… a black bear tag that I hoped to use on a bear, wolf or wolverine, whichever critter screwed up first. George Siavelis, who was to be my Alaska guide for the next 10 days, picked me up at the airport. My first impression of George was okay, possibly because when he laughed – which he did a lot – he reminded me of one of my colleagues back in Holland. George talks with great enthusiasm about the country he calls home. He knows a lot about it too! He is a good observer, intelligent, and I am quickly captivated by all he has to say about the wilderness, animals, and people of Alaska.
In the evening we eat caribou, quite tasty, followed by strawberry cake with cream and too much coffee. I’m back in the cabin by eleven, packing my gear for tomorrow’s trip. I turn in at midnight. George will pick me up at 6:00 AM. Very little sleep; too much Alaska coffee, too excited and feeling jet-lag. Yet, I’m up before six the next morning and ready for the adventure. The weather is overcast with low-hanging clouds, although that will change and the Alaska sun will shine for the next 2 weeks while I’m here. We go down to the river and load the airplane. George steers us to shore at a gravel bar where we’ll pitch camp for the night. We take our gear out of the boat, prepare a meal and then climb a hill taking our binoculars to “spy out We spend the next days watching caribou, black bears and grizzlies everyday. Days of relaxation, full of peace, some fishing and every evening and morning bears and caribou in the scope. 15 August 1997 The bald eagle remains perched in the top of the black spruces. As I study him carefully through my binoculars I suddenly discover the nest in the broken top of a spruce. A gigantic nest with just one, almost grown, young eagle flapping its wings. 16 August The alpha wolf is clearly distinguishable, extremely large and powerful. The other wolves behave like young dogs around him. The entire pack now lay bathing in the sun on the old bluff; some of them occasionally playing with each other and with the alpha. It is such a wonderful sight it brings tears to my eyes. Meanwhile, George is teaching me much about them and their behavior. I had hoped to be fortunate enough to see just one wolf in Alaska, even once, if only for a few seconds, but knew the chances were slim to none. But here I was watching a whole pack of them for nearly an hour. George has a great deal of respect for wild animals, especially wolves. Suddenly, the alpha wolf gets up and trots off the bluff down into the willow We take pictures and George begins to skin the wolf. He does it skillfully and is apparently a dab hand. When he is half-way through with his work, wolf howls can be heard from two different locations close by. We look at each other, race to re-climb the bluff and wait. Nothing happens. George wants to finish the skinning because he wants to return to the river before dark. We take the shortest route back to the river. There are wolf tracks and droppings everywhere it seems on the way back. The pack has evidently spent some time in this maze of woods and dried-up river beds. The wolves howled that evening a lot. They were singing the blues according to George. The next morning I feel thoroughly rested. I have slept well, though I had woken up thinking of wolves. We take our time, eat breakfast, gather our gear in order to travel upstream by boat to the lake. George wants the wolf skin in the freezer back at Aniak as soon as possible and he says the pilot will be flying in to the lake today. The ride upriver was as beautiful as the ride down. Rick, the pilot, does indeed fly in half an hour after our arrival. According to George you can wait 20 minutes or 20 days for these bush pilots to turn up. We head down river again and decide to camp at a different tent we put up a few days earlier. We eat dinner, with coffee of course, and then climb a hill and “spy out the land”. After a while George crosses to another hill and beckons me to join him. There’s a young fox cub watching us 80 meters away. In no less than ten minutes there are five young fox cubs and a vixen sitting in a row staring at us, a delightful sight. I take a couple of photos with the 300 mm lens, too far away of course and too dark. However, later in the hunt, George and I will photograph these foxes at less than one meter. When I’ve finished taking the photos George, who has returned to our old hide-out, beckons to me again. Two caribou are walking on the tundra a long distance away. One of them is a bull, not a particularly large specimen according to George but a mature adult. I crawled into my sleeping bag that night feeling contented. George recounts enthralling stories about “The Mad Trapper of Rat River”, but I slip into a dream, a dream about the infiniteness of Alaska, the tundra, its rivers and mountains with all the creatures and For the next week, George and I boated, floated, hiked and fished this magnificent river. We talked by the fire in the evenings, stalked animals to get close-up photos, and thoroughly enjoyed that awesome country. Alaska – a country to dream about – a place I hope to return to frequently. Bert Verhoef Taken from a feature article in “The Alaska Professional Hunter magazine.” |