Papa's Alaska Stories 1953 - 1954: A Young Man's Frontier Adventures

By Frank A. Iwen

Papa's Alaska Stories is about the young author and his adventures as an enforcement patrolman and a stream guard (a fish cop) with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Post WWII Alaska, still a territory, was already experiencing change and rapid growth. Iwen's stories center around Alaska's commercial salmon fishery during the summer of 1953 and 1954. His tales of being lost at sea, living in isolation, and encounters with bears are punctuated with natural history and ecological information. The book closes with an environmental commentary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Mar 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781977210807

Frank A. Iwen

Frank Iwen is a retired curator of birds and mammals at the University of Wisconsin Zoological Museum, Madison. He is a life member of the American Society of Mammalogists and The Wildlife Society. Studies have taken him from the Alaskan arctic to Argentina and many places between. Among his contributions to the scientific literature is his article about the Arctic Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus parryii) in The Smithsonian Book of North American Mammals (1999). He is also a retired Colonel of the U. S. Army Medical Service Corps. Mr. Iwen currently resides at his home in Madison, WI.

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Papa’s Alaska Stories 1953 – 1954

A Young Man’s Frontier Adventures

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2019 Frank A. Iwen

v5.0

The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Outskirts Press, Inc.

http://www.outskirtspress.com

ISBN: 978-1-9772-1080-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018908948

Cover Photo © 2019 Frank A. Iwen. All rights reserved - used with permission.

Outskirts Press and the OP logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FOR MARG AND PAULA

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ALASKA AT LAST: THE FIRST YEAR

THE YES BAY CHALLENGE

BACK TO BRISTOL BAY THE SECOND YEAR

THE MOGULS OF MONTAGUE ISLAND

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

My first trip to Yes Bay Lodge was in late July 2016. I had heard about the lodge from a friend of mine in Ketchikan when my wife Marg and I made a stopover on an Alaskan Maritime Highway trip in the late 1990s. My friend’s description of the place intrigued me and I pondered the possibility of a visit. A decision to visit the lodge after retirement finally became reality many years later. Although this trip was my first to Yes Bay Lodge, it was not my first trip to Yes Bay. Sixty-three years earlier, I spent six weeks at this exact site in Yes Bay. It was the tail end of my summer job with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. My summer began as an enforcement patrolman on a patrol boat in Bristol Bay and finished as a fish cop, a stream guard at Wolverine Creek. My mission was to prevent commercial fishing in the bay. I was living out a childhood dream of being in Alaska.

The lodge history describes the former occupant of the site as a fish hatchery; however, when I arrived in 1953 my partners called it a salmon cannery. What I first saw was a knocked-down partially burned heap of what was once a collection of buildings. Nothing about what I saw revealed the original function of what was once intact. The place was an ugly pile of debris, an insult to its surrounding beauty. That image of the past vanished when our floatplane descended for our landing. When I looked at the lodge, it initially was difficult to accept that this was in fact Yes Bay. Only the area surrounding the lodge convinced me that this was indeed the right place. In fact, I knew this place very well.

I applaud the Hack family for its magnificent restoration of the area. It is impossible for me to describe the magnitude of the cleanup that took place before implementing plans for the lodge. The burned dock and pilings, the stone cribs at the stream entrance, and any vestige of the old structure is gone. This new facility is in total harmony with its surroundings and worthy of its location. My new image of Yes Bay and Wolverine Creek is even more spectacular than any I had in my earlier visit.

I shared this return occasion with my son-in-law John Landers and my teenage grandson Isaac. Ike, as we call him, was the same age as I was when I landed in 1953. Both he and his dad heard my Yes Bay stories many times, and now we shared an adventure in that exact location. Without question, Yes Bay 2016 is more Ike’s story than it is about my return. Of course, fishing was our focus, and like all fishing trips, there is always at least one story about the big one that got away. This trip was no exception. We began dropping our lines for halibut early one afternoon. Ike had a strike before either John or I had hooks on the bottom. The fun of lift and crank then began. Ike is a strong, tall, wiry lad, but after ten minutes he said, Dad, my arm is really getting tired.

John quickly wrapped his right arm around Ike’s waist and helped him lift. They could feel that this fish was big and unwilling to experience daylight.

Captain Johnny told us that we were down at about four hundred feet. It takes time to bring any fish to surface from that depth. This fish was heavy and did not want to surface. After