Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska 1960s Denali Highway

Wow you actually did hunt! Oh wait that’s not your video 🤣

Sss is the sound a snake makes and there are no snakes in Alaska.

Remember many hunts in the 60's on the Denali. Hunted in the higher country past the Tangles, though had good success around Paxon, dropping down to the Gakona flats. Shot my first moose there with a Win mod 88' in .243.

We hunted first season up there, then 2nd season here on the Kenai.
Were wonderful days back then... miss them.

Thanks for the memories, Kabouko!

Bhtr

Excellent. Thanks.

And homesteader season after that!
😉

😀

Those were great home movies ,thanks for posting them.

Dad bought an 8 passenger Thiokol (used) in 67 from a telephone co. in the valley. Somewhere I have a picture of it with 4 bull moose on the back. The swinging hoist on the r.h. side worked great for gutting an loading.

Hunted out of a cabin we had several miles behind Stariski. 3 days and 6 hunters. You will never guess who was delegated as the firewood hauler...😉

Took a small grizzly off the highway in 1972. Not a lot of traffic back then, much more of a “wilderness”. But if you looked hard enough you could find a candy wrapper or Coke can almost anywhere. Thanks for making me remember!



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In the early 60's the lodge on the Denali was offering unpaid hunts for any Alaskan that would come up and
harvest a grizzly! For the life of me I cannot remember the name of that lodge. Art might know or remember

Anyway, it must have worked out as the calf mortality plummeted, and by 1970, moose had become very plentiful.
Today, hunting pressure might be fierce...

Have not hunted there since 1975 (married in 76, with children (don't call me Al😉) in 77.

Best,
Bhtr

I remember the lodges, but not the names...

Wife has never traveled the highway. That is on my short list to correct this coming summer. What would be a decent lodge to stay at for 1 night close to the Paxon side?

Cool video, we both watched it last night.

Give tangle lakes lodge a call.

https://www.lodgeattanglelakes.com/

We used to hunt up there in the late 1970s and early 1980s. BLM used to allow two subsistence caribou. We would always get two good caribou each for a total of 6. This was my brother, my father and I. We also shot several moose up there. I shot one moose that was a 36 inch moose with a 44 handgun at 100 yards. My father shot an old over mature bull caribou at over 500 yards with his 8 Rem Mag. He shot low and it clipped off the lower leg of the bull that just sat down. I went out to process it and pack it out without a gun when I discovered that it wasn't dead. I had to club it with a log and then broke its neck.

Jack Johnson used to run the Tangle River Lodge. He grew up out there in the 1950s and had some unbelievable stories.

I also remember Slim Moore's last years out there. He had a camp on the other side of the McClaren River.

I remember John Schandlemeir being married to Jack Johnson's daughter and living with his dogs at the lodge. That winter he hooked up with a woman from South Dakota and Jack kicked him out. Schandlemeir moved down by the McClaren Lodge.

Any of these names ring a bell for anyone......???

Jim & Vonny Grimes

Tex Greathouse

Denny Thompson

Bill Morrow

Barbara Wright

Rick Halford

Jim Mathina

Trooper Brown (out of Trappers Creek)

Shorty Johnson or Jackson

Rick Halford flew my older brother hunting a couple times. Was in the state senate. IIRC, he was Repub. Pres of the senate at the time. That or majority whip.

If Trooper Brown went with his first name, he would have said "Bob." He would have been a game warden...and a family friend. Can tell you stories about this Trooper... Was a good guy.

Knew a Shorty Johnson as the long time Kenai City shop manager for years. Rough and tumble but heart of gold!

Mostly fuzzy on the rest. Likely end up fuzzy on the first two, too.😉

Thanks guys! As a kid, I read a lot of stories about Alaska…..my dream was to get there as soon as I finished school. Getting married my Sr. Year of HS derailed those plans!

55 years later…..I still haven’t made it there! ☹️ memtb

+1

In the '60s it was a 6 caribou limit... 36 total for our 6 person household.

On the Kenai, black bears were 5 per person😉

That's a pretty cool video, thanks for posting.

Those boys had their schit together.

Almost everywhere else it was "no closed season, no limit!" On black bear!

😀😎

These were all Denali Hwy. people. Jim & Vonny Grimes built the "ADVENTURE UNLIMITED" where the Brushkana Creek crosses the road.

Denny Thompson built "The Susitna Lodge" before the road got to the river.

Rick Halford & Jim Mathina & another man bought "The Susitna Lodge" in early 70's