Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 757: Surviving and Thriving (and Finding a Dead Man) in the Alaska Bush

Transcript

Ep. 757: Surviving and Thriving (and Finding a Dead Man) in the Alaska Bush · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underware. Listening past, you
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: can't predict anything brought to you by first Light. When
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First Light builds,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: no compromise, gear that keeps me in the field longer,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: no shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: first Light dot com. That's f I R S T
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: L I T E dot com. All right, man, Randy
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Brown is back. No, not Dave. It's the opposite of
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: debut return, repeat en court performance by Randy Brown. Because
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: because Randy came on, what what the hell do we
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: call that episode?
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Living in the woods, living off the land?
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Fifteen years living off land? Randy Brown came in some
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: time ago, I don't know, and it was spectacular. We
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: couldn't we didn't scratch the surface. We talked like just
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: a recap to tell people the years you lived, the
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: years you went out and.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Lived off the land in Alaska. Well it was about
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: fifteen altogether, okay, yeah.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: And this is recap, just yeah, we're gonna recap. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: And so I went out on the Yukon and it
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: was you know, mush dogs and built cabins. Was able
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: to persuade Karen Love My Life to come out there
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: with me, which was that was probably one of the
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: tougher things to do.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it was.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: And then she would teach in a few times out
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: in some of the rural communities and that was fun too,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: you know, taking as I would, mush dogs and fish
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: and hunt, seeing new places in the state.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: And you did a lot of a lot of fur trapping.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: And when you came on, we told the story of
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you finding a body a guy tried to find out
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the identity of that body. I even brought it up
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: on Rogan's podcast, thinking that him having such a huge
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: audience would turn up some stuff. We'll check in with
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: you in a minute there, okay, to find out if
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: we found out any uh, if you've ever gotten any
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: intriguing hints about the body you found. The guy you
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: called Smeegel called himself John the Baptist. And then the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: reason why he wanted you to come back on is
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: because we never because we talked about all this big
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: picture stuff like timeline and all that, but we didn't
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: get into a lot of the nuts and bolts tactical
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: stuff about living off the country in Alaska. So I
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: want to get back into a bunch of things with you.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: But the minute we got done recording, I was like, man,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I dude's got to come back on, and our audience
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: as well wanted to come back on because we did.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: We did. We haven't fully extracted all the usable information
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: from your brain. Okay, we're gonna we're gonna continue the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna dive into the Randy Brown brain
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: extraction and find out more about just kind of like
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: a life that's like, uh, staggering in its boldness. That'd
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: be a good blurb. Yeah that's a blurb, but staggering
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: in its boldness. Yeah, there you go.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Before we do that, here's a couple of things. Randall
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: and I, doctor Randall, and I work on this this series.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I'm telling the audience thiss not you, but you can listen.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: We work on a series called meat Eaters of American History.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: So uh as you guys know it, because we uhould
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: do podcast episodes. When we launched these different volumes of
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: meat Eaters of American History. So the first Meat Eaters of
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: American History we did is we did one on the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: long hunters, and so the most famous long hunter being
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Daniel Boone. So we get a meat Eater's of American History,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: The Laws, and that covered the years I believe it
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: was seventeen sixty three to seventeen seventy five, and it
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: was about the deer skin trade, primarily around Appalachia, the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Kentucky region, but the American Colonial Frontier deer skin trade.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: The second volume of meat Eaters American History we did
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: was called The Mountain Men, and that covered eighteen oh
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: six to eighteen forty and that was about the beaver
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: skin trade of those years. Well, Volume three is coming out.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Pre sales are available now. It's an audio original, so
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: it's not a print book. It's an audio original. Volume
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: three is available now and it's called me Eater's American History,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: The Hide Hunters, and it's about the buffalo skin trade
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and it covers eighteen sixty five, so it starts at
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the end of the Civil War, covers up until eighteen
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: eighty three, which was the last great shoot. At that
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: point they were gone, they were effectively gone. So Meetater's
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: American History The Hide Hunters tells this story of the
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: buffalo hide hunters predominantly dudes, kind of spun out of
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the chaos of the Civil War. The Big Hide Hunt
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: starts down in Kansas. First it moves south into Texas,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: then it moves north into Montana. And it's that story
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: of kind of the wind down of the Civil War,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the chaos and catastrophe of the Civil War, the American government,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the federal government, turning its eyes westward after the Civil
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: War is over, turning it westward in two ways, railroad
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: expansion and the Indian Wars, and how those efforts kind
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: of opened up the great planes to the hide hunters,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: who very quickly put themselves out of business by killing
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: all of their target animals. It's a story about leather production.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: It's a story about combat between whites and Native Americans
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: on the southern plains, and it's a story about just
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: really not understanding the finiteness of a resource. So Meat
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Eater's American History, The High Hunters eighteen sixty five to
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty three available for pre order. Now another little
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: news bit here, So the met Eater crew is hitting
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: the road again this fall. Last year, a bunch of
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: our guys headed out to do tailgate tours. A bunch
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: more guys are heading out to do tail gate tours
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: this year. Meat Eater Tailgate Tour presented by Dometic. If
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: you have a camper like an RV unit, and you
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: look at the fridge and your RV unit, there's a
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: high likelihood, it says Dometic on it. They make all
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: kinds of camping gear, electric coolers, they make all kinds
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: of stuff, tons of great products. So presented by Dometic.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Got free food, you can hang out with the crew.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Texas at Ohio State that's on August thirty, that's Randall
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and Giannis. Kansas at Missouri that'll be Clay and Baron Newcombe.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: That's Columbus, Missouri September six. What's UTEP mean? University of
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Texas Huh? At Texas that's easy. Yeah, that's Texas v
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Texas Austin, Texas, Saturday, September thirty. Jesse Griffiths will be
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: there slinging some grub. And then Maryland at Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: September twenty. That'll be Spencer Chester and Garrett Long. Garrett Long. Yeah,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: they're slinging grub at the tailgate tour. So any of
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: these places go on the tailgate tour. You're gonna come out.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: You're gonna see their tent and you can go get
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: hang out and get free food. Meet eater tailgate tour.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Oh I miss some Seth and Brody. Oh this because
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: this is like cess little home spot Oregon at penn
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: State University Park, Pennsylvania, September twenty seventh, Our two big
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania guys, Seth and Brodi, you're gonna be running that
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: tailgate tour. And then Boise State at Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana, Saturday,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: October four. That's gonna be Mark, Jannie and Garrett slinging
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: grub for the tailgate tour at that game. Stop in
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: and see those fellas. An quick thing. I think we're
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: off to the races. Oh no, yeah, one more thing.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: We're off to the race. Is that correct? No? Two
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: more things? Oh, you guys have been seeing us like everybody.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: A lot of the guys have coming out on the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: show kind of living this first light navigator hoodie. These
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: are out and available. I didn't know they made them
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: in this color until I got one there day. I know.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: And I'm supposed to tell everybuddy about all the wild,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: crazy hunting, fishing trips I've done in mind my fleece
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: lined hoodie. But I just wear it all the time.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I wear it on the plane, I wear it when
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I'm yelling at my kids. I wear it when I'm
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: having dinner at my wife. It's just my main like garment.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Check it out at first light dot com. It's the
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: most comfortable thing I own. I live in it. Oh.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: The last thing. If there's any people out there, this
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: could be you who are like wizards at GE freezers,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: listen to this problem I have. I have a brand
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: new GE freezer at my fish shack in Alaska. It's
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: not it's one year old. The first year it worked, okay.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: First off, when you get a freezer to a place
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: like that, it's not co the back. It's like it
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: came out on a boat. Right. You're not gonna like
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: bring it in for service. This is it gonna work?
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Brand new Ge Chess freezer. The year I get it, it
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: works fine, come back up in May it doesn't work anymore.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: But get this, it's like it's possessed on this freezer.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: This is for someone that's a ge like I need
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: your help if this thing's on the on light doesn't
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: come on if you turn it off. You follow me.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: If you turn the dial and click it off, the
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: on light comes on, but it doesn't turn on. If
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: you open the lid, the on light goes off. This
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: is like an electronics problem. No again, If you turn
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: it off, the on light comes on, but it doesn't
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: turn on. And if you if the lit up, the
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: on light goes off. The compressors do not run. It's possessed.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: If I call someone eight hundred number, I am It's like, no,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: there's no person on the planet that you're gonna call
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: on a one eight hundred number that is gonna be like, oh,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: what you need to do is blank? You follow my problem?
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Do you understand what I'm saying? What could cause that?
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: If you're out there and you are like a wizard
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: at freezers send a go to the meat eater at
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the meter dot com and write like freezers in the
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: subject line. I will like if you have If you know,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I will, I will call you and we will talk
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: about it. I feel like it needs like a new
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: It's something electronic. Man maybe got a fault, but it worked.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: It's probably under warranty. But what do you do? I
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: can't haul it out of there. I'm not going to
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: bring it to town. No, it's eight hundred bucks down the drain.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: You want, Yeah, you'd have to burn all the insulation up.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: You can't even get rid of a freezer like that.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I just like that's a moment of like in speech,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: there's a moment of silence to like have people meditate
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: on something. I want people to meditate, to meditate from
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: minute on this there. If you know a lot about freezers, man,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I need to talk to you because I know that
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: like calling a one eight hundred number isn't going to
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: do it. It's gonna be a dude that barely speaks English,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh no, check out, you turn it off.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just like it's never gonna work. So
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: what'd you find out about? Can you recap the John
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the Baptist story for us? Okay, just a quick recap
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: because I want to find out if we've found out.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, Yeah. So so John the Baptist that's what
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: he called himself, came down and got abandoned, came downs,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: came down to Yukon between the towns of Eagle and Circle.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: So it came down from Canada. That's what he claims,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: and I think he's I think that was true. And
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: then with his buddy, with his buddy, and his buddy
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: then shoved their raft off and and left at one
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: point in time, and he happened to be near the
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: mouth of the Candick River where this fella Fred lived,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: and Fred took him in for a while.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: And can you remind everybody what year this is? This is.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: I think it was nineteen seventy eight, seventy nine. Yeah, And.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So then.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Fred ended up going back east to visit family. He
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: hadn't been back east in a bunch of years at
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: that point, and told him he had to leave, and
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: he didn't. And he just stayed and had his way
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: with all the Fred's stuff, food for his equipment, and
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: actually moved a bunch of stuff from his cabin it
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: was out the mouth of Candy to a place about
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: three miles up up river up on the Candy and
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: smoked all his weed and ate most of his fish.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: And was there a lot of weed smoking in those
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: days up there? No could you grow it or did
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: you have to bring it in?
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: People did, but it's uh it it requires you know,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: some sort of a of a night day period that
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: you don't have up there. So it was, uh, I
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: don't know, there were there were people that grew it.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: But also like if you're trying to grow weed and
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: it's daylight twenty four hours a day, the weed doesn't
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: like that.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: It doesn't it doesn't grow well. No, and uh, and
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I don't I didn't grow it at all. I didn't
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: do any gardening. But but yeah, so so Fred did though,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: but it was kind of rudimentary. He would throw a
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: dog shit and seeds up on the roof of his
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: cabin and that's how he grew it, which is just
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: These spin in a medium of dog shit.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that was the that was the fertilizer.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: So that's not even that's not even ditch weed, man,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: you know, no, but.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: For Fred, that was better than nothing, right, And so
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: except that this guy then.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Saw you, I mean, I don't know. I mean, like,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: you could tell me that it was I'm not like
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: a I'm not a connoissewer. I don't even partake, but
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: you could tell me that. You could tell me that
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the best weed in the world girls out of dog shit,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: and I wouldn't know. I wouldn't refute it. I don't
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: know either.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Well, well, but but if anyway, fred Fred got pissed
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: off and told him that, you know, when he did
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: come back in November, that he had to get out
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: of there, he had to leave, go to Circle or
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: go to Eagle when the river froze up.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: And he he.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Took a different tactic, and he said he's going to
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: go to chel Keittswick, which was way north and all,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: you know, through the woods and everything, and and and.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: How many miles would that be when he when this
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: guy says he's going to go overland.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Well it would be over one hundred miles. Yeah, the
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: way you'd have to walk and and through you know
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: forest or a windy old black river. You know that
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: now it's called the Dronjic. Name was changed not too
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: long ago. And yeah, but we didn't think that he
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: could make it. There's not a chance in hell that
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: he could. He could do that.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: He he because he didn't have You could make it, though,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. Oh why could you not make it?
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Well, it's pretty barren country, you know, I mean I
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: would if I went, you'd still have to shoot a
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: moose or shoot a or shoot some cariboo, but there
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: weren't very many caribou there. There were cariboo near the
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: border because that was where the Ogili Mountains stopped, you know,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: and that it was wintering ground porcupine caribou that we
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: would get in the Upper Candic River, Upper Nation River,
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: and in the in the Black River, but close to
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: the border because then it gets into flats and the
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: caribou just didn't go there very often, so to be
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: unlikely that you could run across Cariboo going straight U
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: to chuck KEATSI.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Now, I haven't done like, I've never done these kind
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: of walks up there. But one hundred miles I understand,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Like why couldn't you just like with a pack of food.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, how many miles a day can you get
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: in that kind of stuff.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, you could probably go you know, six
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: or eight miles, ten miles maybe if you were if
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: you were good, you had a good pair of snow shoes.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: You know, when when the country is it is covered
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: in snow, you know, three four feet of snow on
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: the ground. It's tough breaking trail. I got you, It's
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: not a simp.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: I wasn't factoring in I wasn't thinking about it that way.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking about it being the wintertime cold and
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: shit it snow.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a lot easier to walk on the
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: on the rivers than trying to bust across country. And
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: you know, when you got all sorts of brushing, and
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: you know different some areas have burned and have down trees,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: and it's it's.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Pretty tough, you know.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: So you got there's a lot of different issues, but
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: part of it is feeding yourself. He had a twenty
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: two that Fred len him a twenty two pistol. He
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: had his buddy had left left him with this twenty
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: gauge double barrel, twenty gauge rossy shotgun. But he didn't
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: have any ammunition for it. Neither did we, and and
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: so he he he had a twenty two pistol. Well,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: you're not going to shoot a moose or anything large
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: with it that could actually feed you. And even if
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: you did shoot a moose, you wouldn't be able to
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: take it very far.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: So it's possible that you could that you could.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, if if I were to set off on
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: that kind of a journey, you'd have the equipment that
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: you needed to do it. You know, you're going to
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: either either poke holes in a in a pond or
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: near a beaver house on a river and snare at
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: trap beavers, you know, to feed yourself. Have some dogs along.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: I help you with moving stuff.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: But that breaking across country like.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: That is really tough, and you know, and you'd have
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: to feeding yourselves and everything else. So you know, you
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: just don't have that much small game that you could
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: feed yourself very easily within the winter.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: So what was this dude's if he had easy access
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: to go on the ice to two different towns on
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the Yukon, what was his draw? Like? Why did he
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: want to travel cross country to the north.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: I have no idea, Okay, I have no idea, but
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: that's what he that's what he told Fred.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: He took off.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: And he ended up finding this little cabin that we
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: had built a couple of years before. It's just a
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: safety cabin about ten miles up and.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: We so he made it ten miles yeah out of
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: one hundred.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And and that's where that's where he stayed. And
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: and he did he did get something. So you know,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: there was a ball jar in there that had a
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Martin skin in it and uh, and he had he
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: had peed in it too. It was urine in there
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: with the Martin skin. I think he was trying to
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: I think he was trying to tan it or something.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know, but.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Just soaking it and piss yeah, And I mean that's
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: what he did. I we you don't know what was
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: in his mind. Yeah, I have no idea what was
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: in his mind, but that's what we kind of thought.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: But but that was he got that with a twenty
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: two clearly, you know. And and but you know Martin
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: or Bold, you know, they'll come down a tree and
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: yell at you and.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, other things. I touched one one time. What's that
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I was able to touch one one time? Uh, A
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: live one huh just real. Yeah, he's real curious. I
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: was bowl hunting. He's real curious. Yeah, And he was
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: kind of on a tree and I just wanted to
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: see if I could, and actually he was so I mean,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: there's not many animals to let you do that. No,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I was actually able to put my hand on it.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: I don't think they fear anything, yeah, really, and I
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: think they feel they're pretty on top of it and
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: deal with whatever. They're a bold animal and uh and
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: so as are you know, the the ermines, the weasels.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're they're They're pretty scary.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Actually when you I caught one one time, and I
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: was trapping voles at our place in Fairbanks and feeding
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: them to our I had a bull snake for a
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: while and uh, this was after we had moved in there,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: and uh, and I would feed it the voles. Well,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: I catch this this uh and it was a live
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: catch trap, you know, a little have a heart and uh.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: And I caught a weasel and uh. And I had
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: this little bird cage and I could open the door
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: on the bird cage and let the ermine into the
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: cage and close the door and then wire it closed.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: But you know those.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Cartoons where they have the cat running around on the
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: wall sideways, you know, That's how this guy was in that,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: in that bird cage. And he would take a moment
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: off every once in a while and jump to the
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: side of the cage closest to me and scream, you know,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: and then go back to running around. I go, well,
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: this guy is going to get out of this. This
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: won't hold him for very long. And so I went
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: out and turned him loose because he'll probably kill the snake.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: I put him in with a snake. But they're a trip.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: But anyway, we're back to Smiegel, right. So he's he's
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: in this in this cabin that we had built back
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: in the woods because we didn't want airplanes to see us.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Actually since I you know what started flying and with
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: my job, it's it's amazing how easy you spot something
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: that's rectangular down in the woods. It's it's almost nothing
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: can hide. But why are we trying to hide it
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: from planes? We just we didn't know whether somebody would
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: try and come and kick us off. Okay, so we
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: would We just built our cabins as deep into the
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: forest as possible.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Got it, and he found and then later you learned
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: that that's not an effective strategy.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: It's not an effective strategy. They'll that you can see
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: it well, you know, almost always.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: So so anyway, he found it.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know how the heck he found it and
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: and and stayed there, you know, whether he whether he
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: froze his feet or whether he he you know, I
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: don't know what what drove him, but but he was
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: there and and dead when we found him the next spring.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: So you were one. Yeah, And then just to remind
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: listeners a little bit some of this backstory, Yeah, you
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: found him dead. Was he so was he rotted down
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: or just frozen? No? Well, I think he had froze,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: But you know, a cabin is insulated in the winter
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: so that you can build a fire and keep it
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: warm inside. And then once once the fire goes out
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: and it turns cold in there, then that cabin insulates
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: it from the spring, you know, and it started warming up.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: So I don't think he'd been thawed for very long
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: because he wasn't rotten, and he was just he was just.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Just dead and his hair was slipping just a little
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: bit on his forehead. And you said he was just
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: skin and bones, skin and bones. Yeah, And you picked
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: him up and left them out on the tundra.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we thought about trying to take him down to Circle,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: but it was that would have been a several day
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: endeavor in the side of the Yukon at that point,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: not long after breakup were just packed with ice. Breakups
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: are different every year on the Yukon, you know, and
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: sometimes they flow over the banks. Sometimes they just slush
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: out and it's not a big deal. That particular breakup though,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: had put ice packed onto the banks, and so it
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: was difficult to actually get someplace off of the river
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: to park and walk into the woods or do other things.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: And so we just figured that it would put us
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: just in an uncomfortable position, not being able to feed
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: ourselves and things if we had gone down there. We
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: didn't have any money or anything, and so it was
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: we just took him out in the woods and left.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Him and it never heard another thing about it, no, never.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: And so after the last podcast where we talked about that,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: there was a fella from I got contacted by a
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: couple of people.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Who might who had tips, who potentially had tips.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Well, so one one fella was a French Canadian and
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: he wanted to know whether he was a Native or
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: a or a or a white man and if we
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: could tell, and he was he was a white guy.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: And and they said, well, you know, in in French Canada, uh,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: some people you know might have the name Juan Baptiste.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: And we may have interpreted it, I mean, but she
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: wrote it, so it was he was calling it John
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: the Baptist, but well he wrote it on what he
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: wrote that note to Fred on the door and signed
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: it John John the Baptist. Yeah, and he's got that note.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Now. I don't know, dude, I'd like to have that note.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's I bet it isn't around. I
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: don't know a bit to be hanging around the wall
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: here if I had it. Yeah.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: So, anyway, he was looking through missing persons records in
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Canada based on our conversation, Yeah, okay, And I don't
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: know whether he found him or not, but he contacted
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: me on that and we talked a little bit.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: So when you told him that there was a white guy,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: what did he.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Say, Well, he said, that's one of the one of
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: the I guess pieces of information that he used to
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: search the records.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: But you haven't heard anything more about that. No, huh.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: That was the only kind of tip. Yeah. I don't
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: understand how a guy in nineteen seventy eight, seventy eight,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: seventy nine, how there could be a person that vanished,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: starves to death in the woods and not some effort
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: from his family or people to sort of like formally
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: be like, has anyone seen this guy?
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: I mean he must have burned all his bridges.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Well that's that's possible, you know, his his whoever he
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: was traveling with, took off, I don't know, but that
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: could have been that guy's problem too, But.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know. And no idea who the other dude
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: was that abandoned him, No, and he could have so.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: So one of the interesting things is, you know, going
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: down to Yukon between Eagle and Circle, it's not it's
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: not necessarily an easy matter to get to Circle, you know,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: and if they're doing a log raft, which is what
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: they had, that's even more tough, you know, to try
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: to navigate different channels and you start getting into this
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: really braided region of the upper Yukon flats upstream from Circle,
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: and it's way more interesting if you get downstream of it.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: But uh, it's possible unless he had a map and
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: understood where he was that he could have gone right
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: past Circle as well.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: That guy.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh and not even known it perhaps, but uh,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: because it's it's kind of on a on a it's
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: on a south leg of the river there, and there's
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: different islands and shallow places.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I wonder if that dude even lived.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know. We had no other
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: information on that at all.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Although why that stuck with me so much? Man,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I was like kind of die and know about that guy?
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm over it now.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I didn't really think about it very much.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: You know, it was a temporary deal for me, but
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: it's all I can think about for a minute.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know you sent me a story after we talked.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I gave you a book yeah too, Yeah, because we
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: talked about Starving to Death, right, and that journal of
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: I talked.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: I've talked about that book since. Yeah, there was a
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: guy journal those guys that starved to Death. Yeah, there
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: was a guy that wrote to me and said that
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: he had heard you talk about it and didn't know
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: what the what the book was and wanted to know
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: the title of it. So God I sent him information
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: on that. Yeah, tell people the name of the book. Well,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: that was Death in the barn Lands. Yeah, and it
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: was about these three guys, uh, John Hornby and then
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: the two one of them was his nephew, I think
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: another maybe a friend, and they went out into the
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: uh you know, to the to the east of Great
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Slave Lake, over to the Thelon River trains into Hudson Bay.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I believe I had a hell of a time finding that.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I had a hell of time finding that on good Earth.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a confusing tangle of water up there.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: It is it is and uh and it's pretty flat
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: country and uh. And then there's these caribou that the
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: barren ground cariboo that are moving around in that country,
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: but not always in the same place. And they were
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: unfortunate enough that they well there were caribou here here there,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: and they caught a little bit of fer but it
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: wasn't enough to keep them, keep them all going, and
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: they they all ended up dying.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the one, the youngest one, keeps a meticulous journal.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: It's chronicling his death. Extraordinary. He's the work. Yeah, you know.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: And then the people that ended up finding the cabin
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: and the and the people there that had strived out,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: they found his his journal in the stove he had
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: he had put it in.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: There and left the note saying looking stove.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that so that somebody was going to be
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: able to get it and know what what went on?
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Does man explorer there were talking about Hornby he had
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: found on one of his journeys traveling the Canadian Arctic.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: He had found a stand of spruce that he felt
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: in that area was the northernmost stand of spruce, and
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: he realized, you could go into this, this is way
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: above tree line, go into the stand of spruce and
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: build a cabin and make a go of it in
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the way far north. You know what he reminds me of.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Later though, Hornby reminds me of Stocked and Rush, the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: guy from the Titan submersible. Oh, because because he knew
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: what he was getting into, Like he knew what he
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: was doing. The other two didn't. He knew the risk,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: he knew what he was getting into, He'd had close calls,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: he knew how dicey it was, and he like brings
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: other guys along who are sort of trusting in his expertise.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: And then later it comes out, you know, like with
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: stock the Rush, Later it comes out. Stock the Rush
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: had almost like I wouldn't say, a death wish, but
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: like incredible hubris and not a death wish, but definitely
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: knew where it was headed and didn't care. And this
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Hornby guy, I mean he basically offers these people up
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: to the tundra. I mean, he serves them to the
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: god of the tundra. He serves them on a platter.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I think he thought.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: They were gonna do all right, but that it was
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: a hungry country and the caribou didn't come.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The thing that the most upsetting part of that
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: story of starving to death like that is that they
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: start eating hides right, Yeah, and for some reason, like
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of hair, and their bowels get impacted by hair,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: and so towards the end of three of these dudes
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: are trying to give each other enemas, and they're trying
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: to claw out of each other plugs of leather and
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: hair and rigging up different ways to try to get
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: their colon or over the hell clear of hair. And
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: the guys that find the bodies remark on this because
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: some of this excrement, some of this solidified excrement of
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: hair and hide, are littered around the cabin. Just a
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: shitty way to go. Oh yeah, it was bad. Yeah,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: but that really brought to life reading that book, and
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: that's probably why he gave it to me. Reading that
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: book brought to life what that John the Baptist dude like,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: what his days were probably like, I think, so to
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: starve up in their Yeah, but there's a story you
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: told you sent me a video clip and you're telling
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: a story about getting a bear out in the river
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: one time. Oh yeah, and you had mentioned the thing
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: that hadn't really occurred to me in it that but
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: but I've seen it, but I hadn't really thought about it.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Like a deer floats, yeah, yeah, and a muslim float
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: even with a big set of antlers. But a bear
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: don't float good, It doesn't float. Yeah. Do you mind
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: sharing like the sort of the implications of a bear,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: like tell that story and the implications of a bear
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: knoe floating. It's one of my favorite stories because they
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: they sure swim pretty damn good.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they swim so so we used to sometimes find
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: them in the river, swimming from one side to the
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: other and and and we'd follow them and and wait
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: until they get out on the bank. And then sometimes,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: you know, sometimes they're running too hard when they get
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: out and you don't get.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: A good shot.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: But most of the time you're able to cut them
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: on the bank. But we knew that they didn't float
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: because there are several people that shot bears up on
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: bluffs that come right down to the river, and the
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: bear rolls down and into the river and they're gone.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: They go away, and I mean they don't really, but
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: they go away as far as.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: You were concerned.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: So we knew that they that they that they sink,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: you know, and it may be that a cub would float.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Well, you know part of why that there's air in
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the hair. I mean, you know this inservids that hair
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: is kind of hollow. Yeah, imagine they got a hair, right,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Bears got more of what we call fur, but it's
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: more like guard guard hair. Yeah, So I guess that's
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: something to do with it.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So so August is kind of a tough
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: time to make a living out there. You know. The
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: king salmon at that in that part of the river
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: come in July and it's just wonderful time. You know,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: you can sit in one place and and process process
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: king salmon. And I mean not right now because they're
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: desperately low levels right now in the Yukon, But in
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: those days we could fish and hang a gil neet
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: and process you know, five or six fish a day
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: and and and jar them up and dry them and
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: put them up for for later, as well as eat
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: wonderful food the whole time there. But August it comes
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: and there's no fish really. I mean, you can get pike,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: or you can get some whitefish or a sheet fish
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: or something, but but the salmon have gone through and
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: and the fall chump salmon are not there yet, you know.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: And and so we would we would usually try to
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: look for a bear because bears start getting getting pretty
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: nice fat. And this guy, Seymour and I we both
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: fished the same place, Glen Creek Bluff there, and we
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: went down to the to the Candy. So we were
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: about fifty miles upstream from the Candic River where our
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: fish camps were. And he and I took some dogs
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: and we went down to mouth of Candy looking for
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: a bear. There's some good bluffs down there that you
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: might find them on or sometimes just you know walking
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: down through the you know, walking the river bank or something. Anyway,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: we went down there, didn't find anything that we were
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: lying back up the river and we would which is
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: you know, walking the bank and pulling the canoe. And
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: during places where the bank is really nice, you know,
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: where you have the same kind of angle going into
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: the water, we'd.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Hook dogs up.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: We'd took a couple of dogs up and they would
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: pull the canoe up where you can sit in the
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: in the canoe and ride during some of that. And
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: so we were we were in that sort of a
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: situation going up river on a big inside of the bend,
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: so we could see the shoreline only for a couple
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: hundred yards and then it kind of disappeared around the
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: corner to us right and at one point we saw
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: this bear that had taken off somewhere upstream of us
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: and had been swimming out and he got into our
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: view even though it was around he was he was
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: probably one hundred and fifty two hundred yards out into
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: the river, and the river at that point was about
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: five hundred yards we estimated across. So we pull We
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: pull over because we're going to try to get him
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: when he comes out the other side on the bank,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: and we unclipped the dogs because we're going to have
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: to go. We're gonna let him get half or three
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: quarters of the way over a nimble paddle over there.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: That was how we were figuring to do it.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Why not to take off after him right away, well,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: because you'd spook him back to his own bank. You
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: never know, yeah, where it goes, And so usually we would.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Try to follow him and at some point and and
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: once they're close to that bank, they're going to go
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: to that bank. They probably go anyway. But but we
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: also had dogs. We had five dogs that were now
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: loose on the bank, and they hadn't seen the bear
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: at that point, and uh, we're trying to we're trying
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: to get their attention looking downstream a little bit so
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: that they didn't see the bear, because because dogs swim
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: a lot faster than bears, and so we didn't want
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: them getting out there and messing the situation up.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: But but we did have this one dog that he
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: would he would look at jets going by in the
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: sky and so he had really good distance vision and
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: and he spotted it. And they they they really loved
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: to swim after beavers, and I think he probably thought
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: it was a beaver, but it didn't matter that it
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: was a bear. And the dogs all ran up the
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: bank to where they were, you know, straight in from
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: where the bear was swimming, and they start barking at him,
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: and he turns around and looks back at them and
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: decides he's not going there. Because you know, I think
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: all the animals living out in the woods think of
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: the dogs as wolves. I don't think they I don't
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: think they know what they are other than that they're
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: just like wolves to them.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: And so that bear turned and kept going in the
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: same direction.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Well, the jogs all jumped into the river and started
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: swimming after it. And we're sitting there, Seymour and I
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: are sitting there going this is this is not good.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: They're going to catch him out in the river. We
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: have no idea what's going to happen then, but it's
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: possible that they could drown him and and you know,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: just by climbing on him and biting him and things,
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: and then he would go away because he'd sink. Or
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: it may be that he could drown the dogs just
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: by turning around and grabbing them. And we didn't know
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: how big a bear it was, and so we started
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: thinking about how do we deal with this? You know,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: there's no wake we can go and catch all these
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: five dogs and haul him into a canoe out in
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: the river and not tip over. And so Seymour, who
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: was he was, I don't know, he's close to ten
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: years older than me, right, And so he says, here's
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: what we'll do, Randy, and I'm just like twenty at
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: the time and maybe twenty one. Hold Seymour about ten
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: years older. OK.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so he says here he's the leader. Yeah.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: So he had he had brought a twenty two along
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: on this trip down to the candy because we were
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: shooting squirrels to feed the dogs and things, and so
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: I had the big gun, the two forty three. And
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: so he says, you get in the front, we'll beat
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: the dogs to the bear. You pop him right before
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: we come upon him, and then grab him. That was
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: that was his solution to this thing.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Being just a bit younger than him, I like, yeah,
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: I think that's I think that's how we need to
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: deal with this. So he and I took off and
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: we beat the dogs by about two canoe lanes. We
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: beat him to the to the bear, and I popped
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: him and grabbed him. And he's a summer bear, you know,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: he still had he didn't have a lot of fur,
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: but enough that I could grab him right above the tail.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: And and of course we're we're really moving with the canoe,
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: and so it almost drugged me out of the canoe
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: on the backside, and Seymour is there just laughing in
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: the back of the boat. The bear is, you know,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: nerves are still active, and he's kicking. And then the
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: dogs caught up with us, and they grab a hold
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: of him and shake, you know, and I'm had this
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: paddle and I'm swatting at him trying to drive him
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: away so they don't pull him out of my hands
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: because then we lose him. And and so we tried
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Seymour and I. After we got the dogs to leave
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: us be a little bit, we tried hauling the bear
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: into the canoe, but he was too big and and
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a luminum canoe, eighteen foot luminium canoe
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: that we were using there. But we didn't think we
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: could bring him in without swamping the boat. So we
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: tied him onto the side and paddled. I think we
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: lost about a mile, you know, getting him back to shore.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: But it was a it was a nice, big kind
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: a two hundred and fifty pound oh yeah, cinnamon face bear,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: huh and nice and fat. You know, he wasn't super
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: fat like going into hibernation, but he was fat enough
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: to make it really good eating.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: So in those days when you're living off the land
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: like that, yeah, what do you then do it? Like
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: walk me through how you handle the bear, Like, what
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: all do you take from the bear?
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: Everything?
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, walk me through it. Okay, So pulled him up.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: We cut around under the feet and cut down across
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: and then from the anus all the way up to
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: the chin and skinned him out. And and we we
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: usually will skin half back and take an arm off,
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: you know, a front leg and then a back leg,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: cut open the guts, pull the guts out and then
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: turn them over and skin the other half, and and
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: and take it into quarters and plus your ribs and
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: the head, pelvis, all of it, and the guts as well.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Because the dogs eat anything. We don't Yeah what what
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: what aut of those guts? Will those dogs eat everything?
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Do you boil that so they don't get trick nosis?
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: Or the dog is he's going to get it anyways,
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: I'm sure I don't remember boiling that.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think they would even they probably all
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: have it. It doesn't affect them. Yeah.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: Well I don't know that they have trichinosis, but there's.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: No way they don't. All this stuff they're eating.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: I don't think so. I never heard of it.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all the bears have it, not all, but I mean.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: I think they're there, they have the capacity, they have it.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well they're like so, just as a point of reference,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: this state used to take samples and in the northwest
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: corner of the state where they were taking samples, one
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: hundred percent of bears six years old and over were positive. Uh, well,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: you have more information than I do on that. I
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: just think it doesn't It doesn't. It doesn't affect them.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: I mean they might they might not feel good for
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: two days or something, but they probably have it their
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: whole life.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: And you know, it'd be interesting to know the the
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: pathology of that in Alaska.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: But I know that that.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Everybody advises is cooking them because they're potential for trick
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: and nosis. But I've never heard or red on the
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: details of that.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: I got it from a bear in Alaska. Well, but
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: I'll just get I'm just saying, I bet you if
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: you test it, if you pull the tissue sample from
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: those dogs, it's possible that it's got the system. There's
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: no way it doesn't. Yeah, because they're just eating whatever
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: they find out in the woods. They do anyhow, like
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: what like out of the bear's innards, what do you
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: guys want to eat?
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: And what do the dogs eat, we would We would
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: usually take the heart, some of the liver, the kidney's
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: and that would be what we would eat. And and
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: after I had that run in with that grizzly liver,
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: I think the vitamin A poisoning with it, I wasn't.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: I didn't eat any any liver after that from the bears.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I don't eat bear innards, man. Yeah,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: I eat the meat, ate the fat, by don't eat
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: the enterns out of them.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: I can't explain why. It's like a personal I don't
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: know if it counts as a taboo when it's you,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: it's a personal taboo, dude, I don't know.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: We we did, and uh, and that was that was
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: actually after little John and I had had gotten that
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: vitamin A poison off of that grizzly So so undoubtedly
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: I did not eat that liver. But but the dogs do.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: They think it's great and don't seem to be impacted
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: by it. And and so this is August though, right,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: so it's uh, we don't have a freezer or you know.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm curious about. Yeah, I mean.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: Our freezer was broken because it doesn't come on until October.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you got like meat. Yeah, you got like meat,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: bees and flies and yeah it's hot during the day.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So you hang it up and it gets dry
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: on the outside. Bear bear meat doesn't keep for very long,
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: and we just do we just eat it and it
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: starts turning bad.
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: That dogs get it.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: So you couldn't. You wouldn't with the bear meat. You're
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: not trying to you can't. You're not trying to smoke
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: it or air dry it. You're just eating it.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then and then how do you handle the fat?
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: You render it out?
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: No, I just leave it on the meat and eat
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: it with the meat. Okay, Yeah, because bears, bears, you know,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: they have it marbled. It's marble not not with moose.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: Moose isn't you know, well the ribs brisket, but but
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: the you know, like the back legs or the or
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: the shoulders on a moose is not marbled in fat.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: It's got a layer on the outside. You get a
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: fat one. Yeah, but uh, and then it's got the
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: intestinal fat. Bears have fat kind of marbled through the
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: through the meat and uh.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Which is part of why that meat doesn't freeze super good. Right,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: it goes rantsid a little bit, like the fat goes bad. Yeah. Yeah,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: so if you've got a bear in August, you're not
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: doing anything to save No, you're not saving bear lard.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: It's just food until it goes bad.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: But but why not, like at that time, why would
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: you not render it and save jars of it or
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: save bags of it. It'll go rantid because you can't refrigerate,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: because it's not refrigerated or for all.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: It's really hard to jar it in a ball jar.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: I know, we've tried it, we've done it, but it
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: gets in the seal and it doesn't it doesn't seal
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: really good. Some people may have had other other experiences
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: with it. But at that time, your jarring salmon. Yeah,
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: so you know about the mechanics of jarring. Yeah, but
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: you're not jarring bear meat. No, just some people do.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: Some people do, but usually it's fall in a jar
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: it and then it's frozen and they eat it later
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: in the winter. Got it, got it, But it's it's
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: a hard thing with a with a really oil a
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: piece of meat to jar it and have that seal
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: work for a ball.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Jar huh okay.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: And then I didn't I didn't like jarred meat. As
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: much as I mean jarred fish is great meat, I'd
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: rather just eat it straight, okay.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But you're also trying to account for I mean,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: you're trying to find three hundred and sixty five days
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: for the food. So in the summer months you eat
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: fresh meat, yeah, and then once thing's freeze, you just
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: eat frozen meat.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: You know you can't keep you can't keep a big
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: piece of meat a moose, you know, shooting them in August.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: You can't do it. You know it's gonna go bad
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: before before you've finished eating it.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: What was the date at which you'd want to kill
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: a moose? Then?
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Anytime, you know, around fifth to tenth of September.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: At that point you could keep it.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: You can keep it right into freeze. Okay, yeah, but
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: you gotta you gotta be careful. You know, if you
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: got those cuts that you know where there's two surfaces
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: that flop back on each other, those are gonna those
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: would go bad over that period of time.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: So there there's a process after tell me what that means. Well,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back to the bear. One last question
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: on the bear. Yeah, so I understand the meat and
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: fat and the guts. Yeah, at that point in time,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: were you keeping the hide or selling the hide? Or
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: it's useless because it's August, Like, how would you view
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: the bear hide? What? What good use that would you
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: put that to? If anything?
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, we'd we'd keep them and it would be
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: stretching out on a frame and fleshing it and scraping
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: the oil off sometimes, you know, really fat bear. That's
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: pretty hard to do, but but you can do it,
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: you know with a scraper yep, and clean it off
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: and dry it as a rug, a seat cushion, a
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: lot of different things.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't sew any garments out of that stuff.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: I didn't. There were people that did. But it you know,
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: if you like put it on the top of a muckluck,
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: it'll get snow packed into it, so it's not you know,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: like a beaver is almost waterproof, you know, the beaver fur.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: And that was that was a really good thing for
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: like the top of a muckluck or mittens. But it
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: would never get snowballs or ice balls for a minute,
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: but bearford does, Okay, So it was it wasn't a
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: desirable piece of clothing for most people.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, I want to hit you with
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: one that I was reading. It's not from your area,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: but I wonder if you ever heard of this I'm reading.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: There's this book that's it called, Oh the land Breakers.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: You ever hear that?
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: I never heard it?
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: Two that was obsessed with this book for a while,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: The land Breakers. I sent it to my buddy Bobby Doug.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: He loved it too. It's set in the seventeen seventies.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: It's just about the first families moving into the sorry
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: set in the seventeen eighties. Yeah, early American. It's a novel,
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: but it's like very very well done. It's about the
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: first families moving up into the mountains in Appalachia and
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: their land breakers because they're clearing the ground to grow corn.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: In this book they talk about that you know, you
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: know a groundhog. It's like a ground squirrel, close relative
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: of a marmot, right, a groundhog in this book talks it.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: That's the best raw hide for bootlaces. Oh, interesting, which
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna make some. My kid got one the other day,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: but it was just a juvenile so I didn't do
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: it yet. I'm gonna make my own raw hide bootlaces
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: from a groundhog. But if you think about that, man,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: like think about a squirrel's hide, Like you take a
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: rabbit hide, you can just with your hands tear it off. Dude,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: squirrels hard to get through. Doesn't it make sense that
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: that would be like a phenomenal raw high strip tough?
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: How do you get the fur off or does it matter?
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I'll figure that out. Yeah, I'm gonna
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: probably just soak it for a while and then scrape
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: the fur off. I don't know, I haven't I haven't
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: done it yet. Fixing to though, Yeah, tough ass boot
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: laces made out of groundhog huh, Well this would be
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: a marmot. But either way, yeah, yeah, around here they
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: call rock chucks. Yeah, but you never had any exposure
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: to that because you had dealt with so many leathers.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: You guys didn't have like a thing of making like
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: raw hide from marmots or anything.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: No, there were marmots in the mountains on the south
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: side of the of the Yukon up there. I never
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: saw them over in the in the oglevies, never where
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: you hung out, never where I hung out. Yeah, So
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: tell me about moose.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: How you handle moose? Because this now we're into September.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, so so moose always we skin back one
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: half and take a shoulder off. And uh, I never
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: got into the game bags. I think we mentioned this
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: a little bit previously, but it didn't matter because there's
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: going to be a crust on it. And and when
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: I've taken game bags off of meat that's you know,
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: sat in a boat or something for a few days.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: It's pretty. It doesn't let it dry out. And so
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: if you're dealing with water and stuff, it's just I'm
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: with you, because it like it makes it just holds
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: moisture in a way. Yeah, if you can hang it
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: up in the air, it was nice. Bots you don't
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: get you don't get fly eggs on it.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which didn't bother me at all, because flies, you know,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: once you got a crust on it, they don't bother it,
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: but they will go and lay eggs if you have,
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: say you make a couple of cuts on the you know,
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: the bottom of the back leg, you know, between it
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: and the and the pelvis bone, you know, and you
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: might have a couple of different cuts that when you
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: hang it up those two there's a cut in there
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: where the two pieces as a meat flop over and touch.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you say that, do you mean that you
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: take it like an intact muscle, But you're saying you
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: inadvertently slice it. So now you've sliced it open and
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: the two pieces of meat are touching. That's going to rot.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that is?
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: Because the bacterial grow it doesn't dry out. That's exactly why.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: It because it's an exposed surface that won't dry. It's
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: an exposed surface. Yeah, it's been inoculated with bacteria and
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: it stays wet. See, the bacteria aren't going to grow
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: if it's dry. And so you get this moose and
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: you hang it up and over the next few days,
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: you know, you work at it, you pick at it.
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: You know, the bottom of the of the of the
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: back leg and the neck, you know, the backstraps, anywhere
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: where there's you know, a cut that exists there that
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: doesn't dry.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is something I've never thought about or heard. Man.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: Well, so it allowed us to moose in the beginning
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: of September and have it make it in to freeze
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: because you just.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Keep your you're letting the crust form, making sure there's
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: no spots to hold any moisture exactly, and then it
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: it's and then you can hang it and you're just
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: basically hanging it. It dries and then eventually.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: Well solid and so at that time, you know, of
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: the of the year, you tend to get cooler temperatures
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: at night and uh, and so it's and then as
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: the moisture from that ham or the shoulder works its
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: way out to the crust and evaporates off, it's. Uh,
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: it's gonna cool that way as well, like evaporative cooling.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Are you leaving harvesting the fat off it or
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: leaving all the fat on it? I take the fat
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: off okay, yeah, and you.
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: Handle so the ribs, the ribs and the brisket that's
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: hard to take the fat off of, so that stays.
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: But those are the uh, those are you know, some
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: of the things you might eat first, okay, right, And
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: it's got all those layers of fat in it. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: And so like the belly fat, you know, the inside fat. Yeah,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: I hang that too, so it gets dry and it'll
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: dry fast. So you know, you get the kidney fat
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: and you hang it over a pole and and you
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: you shift it every every once in a while. You know,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: every couple of days you move it, and of course
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: you got to protect it from gray jay's because they'll
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: come in and oh yeah man and damage it pretty bad.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: But but I would hang uh little gill nets, little
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: two inch stretch mesh gill nets around the meat to
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: keep the gray j's off.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: Got it?
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a process. But but then you
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: got this wonderful piece of meat. And as you go
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: into the.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Winter, if you let's say you're you got to cabin
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: where you know you're gonna spend your winter. Yeah, and
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: you're mostly doing stuff off at that time of year,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: you're operating out of your canoe.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: Are you moving that carcass. You're trying to move that
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: carcass first back to your cabin. Yeah, and this work
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: is happening at the cabin.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Not always, but that's that's what you
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: that's what you try to do.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, ideally it's back at the cabin.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: And then how are you protected? How do you safeguard?
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: So if if we go through this drying process and
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: that what date does it at? What date would you
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: say it's gonna freeze roughly.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: The end of September beginning of October. That's when it
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: used to up there. We've had some we've had some
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: years where it doesn't freeze till mid October lately though,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: So it's it's a different environment right now than it was.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and at that point, the only thing you got
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: to worry about, uh once bears are down underground, the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: one you got worry about is like wolverine getting at it,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: whatever kind of you know, whatever things chewing it up
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: odds and ends. How do you secure it?
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: You know, I really haven't had any trouble with a
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: moose once it freezes, you know, we're we're there. I
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: just have never had a wolverine. Usually I would, I
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: would put some sort of a trap there for wolverines,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: but they're not gonna They're not going to be able
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: to deal with a moose, you know, they could. I
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: always hung it high enough so that my dogs couldn't
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: reach it. I see, you know, at some point if
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: we were traveling or something, and uh and that and
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: the wolves they never bothered it. I never had them
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: bother anything of mine, and uh so, so just hung.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: It clear of a wolverine where he can't jump up,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: and you can't climb up and get it.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: Well, the wolverine can. But you know, they just they
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: there weren't there weren't enough of them that it was
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: an issue for me.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: If you went into the year, if you just buy
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: yourself and you kill a moose in September, yeah, you
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: kill a bowl. These mostly bulls, you're killing all bulls.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: You killed bowl in September. Yeah. How long can one
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: guy live off that moose?
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: You know what, that's all you're eating, you know, probably
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: three months?
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not going to take you all the way
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: through the winter. So what else would you have to
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: figure out to make the winner? Well, so up there
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: on the Upper Candick River where I lived, it was
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: a caribou. Every year we were up there, there were
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: there were wintering caribou from the Porcupine Caribou herd and
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: h and so and so. We would take those and
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: they were almost always bulls, big bulls that had lost
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: their horns, their antlers and and and they were skinny. Uh,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: they might have just a little bit of fat on
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: their on their brisket. Their tongues are spectacular. You slice
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: them up and fry them. They're wonderful. Would you boil
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: them first? Not not with caribou. With moose, I did so.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: You just slice it, trim off the outer part and
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: fry the center.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: You don't need to trim it off on the caribou. Yeah,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: just slice it and fry, slice it and fry it.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: It's one of the best things anywhere.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: Huh. But why does that not work with the moose. Well,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: I always boil them and then slip the skin off. Yeah.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: With moose, that's true. Uh. With caribou you don't need to. Huh.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: But they got a thin shell or something.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thin shell and uh, and the muscle there is
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: just uh, it's got a lot of fat in it.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: It's it's wonderful. Just raw sliced. Yeah, well it's fried,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: Not not pre cooked in any way right to soften
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: it up.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: It's soft enough. No, you fry it right in a pan,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: just like it is. Slice it, fry it. Really, it's wonderful.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: I've never done that. It's one of the best things anywhere.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Karen.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: In fact, in non Dalton, we I had gotten three
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: caribou up on this mountain and I went and was
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: butchering one and this, uh, this older fella from non
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: Dalton stopped and cut the tongues out of the other
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: two and and took off. And I go to butcher them,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: and and like the tongues are gone, and I'm going
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: to like, this isn't.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: Right, you know. So I put them up and go home.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: And Karen says, oh, good, three h three caribou tongs
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: And I said, well, only got one because you know
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: this guy got the other two. He said, well, go
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: get them from him. So I go and I talk
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: with him and I say, you know, we we really
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: liked it. He says, you're white people, you know you
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: don't like caribou times.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: I said, no, we do. I said, Aaron sent me
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: to get him back. He says, I'll give you one
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: of them back.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: I said, okay, yeah, it's funny, yeah, but no, it's
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: a it's a delicacy.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: Mild Man used to dig around other people's gut piles, yeah,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: deer gut piles. He'd he'd go get the heart and
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: liver out of other people's gut piles. Yeah, yeah, yeah
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: for sure, like didn't even he didn't even think anything
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: of it.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: Well, so the heart is off of a off of
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: a fat animal is wonderful and they got you know,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: you got this big, you know, cluster of fat around
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: the top of the heart. And slicing that up and
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: frying it just one of the best things. Yeah, moose caribou.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: So how would you handle a moose tongue?
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: So I'd boil it and uh, and then slice it
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: and and fry it.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Now, help me understand why? Why does it? Why did?
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: Why can you fry a caribou tongue sliced without doing
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: any prep? It's tender? But so if you do it
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: to a moose tongue, Yeah, is the center still or
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: is just this? Even the center is hard?
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: It's tough. Yeah? Really Yeah?
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: Have you ever monkeyed around just frying deer tongues up
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: without cooking them? First?
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: I've only had anything to do with a couple of deer,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: and that was from down to south southeast. Yeah, when
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: my father was living down there and we went out
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: to this island called Pleasant Island in Icy Strait and
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: uh and got deer. But those are the only ones
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: I've had any direct knowledge of.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: Would you eat bear tongues? I never tried it.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: Huh.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: Would you go up into the mountains for sheep? Mm hmm, yeah,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: I did. What time of year would you go do that?
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: August usually, okay, And how would you handle oaths? Well,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: you know, by the time you get up there, you
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: got to eat it just to get out of there. Probably.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: Well, so a lot of people they they get into
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: this crisis right as they shoot a sheep, it's blazing hot,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: and they got to pack it for miles and then
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: get it to a freezer.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: What I did is.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: I just sat up there and ate it, okay, because
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: sheep is not that big and and they're wonderful, and
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: so it would it would feed us and we'd go exploring,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: because you're not going to keep it in you're not
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: going to keep a sheep.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: We didn't.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: We didn't never hunt sheep at a time when you
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: could put it up for the winter. Right it's too early.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: It's too early, and it's and it's you know, not
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: close enough to anywhere that we would you know that
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: that we would have a cabin. It's it's a it's
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: a long waist out. But but by not having to
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: transport it to a freezer back in town three or
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: four days after you kill it, we just had We
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: just had a wonderful time in the mountains.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: How many days would you be able to eat that sheep?
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: They'll go for a week. She just sit there and
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: eat it. Yeah, and it'll keep for longer than that.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: So you process it's the same way. Hang it. Cut
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: the places off that are rough that are going to
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: attract blowflies. Blowflies are not that big a deal as
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: long as you're paying attention to the meat. You can
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: always cut a chunk off that has blowflies on it
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: and throw it to the dogs and they think it's fine.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: You got to be on top of it. But yeah,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: but the sheep were wonderful. They're always fat, always good,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: and they're they're a small So you were talking earlier
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: about the bear. You know, what do you do with
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: a bear? Well, you eat it. It's in August. You're
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: not trying to keep it into the winter. You're trying
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: to have a good piece of meat to eat for
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: the next couple of weeks. And you can do that.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the krinn something about seeing a ram a
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: doll ram how like you know room their horns? Yeah,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: did you have you I've observed them. I've observed big
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: horns scratching their horn.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: But what did you see?
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: So so I never understood how they broomed their horns,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: you know. But but so in Alaska anyway, a legal
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: ram is one that has two broom tips or that's
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: full curl or more right, and and there may be
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: some differences in places. It used to be one and
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: a one in an eighth or something like that, you know, but.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: Curl. But but but that's how it's been everywhere I've hunted. Yeah,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: like most, Yeah, I would say most. You hear of exceptions,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: like any ram whatever in someplace in the Brooks range
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: in the old days. But yeah, full curl or two broomed.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: And they used to not define broomed very clearly, but
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: it has to be now it's defined as the entire
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: lamb tip is gone, so his entire first year's growth. Well,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: it always bothers me. How do the heck do they
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: break those? You know, because I don't know, you know,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: hitting two big rams hitting you know, even if it
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: did connect by the tips, you know, they're they're they're
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: just really tough. You know, there's they're hitting the boss
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: a round thing, hitting a round thing, right, and it's
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: it's not going to break it. But so I was
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: up there with my older son in uh some of
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: these mountains and big limestone mountains on the north side
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: and of the Yukon, and and we saw these three
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: sheep walking on this one screeen slope across this uh
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: this uh it was.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: It was a valley, real steep valley, both sides, and
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: they were walking a scree slope and we charged up
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: down and then up to meet them on this on
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: this street. Well, the sheep trail across the screen slope
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: because you could see it where it goes, you know,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: and we knew they were going to go buy this
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: one place. So we climb up and we get to
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: this place where we thought they were going to come
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: out in front of us, but they had our he
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: gotten by, and there was one that was on the
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: next that it it has these big ridges of limestone towers,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: you know, that would come down and they had a
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: trail that would go through and then scream between them.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: And we were about three hundred yards away, but we
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: hear this banging and we look over there and here's
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: this sheep and he backs up and he gets up
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: on his back legs and crack, he hits his he
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: hits the rock wall with his horns, and he goes
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: back again and gets up there and bam bam. He's
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: just one after another. He's practicing, you know, hitting this
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: rock wall. And I realized that's how they're that's how
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: they're breaking their tips. I know it. Yeah, and so
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: so what's the first thing that's going to hit when
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: you have a full curl hits the tips, they're gonna
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: hit Huh, They're.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: Going to hit the rock wall. I want you.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: And that's a flat enough surface.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I watched a big horn one time ram upon
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: de rolsa Pine. I counted he rammed it seven twenty
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: five times.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's a soft thing.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: That's well.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but no, I get what you're saying because you
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: can see that they upbraid it. Like I think they
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: don't like it in their peripheral vision when they upbraid it,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: because sometimes they wear like big horns, wear them smooth.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: They're like like like my fist, like smooth and round,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: and I think they abraid it.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you, dude, I don't they don't like it.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: They don't like it. They're I think they see it.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: I don't disagree, but I think the mechanism, you know,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: because when you get one that is is you know,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: not broomed, but a big, full curl.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: They're tough. It's hard. No, I'm with you, man, I
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: don't I can't account for them being snapped off. And
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: I I, yeah, I snapped off. I know. I like
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: what it's theory, but I pictured him. I was like,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: there's no way he's sticking in a crack in the
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: rock and prying it off. I don't know how they
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: break them off. I think, I'm sure you're right they're
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: whacking them. Yeah, I'm sure you're right. But what I'm
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: getting at, yeah, is and it's more common in big horns,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: like you never see on a big like an eight
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: nine ten year old big horn. Yeah that's some bitch.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: Never has his lamb tips. But they're smooth.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: And I have watched sheep. I have watched sheep rubbing them,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: rubbing them on a rock, on a rock, on a
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: cliff face, just rubbing it. Yeah, like cat like the
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: same way you'd watch something scratch itself, the same way
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: you'd watch it scratch yourself on a tree. He's sitting
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: there like rubbing. Yeah. But I bet I'll bet the
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: break the initial bright No, I'm not contesting it on
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: the break man, I think you're right. I'm just talking
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: about the rubbing. But by theory, and I don't know,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: I never talked to a guy that knows a whole
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: bunch about sheep. I know, like a teeny about sheep.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: But my theory is, and no, no guy's ever cropped like,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know, this is maybe totally not true.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: My theory is had been it gets in their peripheral
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: vision and it bugs the hell out of them. Yeah,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: and so they're like, what is that? And they're and
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: don't like it. I don't know, you have to interview one. Yeah,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: bear see a dog and they think it's a wolf. Yeah,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: what's a wolf think when it sees it's? What's a
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: wolf think a dog is? So that's an interesting thing,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: So I used to travel quite a bit on the
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: Candic River and the dogs would be running loose, you know,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: because how do you go up the river with a
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: canoe and not have them run loose? Right, you can't
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: ride them in there. So there's a lot of things
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: you see, you know. They they'll drive a moose into
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: the river. The river is safe, safe country for a moose, right,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: And the moose thinks the dogs are wolves, and they'll
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: run right into the river where they can stand. And
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: the dog's gotta dogs or wolves gotta swim and then
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: they'll they'll pound them if they get close.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: They pound them with their hoofs in there. Yeah, they
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: get them in the water.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and so and so the dogs sometimes, you know,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: because they're not quite as savvy as wolves. Uh, they
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: would swim out trying to get to the moose, and
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: so the moose will just pound them. And none of
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: our dogs got damaged in that that I that I recall.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, they it didn't it didn't kill them, it
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: didn't break them up. But but I think that sometimes
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: they do that with wolves. But but probably not in
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: the water because wolves probably No, we can't get them
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: when they're in the water, but but wolves, so wolves
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: more or let's give up when that would happen. Yeah,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: they might, they might sit around. We've had times when
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: we're lining up the river and and the dogs chase
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: the moose into the river and it's not big enough
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: for us to get past while the moose is in there,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: you know, so we're we camp sometimes really yeah, because
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: it's not going to get it come out, you know.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: We get the coax the dogs back to us and
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: get them tied up, and sometimes it's still, you know,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: hours before the moose is ready to to get out
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: of the water and go somewhere and then we can
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: continue up. But one time I was walking along the
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: river with the dogs, and and and I hear them
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: barking back into spruce woods. Uh and and I'm thinking,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: that's that can't be a moose. Moose usually won't bay up,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: you know, with the dogs Chason back in the woods,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: they go to the water, you know. And I'm so
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: I think this they may have a bear up a tree, right,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: So what can you tell me what breed?
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure they're mixed, but what are these dogs?
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: What do they look like?
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: They're they're great big huskies that they were. You know,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: we had some that were as much as one hundred
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: and twenty pounds and they're as there. They're the same
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: size as wolves up in that part of the country.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, a big wolf would be bigger than the
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: biggest dog. But a lot of people bread these big
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: dogs because they can pack and they're you know, when
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: you're mushing around on a on a trap line and
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: you say whoa, they'd stop and you know where's you know,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: the little hyper race dogs they tend not to.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's what I was trying to picture. If
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: you had that new kind of souped up race dog,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: if you have the old stylers, old style. But when
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: you say babe, they'll still do that, though they'll get
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: something cornered, they'll raise hell. Yeah.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: So they're barking back in the woods, and I think
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: that's got to be a bear, you know, So I start,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: I'm sneaking back there with my rifle, looking up into
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: the trees, and I realized, I look where the dogs are,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: and they've got a wolf bite up. They've got a
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: single wolf, same size as they were, and his hair
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: is sticking straight out from his from his whole body
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: and his tail, and the dogs are seriously as close
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: to me to this microphone, right, and they're barking at him,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: but they're not biting him. But but wolves, you know,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: if there's a wolf from a different pack that comes
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: and gets surrounded by a pack of wolves, them more
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: likely than not kill it. And so that wolf was
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: spooped that he was in that situation he might get nailed.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: And the dogs, you know, it was I don't know
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: how many I had then four or five, and and
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: they're they're the same size as this animal, but they
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: are they are barking at him, like seriously disclose, you know.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: And but the wolf spots me, took off, oh really yeah,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: hauled ass and the dogs right on his tail. And
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: the dogs came back in about a half an hour.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: But I'm sure the wolf got away because the dogs
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: they were just interested, you know, they weren't trying to
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: kill him or anything. And he might have been able
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: to defend himself too, but they.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: Knew but they they knew he wasn't a dog. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: he was different. Man. I tell you, like on that
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: canine and canine thing, we have this little I don't like,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know how big it is. Maybe it's thirty
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: five pounds this dog. And if I even so much
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: as skin a coyote, okay, that dog smells that death.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: That dog knows like it's never been beat up by
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: a kyote. Something about to smell. And if there's a
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: kyote laying there, it is no way gonna go up.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: There's not a dog in the world. My dog's not
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: gonna run up and try to play with yeah, you know,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: they smell each other's butts whatever. Like, there's not a
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: dog in the world. My dog's not gonna be excited
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: about interacting with a kyote. It knows that, it knows
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: that is not a dog. It is death. And I
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: always wonder how it like, how they put that together.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: It knows it's death.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: There were times when like this guy Dick Cook. We
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: talked about Dick Cook, you know, on the taton Nick River.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: He had.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: His dogs sometimes interacted with wolves and and they didn't
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: kill each other, they didn't fight, but the dogs would
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: run out if the wolves were cross and crossing paths
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: with them. But I don't really I don't quite understand why.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: But I think they both understand they're different.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: And I never had I never had the wolves bother
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: my dogs.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: Mostly they stayed away.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: But but sometimes I I've shot him big wolves because
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: they're hanging around. One time it was in the fall
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: and we had a moose hanging and our dogs were
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: chained up, but they would at no they would start barking,
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: and I didn't know what was going on, because I
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: never saw anything until it snowed, and then I realized, oh,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: this is wolf. A wolf is casing our place, going
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: all around and and and at the time, uh Jed,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know how how old he was, five or
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: six maybe, and he wanted to He always took great
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: glee and go and doing things by himself. So he
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: wanted to walk this trail back to a big beaver
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: pond that we had a ski plane landing every once
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: in a while in the winter. And and uh and
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: we never did let him go by himself, you know,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: because there's a I don't know what it was, a
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: half mile or so on this nice trail. But but
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: we didn't think he was old enough at the time
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: to do that. And and I think in retrospect, I
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: think that wolf would have taken him if he'd been
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: down there by himself. But but anyway, I I decided,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: I'm going to take this this wolf in. And there
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: were times when he would walk up along the willow
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: bar right right between the house and the and the river.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: And I got down there and hid out in this
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: piece of driftwood and and waited for him, and he
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: came right at dusk and shot that that that wolf,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: and he had a he had a busted up jaw
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: from the moose cracking him, and teeth that weren't there,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: and then the jaw had had healed, but it just
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: kind of in a in a big glob, so uh,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: his jaw didn't work quite so well.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: So he was.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: I couldn't keep up with a pack, perhaps couldn't feed himself.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: He was trying to figure out how to get some
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: of our moose up there.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: My buddy in Alaska. This is last winter. He's a trapper,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: does some trapping. His wife calls him one day and
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: she's got like a she's with her dogs. Yeah, just
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: just right behind his house and there's a wolf messing
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: with her and he doesn't believe her. He's like, it's
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: gotta be a dog. She's like, I know, wolf, I'm
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: looking at a wolf. There's a wolf. Won't leave us alone.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: And he's still dismissed above it.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: Well, later he goes and looks into the snow and
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: it's like sure enough, and in the morning it's all
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: walking around his house. So he makes a set for
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: it and catches it right away right away. I think
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: he said it was about twenty minutes or something. I
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: mean is that it's like that desperate, that wolf wasn't
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: afraid of people. Well, he showed me a picture. It's face,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: it's teeth were gone, I mean freshly gone. It's it
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: looked like you if you to put that dog, if
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: you to put that wolf, if you to turn that
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: wolf sideways and set it on an anvil and pulled
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: his lips back and had your body take a sledgehammer
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: and bam on his teeth, you would have got something
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: that looked like what this thing's face looked like. And
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: the only thing you think is somehow it got just
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: stomped by a moose. By a moose, yeah, stopped like
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: he's I mean, it wasn't a great picture, but you
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: look at its face. It it's face, it's teeth on
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: the one side are just crushed.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: In that's how this one was. And somehow something got
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: the perfect shot. A moose has me a moose, Oh
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: the hell's be up there? Yeah, got the perfect shot. Well,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: so I got. I would rarely get.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: Adult wolves in any trap or snare a couple of exemptions,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: but mostly you get the first year and then all
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: of the pups from that litter would see one of
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: their own get into a snare or get into a trap,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: and they were from that point on they wanted nothing
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: to do with anything that people had going and and
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: it was it was really rare to get the old
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: ones unless you shot them. And so I did a
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: couple of times in the winter they would a pack
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: would run by the house going up the river, and uh,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: and I ended up shooting I think three all together
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: over the years, adults, the biggest of the adults. And
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: and they're all broken up. They're all they got broken ribs,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: they got broken legs, that heel, that one had the jaw,
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: all of them had broken ribs, and uh, some of
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: them had healed, most of them had not. And it
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: was just, you know, the flopping bones, flotten bones. It's
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: just incredible. And and it's I'm certain that it's uh
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: it's moose. They're gonna they're whacking them they get close enough,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: and and it's just uh, consequence of what they eat,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: because they eat moose, and they do they go up
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: and they bite them and they get kicked and continue on,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: but it damages them.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: I got one one time and and I was skinning it. Uh,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: and it's casing, you know. So you go hang it
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: up and go from back legs down to body and
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: pull it down, working your way down to the to
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: the face. Eventually, Well, I get to the area right
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: around the back of the shoulders and and the hide
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: just comes off. It separates right there, and.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: I look at home, like the hide fell into Yeah,
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: and so I and came off the head. And so
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm sitting there and and the high I'm not
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: following me. So so I start looking.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: It's got this scar all the way around from a
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: snare all to the bone. Yeah, from a stare from
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: a snare it had gotten caught and it drew right
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: down to bone and what and the snare had had
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: eventually rusted away and dropped off, and yeah, it went
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 2: right to bone all the way around.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: What crazy.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 2: It had to have carried that snare for a couple
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: of years. But it was fine. Yeah, I mean like
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: seemed to you fine. Well, I mean the hide never
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: never bonded again. Right, but the animal like is up
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: and about yeah yeah, way, Oh they're tougher in hell
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: that the wolves are are outrageously tough. Yeah, if you
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: catch one and with a foot. It's like a bomb
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: went off. You know, there's moss hanging in trees, smaller
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: trees or chewed down. It's uh, they're they're they're extraordinarily tough.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, a friend of mine had a he
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: had spent some time with wolverine trappers, and tell me
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: some observation this wolverine trapper shared with him is like
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: and trap and you approach the animal, and the animal
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: is always as far away as it can get on
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: the chain. Yeah, you know, he's trying to go the
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: other direction if his foot's caught, his legs out stretched
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: and he's trying to get away. And this guy said,
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: a wolverine, there's always the wolverine's always coming to you. Yeah.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: He's stretched in your direction trying to get at you. Yeah, huh.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: That's pretty crazy about that wolf though. Yeah, it just
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like a fatality for him. Night didn't kill him.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: He survived it. We had a wolf researcher on the show,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: and there's like there's a real paucity of like level
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: headed wolf researchers because they get it gets emotional for him,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: They lose their they lose their ability to see things clearly,
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: especially the park, Like the park kind just becomes it
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: comes too familial. They kind of become like celebrities, the
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: people and the wolves. They don't see things clearly anymore.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: But this woman, Diane Boyd, see she's very clear headed.
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: She's never lost her ability to look at things smartly.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: You know. She also she likes bird dogs a lot.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: She's a big bird hunter, so she raises bird dogs.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: And I was asking her how smart are like a
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: wolf smart? Like what's their intelligence? And this is the
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: woman loves dogs, and she said it's not comparable, like
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: a domestic dog's intelligence can't compare. Well, they can't compare
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: to a wolf. A wolf is like you know, I
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: can't remember how she put it. Infinitely smarter than a
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: dog than a domestic dog. Well, the sense of space, right.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: This goes back to Charles Darwin fitness, you know, the
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: survival of the fittest. And wolves are on the chopping
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: block every day every generation. Dogs we feed them, Yeah,
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: we take care of them, and they're not on the
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: chopping block. So I think she's probably right, yeah about that.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: You remember the unibomber, Yeah, I remember the story. Yeah,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: And his manifesto.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: When he's trying to talk about what happened to society,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: like when the UNI bomber is griping about where society
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: went wrong, he's like survival. He grades Okay, he has
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: this scoring system. It's like a zero to five or
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: a one to five scoring system for difficulty, difficulty of
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: a task, a one like level one difficulty. I think
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: it's how he lays it out is that if you
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: try your absolutely heart, you have a slight chance of
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: success up to you don't even need to try it
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: all and you'll succeed. Okay. His gripe with technology is
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: that human existence has become a five. You don't need
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: to do shit, you don't need to try it all.
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: You're gonna survive. And that's where all of our neuroses
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: come from. We have nothing to focus on, right, It's
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: just it's all this like staying alive. It's just bullshit.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: It's like it just happens. So that's why we have
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: all these psychological emotional issues because our main thing has
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: been taken away from us.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: Well, Smiegeled he did have some problems.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: He had a five. He encountered a five. Yeah, but
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: domestic dogs are in it. Humans and domestic dogs share
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: our thing. Yeah, you don't need to try it all,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: you'll be fine. That's domestication, yeah, like us them. Yeah right,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: and you're right, a wolf man's that sucker. They're living
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: their lives in the two Well, if you try really,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: really hard, you have a reasonable chance of success. Is
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: where they're where they're at, you know, and it probably
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: does drive a level of intelligence man.
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but you know, I think the in recent times,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: you know, when they're looking at how far back was
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: it before we domesticated or became symbiotic with wolves. Yeah,
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: probably ten fifteen thousand years ago. It was our first
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: domestic right and one of the best, and for a
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: lot of different reasons, because they did help us. You know,
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: they could smell, they could bay a moose up, they
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: could find the seal hole on the ice, you know.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: A lot of it. You hear as well. It's a
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: good point as an early warning system.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: Like, imagine how much better you sleep knowing that anything
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: comes near here? Those dogs are gonna go nuts.
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: But it's over that period of time that we've kind
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: of bred out the intense nervousness that the wolves have
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 2: and and there was somebody up in central had caught
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: a wolf and brought it into their dog yard. How
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: they did it, I don't know, but it seemed that
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 2: that would be a really fraught thing to try. And
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: and they bred her with dogs, and the progeny the
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: first the first group of pups that she had couldn't
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: be handled. They weren't they You couldn't turn them into
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: a sled dog, right, even though they were half dog
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: and half wolf. And then they would breed those and
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: they got the quarter wolves right off of the pup,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: you know. And and this guy Fred, he had one of
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: those quarter wolf perhaps he called it Strider, and uh
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: was he.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: A Tolkien fan?
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all of us were really.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we named Mountains guy because you guys had
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: the books.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we were.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: We were all, oh, why are you guys all Tolkien fans?
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know, it was it was that time of
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: of the world, I guess, I don't know, but but yeah,
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 2: we got I mean it was Tom Bombadilla was this
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 2: guy that just to painting is uh, had a big
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: garden that had that you know, the ends of his
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: logs were painted red and.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: Various what he needs to do just real quick on
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: this subject. This is like a sociological experiment. When I
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: was in high school, there's a I had a teacher,
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: a beloved, beloved man that kind of in some ways.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: His name was Bob Heaton. When I tell my story
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: how I became a writer, Yeah, it's hit him. He's
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: a major point in that narrative. Yeah, the first point.
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: He's the first point. Yeah, in that narrative. He had
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: a class you could take in high school called Modern Mythology.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: All you did is read Lord of the Rings. Yeah,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: it's a whole damn class. Yeah, you read Lord of
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: the Rings. Yeah, and he taught it. But I wonder
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: if you could go and do a thing about Lord
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: of the Rings people, what their sort of moral perspective is,
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: their work ethic and all that, Yeah, and compare them
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: to Harry Potter people, like are they tougher? Like what
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: you know? What I mean? Like Harry Potter spun off?
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: What kind of person did that spin off? Yeah? And
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: what kind of person did Lord of the Rings spin off? Yeah?
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: I mean my kids, my younger boy. Anyway, I read
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: Harry Potter and loved it. I haven't read him.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: Is he tougher in you. Yeah he is. Yeah, you're lying.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: No I'm not. But but he works out. He works out,
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: Oh that kind of tough. No talking about that kind
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: of tough Yeah, talking about.
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 2: It, girl, No, he's he's tough that way too. But
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 2: but uh, I want to go back a step though.
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: Sure, No, I got off on this whole Lord of
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: the Rings thing. Why did I bring it up? Becaus
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: his dog was Strider dog with Strider, So Strider.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 2: Was was super nervous about everything, and he would if
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: he was inside the cabin with Bred and his other dog,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: I forget what her name was, but h but he
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: would know that there was something going on outside way
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 2: before anybody else, you know. And if there were neighbors
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: came in. If we went to visit and he didn't
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: have it on a chain, he couldn't catch it. It
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: would go around in the in the shadows of the woods.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: You could see him, but he wouldn't come or anybody, right, yea.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: And in his whole life, his parents live were captivity.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: His life was captivity, but he still had that cageness.
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he didn't lose it, and dogs lost it over
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: ten thousand years, right, I mean the selected breeding of
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: those that don't bite, that don't run away, that you know,
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 2: are nice, are friendly to people, whatever. And one time,
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: this guy your trap there reminds me of this time.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: There's this guy, Charlie, Charlie Edwards. He was up at
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: Shade Creek, a little waist down eight or nine miles
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: down from Eagle right, and he used to set a
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: bear trap because the bears would come off of this
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 2: McCann hill and Hilliard up Shade Creek where his cabin
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: was at the mouth, and there was two little streams
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: that came by, and he would set a bear trap
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 2: at that spot every spring and sometimes get two or
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: three bears.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: He just had one little pinch point where he knew
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: a bear was gonna put his foot.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: And one time he caught him. He caught a wolf.
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 2: It was a it was a female wolf. Can you
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: explain the pinch point again? He's putting it where so
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: so there's a baits, there's this set there's this bluff
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 2: along the river and Shade Creek comes out about a
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: quarter mile in. Two forks of Shade Creek come together
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: and there's a ridge that comes down right which set
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: it right there with those two streams came together.
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: A trail set. It's a trail set.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't a trail set, it was a baited sets.
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: I understand. I understand. Yeah.
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: So he had this he had this big trap there
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 2: and this wolf got caught, and it was a female.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 2: And he he Charlie was he's kind of spiritual, you know,
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: and had all these visions of you know, moose giving
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: themselves to us or whatever, you know. And and so
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: he thinks this this wolf is sitting there looking off
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: in one direction, and its foot is in the trap,
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 2: and he comes walking up. Its ears moved, but it
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 2: doesn't it does turn or growl or do anything. It's
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: just sitting there freaking out, I'm sure. And he decides
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 2: he's going to that he's got some connection with this
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 2: wolf and he's going to try to capture it and
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 2: take it back to his place, right, to keep it, yeah,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: to breed it with his dogs. He's thinking he might
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 2: do that. And so he sits down to somehow commune
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: with this wolf in back where he doesn't think that
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 2: the wolf can get to him, right because its leg
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: is out that way, heads out that way, And he
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: sits there for a little while, and then he reaches
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: out and touches it on the flank.
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: Huh bam.
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: That wolf goes, grabs him right by the hand and
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: looks at him right in his eyes, and sort of
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: it didn't crunch it the way it could.
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: Have, but he bit.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: He puts some pressure on it a couple of different time times,
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: looking at him right in the eye, and then let
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 2: him go. What he thought, he thought he was gone,
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 2: and the wolf could have killed him, could have called,
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: could have killed him right there, didn't let him loose.
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 2: So he's got some teeth marks, but he didn't crush
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 2: his hand even though he could have.
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: And and uh, and he.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 2: Was he was just about he was just totally totally
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 2: wiped out at that point. He rolled away. He didn't
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 2: feel he could shoot the wolf. But there's no way
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 2: to let it go. Can't let it go, you know.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 2: It's not like you could just say, hey, wait a minute,
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 2: himself really bit then, yeah, and so he he realized
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: he had to kill it. And he walked back to
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: his place though, and calmed down before he went back up.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: But you can't you can't get close enough to ever
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: try to let it go.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: What was his takeaway? From that.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: Well, it didn't dissuade him of you know, his his
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 2: spirituality type.
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: You know, did he keep that trap set. I don't
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: know if he kept that trap set.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: He had it set on the river one time when
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 2: he moved down river from there, and uh, and we
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 2: ran our dogs right past it and they didn't none
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: of them went to it. But but we were pissed
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: off that he had it set in a place that
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 2: we would have our dogs because i'd kill a dog,
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: you know, break their break their foot. But you know
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 2: those big, big bear traps. But anyway, yeah, so so wolves,
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: wolves and dogs actually have really strong bites because they've
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: got a cranial ridge, you know, and so your your
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: jaw muscles have more leverage than say a bear. They
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: got smooth, sick smooth top of this. Yeah, and their
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: jaws are not nearest tough.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: That cranial ridge on a skull that ties into bite strength.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that, yep, yep exactly. And our dogs
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: killed a number of black bears over the years when
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 2: they would catch them where there wasn't trees, because if
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: they couldn't get up a tree, they couldn't defend themselves.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: And the dogs will take them down, take them down
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: and kill them. Did you have a lot of dogs
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: get killed doing that?
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: None? None of them even got hurt.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: It's that easy for them. It's that easy.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: And I think that I think that any wolf pack
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 2: would kill bears anytime they see him. Maybe because of size,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: they might shy away from some you know, like grizzlies,
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 2: But I think that they wolves are the reason that
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: black bears don't occur up on the North Slope or
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 2: Seward Peninsula where that doesn't have trees, Yukon Delta, Alaska Peninsula.
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: None of those places really have enough trees for black
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: bears to go up. And I think that wolves kill
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: them anytime they come across them, because our dogs did
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 2: and they didn't have trouble killing him one time. First
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: time that happened, I was with Little John and we
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: tried to get the dogs to back off so we
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 2: could kill the bear. Because what bears do is they
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 2: lay on their back when once they're once the dogs
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: grab them, they lay on their back and they try
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 2: to to swipe at them with their claws and stuff,
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 2: and they try to bite too, But the dogs don't
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 2: seem to get hurt at all by it and they
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 2: kind of turn them to the burger bloodshot pretty quickly.
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. How like if you did the autopsy on a
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: bear that your dogs killed, what would the autopsy say.
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 2: Well, they just got they got bite marks all over
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 2: in their in their chest and their neck.
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: But then they think to like they don't know enough
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: to like crush the throat or something. They don't. They're
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: not strategic, No, they're they They would you know, bite
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: the inside of the back legs and the belly.
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: When we would open them up, they'd be all bloodshot.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 3: It was uh yeah.
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't seem like that it would add up enough.
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 2: Well, they did it with black bears three times that
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 2: I remember. I wonder if like the stress is also
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: real bad. Oh, I imagine it's enormous. Yeah, it also
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 2: leads to mortality. Yeah, they killed one grizzly. Your dogs
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 2: killed a grizzly. Yeah, and that grizzy didn't get any
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 2: of the dogs killed. Uh huh. I I think that
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 2: it was Uh, it was a young grizzly And I
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 2: think what happened is it broke its back.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: It had flopped.
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: On its back on a rock as it was up
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 2: in the sheep mountains and uh, and we saw the
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 2: dogs chasing this bear over the over a little ridge
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 2: and when we got up to the top, they were
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: all just laying around next.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: To it and it was dead. These dogs are real
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: menace man that.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: They're in body they're they're wolves. Yeah right, in mind
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 2: they're not, but but in body they are. And because
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: they they behaved kind of like a pack when they
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: would encounter something, they're bold.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: They were bold.
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, what do you What's like, what's kind of
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 4: the biggest lesson you took away from What's the biggest
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 4: life lesson you took away from living.
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: In the bush?
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: God, like something you realized about people, you know, the
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: his life lesson or like a valuable lesson, you know whatever. Yeah,
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the hell difference in a valuable
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: lesson in a life lesson is, But like, what's something
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: you carried with you from it? I don't know.
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 2: I I guess I always in doing that, I realized
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: I can I can do anything. Okay, you know, I can,
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 2: I can persevere, I can navigate whatever comes up.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 2: I don't really know, but it was, you know that
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: I look at for example, I look at the folks clustered,
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: you know, homeless folks in town, And I say there
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 2: were me, I'd be out the road. I'd be out
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: on the river because I can make a living there. Yeah,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 2: town it's a lot harder. But I don't know, just thinking,
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, I realized there's a lot of different reasons
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 2: that people might be homeless, but and I wouldn't degrade
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: that at all. But but for me, I really think,
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: you know, being out on the country is a it's
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: a neat place, and there's ways to go about feeding
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: yourself there.
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: What did you see? You had to have encountered guys
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: in that time, You had to encountered guys that were
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: going to go do it but just didn't work. Like
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: it wasn't gonna work. Yeah, did you have would you
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: be able to gauge when you met somebody? Would you
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: be able to gauge off your own intuition you have
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: what it takes you don't have what it takes, Like
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: would you know someone has had it for trouble? I
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: don't know that I would, at least not right away.
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: You know, you have to get to know somebody. You realize,
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: you know, these guys they need their motors, you know,
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: and be able to move places really fast, and that's
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: not something that we did. We didn't.
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 2: So so by having motors, you need a lot of money, okay, right,
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 2: I mean it's just the way it works. Snow machine
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: or a big boat to go up and down the Yukon,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: and that's a lot of money is really not to
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: be had out in the woods. At least it certainly
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: wasn't for us. Even if you have a good year
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 2: trapp and you're not going to buy a snow machine
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: and spend it on that, you know.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: So you would view reliance on motors at that time,
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: reliance on motors, what was a deficit?
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean I felt it was. I mean I
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: didn't want to go to get the job.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: There were a lot of people that went worked up
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 2: on the pipeline, you know, and that was happening back
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: in that period of time, and it was good wages
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: and everything, but they that's where they lived, you know, they.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: Were, and you never you were never drawn to that.
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 2: I wasn't.
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, were you running into guys at that time? Were
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: there guys coming out of Vietnam coming coming home and
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: going into the bush. Were you encountering that. No.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: I think out there were two to the to the
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: communities there like Eagle and H and Circle, you know,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: Tann and on and like.
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: Returning veterans were going into those communities to live, but
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: you weren't seeing them off living off the land out
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: in the bush.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if you there. Definitely was that happening.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 2: I don't know whether it was a movement or state,
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 2: but it was. There were some people that were ex Vietnam.
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: Your circle, guys, what was the commonality if you had
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: to think of one in your circle of folks and
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: you're when you say, because you often use the term we,
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: we would do this, we would do that. Yeah, in
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: your circle folks, what were they? What was pushing them,
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: what was pulling them? What was pushing them? Where were
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: they coming from?
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know a lot of it was just back
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 2: to the land type, you know, adventure, going out and trapping,
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 2: living in the woods. I think they liked what I did,
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: which was the ability to go out and get my
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: own food, and I did a lot of tanning.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 2: I sewed my own clothes the winter closed way. I
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 2: tried leather for the summer and it didn't work so well,
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 2: it just got wet because he's always gonna rain. At
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 2: some point you're going to walk through bushes and have
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 2: your leather pants soaking wet. Yeah, I don't know. I
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: liked the idea of building things out what's there. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 2: and being able to feed myself. I mean, there were
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 2: things that we were buying from town, you know, the rifle,
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 2: gilnet plastic eventually for the bottom of the of the toboggan,
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 2: you know, so it slid better than just straight birch boards,
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: which is what I used for a few years to
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 2: start with. Yeah, aluminum canoe, you know. Yeah, there were
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 2: a lot of things that we probably weren't. We weren't
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: in any way like you know previous times with the
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 2: Native folks there's they truly made everything and worked it
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 2: and it was pretty great. So one thing that happened
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 2: when I was down in Chivac. I mentioned Chivac. I
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 2: think when Karen was teaching. We had gone out to
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 2: there on the Yukon Delta, right, And I remember one
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 2: time when I was going downstream, I had fixed this
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: old double end canoe, who's a fiberglass canoe, and this
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 2: one woman there let me use it because I patched
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: it up for and I would would take the tide
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 2: out from this river and hunt ducks and things. And
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: I had a gillnet in for some fish. And one
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 2: time when I was down there, I don't know, ten
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 2: fifteen miles away from Chivac, I started coming back in
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 2: with the tide and this old man waves me down
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 2: and uh I pulled over and and uh I wanted
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 2: to ride, I said, jump in. He had all skin
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 2: clothes and he had these hip boots that were made
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 2: out of sealskins and sewed with this grass in the thread.
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: It was it was it was. It was some sort
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 2: of sinew thread. But they would put in a blade
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 2: of grass with it and that would my understanding was
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 2: that that would swell when it got wet and help to.
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: Really seal it. Yeah, it was outrageous.
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: And he just sat there with his feet in the
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 2: in the water, just like me with my rubber hip boot.
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: Guy had you out bad assed totally totally. Yeah, No,
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: it was great. It was cool to see.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 2: And so I mean we did that sort of stuff
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 2: with the with the you know, tanning hides and sewing
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: clothes with them and various things, but not like.
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: That you know, I was talking in the beginning of
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: the show that's talking about these American history things are
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: doing one on Daniel Boone and the long hunters, then
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: the mountain the mountain men like Jim Bridger, and then
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: the buffalo hide hunters. Yeah. So it's funny because those
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: buffalo hide hunters are one hundred years before you were
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: living in the bush like they were. The sort of
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: peak hide hunt was eighteen seventy four and you were around,
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: you know, century later. But one of the observations we
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: have in that hide Hunters piece we got coming out
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: is that the long hunters, the Boone and the long hunters,
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: Jim Bridge and the mountain men, those guys lived off
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: the land. Okay. They could produce their own clothes, source
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: their own food. It was the part of the whole plan, right,
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: The part of the whole mountain man plan is that
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: you're going to have to source your food there. It
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: was baked into the system. Boone, They'd sourced their own clothes,
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: their own shoes, everything. In a pinch, they could make gunpowder, okay.
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: The hide hunters by eighteen by by eighteen seventy, the
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: hide hunters were they were these firs, this first breed
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: of market hunter. That they didn't live off the land.
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: They had wagons, they carried bacon, they carried flour, They
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: ate enormous amounts of buffalo meat. But they didn't make
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: clothes like they they These were guys that would write
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: letters and order shit, right, and it's and so it's
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: like they looked they would if you saw, they would
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: have looked like gunfighters in their attire. Right. They were
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: no at that point, eighteen seventy, they're no longer living
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: off the land. You feeding yourself, yeah, some, but you're
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: not responsible for all that anymore. Maybe that's why they
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: were more effective killers. There's no time like they lived
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: in tents man. Yeah, that had access to canvas tents
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: that wagons they had to reload, ammo. But they wore cotton,
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: they were wool that were linen. Didn't make tools, just
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: bought tools, carried extras of everything. You know, it was
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: a century before your time though. Yeah, So the fact
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: that the century later you were still doing what you
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: did is remarkable.
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you couldn't really do it in lower forty
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 2: eight you sort of couldn't land in jail. Yeah, you
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 2: get chased away. Eventually there were people in the mountains
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 2: in northern New Mexico who would live in some of
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 2: the caves and do gardens and things. But they were
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 2: the foresters, as I understand it, would go and chase
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 2: them away every few years so that they didn't have
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 2: the adverse possession thing. In Alaska, the adverse possession was
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: they made it so that it didn't apply because it
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 2: was such huge land masses that they couldn't afford to.
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: Keep track of them all. And so it never was
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: an issue.
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 2: And we didn't we didn't own property either out there,
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 2: you know, some some I mean it was in that
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 2: transition period, you know, and you know that the Native
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: Clayton settlement had gone on, and there were there were
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of the time was uh well
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 2: some of the time was before a nilka. But even then,
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 2: you know, nobody knew what land would become, what ownership yep,
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 2: for quite a while.
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: There's places you can still make a pretty good goal
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: of it. You could, because uh you got all the
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: non game squirrel, porcupine stuff like that, very long waterfowl seasons. Yeah,
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: like you know, extended camping periods like this place is
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: in the Canoe just Rod and reel. You're not gonna
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: be on net. But like, there's places you could make
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: a go of it, for sure, if someone had the audacity.
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it'd be easy in the summer and easy if
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 2: you moved pretty regular. Yeah, there's nothing stopping you doing that.
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 2: But there's a few private landholdings that somebody could pick
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 2: up and then make a go of it, you know,
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 2: so that you couldn't get so you could build something
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 2: that was.
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: Ann one can run you off.
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, well man, I gotta get But man, I'm
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: so glad you came back. I had a lot of
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: these questions I needed to clarify. Yeah.
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't get to fish though.
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: I know next time, next time you come on, we're
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: gonna just talk about fish research, okay, Like just to
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: titillate people ahead of time, I'm gonna tell them how
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: you can tell one. Uh well, the whole thing was salmon,
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: sharks and salmon. Yeah, that's interesting. Well to do that.
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: We're gonna do the fish episode next. It'll be a
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: three part okay, and next time we're not gonna do
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: any recap on John the Baptist. There you go. We're
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: gonna dive right into fish. Yeah, fish research. Because just
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: to just to remind folks in preparation for Randy's next visit,
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: when he quit the Bush, you became like a full
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: on fish researcher, a fish biologist. That's right, your second life,
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 2: And that's been really rewarding too.
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, all.
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: Right, next time I'm serious, all right, the next time
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: is the fish episode. The final episode of the Fish episode.
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: It'll be like how many how many installments are there
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: in Lord of the Rings? Three? Well, there's the Hobbit,
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: and I don't count the salmarillion. Yeah, not counting the Hobbit.
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: It's a three pack. Or we'll go back in time
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: and hit the Hobbit later.
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 2: One last thing on uh please, on the Lord of
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 2: the Rings. So when we were when we were living out,
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 2: it was there was a time when we felt like
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: we were the good guys.
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: You know, we were we were the Fellowship.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we were, we were. We were fine, right, and
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 2: then we started reading these uh, these passages and the
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings, you know, with with what was it,
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 2: the uh, the Orcs or something with with these areas
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 2: where they're just all these dead bones from things that
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 2: they'd eaten and we start looking around and we go, well,
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 2: that that looks more like us than anything else. But
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 2: it was true, you know, because you can't get rid
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 2: of the bones. They're always going to be there, and
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 2: dogs to them, you know, they're there.
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: That's a part about uh, that's a part about death
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: and the barons. Yeah, as they're dying, they get to
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: digging out all their old bones and trying to boil
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: them and all that, and let that left more for
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: trouble for them. Yeah. You know what I did after
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: reading that book, so I was curious about it. I
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: took some raw hide and boiled and ate it, did
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: you yeah, hair and all. No, no, no, I was
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: boiled the raw hide, boiled and boiled and boiled it
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: till it turned into like a gelatin Yeah. I didn't
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: need to know to clog my uh you know, I
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: didn't have to have the missus do an animal on me.
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I had a couple a couple of strips
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: just to see. It kind of had a like a
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: it had like a noodlee, like a very gelatinous noodley
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: quality to it. But I didn't eat enough to die
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: or anything, you know, as evidenced by my presence. Yeah,
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: all right, dude, I gotta run, okay, all right, next
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: time Fish, Thanks for having me. Thank you man.