Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Why subsistence?

While in Fairbanks it is noted with some despair that milk prices rise by 20 cents or so every few months so that now they are around $3.79/gallon, meanwhile, in the village, milk prices have barely budged in over 5 years, staying well below $16/gallon at just $7.69/half-gallon. Before tax anyway.

I could go on.

And there are people who actually think that they can get by without subsistence. Thankful for life in other universes! 🤪

I'm just glad there are still places in our country where "subsistence" off the land is viable.

What did they do before subsistence allowed them to buy 16 dollar a gallon milk?

Kids were raised to be very ‘fluent’ in dry milk products, and before that, canned (condensed) milk.

Thankfully, there are some who have really good jobs: teachers, who make $50-60k and can afford to buy it outright.

I really have no pity for those who choose not to subsist and live lives of hopelessness and envy.

I was wondering. I happen to actually prefer dry milk once its aged a few days. I like it much more than fresh milk.

Sometimes you make choices, and our upcoming choice would be to eat hot dogs every day for the rest of our lives rather than steak, to be able to live where we would like to enjoy our last days.

Hence the question, did folks adapt, do without, etc...

Actually at this point I"m not sure that there is much of anything I"d miss. I prefer to have some flavor to my water. Tang or such. Prefer to have some alcohol at times. Wife probably would find it tough to live without shrimp now and then. Much more than that... I think we could tough er out.

If you live in the right spot, you can catch your own shrimp



and if you have good well water, no need to add anything to it.

I never really got used to dry milk, but I really don't drink that much milk anymore.

Substance abuse is no replacement for subsistence living. And it doesn't have to be subsistence living, it just takes honest hard work to put food on your families table whether or not you caught it or you bought it.

As we've discussed before, there is a complex dynamic of the social problems in Alaska. Somehow we're the government and we're hear to help you has a history of enshrining social problems in regulations and agencies staffed by bureaucrats. The problems are just as prevalent in urban areas and every ethnic group. The cities just manage to hide it to some degree.

The “we’re here to help” folks.... I don’t question their motives, but they really can’t get it until they’ve ‘lived it’ (which is why someone like Bernie really can’t be trusted.) Dot-gub, as one addicted elder once said about the Gub-programs before they were prefaced by ‘dot’, really “hurt us more than help us”. All that said, if you refuse to subsist because “it’s too much work”, (it is a lot of work - and often expensive, though it doesn’t have to be), it really makes no sense not to move to a place (like Anchorage) where you aren’t paying 2, 3, or 4 times as much for staple items. But for rural folks, the ones beyond the roads anyway, subsistence is vital. I don’t think we could have done without it, raising our kids, even with what I thought were good incomes. (I have , since, been enlightened.)

The social problems, not entirely unrelated, are a whole nuther ball of yarn.

What 458 Lott said.

I will admit to mixed feelings about "subsistence", which I have used to personal benefit, tho we personally would have been OK without said use.

Not the situation for many in the villages, tho one wonders when one sees $30,000 boats used a few months of the year for "subsistence"... Or not used for several years...

Amortised over years of course. Or new $12,000 snow machines every few years- sometimes 4 or 5 to a family. ( I used my '93 Yamaha Bravo - plenty enough machine to get to (at 15-30 mph - top end is 45!... . ), and ambush caribou or moose, and get them home - I don't "need" to run them down with a high end machine .... as is commonly done by many "subsistence" users in the Bush. (Machinery trumps ethics.... )

"Positioning" animals with a snowmachine is enshrined in the regulations...

A few actually do it ethically. Even when no one is watching!

That said, locally caught wild fish and game is far preferable to store-bought products, both nutritionally and often economically for many.

In the 8 years we lived in Kotzebue ....on a 1 to 3 year plan.... (I came home to Kenai Peninsula home a month ago, my wife comes back end of June), I "subsistence" hunted 2 moose and 18 caribou, much of which I shared with family and friends, some locally, some within Alaska, some Outside.

Even with shared salaries of over $100,000, I sure as hell would not have been eating that much "store-bought" beef vis-a-vis wild, whether bought in Kotzebue, or Anchorage, where it about 65% Kotz prices. I did buy chicken and pork for variety in Anchorage Costco whenever passing through, if needed. (mostly wine and chocolate, tho.... man cannot live by meat alone, and some other things not available in Kotz at any price. )

I "personal use" caught red salmon, with a gill-net here on the Kenai and took them to Kotzebue, despite a plethora of "subsistence" chum salmon for the catching there. Nothing wrong with chums, we just prefer reds if available. I could have taken my net up there...

What bugs me is when "subsistence" is used as an excuse on a racial/cultural level to needlessly ( operative word there) lock out other non-local folks, or needlessly lock in cultural biases in the game regulations, having nothing to do with actual game management.

Such as the "pregnant cows only" 3 1/2 month long caribou thing in GMU23

Hey, I did my part (preserving the herd), taking 3 cows this past winter in December and January, during that "cows only" period, and a bull on Feb 2nd, the day after they became legal again, tho edible from the 2nd week of November, after rut. Yeah, he had no fat on him. I don't eat fat...

I stocked up for my "sport hunting" lifestyle change....... . My freezer here in Sterling is full with various cow cuts, and bull sausage/hotdogs....

I'm not sorry, either. This "sport hunting" schtick sucks....

Below is a result of stupid regs..... and cultural preference - orphaned calves of the year that come back looking for their mother, vs running off with the group. thern they die of lonelineess, exposure, lack of knowledge, (don't know where they are or where they are supposed to go - just missing Mom) or whatever...

Those calves are best eating!.. One of the 3 cows I killed this year, despite my care to pick out a lone one (Locals refer to them as "barren" - they probably are not, and are already pregnant again - just lost their calf of the year), had a calf come running back to find her. Then it ran back to rejoin the leaving group. Fortunately.

Me, If allowed, I'll take both to avoid orphaning such a dependant calf as necessary. For the last 3 years, I wasn't allowed.

Legally.

Dozens such orphaned calf-cases every year out of Kotzebue (that were found) - multiply that by 20-30 villages. Do the math.

Ravens and foxes gotta eat too, I guess...

And then there are those rural recreational hunters.......

I know it varies some from place to place, and I don’t intend to broad-brush things, but it seems quite common among the 20-30 age group in some places that “free” is an actual concept that costs no one anything. I have a couple of step sons who are perfect examples. One has crossed the 30 threshold, has inserted three children into a woman , who squirted them into the world. I brought him and s friend up to camp over a dozen years ago to help move materials for the cabin we were building. It was just occasional assistance I needed so the boys went down and tried to ‘catch’ a seal... which eventually happened, but, since it was late enough in the spring that we were boating, the seals were already losing their buoyant blubber and it sank. I helped them skewer it with a screw-tipped harpoon and retrieve it in relatively shallow water, but after many tries. I showed him how to skin it and prepare the the oil, meat, etc. As far as I know, that is the last time he’s fired a gun. I’m sure he’s glad I came home... brought his oldest son too 8 years old. We ‘rescued’ him from the mom (in Anchorage) over a year ago - when she was hospitalized for cutting herself, but before OCS got there hands on him. So Dad, whose had a year to try to get his $11,000 child support whittled down, now has his son to look after. (Mother’s sister adopted second son, and another sister has custody of the daughter.) So step son really doesn’t have a big load, but doesn’t/won’t hunt, lives rent free in our village home, can’t keep the lights on or heat so it is squalid and unfit. And that is not an en entirely unusual deal other than the fact that the chess pieces aren’t being played by OCS. The younger step son isn’t much better. Told the boys to move our old fish rack up a bit last summer so they can cut and dry some fish for winter. I’m pretty sure the storms will knock it over before they ever get to it. Gotta sleep enough you know.

And then there are those young guys who lose all or some of their kids to ‘the State’, won’t drive an old used sno go (cause they’re not cool enough). Won’t hunt when it’s cold (not so much of a problem recently), mostly uses the rig when choosing between “dope or diapers?’ and puts more miles on along the same few miles of local trail. But that machine is “vital for hunting.” (It gets used in springtime to hunt waterfowl, a traditional subsistence source that has become a recreational activity for many of such young bucks.)

Of course there are other who have more dignity, honor, and respect too, but it seems like they are fading with each passing generation. How long they will hold on is anyone’s guess. Some of these guys will put 3000-5000 miles on their rigs in a year. Yeah, I think they can justify the 12 grand or so that they cost... perhaps.

I don’t know what the answers are. I don’t even begin to understand how all the factors fit together. But I do know that some places appear to be dying out (were it not for the Gov, perhaps already dead), but for too many the drain on society as the unwilling move ‘inward’ ( to the city) isn’t much of a solution... and it’s happening. But for the moment, if there are no fish I the net today, it will be rice... and maybe beans. It’s too darned expensive to buy the stuff that is largely price supported through government aid.


......end of long, largely point-lost rant........ for now!🙄

Much reading here, and much of it totally on point, if not all of it.

The problem is, I think we are often to far gone to be able to have a solid solution, at least not without major suffering and even death involved.

A shame it is.

I've met so damned many that do it because they can, for no other reason.

Me, I don't need anyone to tell me if I can or can't kill something to feed my family. I'll do it without the king's permission.

not proud of this fact, but growing up I probably consumed more venison that had been taken out of season than in season. We were farmers and raised and sold beef. Beef costs money, those dang deer were free for the taking. It was a different time and money not as ready available as it's been in my adult life.

one of the last trips home when my dad was still alive, he, myself and my 10 year old rode around his farm, I had a new to me 7mm'08 and shooting off the tailgate for a rest, made a nice lil cloverleaf group @ around 100 yds, with the first shots I fired out of the thing. Dad was impressed with the accuracy of the lil rifle.

We came across some wild turkeys and he encouraged me to head shoot one, I declined by asking do we really need the meat? And I've got a 10 year old lad in the back of the pickup, I'm trying to raise him to obey the game laws. Dad mulled it over and said you're right, old habits die hard, growing up farming there was always a rifle handy, usually a .22 magnum and that dispatched most of those deer we ate with a neck shot. I didn't see a wild turkey until I was 12 years old. But once they started showing up they were fair game too.

When we were hungry and relatively poor, we used game as it was intended. These days it's probably cheaper for me to buy beef than eat moose, but we prefer moose and I still like to hunt. Our regs here leave me shaking my head quite often though.

I kind of hate to admit that I have what some might call miserly traits. I prefer to think it’s more about being resourceful. (Shouldn’t that be a big element in one’s education anyway?). Anyhow, I did spring for a short length of subsistence king net a few years ago, a small investment but one that is expected to pay one back over several years. Well, that net lasted 2 years, getting ‘blown’ by whales a few times in the second year. Then that winter a reindeer carried the whole thing away on his antlers, a fact I learned when I was informed that someone had harvested a reindeer that was carrying a king net. Apparently the net slid off the sled somewhere so it was lost. But I’ve caught all the fish we’ve ever needed by using scraps and salvaged nets including herring web. So I’m back to that method until an 80 foot “hung wrong” 5” net arrives. Yesterday I dropped a scrap: about 30 feet of 3 1/2 inch web in a protected spot that has always produced fish....so we’re eating king, or queens, hens, whatever term is preferred. One nice washtub sized fish made my day. But the net was still heavy, so I pulled a bit more and found another at least double in size.

The point I wish a few would note is that it doesn’t absolutely require $10k machines or skiffs, hundreds of dollars in equipment, but one does have to get after it and try. But you can’t exist out here without a decent income (few and hard to come by), government assistance of some sort ( and still suffer IMO), or you have to subsist.

"Homesteader" season.

Big difference 'tween subsistence and assistance.

Too many trade their dignity for “ass”.

I hope that means what I mean. 😬


(Dang I better edit that previous post. Good heavens this “smart phone” acts like one of my teenage sons some times! 🤪)

"Resourceful" - yeah I like that.

My wife doesn't let me go to the dump alone anymore. Much.

Whoa!.......Copper River dipnetting shut down.......that run of reds and kings
is a big part of "subsistence" in interior Alaska.

we called tag ' year long farmer tags" milk = we always got are fresh milk from the bulk tank " the tasty thick bubbly cream on top "

I found a brand new, stiff (un-previously opened?) latest edition Speer reloading book at a transfer site this spring, Sportsman’s Warehouse price still on it.

Always wonder if there was some kind of major misfunction with a relationship when you see stuff like that. 🧐

Maybe it was a gift to an illiterate reloader?

Just imagine if they all head to the Kenai

Bender ain't seen nothing yet.

Not sure what a transfer station is, but the big boys throw out brand new stuff all the time to make room. If you got lucky in the old days all kinds of free brand new walmart fishing/hunting gear that would not sell and the season had changed was in the dumpster... later they started bulk selling the lots of it, suspect it was managers beer money.. then the dumpsters were enclosed and you never could even try....

😳

They’re a fairly common phenom in populated parts of Alaska where there are dozens of dumpster bins for people to dump their trash in. It’s a way for people who don’t have access to trash pickup to get rid of yard and household waste in the boroughs. They sometimes have a place to drop off reusable as well,... like exercise machines, old washing machines, clothes, tires.....reloading manuals. 😛

Ah. A dump. Gotcha. In fairbanks or you are back out in Gods country again I'm assuming? And if so congrats and enjoy

For those that don't want to drive all the way to the dump, you can dump your stuff at a transfer station and it will be hauled to the dump for you (transferred). For Anchorage there is a transfer station in the middle of town, and the dump is in Eagle River.

Fairbanks has transfer stations; they’re quite clean and organized as compared to the open dumps in the rural parts. (Some rural dumps actually set aside useful stuff too however. That’s generally just a spot where you can look for vehicles and associated parts. But some dump maintainers delight in destroying as much stuff as possible too. ☹️) yeah I’m ‘out there’ : home for a couple months. (Gosh, I had forgotten how much more challenging life can be out here, or is it just the years adding up? 🤨

Dang, learn more every day.

Enjoy it out there! Hard or not, I'd have to say you all know its worth it until you just can't.

A dumpster is about all I get for my taxes to the boro.

that can't be right??? surely some of your neighbors have a good job thanks to your taxes?

That’s kind of lame if they don’t throw a nice ridge for you to shovel/ plow at the end of your driveway after every snowfall. ☹️

I’ve paid for tickets to the L48 a couple times when my folks were still around, as well as tickets to ANC from copper live scrounged from the rural dumps. Good luck with that in a place like FBX. Some of the scrounges are real regulars and it isn’t uncommon to see one of them holding a single short length of copper wire or tubing as the continue browsing/shopping through the line of dumpsters. (The regulars often have a scrounged bicycle with a scrounged kid-carrier or other ‘trailer’ affixed somehow to the rear; some real characters, some of them, but I appreciate such industry much more than seeing some of the regulars that hold cardboard on the street corner. )

DOT plows my road.

most of the so called subsistence is a joke. its a bunch of activists trying to make believe they really " live off the land" please. the post office is the true subsistence source with those checks showing up every month

"Subsistence" is like sex: commercial, personal use, and sport........

I would heartily take issue with such an assumption........dang, there’s that old ‘ass’ showing up again. While I don’t know anyone who doesnt use various “western” commodities such as sugar, shortening, coffee, tea, crackers and such things, there are still plenty of folks who rely heavily on subsistence resources for the bulk of their protein and a large part of their plant intake. And though there are some who sold or traded their dignity for a pittance generations ago.......and they bug the piss out of me, they do nothing more than merely exist. (Yeah. I do wish pop and other junk could not be acquired via public assistance.) But anyone who actually has a life ‘out here’, whether employed or not, is going to have a real tough go of it without subsistence resources. Assistance checks just don’t pay that well.

I think you have a new sig line!

I've learned to appreciate that the primary elements that bind a culture from it's past to the present with hope towards the future are it's language, it's art and it's food. I'd also say that the gathering of the ingredients is more important than the recipes.

There are a whole host of social issues in the villages, no one will deny that. The solution is not easy or palatable, but subsistence/traditional hunting and fishing is IMHO the most important part of healing and moving forward. Abuse of the resources is related to the social problems which to a large degree fall at the feet of the well intentioned government and social justice folks.

Classic!

Not to be distracted by the wisdom of a certain wise elder among us and his proverbs.....

But I agree with you entire post, Paul.


I was in contact with a neighbor the day I came home, a fellow a few years more limber than me, a fellow who I’ve shared many miles of trail with, and one who would and has risked health and wealth for my own. I was wondering how the spring hunt had gone and of his freezer was full. (Waterfowl). He said, “oh, not much” and then proceeded to tell me how he had “probably” killed 30-50 geese... “not much” being what went in his freezer; the rest went to partners who don’t shoot so well and widows/elders in town. He’s the same guy who will ride 400/500 miles for caribou, at no small expense in fuel and equipment, give all or most of it away, and then want to do it all again. And that, among all the waste and abuse that is often more ‘newsworthy’, is not an unusual thing.

Mark,

While the good folks among us are few and far between, they sure lift your spirits when you have the opportunity to spend time with them and ponder how they overflow with decency. Sharing a meal or one's bounty with others is truly one of the great rewards in life.

Kilkitarik,

Thanks for writing this post, this story.



I have read every word of this thread several times over. It is perhaps the most informative piece of literature I have come across in educating myself concerning the dynamics of survival, life, and lifestyle of today's Alaska, previously unknown to me.

I wouldn't mind if you folks continued the discussion. I'd like to learn more on the subject. If you've got little inspiration to pick it up, I understand. And if that is the case perhaps you folks could point me in a direction that would further educate me about subsistance, it's purpose, history, intent, it's successes and it's failures. I'd like to learn more about this life of $16.00 per gallon milk and scrap nets. As well as the motovaters and detractors within the remotes and villages. Too, I would like to learn about the culture, the Bush villages and mindset perspectives of the people shared therein.

I'm currently far removed from many of you and the places that you speak of where folks are living a life I know little to nothing about. I have it easy. I get up, go pound nails, collect a paycheck budget for my food, clothing, and shelter (heat, water, and power included), drive to wal mart, cabela's, or costco for necessities. And although I have worked hard and sacrificed a bit to be here, I realize I really don't have a clue what others are experiencing. There is a great chaism between myself and many of you... I'd like to cross over it, or at least take a few steps closer.

There's substance within you Paul.


nice touch on the keyboard.

maybe America can quit feeding and helping other countries and show a little more help in the homeland states ? let`s feed all of America 1st !

Some truly deep water flowing there..

That's a good idea.

Yet since the suiside rate in those villiages is 5x the national average, and both sexual and physical abuse runs right around 70% to the inhabitants therein, I believe we've more we should be offering along with that food. And It's well known that hope and healing is kind of hard to bring to a people unless you're willing to live among them.

Lots to be said in response. Let’s just leave it with this for now, “when it rains, it often pours”. Be ready and willing to take that gift; rest can be had in the dry spells. Cut and hung 45 or so fish yesterday, then young son shot a reindeer steer (lotsa more stuff could be added about that), loaded both halves of that unskinned into the boat, continued on to check and pull our new 80 foot, 5 inch net: 5 kings, couple chums.

This time of year it starts getting lighter well before the stars appear.

Kilkitarik,

Very cool post, thank you.

I guess this makes me eligible for Public Assistance!

Pubic assistance is just a bit too personal!

Oh, maybe I misread that!

🙀

I'll preface this with I've never lived in a village, have only visited a few. Have had the good fortune to know quit a few elders mostly Aleut and Yupik.

Just as the land is vast in complex, so are the Native peoples of Alaska and so are the causes of the various social issues. I'll touch on my observations and what I've learned in my mere 20 odd years up here.

In the span of the past 70-80 years you have a generation that lived a mostly subsistence nomadic lifestyle. In that time frame you have had statehood, the creation of Native corporations, Anilca, Oil and Pipeline boom, introduction of narcotics to villages, industrialized commercial fishing, imposition of formal schooling and a host of other dramatic changes that have upended a way of life that had been in place for 5-10,000 years.

To my mind there were several major social injustices visited upon the Alaska Native people since the US purchased the territory in 1867

American missionaries took Alaskan children from their villages, put them in boarding schools, beat them for speaking their own language, and told them that they were not Christians, in spite of Russian Orthodox missionaries evangelizing many villages in the late 1700's. I have spoken with a few people who experienced this.

During WWII the U.S. military evacuated and interned over 800 Aleuts from several islands. Many of them died from disease or malnutrition while interred US forces looted their homes and desecrated their churches. I have known several survivors who where children that were interred. https://www.apiai.org/product/aleut-evacuation-untold-war-story/

Corporations/Pipeline/Anilca. I lump these together as I see their impact as linked. As I mentioned this was a mostly nomadic subsistence people, in order not to be screwed out of their traditional lands, what were formerly fishing or hunting camps became permanent dwelling places. Many villeages have no economic reason to exist, but now that they exist as permanent villages modern infrastructure has been built, schools have been built, etc., and we have to a degree all the appurtenances of a modern small rural town, but with no tax base to support that. Not to mention a K-12 school system that is geared towards college prop for a student body that will mostly never leave the village simultaneously teaches them skills they don't need while taking them away from the elders that aren't teaching them the skills they do need and continuing their cultur

Take a people that worked extremely hard to survive, replace that need to work hard with cable tv, internet and government "help" and it's no wonder there is an epidemic of substance abuse, violent crime, sexual abuse, suicide etc.,

As to solutions, the best suggestion I've heard is a two pronged approach. While the source of the problems have mostly been put upon them by outside sources, they need to own the injury as their own and develop the mindset they they are the drivers of their own healing. So long as they are stuck requesting (for all intents and purposes) the same group that inflicted their wounds to cure them by the same medicine that hurt them, they will not and cannot heal. The second major step would be to gear schooling towards their needs, not the needs of passing an arbitrary knowledge base for every child in the state.

Wow Paul,

This is not much unlike what I witnessed in Northern Quebec East of the James Bay/Hudson bay area. The "residential schooling" and the fall out from it all as well as government built houses, and a similar host of other issues brought about a VERY notable similarity.

I'm going to ponder what you have shared, some more.

I really appreciate you having taken the time to convey your thoughts.

As I said- I have mixed feelings...

Last I checked, ( a couple decades ago) it takes roughty $50,000 in capital outlay to equip a whaling crew. Which may not get one or several whales in any partucular year . I was on a Pt Hope whaling crew in the mid-70's - a highlight of my life. We didn't get one on either of the two years I was present, but it sure as heck was an experience!

My Captan and i killed 10-12 caribou each spring before the whales arrived, just to feed the whaling crew.

Culturally, this is "subsistence" - they were hunting whales back in the day in skin boats with slate harpoon heads..And really needed the kill.

Economically, now, it comes closer to "sport", (often) now with outboards, 35 lb brass whale guns, exploding harpoon heads and D-8's pulling them up on the beach (Barrow).. In Pt Hope, we constructed ice anchors for the block and tackle, and ice ramps to pull them out on the fast-ice for butchering. I think they still do.

It is still every bit as important culturally as a Pennsylvania deer season.

Nothing like looking over the side of the skin boat to see this gigantanormouse fluke turning hard left, ten feet down....

Wasn't sure I even wanted (good idea?) to keep the stroke.... I might have missed one, and not more than two....

Talk about big game hunting, with basically a sharp stick......and that's in the hands of the guy in the front of the boat!

How does a reindeer end up a steer? miles

Stood too close to the knife...

I get that part, but am I to assume that it is a tame one. I seem to remember a story about bringing some Reindeer to Alaska, in a part with no caribou, and the wild caribou coming by and the reindeer running off with them. miles

It could be better than personal service... LOL

Scott,

I didn't mean to leave you or others with a partial view of the picture which after some pondering I could see my post doing. As to the big complex picture of the roughly dozen Alaska native peoples (depending on who is counting and naming them) the story of those that are leading normal healthy lives seldom if ever gets any play in the news or social conscience.

I know many trilingual people, fluent in English, Aleut and Russian. My neighbor graduated from Stanford law school and is a corporate CEO, and I know another attorney and CEO. I've worked with an engineer that graduated from MIT and another who received her doctorate from Stanford. Musicians, artists, priests, craftsmen, fishermen, whalers, electricians, heavy equipment operators, the sweetest little old ladies you'll ever meet, etc., more often than not just honest hard working decent folks.

To add, when i last got my shoulder repaired doc friends all gave me the same name for the surgeon they would see. And my shoulder on the third try by the third doc was finally done right. He was a Native from wayyyyy uo north.

Yeah, Art- on your recomendation, he did a fine job on both my knee and shoulder, several years apart. Go Adrian!

Some of those Natives know knives and anatomy....

I don't think he is a "subsistence" hunter anymore, tho.....

Well I am really glad that I met both of you gentlemen.

I realize that it would involve a lot of keyboard work to really express the intricate dynamics regarding this topic. Perhaps we could do lunch again sometime and I could learn more.

....and Art I will try to swing by soon and pick up my mail. I've been working six day weeks and lately It's been after 8:00 p.m. when I get back home from the jobs... we'll make arrangements I'm sure.

Thank you both.!

Scott,

That would be nice to do lunch again. Only thing is I got myself in trouble at work. My boss is moving out of state and I made the mistake of taking the offer to fill his position. In the last three weeks since getting myself in that mess I've only had time to take two lunch breaks, and I'm looking to be even busier if that's even possible. Beats unemployment, but why does workload always have to pick up during summer?

Good news is oil industry is heading towards a significant uptick. Bad news is with so many people being laid off, retiring and just bugging out of the state it's going to be tough to find experience hands to fill positions. Construction uptick is likely another 6-12 months away.

Chet is good at what he does, for sure..... and knows what those joints will be subject to when they’re back ‘out there’. 😄

I can just about guarantee that he gets plenty via the trading/barter pipeline. Heck, his widowed mom was still hunting caribou alone in her 70s a ‘few’ years ago. And with sis and bro-in-law retired from full-time aviation, I’m sure there is plenty.

Been out of the loop all week at camp... didn’t see this.

Reindeer are still herded in some parts. Their value is different than what they originally were brought here for. These days it’s largely the antler trade for monetary purposes, with meat generation for local people. They do an annual round-up of the scattered herds, tag new calves, cut antlers, castrate some. They are, like dogs, genetically identical to caribou and mix just as collies and labs might. Many of the original ‘deer were easily known by various coloration. That’s less now. So too the body structures which once favored a less ranging shorter legged, bigger bodied deer.

Typically the animals belong to an individual or collective and they are taken and used by their owners. The local herds here have expanded so much that they are becoming difficult to manage, overgraze their range, and tend to wander off and mix with the caribou. Consequently the herders have approved some thinning and allow households to remove 1-2 per year as they need meat. They prefer a male harvest right now since the calves are young. My son took an animal from a calf-less herd, presumably all males (or in this case cisgendered 🤪 ). In any case he/she/it 😎 was modernly adorned with an appropriate body piercing (ear tag). 😇

Just give a holler... tough thing about construction work is doing it all summer when you would like to be out doing fun stuff and then having all winter off when you would rather be working. Of course finish guys like their end better...

I will indeed, thanks again.

Few years ago I was in a hardware store in PA buying loose fasteners out of bulk by the pound.
Lady comes over and asks me "Young man, would you be able to tell me where I might find some 'finish' nails.?"
I paused for a moment and said "I really don't know, maybe in Finland.?"

So she spelled it wrong? And you were mean to her for that?

I have stayed at a few local native villages and yes these natives do need subsistence,natives do not understand our way of life. 99 % of the natives are very honest,fun to be with,would give you the shirt off there back, sometimes even give you their wife for the night and to us that`s strange,but a old native custom I guess ? if you ever hunt or fish with natives bring a few new nice knives with ,natives love a good knife.

Weird science.

I just knew someone would go there.

Don’t make fun of my communication skills. 🤪

Nothing but a bit of pointy elbow bud!

😁

Totally
But I've learned to be nice-er since then

No different than our State Bird being co-opted as the cause celebre of the "Glorious 12th" in Scotland...

Heya Las,

Cool you and your wife lived up here for ah few years. I just came up from my dry cabin on the Tanana, half hour outside of Delta. I still alternate between building boats in Delta Junction, and working jobs in the surrounding villages.

I rock ah fat tire bike round the village all season. Usually in the evening, I'm blastin round town on the bike.

I also run a dog team in the winter months. Keeps it simple: No gas or parts or car insurance or ATV or snow machine. The Malamutes go through 300 lbs of shifish and 20 lbs of rice per month. But, they will eat anything. That fish, is the fuel.

I can't take pride in a fancy, expensive material object that uses internal combustion. Running them dogs up the Noatak this spring, man what ah wild run! I was lost in the blizzard and high winds with no GPS.

Those Malamutes were all like confident lil homing devices. I was 1/4 mile from town, and still didn't realize where the heck I was! Just trust the homing pigeons! I do take pride in my bloodline though, I've been building dog team for six years. Gonna run them in the Kobuk 440 this year, just for the scenery. They are 4 times the size of a race dog, so 8mph pace is all i can keep, against the sleek 9.5 mph huskies..........

It is hard living up here without a boat though, as a boat builder. This place is water-world! Once I finish out my orders for the year, I'm gonna have to build a good boat for up here.

I do feel bad for a single mother in town, who gotta feed kids when the AC be chargin $100 for a 25 lbs turkey, or $8 for some milk. Some of em can't get trips to town for a costco run. Rough times man.