successful in harvesting about 5 of the tasty ‘ghost-white’ birds. When cleaning them at home, the easiest method was to simply skin them completely before placing a liberal application of butter over the entire body and sprinkling them with a slight amount of our favorite, assorted spices. Then we would wrap them completely with tinfoil and tenderly roast them for 50 minutes at about 325 degrees. Talk about tender, succulent eating. They were ‘gourmet’ good and usually elicited a repeat of our winter-time hunting endeavors.

Another excursion Wes and I ventured out on that Christmas vacation was a frigid jaunt up to a lake called, Big Lake to go Ice fishing. Big Lake Alaska was only about 1 ¼ hour north- west of Anchorage and consisted of about 8.3 thousand acres. The particular day we ventured forth, we took Wes’s chain saw with its 36 inch long bar on it. As the weather had been brutally cold for the several preceding weeks, the ice on the lake was frozen easily down to a depth of well over 32 inches or so. Getting a hole sawed down to the unfrozen water necessitated using the full length of his bar and nearly 8 to 10 minutes of labor.

The fishing that day for the typical Rainbow trout and Dolly Varden was extremely slow and we nearly froze our hands and feet off while waiting for the widely spaced, sporadic bites we experienced. We could both count the total number of ‘nibbles’ on our dangling lines that day on one hand. Our total catch for the day before we decided to ‘hang it up’ that early afternoon was a single Rainbow that Wes accidentally latched on to which just barely ‘tipped the tape’ to be a keeper.

Catching a ‘colorful’ trout is always a fun experience but we gradually became more fascinated with the extracurricular activities going on around us for several hours that morning. As the ice on the lake was well over 30 inches thick, the Air Force was using a portion of the nearly 6 mile long frozen icy surface as a practice emergency landing strip for several huge C-130 Hercules aircraft.

Just north of Anchorage about 3 to 4 miles was located the large and pugnacious Air Force base called Elmendorf. The Arctic air base was home to a strong contingent of the huge Lockheed Hercules cargo craft.

Little did I realize at the time but in slightly over 4 ½ years from then, I would be working in Fairbanks, Alaska for a cargo airline company that owned 5 of the big, husky haulers. Not only would I be doing ‘weight and balance’ paperwork for the cargo craft but would subsequently also be loading the huge planes and then flying with the loaded craft to unload them at their arctic coast destinations.

As we had decided to bore our fishing hole for our ice fishing excursion that morning about 100 yards off the shore line, the practice landing strip for the big 4-engined cargo air-craft was only about the same distance away from us, towards the center portion of the table-top ‘ice-berg’.

The 4 big turbo-prop engines, producing over 4,100 hp each allowed Wes and I a ‘ring-side’ seat to the spectacular take-offs and landings in the brisk temperatures. The fascinating flight maneuvers were a ready relief to the finger-numbing holding of our short ice-fishing rods in the near zero temps that morning.

***

On one of our outings that winter, Wes and I were driving my black ‘Bug’ just a few miles outside of Anchorage looking again for new ‘territory’ for hunting the elusive ptarmigan. In early afternoon that day, we were traversing a seldom traveled rural road that was only slightly ice packed. As we progressed a bit farther on the hard snow packed road, the road bed started on a moderately down hill grade that was facing toward the south. As such, we suddenly became aware that the surface of the tire paths were quite icy and the bare spots on the road bed were few and far between. We also were abruptly alerted to a big red ‘stop’ sign down ahead where our road joined into another rural road at a ‘T’. The farther we progressed, the less traction we realized we had and were soon aware that there would be no way on earth that we would be able to stop at the stop sign. I began pumping the brakes furiously as I slid toward the intersection.

I scanned the new roadway in both directions but saw no traffic in either direction, so continued working the brakes and slid straight across the new roadway and over into the shallow barrow ditch. As there was only about 5 inches of crispy snow covering the ground, I hurriedly dropped the transmission down into 2nd gear, turned the steering wheel slightly to the left so as to head toward an unused driveway nearby and gingerly gave the beetle a hefty amount of throttle.

With the good snow-tread tires on the rear, along with the weight of the engine over both back drive wheels, the little black ‘bug’ churned her way through the deep snow and on over to the vacant driveway. Once on the empty driveway, I could turn back on to the main country roadway and continue on our merry way, as if nothing had happened.

***

Shortly before the middle of January in 1964, Wes and I had to return to Fairbanks to resume our 2nd semester of ‘studies‘. Wes had purchased an older red Dodge pick up truck to take back to the University so that he would have his own set of ‘wheels for whatever. As it turned out, we would return back to the University on separate days.

I left one morning about 9:30 after packing my black ‘bug’ and starting on the nearly 8 hour journey. The still partly snow-packed highways meant that I would have to drive a bit slower while at the same time, using extra caution on the somewhat precarious roadways.

About an hour into the journey, I approached a section where I could see ahead as the road was straight for well over a mile in length and contained an uphill grade of a few degrees. About 1/3rd of the way up the uphill grade was a dull orange colored ‘highway department’ snow plow slowly plowing the right side of the snowy highway.

Much farther ahead near the top of the grade was a car that was starting to work its way down the long grade toward me. At my current pace, I could readily catch up to the snowplow, pass him and be in front of him easily before the distant on-coming car would get to the slow paced plow. So I thought.

I kept my speed up, maybe even increasing it somewhat. As it was lightly snowing out and the day in general was kinda grey and gloomy, the on-coming vehicle didn’t show up real well. I concentrated on the snowplow ahead of me and only occasionally glanced at the approaching car.

Suddenly, I was close behind the snowplow, started my pass around the working monster and alertly glanced ahead to see how far away the approaching car still was. I was startled to see that the on-coming car, which didn’t have his head-lights on, was traveling at easily 2 or 3 times the speed that he seemed to be, initially.

By now I was ¾ the way around the snowplow so continued on but realized that the on-coming car was not slowing even a tiny bit and would be even with me before I could pull in front of the slow moving plow. I drifted over close to the plowing truck and was probably with-in 12 or 14 inches of the rumbling giant.

The car kept flying towards me, not slowing a bit and passed me with-in just a handful of inches on my left side. We all made the pass alright but just by the skin of my teeth. The snowplow driver probably was never even aware of the ‘close-call’ that had just taken place beside him. I was shaking in my boots for the next 10 minutes and surely, must have ‘Royally’ vexed my ‘Guardian Angel’.

***

When I was close to the ½ way point of that return trip back up to the University at Fairbanks, I was driving on mostly snowy roads still and approaching the highest point of the whole trip; the Paxson Lake summit area. The traffic that particular day was rather sporadic. Typically, there would be periods of 15 to 20 minutes or more between encountering on-coming vehicles.

Especially in the Paxson Lake summit region, there was a very brisk breeze across the ground. At one point, I came to a small bridge over a wide stream where the lay of the land around the ends of the bridge caused the blowing snow to pile up a snow drift at the one end of the bridge. I saw the 20 inch tall drift in time, before I got into it too far but could quickly see that the drifted snow was nearly ‘rock-hard’. I stopped as soon as I could and backed up away from the drift about 15 feet. I got out of my ‘beetle’ to quickly look over the situation, hopefully, before any traffic approached me.

Although the stiff wind was fiercely blowing a considerable amount of snow, I could see the road behind me for several hundred yards and thus, could see no approaching traffic behind me. In the direction of the bridge and the snow drift, that was a different story. I walked through the hard-packed drift, on to the main part of the bridge and over to the far end of the bridge which was maybe 40 feet away. The briskly blowing wind was causing a virtual ‘white-out’ for ½ the entire length of the bridge. The main part of the rock-hard snow drift was only about 12 to 15 feet long, starting right at the approach of the bridge. I would easily become completely entrapped if I attempted to drive through the ‘brick-like’ snow bank.

Hoping that no traffic was coming from either direction, I drove back up to the beginning of the packed snow, left the engine running but went back in front of my car and started tramping 2 paths through the hardened snow. I made both paths the same width as my front tires were apart and tramped as fast as I possibly could. I must have looked like a frigid Indian on the War-path.

When each trail was about a foot wide and stomped down far enough that I thought I could ‘blast’ my way through, I backed my bug up about 20 feet, shifted into 2nd gear and gave the idling engine a healthy amount of throttle.

The little black bug leaped forward, into the brittle snow drift and immediately began slowing down abruptly. I kept the throttle down, forcing the rear tires to voraciously chew their way through the snow-white drift. Finally, the front tires burst forth and the rear tires obediently churned their way to the far side of the drift as well.

As it turned out, no cars were approaching the drifted bridge from either direction while I was stopped there in my dire predicament. Actually, as I drove on, it was probably 10 to 12 minutes before I even passed another oncoming vehicle. Surely, my Guardian Angle was aware of the entire situation but; -— what did I know? What a pleasant relief to finally arrive back at my cozy dorm on the chilly campus near Fairbanks, later that day.

***

Later that spring in 1964, while there was still a considerable amount of snow covering all the landscape, Wes and I decided to take a drive up the Steese highway to the quiet and remote town of Circle, which was also commonly called, Circle City. Although the small berg of Circle was simply a ‘tiny town’ situated at the northern end of the highway, the gravel road was only slightly maintained for its 156 mile length. Much of its length was also, not much more than a wide, single lane roadway restricting travelers to use caution and a somewhat reduced speed.