Arctic Adventures

 Oren Fishing From His Boat    Oren Riding the Snowmachine  Looking For Fish In the Hole  Asked for His Life Jacket When He Woke Up  Beach?  Neeuummmm! Airplane  In the Mountains  Tundra  Trapping Camp   Not A Bad Day Spring Break here was a busy week! I finally ran into some trout on one day. Kayla and Oren came with to fish across, but then they rode home with Doris. I headed up to Willy's and I ran into Frank Sr with a couple trout on the ice at a different spot. I stopped to talk, and while we were talking he pulled a couple more up. He told me I could use his auger and I didn't waste any time. I was leaning on that thing as hard as I could and it still didn't seem quick enough. He pulled up about ten trout before I had holes drilled for me and Zach. I ended up with about 10 but Frank ended up with a sack of trout.  On Thursday of break I took a ride to chec...

Oren James Cheese Shapes Eye? Bpppp!  Waiting for a Push This week is spring break. I am hoping to get out fishing a lot this week. Mike and I took a ride out to the trapping camp on Wednesday after work. All of my Conibears were tripped, but empty. We had a wolf tracks all around camp, but nothing in the traps. Mike shot a couple of caribou on the way back. I think its really hard for him to pass up on fat caribou.

 Powder Well we finally got a solid dumping of snow these past couple weeks. Seemed like it snowed about a foot every day last week. Last Saturday I went to cut wood with Stan. I buried my snowmachine about 20 times trying to navigate in the trees. I had a sore back when I woke up Sunday morning. After getting wood I went and fished at a new spot called Willie's. I caught only one and lost one in the hole. I was a good day to get outside.    Moose  Lynx Set  Old Lynx Deep Snow I went out this past weekend and got wood with Mike and Stan. We went about 10 miles up river. The temperature wasn't too bad but the wind was whistling. I stopped and fished again at Willie's, but since all the holes were buried from the wind I don't think I fished in the right spot. I caught one little one and that was it

It's always difficult to live away from home, but you settle into a routine and get comfortable--the days pass quickly.  Until that dreaded phone call.  As many of you know, Grandpa Markham passed away last week.  Dad had called me the night before and given me a little warning, but I still wasn't prepared (how can you ever be?).  My thoughts at first were quite selfish, "What do we do?  How can we get home?"  and quickly changed to, "I've got to get home to help Mom."  However, time and weather are always issues when traveling from Arctic Alaska, and Mom and Dad assured us that everything was taken care of--not to try to get back.  Dad had it arranged that we could call in to listen to the funeral, but those old selfish thoughts came back.  "How can we stay here alone at a time like this. I need to help." I was wallowing in self pity and hurting for our loss and our family when we had a knock on the door.  In came Aana (Grandma) Bernic...

Mike and I filled in our trapline a little more. We marked out our trail through an old sled dog trail. The old trail takes nearly ten miles off the round trip to the camp, but it is difficult to find coming off of the flats. It would also be easy for me to get lost if the trail was snowed over.  Google View After we  marked the trail we took a straight shot across the flats to a small creek drainage where we made some wolf sets. We followed the drainage up until it was too narrow to navigate further. Then we climbed through the treeline and up to wide open mountains. Then we were climbing over the pass and back down the other side. Our camp was on the creek at the bottom of this pass. Mike set a wolverine set right at the bottom. I crossed over the creek and made a set in a different small drainage. Then I headed back down to the camp and made another set. I checked my traps, and made another snare shortcut. My traps were empty. Mike's were empty too. We made it back t...

Last weekend I went with a local to set a outfitter tent up at the base of the Mayuumerruq Mountains 30 miles from town. We left town at 11:00, just when it was starting to get light outside. The tundra was still rough, and we pounded our way for a good two hours. As we neared the creek at the base of the mountains we looked for a place to set the tent. After looking at a couple of different spots we settled on a small, flat area tucked under 3 large pine trees set inside a wide stand of pines. I was a good thing that it was so protected because the wind really blew that night. Driving His Truck First thing that we did was clean out the area. Cut down all the willows and small little saplings on the trail into the site. Then we cleared out the pine branches to make room for the tent. When we went to set the tent up we realized that we had the wrong poles. I cut three smaller pines to manufacture some new poles. The tent was set up. I cut a pile of pine boughs to lay underneath t...

   Caribou After suffering through the lack of snow in the fall and early part of winter we are finally getting some much awaited snowfall. When we got back to Noatak from our holiday vacation back in Michigan we still didn't have any snow. A couple of day after we got back it started snowing. We now have about two feet on the ground and more upcoming. It's nice to finally get out on the snowmobile and ride.  Bull Yesterday I went for a little cruise southwest of town. There are reports of wolves getting close to town so I headed out early in hopes that I might run into a few (its relative because it doesn't get light until 11 am). I was also hoping to run into a caribou or two. I figured once I got across the Katchoruk creek just south of town I would have wide open tundra to the foothills and mountains. I was wrong. There are so many willow filled, steep banked drainages that I got to a point where I couldn't really go farther south. I could have gotten t...