Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 30 YO Alaska homesteader survives 3 weeks

Key words, "for him"......

So we're all a little different, this guy knew his limits and was lucky enough help showed up before he ran out of food..
Can't let yourself get all ran down and weak from not eating before you decide to break and run for it.

I really don't get why people put themselves in such situations if rescuing themselves isn't a given.
But then, I don't understand why people go out on dingy little fishing boats if they don't know how to swim either.

I was in my 40's and found myself running up the ice on the Kulukak River in SW Alaska on a brand new Polaris Trans-Sport .
It had less than 600 miles on it and I was feeling bullet proof when I'd decided to make the run over to Togiak from Alegnagik by myself. I'd been running a trapline in the Wood-Tikchik State Park all winter and that was better than 100 miles every time I checked the traps. 95% of the time I was alone, it just wasn't a big deal.

I was on my way back to Alegnagik and had just put some pretty good hills behind me and hit the river. It was cold, (10's), sunny and nice. The ice was smooth and I was making time, the entire run is around 80 miles, getting over the hills had been what I guess you'd call "technical" and somewhat slow, my speed on the smooth river ice was making up for lost time.

Suddenly, just outta the blue, my nice new Polaris went into neutral, it was as if I'd thrown a belt, but you'd typically hear that and I'd heard nothing.. As the machine coasted to a stop I unlatched the hood and opened it up, yep, the belt was intact and that wasn't what I wanted to see. I pulled the dipstick from the chain case and found the culprit, little bits and pieces of my chain were clinging to the magnet on the end of the dipstick.

The machine was done for, no on the trail macgyver fix for that.

I pulled out my Garmin 45 GPS and made a waypoint where I was going to leave the machine.
No fancy mapping GPS's back then, just numbers and an electronic compass.
I'm a good boy scout and always carried my topos and a regular compass along with your basic survival gear in a dry bag that was lashed to the machine.

Just as I'd figured I was pretty much smack dab in between Togiak and Aleknagik, 35 to 40 miles either direction.
If I were to make my way back to the top of the hills toward Togiak I'd probably be able to roust someone up on my handheld VHF and maybe get some help.
That would be around 12 to 15 miles but Togiak kinda sucks, just not the best of Native villages and I'd have to hang out until I could get a flight out of there back to Aleknagik or Dillingham.

I decided to just head for Aleknagik, it was home at the time and I wasn't in a big hurry or anything.



I pushed the Polaris into the brush beside the river and buried it with snow the best I could. I didn't want to have it stolen or parted out before I could get back to retrieve it. Of course the tracks lead right to it, if I were lucky it'd snow in the next day or two and cover them up.

I had all the right clothing from my bunny boots to my spotted seal hat, there would be no problem there.
There was a fist full of candy bars, some dried meat and a unopened bottle of blackberry brandy in the dry bag.
Sugar and protein, all was well there.
Being a smoker at the time there was never a shortage of bic lighters around.

I put what I figured I'd need in my day pack, tied my snowshoes on to the pack and started hiking.
The cold temperatures made for great snow conditions, staying on top wasn't a problem.

I got to see some country I never would have if I hadn't been a foot, it was turning out to be an OK adventure.
I just walked until I needed rest and then either slept or rested for an hour or so and then take off walking again....around the clock.

It wasn't like there were alternatives, nobody was going to be looking for me around there or anything like that.
I think it's all in what you wrap your head around and how you approach the situations you find yourself in.

I never did use the snow shoes, the snow conditions held up really well. I'm glad it did, I had a few hills to cross. Going up was a chore but heading down the other side made up for that, I mostly stayed on flat ground where I could which added a couple miles but dodged some climbs.

It took around 50 hours total time including rest stops. I guess that made for around 3/4 of a MPH average.

I never considered it to be a big thing, it was just one of those deals you get into and gotta get yourself out of.

I had a bite or two of those candy bars left when I got home along with a couple chunks the dried meat.

The Brandy was gone.....

Lessons learned from that adventure were by far, never buy a snow machine that has reverse and you won't have a chain to deal with and always buy Brandy in the flat plastic bottles, you might have room for two....

Home sweet home Aleknagik and that fu_ckin Polaris Trans-Port