FISHING • HUNTING • ADVENTURE
AKSPORTINGJOURNAL.COM
Volume 11 • Issue 9 www.aksportingjournal.com PUBLISHER James R. Baker
INFORMATION SERVICES MANAGER Lois Sanborn
GENERAL MANAGER John Rusnak
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EXECUTIVE EDITOR Andy Walgamott EDITOR Chris Cocoles WRITERS Paul D. Atkins, Randall Bonner, Bjorn Dihle, Scott Haugen, Tiffany Haugen, Mary Catharine Martin, Erika Smith SALES MANAGER Paul Yarnold ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Mamie Griffin, Jim Klark, Mike Smith DESIGNER Lesley-Anne Slisko-Cooper PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Kelly Baker, Malena Kennedy WEB DEVELOPMENT/INBOUND MARKETING Jon Hines, Jon Eske
MEDIA INDEX PUBLISHING GROUP 941 Powell Ave SW, Suite 120 Renton, WA 98057 (206) 382-9220 • Fax (206) 382-9437 media@media-inc.com • www.media-inc.com CORRESPONDENCE Twitter @AKSportJourn Facebook.com/alaskasportingjournal Email ccocoles@media-inc.com ON THE COVER Scott Haugen (left) and his wife Tiffany have two sons, but they also share a professional partnership as outdoor writers.“We’ve been married nearly 32 years and our lives have never slowed down,” Scott writes. (SCOTT AND TIFFANY HAUGEN)
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CONTENTS
VOLUME 11 • ISSUE 9
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AT HOME IN THE COLD
Now that our longtime correspondent Paul Atkins has moved away from Alaska for the milder winters of his native Oklahoma, wouldn’t you guess that he misses the dark, cold and even dreary conditions this time of year in his former Arctic home? Bundle up for Paul’s fireside chat on how he and buddy Lew took advantage of deep winter’s ice fishing, fuel gathering and even archery opportunities when many of us would rather belly up to the woodstove.
(PAUL D. ATKINS)
FEATURES
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
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9 The Editor’s Note 11 The Alaska Beat 15 Fairbanks’ curling athlete
PEACE IN A PANDEMIC
When the Covid pandemic and its isolating and quarantining first hit, winter was a particularly dark season for Alaskans trying to stay healthy and safe. Some of those who longed for a sense of normalcy found themselves heading out to frozen lakes and drilling holes to socially distance and get some relief from the chaos. In her ASJ debut, Erika Smith recaps some of her cathartic moments on the hard water during that hard winter and spring.
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PARTNERS IN LOVE, BUSINESS
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WHEN AN ANGRY MOUNTAIN AWOKE
Vicky Persinger heads to Beijing Winter Olympics 27 Situk River sockeye fishing tips 33 The SalmonState: SeaBank report strengthens case to protect Southeast Alaska 51 Tip of the month: What you need to get your harvested animal back to camp
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a love story that is as much about salmon and waterfowl as it is candy and flowers. Scott and Tiffany Haugen attended rival universities in Oregon, but they hit it off, married and quickly found themselves in Alaska. While raising their two sons, they’ve also enjoyed fantastic careers in the greater outdoor industry. Scott shares he and Tiff’s story. Plus enjoy Tiffany’s hearty snowshoe hare recipe in a love– themed From Field to Fire recipe.
In the geologically active Alaska Peninsula, volcanoes are scattered throughout the terrain, and in 1912, 7,000-foot Mount Katmai unleashed a fury of ash that all but displaced nearby Yup’ik, Dena’ina and Altutiiq villages. In his latest Pride of Bristol Bay column, Bjorn Dihle chronicles some of the stories of those who lived through this terrifying natural disaster just 40 miles from Bristol Bay.
Alaska Sporting Journal is published monthly. Call Media Inc. Publishing Group for a current rate card. Discounts for frequency advertising. All submitted materials become the property of Media Inc. Publishing Group and will not be returned. Annual subscriptions are $29.95 (12 issues) or $49.95 (24 issues). Send check or money order to Media Inc. Publishing Group, 941 Powell Ave SW, Suite 120, Renton, WA 98057 or call (206) 382-9220 with VISA or M/C. Back issues may be ordered at Media Inc. Publishing Group, subject to availability, at the cost of $5 plus shipping. Copyright © 2022 Media Inc. Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher. Printed in U.S.A. 6
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EDITOR’S NOTE
Fairbanks curler Vicky Persinger, who’s competing in the Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, is fascinated with mastering the mental side of sports, something she hopes will serve her well on the ice. (BOB WEDER/USA CURLING)
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played on my high school tennis team, and full disclosure: I wasn’t very good – but I could at least stay in points for a while – and neither was my team. But we had fun. One of our most unlikely best players was one of my oldest and closest friends. He was solid playing defensive tennis and more often than not found a way to win long rallies. But to me, what stood apart was that he frustrated his opponents. I know whenever I played him in challenge matches or even when we played for fun, he’d psychologically beat me with his shot selection and unorthodox strategy. In a nutshell, I hated playing him, and that usually gave me no chance to win before the first serve. I thought about this while interviewing Fairbanks athlete and fishing, duck hunting and outdoors enthusiast Vicky Persinger, who is headed to this month’s Beijing Winter Olympics in curling (page 15). She said USA Curling’s sports
psychologist has played a big part in the team’s development, and more specifically its toughness. “There’s that mental and dynamic side that I personally take outside of curling, because I think it’s so interesting and helpful. I really nerd out on it,” Persinger told me. She thinks the presence of an expert in that field helped propel the four-man American team led by skip (curling’s version of captain) John Shuster to the gold medal in the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, just the second medal ever for Team USA in the sport. “I think she played a huge role in helping those guys come back to do well in the playoff and win. And I’m not sure they would have been able to pull that off,” said Persinger. She also related how one of her idols in the mental side of sports was the late hockey coach Herb Brooks, who led the underdog 1980 American team to the
Miracle on Ice gold medal at the Lake Placid games. I told Vicky I too was a fan of Brooks and how he was a master at motivation, famously convincing his college players that they could stun the heavily favored Soviet Union in one of the most famous upsets in sports history. “His philosophies on the game and about not really believing in all-star teams and kind of thinking the right pieces of the puzzle need to be there,” she said of her admiration for Brooks. “There’s so much more to just throwing and sweeping the rock. There’s grit and determination, your will to claw at a deficit when you’re down in a game, and being a good teammate and knowing what your team needs from you to make their best shot or be at their best.” Perhaps I could have used that trait on the tennis court back in high school! Best of luck to Persinger and her mixed doubles teammate Chris Plys in China. -Chris Cocoles
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ALASKA BEAT
Sockeye salmon that begin their spawning run in Alaska rivers and continue on into British Columbia waters are a point of contention between segments of U.S. and Canadian fishery worlds. (T. QUINN/NATIONAL PARK SERVICE)
WHOSE SALMON ARE THESE?
T
here’s a bit of a border dispute brewing between Southeast Alaska and British Columbia. It's a beef for sure, but it’s about salmon steaks and not T-bones. A study commissioned by BC’s Watershed Watch Salmon Society and SkeenaWild Conservation Trust concluded that the majority of 800,000 sockeye caught in Alaska waters were headed upstream to Canadian rivers. “Alaskan fisheries intercept and catch salmon of all species from British Columbia in Southeast Alaska,” the report states. “There is growing concern that as Canadian salmon abundance declines, and Canada closes or restricts its fisheries, Alaskan catch continues to have an impact on Canadian salmon and steelhead populations.” And needless to say, Canadian wild fish advocates are not happy about the statistics. “We knew that the Alaskans were catching a lot of BC salmon, as they have for a long time, but it was pretty jarring to see how their share of the catch has grown as ours has dwindled to protect salmon,” said Aaron Hill, president of Watershed Watch Salmon Society, in a report by Glacier Media’s Coast Reporter newspaper. While the article says there isn’t much legally that can be done at present due to the Canada-US Pacific Salmon Treaty agreement, many Canucks aren’t holding back in their criticism. “The Alaskans need to shut down this dirty fishery. It only exists to intercept B.C. salmon migrating through their waters,” Hill said in the newspaper report. After that story was published, the state of Alaska responded with a strong statement that cited the migratory movement of Pacific salmon across international and state borders as common behavior. Alaska Department of Fish and Game commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang objected to the content of the report, and said that he was “disappointed by what I consider to be a targeted attack on Southeast Alaska salmon fisheries by these special interest groups.” Vincent-Lang brought up the countries’ shared Pacific Salmon Treaty obligations and added, “I take our obligations to fulfill Treaty commitments seriously. Moreover, I find the timing of the release of this report to be suspect, as it coincides with ongoing Pacific Salmon Treaty meetings. The summary comments were subjective and one-sided and appear to be designed to derail Pacific Salmon Treaty talks.”
TWEET OF THE MONTH And in my fifth winter in Alaska, I finally bought a real winter coat. -Adelyn Baxter @adelynbaxter, Jan. 12
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NOTABLE NUMBER Where Forbes magazine ranked Alaska in its poll of the top 10 hunting states in America
“ THEY SAID IT
“I have a lot of mixed feelings. I really feel like the time is right. I mean, radio is my passion. And I think radio rules in Alaska, because of its remoteness. I have to admit that once I hit 70, I really got tired of the daily deadlines. But when I originally had decided to get out of everything, the writing and the radio, I really had some difficulty accepting that, because I still love what I do. I still learn something new every day.”
–Journalist Laine Welch, who’s retiring after 33 years hosting the Alaska Fish Radio show, to KDLG radio
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FROM THE ASJ ARCHIVES – FEBRUARY 2017
A KENAI RIVER TROUT ADVENTURE
A
quick hookset meant the fight was on. My rod bent under the strain of a decent-sized Dolly Varden, about 16 inches. It was a great fish, but not the target. We kept fishing. Gary could tell the type of fish I had on by the bend in my rod. “You’ll know when it’s a big one,” he would say. Several more fish came, all built up, before I hooked my monster. “There. There. There!” Gary yelled at me as my float was gone in a flash. It quickly became clear that this was what we were after. When we arrived at the bank, I was instructed to hop out and fight the fish on the downriver side. Gary was right about the level of distinction between the fish. The caliber of the one I had on now was more than those I’d previously caught and released. I was playing a new game too, a patience game. The fish tugged and ran, staying below the surface until he was mere feet from the boat. I would reel him in so close I could see color, only to have him shoot off again. As time wore on, the fish’s tactics changed. I would get him close and then he would roll in the water; I kept anticipating my hook shooting back at my face at any moment. Zach had the net ready. Eventually the fish subsided and swam in close enough to be netted. He was roughly 26 inches long, not the biggest trout but certainly respectable. I dipped my hands into the cold water and grabbed the beast. Holding him softly, like a delicate bunch of flowers, I realized I had just caught a lunker trout on the Kenai. -Randy King
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During a business trip to Alaska, Randy King enjoyed a memorable trip to the Kenai River, where the trout were biting. (RANDY KING)
OUTDOOR * CALENDAR
Feb. 1
Feb. 5 Feb. 15
Resident caribou season opens in Game Management Unit 26B (North Slope)
Yukon Quest sled dog race begins, Fairbanks (yukonquest.com)
Wolverine season opens in GMUs 3 (Petersburg/ Wrangell) and 4 (Admiralty/Baranof/Chichagof Islands) Safari Club International Banquet, Dena’ina Center, Feb. 26 Anchorage (907-903-8329, aksafariclub.org) March 5 Expected start of Iditarod race, Anchorage (iditarod.com) March 15 Spring brown bear season opens in GMU 1 (Southeast Mainland) March 15 Resident spring brown bear season opens in GMU 3 April 9 28th Annual Homer Winter King Salmon Tournament (homerwinterking.com)
2022 SPORTSMAN SHOWS Feb. 2-6
Washington Sportsmen’s Show, Washington State Fair & Events Center, Puyallup, Washington (otshows.com) Feb 16-20 Pacific Northwest Sportsmen’s Show, Expo Center, Portland, Oregon (otshows.com) March 25-27 Mat-Su Outdoorsman Show, Menard Center, Wasilla (matsuoutdoorsmanshow.com) April 1-3 Great Alaska Sportsman Show, Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center, Anchorage (greatalaskasportsmanshow.com) April 8-10 Fairbanks Outdoor Show, Carlson Center (fairbanksevents.com/outdoor-show) For more information and season dates for Alaska hunts, go to adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=hunting.main. Note: Check with local contacts on events that could be postponed/ cancelled due to Covid-19 pandemic.
The Alaska chapter of Safari Club International is raffling off a Chugach Dall sheep as part of its Feb. 26 fundraising banquet at the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage. (NATIONAL PARK SERVICE)
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SLIDING OVER TO BEIJING FAIRBANKS CURLER, OUTDOORSWOMAN VICKY PERSINGER GETS HER OLYMPICS MOMENT BY CHRIS COCOLES
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eet 29-year-old Vicky Persinger, Fairbanks native, fishing and duck hunting fanatic and a world-class curler. Er, curler? Yep, someone who curls. Curling, if you didn't know, is the winter Olympic Games sport staged on sheets of ice using sliding “rocks” and sweeping brooms. It has been described as a cross between lawn bowling and shuffleboard. And while Team USA’s roster for this month’s Beijing Games is dominated by curlers from Minnesota and neighboring Wisconsin – there’s even a debate as to which state is truly the heartbeat of the sport in the U.S., with many curlers leaning towards the Land of 10,000 Lakes over America’s Dairyland to the east – Persinger is proud to call Alaska home and aims to keep it that way. As one of just a handful of Alaskans
Whether it’s fishing for Arctic grayling (above) or competing with the best curlers in the world (left, with her mixed doubles partner Chris Plys), Fairbanks’ Vicky Persinger knows no other way but to go all out, and she’ll get her chance at Olympic glory this month in the Beijing Winter Games. (VICKY PERSINGER/BOB WEDER PHOTOGRAPHY) aksportingjournal.com | FEBRUARY 2022
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Life in Alaska meant fishing at an early age for young Vicky and her family. “Being outdoors and taking trips to our cabins, it’s really about the peace that you feel and the joy of having nowhere to go,” she says. (VICKY PERSINGER)
to ever make the Olympics in curling, Persinger has no plans to “skip” town (curling team captains are known as skips) for the heart of the curling community in the Heartland of America. The icy Last Frontier comes first for this athlete. “It is super hard (to leave Alaska). I’ve been pressured to move out of state several times, and being from Alaska is literally the way that I am,” says Persinger, whose event was scheduled to begin on Feb. 2. “I feel crazy proud because I feel like I’m not just representing the U.S.; I do feel like I’m representing our state, our city and my curling club and family. It just makes me beam with pride because it means so much more. I’m just proud to be from here.” After Persinger narrowly missed qualifying for the 2018 games in PyeongChang, South Korea, she teamed up with her mixed doubles partner Chris Plys to win the U.S. Olympic Curling Trials – held in, you guessed it, Eveleth, Minnesota – last October. And then, because of the Covid pandemic and previous U.S. 16
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performances that condensed the qualification process, they had to win a December world qualifying tournament in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, to claim an Olympic spot in China. And Persinger won’t take her first experience on curling’s grandest stage for granted. “I’m super excited. I’ve been on the national team for eight years and playing in both disciplines – women’s and mixed doubles – and had a close loss in the last go-round. Really, it’s been eight years to get here, plus all the additional challenges with Covid,” she says. “I live quite a bit further than anyone else on the national team. Just a lot of obstacles to overcome, and it makes it almost better to make it now after all those challenges.”
PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SLIDING curling rocks
or stones – modern ones should weigh about 42 pounds each in Olympic-level play – in Fairbanks for well more than a century. Scots who came over during
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the Klondike Gold Rush introduced Alaskans to the sport that originated in 16th century Scotland. When Fairbanks’ Chena River froze, locals would play as spring approached and conditions were suitable. It was around that time in 1905 when the Fairbanks Curling Club was established. Since then, the club has settled in at its modern indoor location at Kiwanis Park along the Chena. “We have six sheets of ice, and that’s the most sheets of ice in the state. The next curling club is Anchorage and there’s two sheets,” Persinger says. “But we really have a great club atmosphere. It’s very warm inside. People care about curling, but they also care about people’s highs and lows in life, and they follow along with what everybody’s doing outside of curling as well. And it’s always been like that.” You can make the argument that the extended Persingers could be the first family of curling in Fairbanks and the state. The sport is a generational tradition for Vicky’s parents Cathy and Ken, grandparents Janelle and Allen, sister Tina and cousins Greg and Chad, with most playing the sport at various levels. (Greg Persinger is a former U.S. champion and longtime national team member, while Tina competed in junior national and world events.) “We have a big family and a lot of people play league,” says Vicky, whose travel commitments prohibit her from playing in local league events. “My dad and my sister and a couple of my uncles and cousins, there’s probably six to eight of them who play league here in Fairbanks on a regular basis.” Vicky’s rise in the sport came somewhat methodically. She was a softball player up until she turned 18 and went on to college (she currently works as an IT manager for Fairbanks’ Yukon Title). But winter activities are what you’d expect for a Fairbanks girl. The family owned a snowmachine company back then, so when Persinger and her sister and cousins weren’t riding around on the trails, they were curling. “And I would say that’s still fairly accurate,” she says of the snowmachining/ curling cycle. Persinger was a skilled enough player early on – after all, curling is in her family’s
DNA – that she began competing in the U.S. Junior National championship events from the time she was 13 years old. Representing teams from Alaska, she admits they “weren’t very good” against teams from other more curlingcentric states. Still, she stuck with it all the way through when she aged out at 20. But given that she had no intentions of moving out of Alaska and into those states where curling is everything, Persinger assumed her highest-level competitive career would go away and she’d settle into an Alaskan lifestyle and play league events with her Fairbanks Curling Club gang. “Curling teams (women’s and men’s teams feature four players) are for the most part self-formed. I wouldn’t call myself shy, but I really didn’t feel comfortable reaching out to these people that I didn’t know very well in trying to get on a team and going out of my way (to join one),” she says. “I was like, ‘I’m not going to quit curling, but I’m maybe not going to do the competitive stuff.’ I did that for one year and it was so hard to watch what was going on and wanting to be involved with it.” Timing can be everything, and it was just a year later that USA Curling’s High Performance Team was offering a tryout camp for the first time. There was no doubt this time about giving it a shot. So Persinger flew to Minnesota and made her bid to reach the next level, though she humbly didn’t expect to crash the party and make it. But she did and has never missed a beat since. “I think that individual tryout really helped me. I don’t know if I would have gotten on a team without that. And now I know the women and a bunch of the curling community better than I had before,” she says. “So I don’t think I would have gotten that chance without that opportunity.” With the Olympics being held in China, Persinger’s mixed doubles competition with Plys will occur at odd times for the folks back home in Alaska. But her local club members will be burning the midnight oil to catch her games online or wherever they’re available via NBC Sports coverage.
There’s also a Facebook group called Curling Enthusiasts-Fairbanks, Alaska, which has become something of a Vicky Persinger fan page in the days leading up to the trip to China and during her competition. “They’ve always been so supportive of me going off and trying to represent the U.S. in as many things as I can,” she says. “They really are all following in their downtime. It’s very genuine support.”
HERS WAS A TYPICAL Alaska-inspired upbringing. The Persinger family is a work-hard, play-hard brood. That’s another facet of life in Vicky’s home state that’s so appealing and difficult to give up. “I really admire Alaskan people. They are so resilient when they face challenges. They look at work and chores as fun, as sick as that is,” Persinger says. There would be no shortage of play time in this family. When Vicky wasn’t playing her sports of choice, she’d join the family on getaways to their remote cabins deep in the Alaska Interior. One cabin was hard on a river, the other at a lake. Like so many kids her age, Persinger’s first fishing experience came with one of those Snoopy child-sized fishing rods and reels. Or sometimes Mom or Dad would hook an Arctic grayling, their common target, and hand the rod to young Vicky or sister Tina to get the feel
of the reel and the fish on the other end. “I just think of sitting on the back of the boat or on the riverbank, and it’s chaos,” Vicky says when describing those days. “There are dogs running, my mom has snacks for all of us and whoever we have at the river with us. The river cabin takes an hour in a boat to get there, so we're really out of the way and away from civilization.” That’s kind of typical to what goes on even now with the Persinger adults. But this is what you do when living in this state. Theirs is a simple life but also the good life. Get in the boat, find a sandbar to beach at, break out the fishing gear and the chairs, let the pups run amok, play some music on the speakers and just chill out. And it’s not so much about catching fish as it is just getting out of the city, recharging and spending time together as a family in the Alaskan backcountry. Since the curling season requires Persinger to burn a lot of her vacation days to account for trips to tournaments and other commitments in winter, she doesn’t take for granted the time off she does get for cabin retreats. “Being outdoors and taking trips to our cabins, it’s really about the peace that you feel and the joy of having nowhere to go,” she says. “Nothing that needs to be done and being with your family. Super resetting for me.”
Four-wheel adventures on remote trails with her family and their dogs are cherished moments and one big reason why Persinger has no interest in moving away from Alaska. (VICKY PERSINGER)
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PERSINGER’S ROAD TO BEIJING essentially
Each September, even when in training, Persinger makes sure to carve time out to duck hunt with her dad Ken. “A lot of it is just being away from other people, being outdoors and finding that peace and joy that comes with just adventuring and being with the people you love.”(VICKY PERSINGER)
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started when she came up just short of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games. She competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials with both a four-member women’s team and the two-player mixed doubles, finishing second and third, respectively. But while it motivated Persinger to give it another go for 2022, coming up short also offered valuable perspective. “Especially early on, I really focused on the Olympics as the main goal, (and) after I lost the last trials, it was obviously very emotionally devastating for me. But it made me realize there are a lot of moving parts and pieces along the way,” she says. “They weren’t the Olympics, but they’re a huge part of why I play and that they are fun. Obviously the Olympics are the pinnacle of our sport, but there are a lot of good things that come along the way.” Her previous mixed doubles partner had retired, but she found a kindred spirit in Plys, another in the Minnesota curling pipeline. The now 34-year-old was a 2010 Olympian but also had his share of close defeats, providing somewhat of a similar backstory to his new partner. “Chris asked me if I wanted to play doubles. I knew Chris and I thought, ‘Sure; why not?’ And our first year together, we lost the nationals final,” she says. “That’s when I realized that if we put in a little work we might be able to do well. And we have since then.” The 2021 Olympic Trials final between Plys and Persinger and the team of Jamie Sinclair – she was coincidentally born in Anchorage to a Canadian father but grew up in Canada – and Rich Ruohonen represented one of the most emotional roller coaster rides of Persinger’s career. Unlike the more tightly contested games of four-person women’s and men’s competitions, two-player mixed doubles contests are often more wide-open, highscoring affairs. Just one player is able to use the broom to sweep away ice and help guide the shooter’s rock down the roughly 150-foot sheet and either avoid, block or knock out opponents’ rocks and get as close as possible to the center bull’s-eye, known as the button. And in a taut, back-and-forth game, Persinger was having a difficult time finding her stride. “Horrible” was the
While many of her fishing trips have been for Interior grayling, Persinger hopes to do more salmon fishing and go back to the coast for halibut. “It was truly one of those days where at the end of the day my face hurt from smiling,” she says. “I was just smiling literally all day long and had so much fun.” (VICKY PERSINGER)
player’s description of her play more than halfway through. “I had really struggled for the whole final and it was really hard for me to kind of swallow and accept,” she says. “And I’m very hard on myself, so I was kind of beating myself up inside.” “I took a couple steps back and looked up at the scoreboard and just told myself, ‘It’s not as bad as it feels.’ You feel like you’re losing by 10 and you look at the scoreboard and you’re up by one or down one. I had to reposition myself and look at the bigger picture and understand that there were still X amount of rocks left in the game.” Traditionally men’s and women’s team games last 10 ends – curling’s term for innings or periods – but there are just eight for mixed doubles. Persinger admits the first five of those weren’t her best work.
“And then I really picked it up for the last three ends and made a really good shot in the last end,” she says. Curling’s last shot attempt of each end – teams throw five rocks each during the ends – is known as the hammer, giving whoever has that last shot the perceived upper hand to score the critical points. And it just so happened that Persinger, her earlier misfires still potentially hovering, possessed the hammer with a chance to break a 6-6 tie and clinch the trials for her and Plys. Sinclair and Ruohonen had two rocks right around the button with a PersingerPlys rock just outside of scoring position. It would arguably be the biggest shot of Persinger’s career, and if she could knock away all three of the other stones and place hers in position to score, the game would be theirs.
“The final rock of the eighth end; tied at six on the finger tips of Vicky Persinger and a possible trip to the Netherlands,” the NBC Sports announcer said, adding to the drama of the moment. “Hard! Hard!” Persinger shouted as her partner furiously swept in front of the sliding rock. It did exactly as the thrower hoped it would, taking out all three of the rocks and stopping within the circumference of the button to end it with a single point. “It looked pretty straightforward maybe if you’re not a curler, but there was really not a lot of room for error. The best shots in curling are when you have a series of options and you can put it in a couple different places and still make the shot,” Persinger says. “And that one was, ‘I’m either making it or not.’ We looked at the angles and thought it was
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our best option and I threw it. We were very relieved when we were the last rock sitting there in the 4-foot (area that scored the winning point).” Then, during a postgame interview, Persinger teared up. “It was a very odd game to win emotionally just because, 1) It guaranteed in no way that we were going to the Olympics (yet) and that our road wasn’t over,” she said in early January while in self-quarantine at home leading into the China trip. “And 2) The game itself was such an emotional roller coaster with my struggles and the scoreboard going back and forth. I didn’t really have an inkling that we were for sure going to win until the game was over.” That crazy ride almost made the Netherlands qualifying tournament seem anticlimactic, despite Persinger and Plys not only having to go through a round robin preliminary round (they went undefeated) but also win a semifinal and
final match against a tough Russia team. Persinger became just the second Olympic curler from Alaska to qualify, joining Anchorage’s Jessica Schultz who represented Team USA in 2006 and 2014. Fairbanks-born Colin Hufman is also the men’s team alternate going to Beijing with Plys, who is doubling up on events. “The U.S. trials, that was maybe the toughest doubles field I’ve ever had to play in. Every single game was a grind and you’re kind of holding your breath until it’s over. The competition maybe wasn’t quite as good in the Netherlands, but the games were just as important,” she says. “But I do think that throughout my curling career, every event is like a learning moment and taking what that pressure felt like in that (trials) final and learning from it, I feel like I did much better in the Netherlands.” When the team was interviewed on an episode of USA Curling’s The Whole Spiel podcast, Plys talked about what
Of her trip to the Olympics with Plys, Persinger is most excited about not just representing her country, but also the Fairbanks Curling Club – where she learned to play – and her beloved home state. “I’m just proud to be from here,” she says. (VICKY PERSINGER) 20
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makes for a good mixed doubles duo. “First and foremost, you have to be a good shooter … And then it’s incredibly important to be as good a teammate as you can out there,” he said of the twoplayer format compared to the larger men’s and women’s groups. “And just understanding that there’s massive swings in mixed doubles, being able to weather those and to keep your cool and composure the best you can. And I think that’s something we do pretty well.” And this team will certainly head to Beijing battle-tested, considering the pressure-packed domestic trials final and overcoming the field in the Netherlands. Persinger is sure it will benefit their cause to contend for an Olympic medal. “I love this ‘practicing pressure,’ I call it, if that makes sense,” she says. “Because it’s going to be totally helpful when we get over there.”
IF IT’S SEPTEMBER, THE father-daughter
duck hunting trip is on. No exceptions. Ken and Vicky have been doing it for as long as they can remember. “My dad started taking me duck hunting when I was 9. And I have been hunting with him every single year since then. This last September was my 20th year in a row going out duck hunting with him,” Vicky says. You don’t have to remind her curling national team contemporaries back in Minnesota and Wisconsin that the trip is going to happen come hell or high water. When she’s back in Minnesota during curling-related events or training, everyone else now knows when the Alaska kid will head back west and north for a weekend in September to hit the waterfowl blinds with her pop. “They (first) asked why, and I said, ‘Well, I have to go hunting with my dad.’ They looked at me and were like, ‘Really?’ ‘Yeah. I have not missed a single year, and going up to Alaska for five days to go hunting is not going to ruin our chances.’ It’s something that’s really important to me, and I make sure to make the time to do those things.” “I’m a terrible shot – just horrible. The effort is there. But a lot of it is just being away from other people, being outdoors and finding that peace and joy that
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comes with just adventuring and being with the people you love.” Persinger tries to make time to join in the fun with her dad’s passion as a private pilot. And Ken proudly taught Vicky to drive the family boat, even to navigate the sometimes turbulent waters of their home river, the Tanana. “It’s a scary river, but what’s cool about that is my dad has been teaching me how to drive on that just so eventually, some day when he’s gone, I’m going to know how to get to the cabin and to get my mom and my sister out there. That’s how both my parents have raised me: to just get out there and do it,” Persinger says. “They don’t really care that I’m not a boy and driving the boat is supposed to be a man thing. We were pulling in somewhere and Dad goes, ‘OK, drop the anchor.’ Whoever is with us will go, ‘I can get it.’ And my dad says, ‘She’s got it.’ That’s something that we’ve been taught to do. And I think what’s really cool about being an Alaskan woman is that gender only means so much up here. You’re kind of expected to go along and hang tough
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with everybody. And I like that. I think that helps me as an athlete.”
THERE’S A TRAIL ADJACENT to one of the
Persinger cabins. It’s as remote as you’d expect when understanding that the property itself is only accessible via boat or bush plane. The Persinger clan loves to go four-wheeling there. “We just love packing a sandwich, cutting trees that have fallen across the trail and just breaking trail and exploring. We’ve never gotten to the end of the trail, so we just keep doing it. We bring the dogs, and that is fun to me, which is kind of messed up,” deadpans Persinger, who was asked if she’s curious about someday following the trail as far as it goes. “It’s a very old trail, so I just sit at the cabin thinking, ‘Where does it stop?’” Persinger’s answer might just provide a clue about why she is too much of an Alaskan to put down roots anywhere else. Minnesota and Wisconsin might be America’s unofficial cradle of curling, but Alaska is home. There are more fish to catch –
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Persinger wants to go on a halibut trip again (“It was truly one of those days where at the end of the day my face hurt from smiling literally all day long”) – and Ken has invited his daughter to go moose hunting sometime despite Vicky’s reluctance to take the shot. (''I kind of don’t want to go moose hunting, but then I kind of do, if that makes sense. I would enjoy calling it in and all that, and I’d probably be cool being the support staff.”) Beijing is a chance for her and Plys to win just the third curling medal in United States’ history, but the beauty of living in Fairbanks, the cabins, the duck hunts, the fishing trips, the trail with the unknown ending point – it’s all quite the medal podium on its own. ASJ Editor’s note: Schedules for Vicky Persinger’s and Chris Plys’s mixed doubles event at the 2022 Winter Olympics can be found at usacurling.org/press-releases/2022beijing-schedule. Follow Persinger on Twitter and Instagram (@vrpersinger). For Fairbanks Curling Club information, go to curlfairbanks.org.
HOW ICE FISHING SAVED MY SANITY AN ALASKAN FOUND COVID RELIEF BY SPENDING TIME ON THE HARD WATER BY ERIKA SMITH
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t’s the middle of winter, and signs of cabin fever are showing: restlessness, excess energy, the munchies, lethargy. The confusing set of symptoms are brought on by the lack of daylight and the limits placed on us by Old Man Winter. We’re dreaming of open water, T-shirts and a local brew at 8 in the evening, when the sun is still hanging out reminding us why we live in Alaska. But this time of year Alaska is asleep – tucked away under a layer of ice and a blanket of white while waiting to thaw out and bring us the summer adventures we live for. In the meantime, subtly and still covered in slime, the fish are swimming below the hard water, conserving energy and waiting for a lure to drop through a 10-inch hole in the ice.
PASSING THE PANDEMIC TIME Think back to the beginning of the Covid pandemic: You know, the time when the term “quarantine” became standard for being sentenced to work from home, i.e., rolling out of bed at 7:58 a.m. and logging on to the computer only to validate that no one else knows what’s going on all day. Then it was time to log off and make some semblance of dinner because you were relearning how to live your life without all of the regular amenities; then binge-watch the Avengers movies; have too much energy to go to sleep at 9 p.m.; wake up the next day in a fog and do it all over again. It was during this perpetual Groundhog Day that I found ice fishing. One of my friends called me up and
As the Covid pandemic forced plenty of Alaskans to isolate and quarantine, the opportunity to get outside – even in the winter – and go ice fishing proved cathartic for many locals. (ERIKA SMITH)
proposed the idea that we get out and try the Upper Midwest pastime, just because. “What else are we going to do?” And, “I know there are some big trout out there.” Naturally, we rented Grumpy Old Men on Amazon Video and pumped ourselves up for some quarantine fun. (I highly
recommend this Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau classic – and its sequel, Grumpier Old Men – just to get yourself in the mood.)
STOCKED AND READY At first we started just going out to lakes marked by the familiar brown Alaska Department of Fish and Game sign,
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“Stocked by ADFG,” where we would drill a couple of our own openings in the ice. And then when our arms got tired from using the $99 hand auger, we’d break through the new ice that had formed on the opening of someone else’s effort in the hopes that some of that Vegas slot machine luck would strike. We spent the late winter and early spring testing different depths, jigging all colors of lures, and figuring out the morning and evening bite. Before long, we’d added an ice hut, a Buddy Heater and a cooler full of snacks and brews that rivaled the weight of the Jet Sled hauling all of our gear. Every shiny rainbow or orange-finned Arctic char we pulled out of a little hole in the ice served as encouragement to drop the line for one more nibble and stoke the fire for the next trip. Sitting in an ice hut out in the middle of a frozen lake with no one around is how we ushered in the longer spring days, shedding thermals and adding sunglasses. We spent hours out on the hard water trying to find the biggest fish prize possible. The biggest beauty of the year came out of Peterson Lake, a 24-inch chromer that any angler would have been proud to pull out of open water.
Sometimes it’s not about the size of the trout but the joys of getting outside during a time when everyone has needed a little therapy. (ERIKA SMITH)
DO YOUR RESEARCH
“What else are we going to do?” a friend pitched author Erika Smith on an ice fishing outing early in the pandemic. Smith was glad to oblige, as was this nice 28inch lake trout she caught at Lake Louise near Glennallen. (ERIKA SMITH)
If you’ve been thinking about braving the elements and getting out onto the ice, your local ADFG office has a ton of information, plus maybe even some loaner gear to get you started. Local sporting goods stores are starting to keep up with the growing interest in ice fishing in Alaska, and the gear availability is 10 times better than it was two years ago when I started. Swing in and grab a shorty ice fishing rod, a couple lures, an auger that fits your budget and your beverage of choice, and then head out onto the hard water, where the fish are waiting for some winter company. ASJ Editor’s note: Erika Smith is an outdoors writer who grew up on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. Now based in Soldotna, you can find more of her adventures at alaskaoutdoorgirl.com. Follow Erika on Instagram (@alaskaoutdoorgirl).
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May is the best month of the season for Halibut, and Winter Chinook (Kings), and you can’t beat Zeballos.
2022 SPECIALS NOW BOOKING FOR MAY Dates Available for May: 1st-4th, 4th-7th, 7th-10th, 10th-13th, 13th-17th, 17th-20th, 20th-23rd, 23rd-26th, 26th-29th, 29th-31st.
SALMON
The most successful Salmon Hatchery on the Pacific Coast is just 30 miles from Zeballos. For the past several years, over 50,000 Chinook Salmon have returned each fall to the Conuma Creek spawning grounds where the hatchery is located. Most of these migrating Salmon start to come through our waters starting in May. We have non-spawning Chinook Salmon in our waters year-round—Winter Chinook (Kings, or Springs). In May you'll be catching on average 12 to 18 pound Salmon—absolutely the best table fare.
HALIBUT
We are located very close to an amazing halibut fishery that seems never ending. We can't remember a trip where we didn't hook into many of these amazing eating fish. Come with us, and we'll show you how to bring up white gold. Be prepared with coolers!
Limited trips left, book now before we are sold out!
DAY TRIPPER
Up to 4 people per boat, expect full limits Three Great Locations: Zeballos, Tahsis & Tofino - 28' offshore boat up to 12 hours of fully guided fishing - Full private enclosed head on board - Breakfast, coffee, sodas, water, lunch, and lots of snacks included - All fishing gear provided - Rain gear provided - Cleaning of your catch - Bring a large cooler packed with ice to transport your catch home
$455.00 USD + 5% tax /per person Book Your Day Trippers Trip at zeballostopguides.com/day-trips. Complete and submit the form. TRIP LIMITS for Day Tripper Package: 4 Salmon of which 2 can be Kings and two can be Silvers, 1 Halibut up to 70 pounds, 3 Lingcod and 4 Rockcod. We have purchased Halibut Quota from the Commercial Halibut Fleet and if you wish to take extra Halibut, the cost will be about $5 per pound.
HALIBUT EXPRESS
Drive-In 3 Nights / 4 Days Package Join us for our 11th annual Halibut Express starting May 1st, 2022! - 20 hours of guided fishing - 3 nights accommodation at the Cedars Inn - All meals including wine with the dinner meals - Cleaning and filleting of your catch - All fishing tackle provided (You are welcome to bring your favorite rod and reel)
Party of 2 fishing 2 per boat: $1725 + tax USD Per Person Party of 3 fishing 3 per boat: $1395 + tax USD Per Person Party of 4 fishing 4 per boat: $1100 + tax USD Per Person TRIP LIMITS for 3N/4D Halibut Express Package: 8 Salmon of which 4 can be Chinook (Kings), 2 Halibut, 6 Lingcod, and 8 Rockcod. We have have purchased Halibut Quota from the Commercial Halibut Fleet and if you wish to take extra Halibut, the cost will be about $5 per pound.
LEARN MORE
zeballostopguides.com/halibut-special Call 250-337-2158 Email: doug.zeballostopguides2022@gmail.com
NOTES: Fishing Licenses required and can be purchased April 1, 2022
Guide and Staff gratuities not included Bring your own coolers ... you’ll need them!
Don’t wait—packages sell out fast every year, contact us now!
Randall Bonner, a regular visitor to Southeast Alaska’s Situk River for steelhead, also has enjoyed some outstanding sockeye salmon fishing there. (RYAN MCCLURE)
SEEING REDS ON THE SITUK HOW TO SLAM SOCKEYE ON SOUTHEAST ALASKA RIVER BY RANDALL BONNER
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hen most people think of sockeye sport fisheries, they tend to think of anglers combat fishing elbow to elbow, not to mention bending their ethics as much as their rods. Being fairly green to sockeye fishing, I can only imagine seeing red in that kind of environment. Luckily, the solitude of Tongass National Forest (the largest national forest in the United States) provides a different kind of backdrop
to an underrated fishery that lives in the shadow of larger rivers in Alaska, which only adds to what draws seasoned anglers back to Yakutat. The area’s history and the cultural significance of the sockeye fishery as both a subsistence and commercial resource are deeply connected to the community that welcomes sport anglers to a little slice of sockeye heaven. Today, the Situk produces roughly 60,000 sockeye every summer, but twice
as many made their way above the weir in 2021, along with over 2,000 king salmon. If the correlation with Bristol Bay’s sockeye fisheries rings true again this year, there will be even more fish to catch.
FROM TOP TO BOTTOM, drift boat traffic is fairly light on the 14-mile float, with only a half-dozen guide boats or so on any given day. Foot traffic at the upper boat ramp can be fairly dense when the sockeye are as well, with a majority of the fish piling
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The Situk’s drift boat traffic is light during the sockeye run, leaving plenty of water for anglers to cover on the 14-mile float. Violet Perkins and Zach Edwards participated in some of the fun. (RANDALL BONNER)
into only a few select locations. The ramp at the lower end of the river has a lot more real estate for bank anglers, with the closest accessible areas only open to anglers over the age of 60. Marked by an old train trestle, the “Old Man’s Hole” carries its own nostalgic historical relevance. The railroad was established in the early 1900s as a one-of-a-kind operation that primarily shipped raw fish as its freight, traveling 11 miles from the Situk to the cannery in Yakutat. This designated area of the river provides easy access for seniors to fish close to the boat ramp parking lot, with the nearby open-water flats and gravel bars making for an ideal environment to target fish with a fly rod. Upstream, there’s easily accessible trails that lead to a few pools where tidal fish tend to move in and stack up. Tides can determine a lot of the potential for success, with even tides often bringing in more fish than those with bigger swings from low to high. Log jams and deep troughs slow down 28
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the sockeye’s march upstream, but the biggest obstacle to fish passage is of course the weir itself. The deadline below the weir is a fairly popular destination for anglers on foot, but it’s a little bit of a hike to get there, with some fairly decent water along the way that often gets overlooked. Tidal fish moving in from the salt provide the best quality table fare, and like fish in a barrel, they often get trapped in deeper pools as the tide begins to drop again. Most of the water near the lower end is easy to cross on foot and fish from both sides of the river during the lowwater periods of midsummer.
BY FAR, THE BEST way to fully experience
the Situk sockeye run is from a boat. They offer plenty of fishing advantages, but the winding, scenic stretches of pristine water and ideal habitat are a sight to see on their own. The stealth of a drift boat often offers opportunities to view shorebirds, waterfowl, beavers, otters and even brown bears and moose.
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While lodges offer rentals, booking a trip with a guide is always a safer bet than trying to figure things out from scratch during a 14-mile float. During the beginning of the season, the small pods of salmon may be difficult to find but the guides know where they tend to congregate. And in the peak season, while the river can be stuffed with fish from top to bottom, knowing what pieces of real estate are most effectively targeted comes naturally for someone who is on the river on a daily basis. During the middle of the season, areas like the confluence of the old Situk are popular destinations, but often that water holds more spawning-phase fish than chrome keepers. While some of those spots are fun to rope in a few gnarly bucks for photos, they can also be a bit of a time warp that makes for a long day with a lot of river left to float downstream in order to reach the ramp. Still, they’re productive enough that if you spend enough time there and play the odds, you’re very likely to rope in a ton of fish and fill a stringer full
of chrome. Most of the fish that are on the move tend to congregate in schools in the deeper channels. Upstream, the majority of those deeper channels flow alongside heavy brush lines and through winding bends. If fish are congregating in the transitional areas of the channel going from one side of the river to the other, they can be easier to target in open water with less potential of casting into the brush. As a general rule, the shallower a run with fish is, the easier it is to target them, as they have less room to move around in the water column.
a fish, don’t sweat it; there are plenty more out there, so keep casting. One thing is for certain, you will not catch them on a dry hook pouting about the last one that got away. While fishing 45 degrees upstream from a boat is deadly, fishing straight across or even slightly downstream from the bank is often more effective if you’re fishing the opposite shoreline. The long distance your line travels during the drift will often leave a bow
in your mainline that slowly drags your gear behind it. Ideally, your line should be tight to the gear in order to feel the fish and hook it more effectively. Fish that are closer to you can be targeted effectively with shorter casts. The sweeping motion helps you determine the speed at which your gear is traveling through the run. Sweeping your rod tip low, slow and downstream will give you more control over the movement of your presentation than reeling.
LIKE MOST SOCKEYE FISHERIES, flossing
is the name of the game when it comes to filling the freezer. Although there are often situations that produce legitimate biters, that conversation is up for debate, and that strategy is more experimental than effective most of the time. Casting at 45-degree angles from 10 o’clock to 2 o’clock or vice versa, depending on the side of the river you’re facing, produces results. Begin by making a cast upstream, then allowing your gear to sink with the rod tip low, sweeping your gear through the schools of fish. As the fish are facing upstream, your best chance of a hookup will come when your gear is 90 degrees from the boat – or in the “noon” position – perpendicular to the direction the fish are facing. Casting behind the boat and dragging a long leader parallel to fish is a futile gesture, as your gear is drifting in line with the fish. Casting downstream is pointless, as your gear will simply lift to the surface and go over the fish. Fish will often swim right alongside the boat, much to the frustration of the angler attempting to target them. Fish that are 15 to 20 feet from the boat are much easier targets for this technique, but most importantly, you need lots of fish to target to make it worthwhile. A dozen or two is not enough fish. If there’s not 50 to 100 around, you’re almost wasting your time and should look for bigger pods. Fishing from shore isn’t much different; find fish and keep casting. Sockeye fishing is a numbers game, and as much as you’ll benefit from finding more fish to target, you’ll need to make more casts to catch them. If you lose
Scott Solomon with a nice red. Shore anglers can also land a lot of fish during the peak of the sockeye run. (RANDALL BONNER)
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Fishing with bead setups is a popular choice for anglers. The author likes fishing with a Thirsty bead rig. (RANDALL BONNER)
The only reasons you should turn the crank on your reel is to pick up slack, reel in a fish or finish your last cast and prepare for the next one. Most people don’t take into consideration just how fast turning the crank on the reel picks up the line. If you’re picking up line too fast, your gear will be near the surface and floating over the fish. If you’re going too slowly, you’re dragging below them and likely to snag on the bottom or foul-hook fish. If you’re reeling your gear in like a bass lure or letting it sit on the bottom like a catfish bait, you’re not going to catch very many sockeye. 30
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THE DEPTH AND SPEED of a run should determine how it’s fished. A deep, slowmoving run will often have fish at varying depths in the water column. Allow your gear time to sink, but don’t drag the bottom. Count a few seconds, then begin your sweeping motion. If you’re not feeling fish, count more or count less until you do. If you’re still not feeling them, then maybe there’s not enough there to target. Sockeye in shallow water with no cover are sitting ducks, but once they discover this, they won’t be there for long. If the fish are out on a shallow flat, it can be a
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fast and furious rodeo for a few minutes before they move into brush, deeper water or simply drift up- or downstream. If you can keep the fish below you, they’ll eventually move back up. Once they’re above you, they’re hard to get back down. Most seasoned guides crimp on four to seven extra-large split shot about 5 feet up their mainline, which is typically 20-pound monofilament, then place a large Corky a few inches below the weights to lift the line between the weight and the hook into the water column to find the fish’s jaws just above the river bottom. While this is effective, being a fresh set of eyes on a new-tome fishery, all I could see were simple problems with very simple solutions. The split shot rigging style is extremely timeconsuming and less effective than using more streamlined rigging components. As a seasoned bead angler, I designed my own rigging to mimic the local standard and added a few of my own components to increase my chances. For starters, a long piece of pencil lead is much more efficient to add to the line than crimping multiple split shots. Also, the bulky nature of multiple split shots is less streamlined, but a thin piece of pencil lead can potentially travel through a fish’s jaws if they’re flossed on the mainline far from the hook. I thread one bead above and below a 3- to 5-inch piece of pencil lead onto 20-pound monofilament as my mainline. The top bead prevents the lead from damaging the ceramic rod tip, and the bottom bead prevents the lead from damaging the terminal tackle. Tie that 20-pound monofilament mainline to a barrel swivel. All this gear can easily travel through a sockeye’s jaws if you’re slightly off target and floss them with the mainline. Below the swivel, thread a small 6mm bobber stop bead and an 8mm Thirsty Fishing bead on a 4-foot, 20-pound fluorocarbon leader to a size 1 octopus hook. The 6mm plastic bead will prevent the Thirsty Fishing bead from sliding down onto the hook. This rigging can easily be duplicated with small Corkies, but there are a few advantages to using the Thirsty Fishing bead, which is essentially a spongy, buoyant, perfectly round bead. For starters, it’s significantly more buoyant, balancing
the sinking properties of the fluorocarbon leader, which is stiffer than monofilament and more likely to “fly” straight through the drift. These facets place the line in an ideal position to find sockeye in their jaws, particularly in the slower-moving waters of the Situk’s lazy, winding currents. The spongy texture of the bead itself also acts as less of an obstruction in the hook gap, and creates more opportunity for the hook point to grab. Reading the regs that allow for a maximum of two single-point hooks was a breakthrough, knowing what I have learned from other fisheries in which I’ve added a second leader to my presentation. During fall 2019, while fishing with Ty Wyatt and Sam Wurdinger, I was attempting to catch chum on a bead trailer tied to a large salmon jig. Time after time, as soon as I hooked up I would lift my rod and raise the fish to the surface to see if I could spot some marabou hanging out of its mouth. Several times that day, I confirmed that the chum had bit the jig, but when they went on another run and did their trademark underwater death roll a few times, the line would go slack for a split second and I’d continue fighting the fish to the net, only to realize they had spit the jig and insta-flossed themselves with the bead trailer. This got me wondering how many times I’ve been bobber dogging for steelhead and caught fish on the trailer. The bead trailer usually accounts for a large majority of my fish, but I often couldn’t catch fish in the same hole fishing a single-bead presentation. There had to be a yarnie or some bait above it, yet they always came in on the trailer. The next year, I fished two-bead leaders the entire season as an experiment. What I found was that I lost very few fish, which again made me wonder how often they bit the first bead, then rolled out of the hook and flossed themselves with the trailing leader as somewhat of a “safety net” for my fish.
APPLYING THOSE PERSONAL EXPERIENCES to the sockeye fishery really helped speed up the catching curve. There were some days that so many fish came in on the Thirsty bead that I was convinced they were eating it. Then there were days I
only caught fish on the secondary leader, which made me believe even more that they avoided the bead. Either way, adding a secondary leader seems to catch twice the fish in half the time, but involves using equipment that fits the program. While the typical 7-foot light rods will still work, they’re very limiting. Even with a 6-foot leader, you’re going to lose more than a foot of lift when the rod bends,
which makes it more difficult to bring a fish to the surface and into the net. You can sacrifice length, but every inch of leader provides more potential opportunity to hook a fish. Having two longer leaders doubles that potential opportunity, but makes it a little more challenging to land fish, especially on the trailing hook. A 9-foot, 6-inch rod will both cast and land fish more effectively. Longer
Kelly Willet shows off a Situk sockeye. “The depth and speed of a run should determine how it’s fished,” Bonner says. (RANDALL BONNER)
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As Mike Hodge shows, the Situk can be a great spot to catch some of the best table fare in Alaska. “While sockeye are typically considered a ’food fish’ rather than a sport fish,” Bonner says, “the scenery, environment, variety of recreational opportunities, and the community of Yakutat are what make this particular fishery something special.” (RANDALL BONNER)
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rods suited for steelhead will help lift sockeye to the net, but cooperation on the angler’s part to reel all the way down to the gear, lift higher and take a step back will help the net man put fish in the bag. Sockeye don’t exactly have a reputation for giving up, rolling over and tiring out. That they will swim upstream and spawn is what makes them incredible fighters. During the late season, it’s not uncommon to land Dolly Varden, Chinook, coho, pinks and sockeye all in the same day, against a backdrop of brown bears and fireweed. While sockeye are typically considered a “food fish” rather than a sport fish, the scenery, environment, variety of recreational opportunities, and the community of Yakutat are what make this particular fishery something special. ASJ Editor’s note: This is the first of a twopart series on the Situk River. Next month, Randall Bonner talks Situk steelhead.
A king salmon that bit in Southeast Alaska gets pulled toward the net. The Alaska Sustainability Fisheries Trust’s annual “SeaBank” report detailing how critical the fish are for the region terms industrial logging and climate change “double jeopardy for salmon.” (BJORN DIHLE)
SEABANK REPORT REINFORCES IMPORTANCE OF SALMON, TOURISM INDUSTRIES BY MARY CATHARINE MARTIN
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ild salmon. Clean water. Clean air. Carbon storage. Climate change mitigation. Tourism, commercial fisheries. Billions of dollars in economic benefit. Since 2018, the Alaska Sustainability Fisheries Trust has quietly published reports that upend managers’ historical ways of thinking about Southeast Alaska and the Tongass National Forest, plus redefining priorities for management now and in the future. ASFT’s annual “SeaBank” report outlines and quantifies the benefits
flowing from Southeast Alaska’s trees, estuaries, creeks, lakes, rivers, coasts, ocean and more. These benefits include goods and services that annually “renew,” provided that the natural capital on which they depend is never “overdrawn.” In the language of the SeaBank, Southeast Alaska’s natural capital produces economic outputs from the seafood and visitor products industries worth several billion dollars a year to regional residents, nonresident workers, visitors and society as a whole.
Ecosystem services provide this stream of income as natural capital. It’s a complex interplay of plant and animal communities and their environment that interact as one functional unit – SeaBank. “The 2020 SeaBank report underscores that Southeast Alaska is one of the most productive ecosystems in the world,” said ASFT founder and Sitka-based commercial fisherman Linda Behnken. “Southeast Alaska’s natural capital produces economic outputs worth several billion dollars a year, every year, to Southeast residents, visitors and society
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The SeaBank report reminds that deer and their Tongass National Forest home are also critical draws for the region. “Scenery, fish and wildlife and remote recreation opportunities are assets that attract over 1.5 million visitors each year.” (MARY CATHARINE MARTIN)
as a whole. This coastal ecosystem is also incredibly vulnerable to a rapidly warming climate and industrial activities that diminish the productivity of the underlying natural capital.”
ASFT RELEASED ITS 2020 SeaBank report at the end of last year. While the 129page report contains a treasure trove of information for anyone looking to ensure the long-term profitability of the region, some key findings are: • SeaBank’s annual “fish dividend” makes Southeast Alaska, along with
Bristol Bay, one of two top ecosystems for commercial salmon production. • SeaBank’s scenery, fish and wildlife and remote recreation opportunities are assets that attract over 1.5 million visitors each year – two-thirds of all visitors to Alaska and more than any other region in the state. • Coastal areas such as Southeast Alaska are the most economically productive ecosystems in the world – not only for coastal communities, but also for national economies and global trade. Coastal systems comprise
A male brown bear follows a female bruin across a Southeast Alaska coastal flat during 2016’s mating season. This region has one of the largest estuary systems in the world and threefourths of all fish caught here use it during some part of their life cycle. But estuaries are also at extreme risk from climate change. (MARY CATHARINE MARTIN)
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only 8 percent of the planet’s surface but generate 43 percent of the global ecosystem service economic value. • The Tongass National Forest – the heart and lungs of the Southeast SeaBank – sequesters 44 percent of all carbon sequestered by U.S. national forests. • Southeast Alaska has one of the largest estuary systems in the world. Estuaries provide erosion control, help purify water, are breeding grounds for a variety of animals, and are nurseries for salmon, forage fish and shellfish. Threefourths of all fish caught in Southeast
Alaska use its estuaries during some part of their life history – including salmon, halibut, sablefish and rockfish. • Estuaries are at extreme risk from climate change – especially seagrass meadows and kelp forests. • Extreme weather events such as record heat, intense snow and rain
associated with atmospheric rivers, marine heat waves, snow droughts (when rain falls instead of snow), and other anomalous weather events will increase. • Southeast Alaska has already warmed by 3 degrees Fahrenheit over the last half century; average temperatures could rise by another 3 to 5 degrees by
2050. The region may experience the largest change in number of winter days above freezing in all of North America. • Ocean waters are getting more acidic. That makes it harder for crabs, crustaceans, krill, pteropods and other species to build and maintain their shells. Their populations will decline,
An Uncruise Adventures cruise ship shares the water with a fleet of kayaks behind it in the Tongass National Forest. Uncruise, a boutique local cruise ship operator, has been vocal about the importance of the intact Tongass National Forest to its business. (BEN HAMILTON)
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which will impact animals that feed on them, like salmon. • Together, industrial logging and climate change are “double jeopardy for salmon.” Forests help keep streams the right temperature and keep water quality high. Industrial logging, however, has “harmed salmon habitat in some of Southeast Alaska’s most highly productive watersheds.” Failed culverts from logging roads have also eliminated hundreds of miles of salmon habitat for fish, leading to “millions of dollars in losses to Southeast Alaska’s fishermen.” • Industrial logging has cut “nearly one third of the crucial, most valuable large-tree, old-growth forest stands,”
with ramifications for ecosystem integrity, tourism, hunting and more.
THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE is taking
comments until January 24 on its proposed plan to restore roadless protections to the Tongass National Forest – and on the wider scale, the U.S. Department of Agriculture in July 2021 announced its plan for what it calls the Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy, or SASS, which prioritizes sustainable, community-led, culturally important uses of the Tongass, and which eliminates industrial-scale logging of old growth. That’s all relevant to the report Behnken and the team at ASFT have been publishing for three years now.
“The 2020 SeaBank report underscores that Southeast Alaska is one of the most productive ecosystems in the world,” said Linda Behnken, a local fisher and Alaska Sustainability Fisheries Trust founder. “This coastal ecosystem is also incredibly vulnerable to a rapidly warming climate and industrial activities that diminish the productivity of the underlying natural capital.” (HOWIE GARBER) 38
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“As our region weighs resource management decisions and develops adaptation strategies for climate change, we think it is critical that stakeholders and policy makers factor in the true value of SeaBank’s goods and ecosystem services,” Behnken said, adding “that we make informed longterm decisions that address climate change, protect Southeast Alaska’s natural capital, and ensure more sustainable coastal economies.” ASJ Editor’s note: Mary Catharine Martin is the communications director of SalmonState, an organization that works to keep Alaska a place wild salmon and the people who depend on them thrive.
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FIELD
For nearly a decade early in their married life, Scott and Tiffany Haugen lived in remote Alaska. There and to this day, wild game and fish – like these sheefish taken through 7 feet of ice – are on the daily menu for these outdoor industry professionals and fishing, hunting and cookbook authors. (SCOTT HAUGEN)
FISHING PARTNERS, LIFE PARTNERS SHARING LOVE OF THE OUTDOORS, EACH OTHER BY SCOTT HAUGEN
W
e met in first grade. Our parents grew up together. Our grandparents even knew one another. I didn’t talk to Tiffany Fountain much during our years in elementary, middle and high school. But we did meet for dinner one evening after graduating from college – her from Oregon State University, me from the rival University of Oregon. “What are you going to do with your
teaching degree?” she asked. “Move to the Alaskan Arctic, where I can teach in a tiny village and learn to hunt and trap with the Inupiat Eskimo peoples,” I replied. She looked at me and offered, “You better do it now while you’re young and single, because no woman will follow you up there!” Tiffany had also earned an education degree. Four months later we were engaged. Nine months later we were
married and teaching school in one of the tiniest locations on the Arctic coast.
WE’VE BEEN MARRIED NEARLY 32 years
and our lives have never slowed down. After teaching in small schools for seven years in the Arctic, we moved to Sumatra, Indonesia, where we taught at an international school for four years. We started our own family and eventually moved back home to Walterville,
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Snowshoe hare makes for some of the small game world’s best table fare. Using a jar of Rotel tomatoes adds flavor to your recipe. (TIFFANY HAUGEN)
HARE TODAY, GONE TONIGHT BY TIFFANY HAUGEN
T
hough Alaska is known as the world of big game, don’t overlook small game, which can be fun to hunt and incredibly good to eat. When we lived in Anaktuvuk Pass, we trapped, shot and ate snowshoe hare. We’ve hunted them in other parts of the state and always welcome the opportunity to feast on these tasty little critters. Low and slow or pressure cooked is an ideal way to cook up all cuts of a hare. Because hare is very lean meat, it’s best
cooked using a moist-heat method. We don’t cook them whole because they are much easier to cook once segmented. Simply butcher off the saddle, hind and front quarters and put in a slow cooker or pressure cooker such as an Instant Pot. 2 to 3 pounds bone-in or boneless hare meat One 10-ounce jar Rotel diced tomatoes and green chilies* One 6-ounce can tomato paste One medium onion, chopped 4 to 6 cloves garlic, peeled ½ cup water ¼ cup apple cider vinegar 1 teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon black pepper ½ stick butter ¼ cup fresh chopped parsley and/or basil Parmesan cheese if desired Place hare, Rotel, tomato paste, onion, garlic, water, vinegar, salt and pepper in a slow cooker or pressure cooker. Mix well, coating hare with tomato mixture. In a slow cooker, cook for four to six hours on high or until hare meat falls from bones.
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In a pressure cooker, set pressure to high and cook 11 minutes for boneless hare and 15 minutes for bone-in hare pieces. Let pressure release on its own before checking for doneness. When hare is done, remove bones from the meat and add butter and fresh chopped herbs. Let sauce continue to simmer and reduce while making spaghetti noodles. Cook spaghetti according to package directions and add to sauce before serving. Garnish with Parmesan cheese and more fresh herbs if desired. *For more sauce, or a Rotel substitution, use a 14½-ounce can of diced tomatoes and an 8-ounce can of diced roasted green chilies. Editor’s note: For signed copies of Tiffany Haugen's popular book, Cooking Big Game, send a check for $20 to Haugen Enterprises, P.O. Box 275, Walterville, OR 97489, or visit scotthaugen .com for this and other titles.
Oregon, east of Eugene. In 1997 I started dabbling in outdoor writing. My first book, Hunting The Alaskan High Arctic, became an all-time best seller for the publisher. By 2001 I felt I could make a living in the outdoor industry as a full-time writer. I made $11,000 that year. But I was forming valuable relationships and soon speaking opportunities and TV hosting jobs came along. The timing was right. Before I knew it, I was traveling the world hunting and fishing and hosting multiple TV shows. My writing career also boomed. Some years I was in the field over 280 days. Then, when hunting season was over, the speaking circuit began, and that’s where Tiffany came in. Though Tiff and our two sons joined me on many hunting and fishing trips and were part of the TV shows, it was Tiffany’s ability as a wild game cook that paved her way into the industry. During our time in Alaska we ate only the meat we caught and killed. We ate fish and game every single day. We did – and have always done – our own butchering. With Tiff’s cooking abilities and vast diversity, she was quickly in high demand by companies in the outdoor industry. Soon we were speaking three months of the year at big events like the NRA Convention and many sport shows around the country. One weekend we’d be in Charlotte, another in Sacramento or Portland, Las Vegas or Nashville, and more. I offered seminars on hunting and fishing techniques, while Tiff gave many on wild game cooking. But our favorite seminars were when we worked together. Oftentimes whole deer or pigs were brought; we butchered the entire animal, and then Tiff would work her magic, whipping up some great recipes to feed the attendees. To this day she’s the best cook I’ve ever met. We still eat wild game and fish every day. I don’t like going to restaurants because they’re never as good as what Tiffany cooks up. Together, we’ve written over 20 books, mine on hunting and fishing, Tiff’s on cooking wild game and fish. The cookbooks take the most work. Her popular Cooking Game Birds book was six years in the making; that’s how long it took
FIELD
The scene: 1995 in Alaska’s Anaktuvuk Pass. Scott had shot a Dall sheep and moose, then flew his girls basketball team to a tournament in Point Hope. They were stranded there by weather for 10 days, and when Scott returned home, he found his wife Tiffany had butchered both animals. Such has been the norm for the Haugens over the past three decades. (SCOTT HAUGEN)
for her to get things exactly the way she wanted them when it came to wild birds. When she’s in cooking mode, Tiffany is often preparing a half-dozen recipes a day, and having test cooks replicate recipes, as well as taste-testers give her feedback.
OVER THE YEARS, OUR workload has
expanded to include photography, marketing and more. We often work 16 hours a day, each, usually side by side when at home. It’s been far from easy, but I would not change any of it. The times we spend together – as a family butchering a whole elk, deer or bear – are experiences none of us will forget. Traveling the world and filming TV shows in Africa, the South Pacific and Alaska were a blessed opportunity. From the time our boys were small they were hunting, fishing and helping butcher animals. We got into the outdoor industry at a prime time and just happened to be the
team some key companies were looking for. Had we not been able to work with each other all these years, there’s no way I could have done it alone. One fall, I was home just eight days between the hunting season opener of August 1 and Christmas. Tiff had the hardest part at that time to be home alone with our two young sons. But she always supported me and never questioned the direction we were going. Each passing year led to more opportunities. When I was on the road, Tiffany was going full speed ahead on her cookbooks, cooking columns and working with many companies in the outdoor industry while developing recipes and cooking equipment, even women’s clothing lines. I fell in love with Tiffany at our first dinner many years ago because of her confidence and zest for seeking adventure. No challenge is too great for
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her. Her confidence has never waned, and to this day she’s the hardest-working, most positive person I’ve ever met.
Two years ago Scott and Tiffany lived in Hyder, Alaska, where they enjoyed everything this part of the Last Frontier had to offer, including coho fresh from the sea. They are partners in business and in life as husband and wife and parents of two sons. (SCOTT HAUGEN)
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I RECENTLY WAS IN a hunting camp. And while I don’t often share personal stories, the people in this camp were particularly interested in hearing how I am a survivor of a plane crash and a sunken boat in remote Alaska, was charged by a brown bear, covered with leeches in the Australian Outback, and more. “Wow,” one man exclaimed, “that’s mind-boggling to even imagine. So, what’s your greatest fear: drowning, being eaten by a bear, or dying in a plane crash?” he asked. I looked him in the eye. “My greatest fear isn’t dying. My greatest fear is having something happen to my best friend, Tiffany.” Enjoy this Valentine’s Day and embrace the one you love. ASJ Editor’s note: For signed copies of Scott Haugen's popular books, visit scotthaugen. com. Follow Scott on Instagram and Facebook.
NOT AFRAID OF THE DARK A FORMER ALASKAN REMINISCES ABOUT THE COLDEST, SHORTEST DAYS OF THE YEAR BY PAUL D. ATKINS
P
eering through the light of my headlamp was tough in the pitch black, but even more so with a sheet of falling snow hitting me in the face. My fishing partner Lew was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear him cranking on the old red and white ice auger somewhere in the distance. “It won’t start?” I yelled. “No, it won’t,” he replied, even though it had started fine before we left the house. Every pull of the cord produced a little and he kept at it, but to no avail; it just wouldn’t fire for some reason. No worries, though, we had plenty of time. Heck, it was only 4:30 by my watch, just another dark afternoon in northern Alaska. It’s hard to believe, but I miss that now that I’ve moved away from the Last Frontier. I miss the cold, the dark of the moon on the ice, and especially hanging out with my good friend Lew. I miss the cold rides on snowmachines while bundled in the latest and greatest gear to keep us warm, or at least from freezing to death. I miss seeing my old fishing partner cutting trails and me desperately trying to keep up. Now I’m back in Oklahoma, where freezing only comes in short spurts and the snow we do get looks alien amongst the hard oaks. It makes me wonder how we did it all back then.
The early days of the year are not ideal and the chances of drilling a hole and catching a fish are pretty much out of the question most of the time. But for former Alaskan Paul Atkins (top, left) and his longtime buddy Lew Pagel, the simple act of heading to the frozen sea and drinking a beer in an ice fishing hut was one way to combat the darkest, coldest days of winter. (PAUL D. ATKINS) aksportingjournal.com | FEBRUARY 2022
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There is truly something magical about the dark days in the Arctic. One is the northern lights dancing in the sky. The way they come in on a cold, dark, clear night makes you tolerate that it’s way below zero. (PAUL D. ATKINS)
Atkins thinks the time of day when he took this image was around noon, and it shows him following his best friend Pagel back home in the dark and cold, like they did many times over the years. Whether it was for wood, meat or a load of fish, it didn’t matter; they had fun! (PAUL D. ATKINS)
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I LOOKED FOR MY bunny boots the other day, but they’re long gone – sold in the garage sale before we left. I wish I still had them. My old black North Face coat, which if you’re a regular reader, you’ve seen in so many of my photos (I went through three of them during my tenure in the Arctic), did come south with me, even though I’ll probably only get to wear it a couple times a year. I think about this time of year a lot now and it certainly takes me back. I wonder if I was still there, would it be the same? I’m guessing so, and if I did go back, would I be able to fit right back into the routine? I remember climbing out of bed each morning wondering if the car would start and whether I could find the shovel buried in the enormous snow drift outside. I’m guessing I could if I had to. But it makes me think back to my days in the cold and the dark. Life in the Arctic during the months of December and January can be depressingly long, cold and boring at times. Without a movie theater, a mall or even an Applebee’s, things can become quite routine, and the thrill of town life isn’t anywhere to be found. For most people it’s usually work all day, come home, eat dinner and then watch ESPN’s SportsCenter. Ordering from your favorite take-out is about as exciting as it gets, but only if one of the two options is open. If the northern lights are out, then that is a huge bonus. The Aurora Borealis at least provides some illumination at a time of little to no daylight as well as days of ice fog that is sometimes so dense that you can’t see across the road. On the days when outside temperatures have plummeted through the basement, the urge to dress up in your best cold-weather gear and head outdoors is a chore. But if you can’t manage it, you will go crazy and endure the worst case of cabin fever that sets in and puts you in a bad mood. But if you’ve lived here long enough like I have, you find ways to keep yourself occupied and not let the dark and cold get you down. Christmastime is the greatest of the holidays, with many celebrations taking place. But most people have a hard time once the darkness sets in. Throughout the late
summer and fall leading up to the winter solstice in December, we lose about eight minutes a day of sunlight. At the low point, this results in about an hour of visible daylight, which really isn’t daylight but an eerie hour of dusk. The sun never breaks the horizon and if you don’t notice it, it will pass you by. It can be tough for some. There are many activities that can break this fever and depressing time. Getting outside, either on foot or a snowmachine, is the key to staying sane. As for me, and many others who call the far north home, these times are actually some of the most rewarding and the best times to be in the Arctic.
Catching sheefish not only helps beat cabin fever, but provides “endless fun and an endless bounty for the freezer.” (PAUL D. ATKINS)
MOST RURAL BUSH ALASKANS go about
the winter cycle in different ways; each seems to live by a certain ritual each year. For some, it is a time to hook up the SnoGo and venture off into the wilderness in search of firewood. Ever a staple for
An indoor archery league helped keep Atkins and Pagel sharp for spring hunts. (PAUL D. ATKINS)
most, having plenty of wood to fill the stove makes them happy and is the key to staying warm, plus it cuts down on the high and ever-increasing fuel bills. Most of the time it is a family affair and everyone eagerly waits to hear the roar of a chainsaw. The key is to start early, which means leaving in the dark and returning in the dark that same afternoon with hopefully a sled full of dead spruce. Many of us also try to find things that we are passionate about and can do indoors as well as out. Indoor shooting is one of them. Many years ago I started an indoor archery league. Each week a group of us would meet at the school and shoot targets, either for fun or to conduct leagues with scoring systems and prizes at the end of each tournament. This does many things for the psyche; it gives us something to do during the dark days and brings together like-minded individuals to shoot bows and talk about our passion. It also lets us hone our shooting skills, which will be ever so important come spring and fall when we are out hunting and gathering. In addition, if you’re lucky enough and time everything correctly, you can make it outside for that one hour of light and shoot your bow or maybe even fire off a aksportingjournal.com | FEBRUARY 2022
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This winter, Atkins (left) is in Oklahoma, where winters are far milder, and certainly not as dark. Still, it’s moments like this one that has him feeling so nostalgic. “I wish I was there now,” says Atkins, “hanging out with Lew (right) while sitting in our ice shack drinking beer and hoping a sheefish would rise.” (PAUL D. ATKINS)
few rounds from your favorite rifle, both high priorities here in the Far North.
OTHER WINTER ADVENTURE SEEKERS have
their own passions to pursue in the cold and dark this time of the year. They target the gigantic sheefish that are famous to the area and lay just underneath the frozen ocean. This can break any fever, particularly if the fish are biting, as they can provide endless fun and an endless bounty for the freezer. There is something truly special about venturing out on the ice in the dark, drilling holes and catching or hooking fish in the cold darkness. If you have an ice hut or shack complete with heat, chairs and maybe a thermos of hot coffee, it can be as grand as any adventure taken in the daylight. For still others, photography is an avenue to traverse during the winter. Gearing up in cold-weather gear and braving the season’s icy bite is an adventure in itself, but it’s just a part of capturing breathtaking images of what the Arctic has to offer.
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Many search for and follow the northern lights, hoping to capture the elusive show in the sky through the camera lens. Some nights are unbelievable, while others not so much. Being able to get out and exercise, plus fill your lungs with that cold night air can be invigorating.
CABIN FEVER IS A disease only if you let it be. Many people in the Lower 48 cannot fathom living in the dark or such cold, for that matter. It is definitely how you perceive it. There are many things to do and most can be as adventurous as any other time in Alaska. The Last Frontier is just that, but for some it is the only place to be throughout the entire year. We never did get that auger to start that time – and a few times after. Maybe it made too many runs to the ice during the peak months of April and May when it seemed to never get dark. Or perhaps it was the beating it took in the back of the sled while driving a snowmachine down a gravel road when the snow and ice had vanished from the warm days.
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Who knows? All I know is it was good to be on the ice watching the amazing stars in the night sky, even if it was still late afternoon. I wish I was there now, hanging out with Lew while sitting in our ice shack drinking beer and hoping a sheefish would rise. We’d be talking football and debating if the Packers could really do it this time and get back to a Super Bowl. I can’t be there, of course, but all those times before are etched in my memory. It’s something I hold dear to my heart. ASJ Editor’s note: Paul Atkins is an outdoor writer and author formerly of Kotzebue, Alaska. He’s had hundreds of articles published on big game hunting in Alaska and throughout North America and Africa, plus surviving in the Arctic. His new book Atkins’ Alaska is available on Amazon and everywhere good books are sold. It can also be ordered through paulatkinsoutdoors.com, and if you want an autographed copy, email him at atkinsoutdoors@gmail.com. Paul is a regular contributor to Alaska Sporting Journal.
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OUTDOOR TIPS OF THE MONTH
If the thrill of the hunt is the leadup to the shot that downs that bull, buck or billy, getting the animal back to camp is less glamorous but no less important. Carrying packs of meat on the return trip is one step. (PAUL D. ATKINS)
SOLVING THE RETURN TRIP TO CAMP Editor’s note: Each issue, our Paul Atkins will offer a tip outdoorsmen and -women can use as they prepare for an Alaska adventure. This month: What you need to get that downed big game animal back to camp. BY PAUL D. ATKINS
Y
ou're standing on the side of a mountain fully exhausted, both mentally and physically. You just took the animal of your dreams and the sheer joy is unbelievable, but now you know the work is about to begin. With darkness approaching and the weather getting worse, you must dig
down and find the energy to get him field dressed, put into game bags and packed for the long climb down and back to camp. For some, this is the hard part; for others, it’s easy. Going down is always easier than going up, right? Having the right gear and the right people there to share in the joys and discomforts are what hunting in Alaska is all about. Lucky for most of us we have those things.
KNIVES There are a lot of great knives out there (Alaska Sporting Journal, December 2021), but one of the most popular
cutting utensils these days is a knife with a replaceable blade, which is more like a surgeon’s scalpel and crazy sharp. The Havalon-type folder, with its replaceabletype blade, proves itself again and again on pretty much all big game. It folds and comes in a variety of sizes for different applications. I was a skeptic at first, but became a believer after a recent goat hunt. The small, thin blade looked flimsy, but never knock it until you try it, so I did; it performed flawlessly and actually made the chore easier and more enjoyable. If you break a blade, just replace it with another, which takes seconds and isn’t
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Flight weight restrictions might keep you from bringing the pack you really need to haul out meat, but shouldn’t, given today’s quality options. (PAUL D. ATKINS)
too expensive.
PACKS
Once your animal is down the work begins. Good help and good equipment will make the job easier and a lot more enjoyable. “I was blessed to have the right gear and right people on my recent goat adventure,” author Paul Atkins says. (PAUL D. ATKINS) 52
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If planning a backpack trip into the mountains to chase game – whether that be goats or sheep – you need to make sure you have the right gear to get the meat, cape and everything back efficiently and with as much ease as possible. It all starts with the right pack. I’ve used a lot of packs, but having a frame pack that can handle the weight of one of these animals is, in my opinion, the most important. On a recent goat hunt I brought a long, smaller pack with a scabbard, but that was a bad choice. Due to weight restrictions, I had left my big pack back at the dock; I shouldn’t have. Luckily for me, a friend brought along his and we were fine. But it would be a lot easier if I had brought the bigger pack. Lesson learned. Backpacks have come a long way since the old days. Companies like Cabela’s, Kuiu, Sitka, Kifaru, Alaska Gear and many others have turned it into a science and create incredible products that can handle just about any situation. They come in different sizes, weights and configurations, so choosing the right one can sometimes be difficult.
My advice is to do a lot of research based on your expectations, what you’ll be primarily hunting and how much you want to spend. If you’re looking for a new pack, my advice is to try on a bunch of them with people who know and can help, then make your decision. You won’t be sorry.
GAME BAGS Game bags are required on most all hunts, but even more so on mountain hunts. Getting your sheep or goat into a bag for the climb down makes it much easier and keeps things a lot cleaner and “together.” Caribou Gear, which makes a very unique and well-built bag, is ideal for not only mountain situations, but all big game adventures. The cloth is super strong, breathable and can be used over and over. They come in different sizes for all applications. Make sure you always have a few at the bottom of your pack.
ACCESSORIES Trekking poles are also a big plus. I had never used them until recently. They give you added support, but for me personally, they provide a sense of reassurance. They are worth their weight, especially if you are climbing down through treacherous terrain. I would also recommend shoe spikes or crampons of some kind, especially if you’re hunting in colder temperatures where ice and snow make each step iffy at best.
Getting your animal down to a place where you can work on it makes for a more enjoyable and safer experience than trying to do it on a steep incline. (PAUL D. ATKINS)
SURROUND YOURSELF WITH THE BEST Good friends are hard to find, good hunting partners even more so, especially those who will help you in all conditions. I remember my goat hunt from a few years ago, and if it weren’t for a great comrade, I would have never gotten that goat off the mountain. Avid hunters who live for the chase are like that. Whether it’s assisting during field dressing, packing meat or helping with supper back at camp, great friends and great camp mates are hard to come by. I’ve been blessed with a few. Factor all this in together and you can make that important trek back to camp with that goat, moose or other Alaskan creature much easier. ASJ Editor’s note: Got a question for Paul on Alaska hunting or fishing? Email editor Chris Cocoles at ccocoles@media-inc.com.
Game bags are a must and those made by Caribou Gear are incredible. They keep meat clean, are easier to use and come in different sizes, plus they’re simple to load once your transporter shows up. (PAUL D. ATKINS) aksportingjournal.com | FEBRUARY 2022
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WHEN A MOUNTAIN B BY BJORN DIHLE
A
t the beginning of June 1912, Mount Katmai, a 7,000-foot volcano 40-some miles from Bristol Bay, was showing signs of coming to life. On June 6, a new volcano would come into existence – and the Aleutian Arc’s largest eruption in documented history would be underway. Part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Aleutian Arc stretches 1,900 miles from the Gulf of Alaska, west along the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands, to the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The range consists of more than 80 named volcanoes; around half of those have
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been active during the last 250 years. The June 6, 1912 eruption of the new volcano, dubbed “Novarupta,” was also the biggest eruption in the 20th century.
A SEISMIC REGION Volcanoes are an inextricable part of Bristol Bay. While there is no question a volcanic eruption changes the surrounding landscape, in Bristol Bay it may also spur biodiversity and contribute to the overall productivity of the region’s incredible fishery. Some biologists have theorized that volcanic ash could, at least in certain circumstances, help trigger
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plankton blooms that feed sockeye salmon. The Yup’ik, Dena’ina and Altutiiq peoples, who have lived in Bristol Bay and the Alaska Peninsula since time immemorial, are no strangers to volcanoes and earthquakes. Their oral narratives contain protocols for what to do in the event of an eruption. That ancestral wisdom saved many lives when Novarupta blew.
VILLAGERS AFFECTED FOREVER Mount Katmai loomed above four Native villages: Katmai, Douglas (also
N BLEW ITS TOP called Kaguyak), Kukak and Savonoski. Due to the draw of commercial fisheries in Bristol Bay, Chignik and Kodiak, at the time of the eruption there were fewer residents than in decades past. Katmai and Douglas, where the Russian American Company had established trading posts in the 19th century and then abandoned them around a decade before the eruption, were listed in the
1910 U.S. census as having a population of 62 and 45, respectively. People in those villages lived a subsistence lifestyle and also frequently worked in fisheries and trapped for a cash income. By June 2, 1912, villagers were experiencing more frequent and stronger earthquakes than normal. Most grabbed what they could and made their exodus. Many went to Bristol Bay. On June 6, all
The Valley of 10,000 Smokes is buried in ash more than a century after the Novarupta eruption. The June 1912 event changed the lives of those living in four small Native villages here, Katmai, Douglas (also known as Kaguyak), Kukak and Savonoski. (CHRIS MILLER) aksportingjournal.com | FEBRUARY 2022
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hell broke loose. Instead of blasting out of the top of Mount Katmai, magma melted an underground passage 6 miles west before rupturing out of the slopes of Trident Volcano. That newly formed volcano, which would be named Novarupta by botanist and explorer Robert F. Griggs a few years later, erupted for 60 hours, releasing 3.5 cubic miles of ash – so much that scientists in Algeria saw it. Supposedly, Novarupta’s eruptions were so loud that people in Juneau, some 750 miles away, could hear them.
LIVING THROUGH THE BLAST A few years after the eruption, Griggs
interviewed Peter Kayagvak, a Sugpiaq man who had been living in Savonoski. Kayagvak’s family and another were some of the last people to evacuate the area. Kayagvak told Griggs, “The Katmai Mountain blew up with lots of fire, and fire came down the trail with lots of smoke. We go fast Savonoski. Everybody get in bidarka (skin boat). Helluva job. We come Naknek one day, dark, no could see. Hot ash fall. Work like hell.” Kayagvak’s wife Palakia Melgenak told her children she thought the world was ending. The family paddled nonstop more than 40 miles to safety. Along with other people of Savonoski, they established New Savonoski on the Naknek River,
Caribou roam beneath the ramparts of volcanic Mount Dutton on the Alaska Peninsula. There are an estimated 130 volcanoes in the state. (BJORN DIHLE)
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which has since been abandoned for the village of South Naknek, 5 miles away at the mouth of the Naknek River. People from the villages of Katmai and Douglas were working at a saltery in nearby Kaflia Bay. Located on the southern coast of the Alaska Peninsula, Kaflia Bay is 32 miles east of Novarupta and directly downwind. Seeing the eruption, one elder from Katmai ordered everyone to turn their boats over so they wouldn’t be filled with ash, and then to gather as much water as they could, as quickly as possible. As the cloud of ash descended, people took cover in their cabins and barabaras, traditional Alutiiq homes that were partly underground and covered with sod. Harry Kaiakokonok, who was 6 years old at the time, described the descending ash cloud. “Dark didn't come all of a sudden; it comes gradually. Getting darker and darker and darker and darker, and pretty soon, pitch black,” Kaiakokonok said. “So black even if you put your hand 2 or 3 inches from your face outside you can't see it ’cause it was so dark.”
BURIED IN ASH The people in Kaflia Bay spent three
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A hiker pauses beneath Mount Peulik, on the Alaska Peninsula. Its last eruption occurred in 1814. (BJORN DIHLE)
days under a black curtain of falling ash, blindly struggling in the heat and laboring to breathe. A hundred miles away, the town of Kodiak was buried in a foot of ash. Far and wide, salmon and other animals suffocated, their carcasses strewn throughout the ashcovered waters. When people in Kaflia Bay emerged, they were greeted by a blanket of ash more than 3 feet high. On June 12, a relief ship captained by Second Lt. W. K. Thompson was sent from Kodiak to Kaflia Bay. Thompson rescued the survivors, then continued searching along the coast for others. He transported everyone he found to Afognak Island. Miraculously, not a single person died in the Novarupta eruption. But the villages of Katmai, Douglas, Kukak and Savonoski
were lost. Peter Kayagvak told Griggs how much he missed his village. “Too bad. Never can go back to Savonoski to libe (sic) again. Everything ash. Good Place too, you bet. Fine trees, lots of moose, bear, and deer. Lots of Fish in front of barabara. No many mosquitoes. Fine church, fine house.”
A LASTING LEGACY Due in large part to Griggs’ efforts, President Woodrow Wilson declared Katmai a national monument in 1918, ending the possibility of people returning and rebuilding their ancestral villages. For years after the eruption, it was reported that the Savonoski River was too hot to bathe in. To this day, it runs dark with ash, but multitudes of salmon use the river
A moose antler shed above the Valley of 10,000 Smokes is symbolic of a geologically turbulent region that is now quiet. “Never can go back to Savonoski,” one affected resident said a few years after the eruption. (BJORN DIHLE)
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to navigate to their spawning grounds. Kaflia Bay generally has great salmon runs. And 90 years later, the Kaflia area would become one of bear man Timothy Treadwell’s favorite places to live shoulder to shoulder with dozens of bears. It would also become his death place when he died from an attack in 2003. The descendants of the people of Katmai, Douglas, Kukak and Savonoski now live in villages across Bristol Bay, the Alaska Peninsula and beyond. Thousands of tourists annually visit their homeland to witness brown bears, salmon and the wild landscape. They travel by floatplane, then bus, to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes to see the ashfilled, 40-square-mile valley crowned by Mount Katmai. The volcano’s summit caved in during the 1912 eruption, but it still looms above the land and ocean as a stark reminder of how quickly the world can be destroyed – and recreated. ASJ Editor’s note; Pride of Bristol Bay is a free column written by Bjorn Dihle and provided by its namesake, a fisherman-direct seafood marketer that specializes in delivering the highest quality of sustainably caught wild salmon from Bristol Bay to your doorstep. Go to prideofbristolbay.com for more information.
