After his cabin burns down.......lucky guy

apparently had enough food to make it till he was resqued

https://kutv.com/news/local/utah-man-survives-3-weeks-in-alaska-wilderness-after-cabin-burns-down

Damn.

Feel for the man losing his dog like that.

I feel sorry for the guy but...no skiis? No snowshoes? 20 miles isn't all that far. Anyone in decent shape could hike that on shoes in a few days. If you want to live in the wilderness, you'd better be prepared. He wasn't. Unless, of course, his shoes got burned up in the fire. The video shows a shed. I'd have a spare pair out there just in case.

Where is the snowmobile or dog sled?

I bush hogged “SOS” in a field one day

I never got rescued

Yeah, but you spelled it wrong.......


Nobody knows what OSO means.

I think there's a lesson there on keeping all of his eggs in one basket.

No skills? The poor guy survived for 3 weeks- that's more skills than a lot of 30 yr old have.

BEAR!

Read the online "story". It will answer your questions, and boggle your mind over some other facts.

Being its -25 up that way, he could have stayed at a Holiday Inn at night.

Seems to me, given the incident, the young man did all right with what he had left after the fire.

I have no idea what his "homestead" plan was, but I think he might have planned better for adversities. I am reminded of watching a video several years ago of Heimo Korth who along with his wife, Edna, had a remote cabin in the Arctic Nat'l Wildlife Preserve. They had a cabin with plenty of "stuff," but Heimo had also built a small storage cabin some distance from the main cabin. In it he and his wife had stored all kinds of survival gear, food, etc., etc., as Heimo said, " Just in case the cabin caught fire and burned, we'd get by with these things."

Perhaps the young man in the story would have been much better served if he'd built a small storage shed at a distance from his "cabin" and placed spare and duplicate survival food and equipment in it.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20 vision. Maybe he'll do that if he returns to his "homestead."

L.W.

Ken Marsh is a Trooper spokesman, not actually a Trooper. He is a really good guy and his book "Breakfast at Trout's Place" is a good read.

The survivor could have made snowshoes fairly easily, but staying in place was absolutely the right move for him.

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

It seems to me that the guy was just starting the "homestead" portion of it. I'd wage a guess that he wasn't entirely set-up for the long haul as of yet and didn't have the secondary shelter/supplies cached quite yet. Purely speculation on my part.

Great story Jeff. Thanks for sharing.

"Homesteader"? Not so much.

Sounds like he went "Into the wild".

Fugck you Jeff.

From the scribd story ( https://www.scribd.com/document/442461512/Winter-Fire-Survivor-1-10-2020#from_embed ), linked to by the kutv article above:



When I read this, my imagination ran to "this can't be some sort of backwoods Alaskan hoop house". I didn't bother to look at the pictures (like a moron) until just now.

Yep, it was some sort of backwoods Alaskan hoop house.

My previously boggled mind, still boggles.

Thanks, it takes a little bit to put the thoughts stories like these bring to mind into text.

I just find it hard to relate to this guy...




Exactly, except it always seemed to me that McCandless was suicidal, he set off knowing he wasn't going to make it.

This guy wasn't as prepared or as capable as he may have thought, but he didn't intend on dying, not that it couldn't have easily happened.

From his interview that's posted on Scribd he states....

"I knew I didn’t have enough knowledge of the whereabouts....I’ve heard there’s someone at Donkey Creek Lake 5 miles away."

Says he was raising Jalapenos and had some small peppers on his plants.
Jalapeno plants take a long time to produce in the warm climates they are typically raised in.

This guy had been there for months and hadn't taken the time to get familiar with his surroundings or possible neighbors. He may have benefited largely from getting to know others that lived nearby...

"I’m not exactly trained. I’ve just always been in the outdoors. And in the outdoor industry. My first job back in high school for five years I worked at a gear shop, so I was familiar with all the technical, you know, fire starting equipment.....I’ve just always liked to interface with the environment directly to survive. I challenge myself to make fire all the time."

So we got a techie type, loaded with the latest in Mountain Hardware®‎ micro fleece gear, doing the one thing he was good at, starting fires, burning all his schit up and then being at a loss for what to do.

Sorry about his dog and glad he made it out..
He'll probably write the next "Surviving Alaska" best seller......


For some it can be a life or death struggle, for others it's just another day in the neighborhood.

You're welcome...

The dude was just out of his zone...

JeffA ,
Morning . .
Good story and you did what any real outdoorsman would do - be prepared to ''help yourself'' .

This guy in his second hand homemade yurt likely has hundreds of hours of experience with a selfy stick aimed at his beardy face showing the www.facetwittrgram.com world his spectacular skills and adventurous nature .
He should join the ''Van-Life'' movement - you park your survival vehicle in a remotish spot and play with your survival toys while blogging multiple times per day - then call your parents and inform them you need more money to live your dream .

I LMAO watching his type on youtube - drag all of their deep wilderness survival gear play toys 200 yards into the wilderness show off all their firemaking skills with their fire sparker rod - batoning fatwood , making french press coffee , gourmet meals with the camera getting near constant close ups of their face .
One guy brought a neighbors dog to add another dimension to his videos -LAF- never not funny watching the starved for attetion gang get'ner done .

Good thing he does not have children. They would have burned up also. "Into the Wild" indeed.

How much does it cost to rescue someone like this? Can't be cheap. GD

Double GD

Being it was a typical Alaska welfare check and initiated by someone other than himself, he wouldn't be billed for it.
LE has a legal obligation to respond to welfare check requests, it just gets more complex and spendy in many cases in Alaska but the Troopers are use to it.

It can be different if you are using them as an ambulance service but unsure if your use is due to need of rescue only.

I have some numbers on that, which may parallel a simple rescue mission. Better have your insurance paid up and it'd better not have a low cap for such services..

Calling for air ambulance to get from Dillingham to an Anchorage hospital..now I am speaking of "airport to airport" not from some odd ball remote location.....this comes in the form of a medically staffed Lear jet, price as of a few short years ago was $27K.

And just so you know, if you become injured in a outlaying area of Alaska lets say from a fall, and need to get to a Anchorage hospital asap but feel you can handle a commercial flight, Don't tell the airlines what you are up to. They won't take you if a possible air emergency could occur due to your "unknown and yet un-diagnosed condition".
They will make you call the air ambulance service.

It's been a few years since I was working the boats but when at sea, back about 10 years ago, ambulance service came in the form of a Coast Guard helicopter. The Coast Guard bills for this service, I know of one instance where the bill was $45K when they had to pluck a guy off a boat bobbin around in the Bering Sea that had broken his leg and nose in a fight. There was more than a little hell raised over that one by the owner of the boat that had received the bill.

If I was in charge....anyone that got themselves in a jam and had to use ANY rescue services for ANY reason brought on solely by choices they had made were to eventually receive royalties from related book or movie deals....They would be billed in full for all services rendered if such charges had not already occurred.

On another note:

In the lower 48, Two Bear Air in Whitefish Montana operates one of the most advanced rescue services in the country, it's privately owned and all for free..

They are now covering Montana, Idaho and Eastern Washington with some amazing rescue technology.
If you are an avid outdoors type in the area they cover I'd be looking into getting some recco rescue reflectors. They make you searchable from the air with the helicopter moving at 60 mph. You can probably find a little lead case to hide it in when you slip into one of your "they are watching me" schizo paranoid modes.

Just in yesterdays headlines "Two Bear Air uses rare rescue...n Idahos Silver Mountain Avalanche"

They are pointing out where bodies are buried to ground rescuers from their helicopter...pretty cool stuff...

Nice looking cabin and swell story.

If this 2 bear air is so advanced they should advance that dude standing out on the landing skid some coin so he could buy some shoes, he's flippin' wearing crocs while standing out there in flight.

Thanks for sharing that. I enjoyed your story. Sorry for your ordeal but very informative.

It means BEAR in Spanish.

Fantastic video! Really an interesting perspective.

I thought the weirdest part of this story is that he was so desperate he ate canned pineapple, even though he was allergic to pineapple. Then why did he take pineapple in the first place? Whatever, glad he is OK.

I just wanted to show how traversing the bush of Alaska can be done when I posted that.
That tundra is more forgiving in the winter months than the summers for foot travel.

You and I both know that guy could have walked out of there after he burned down his place.
I say that because of your comment about how he could have built snowshoes...

I'd snowshoe a lot of miles just to be snowshoeing before I was introduced to cross country skis, then winter foot travel became limitless.

It gets so old hearing these dreadful stories, much like "into the wild", how the hell did that ever become a best seller then a movie even?

It's like, if you make it look to easy, you don't have a story to tell.

People want to hear about heartache and grief, pain and suffering, exposed blood and guts, they get off on it.
If you can spin your adventures into a life or death situation and spill some blood you'll land a movie deal.

Every major news paper in the country as well as a few in the UK are headlining this guys story today.
If you are really bad at how you handle situations in the outdoors, your name might well become a household word.

Timothy Treadwell is a prime example...............

Lol

Great read Jeff.

Everything about this story screams DUMBASS!!

That was one of the bestest little houses I ever had.

View looking north up into the 1.6M acre Wood Tikchik State park from my kitchen table.

At nearly 1.6 million acres, Wood-Tikchik State Park is the largest and most remote state park in the nation. This one park encompasses nearly half of the State Park land in Alaska and 15 percent of all state park land in the United States. The primary purposes of creating Wood-Tikchik State Park are to protect the area's fish and wildlife breeding and support systems and to preserve the continued use of the area for subsistence and recreational activities. The land and water in this region are traditional grounds for subsistence fishing, hunting and gathering. These activities are an integral part of the culture in this region and provide not only food, but a cultural tie to the land and between generations.

Thanks Jeff, that was a good read.

When I looked at your map I saw Manokotak. I took a job offer there in 99, but it fell through three weeks before school started because the married housing did not end up available. So I ended up in Bethel for a few years before going to South Central. Bethel did not have the views you had...

If I was younger and in better health I would like to give Dillingham or maybe up in Kotz some time. I am guessing a lot of guys on here similar thoughts!

Great story and video Jeff, thanks for posting. Guys like you and Luc Mehl and friends bring to life the difference between living the life and just playing at it. Alaskans know how to have fun in the winter.


mike r

Thanks Jeff for the story and insight. It adds a completely different perspective.

Thanks, some people fight it, others just go with the flow.....




Manokotak has some good people, When the ice would go off the lakes I'd head up the Tik-Chiks and gather seagull eggs from the islands scattered through out the lake system.
I'd take 3-400 at a time over to Manokotak and give them to the elders there that couldn't get out and about.

That resulted in a warm place to stay and some great meals every time I'd pass by their village.
Many times I'd find a box of canned or dried salmon sitting on my doorstep those people would send my way.

I'm guessing you were/are an educator? If so you may find this book to be interesting.

Saw this dummy interviewed today. I’m not convinced he didn’t have this course of action planned out in the event something happened. I don’t think he burned his camp but got the feeling his fall back plan if it happened was interviews, a book and a movie about his “ordeal”. Too many question marks to be coincidence in my opinion. Guy looks/sounded like he has an agenda.


Or he’s incredibly stupid....

Its just wonderful being part of a site where so many folks are so well versed in wilderness survival .They all knew exactly how to handle this guys situation with ingenious after sight.

if i was dependent on a snomobile i would carry 2 belts,tools,extra double chain and chain spice parts ,wire,black electric tape,plugs and a hack saw and a small 20 `rope pulley system,army folding shovel,couple of MRE`S with heaters. water,T.P., always a gun,ax,matches, knife,blanket ,first aid kit all in 2 packs

He is making himself highly available to the media right now.
I wouldn't put it past a YouTuber type to set-up such an event with hopes of creating a viral video...dog included.
But if that were the case here, he wouldn't have let all his video archives burn in the fire, they would have some how been miraculously saved.

Lets just say he's a victim of his unique set of circumstances.

Good point JeffA

Just smells fishy to me

Or if like my friend and ex landlord Seth Kantner does when driving a new, used snow machine 500 miles cross country from Fairbanks to Kotzebue, an extra piston, head gasket, and tools to do with, as well. Camping gear of course. I'm too old, ignorant and chicken to do stuff like that. Anymore, not that I ever did anything like that. Some stupid stuff, tho.

You could carry all the extra parts you wanted to and just because it's the way it works, unless you had a complete extra machine with you, the one tiny little part you didn't have will be what fails.

Travel with a friend or be capable under your own power...hint...satellite phones can be pretty sweet

follow up to story

https://www.ksl.com/article/4670396...ter-being-stranded-in-alaskan-wilderness

Yep. Many years ago when I lived in Hollywood, I was so broke a dime looked like a wagon wheel, so used to drink Oso Negro vodka. (Black Bear.) Cheap booze but it did the job for a broke writer.

L.W.

Wrong nationality. Lol. Clicks, baby. Clicks

"And his nearest neighbor was 20 miles away, in the tiny community of Skwentna."

He couldn't hike 20 miles? Had to wait for Big Government to rescue him?
Not much of a mountain man.

Posthole 20 miles and get back to us!
LMAO

Did he at least eat the dog?

When one is way out and living in a flammable structure, he should have a backup and separate supplies of some sort should the original burn down.

Just guessin' but I doubt he gets too far from the lights of the city anymore.

One stupid Oregonian?
Sorry Beav😥

Not a “real” homesteader anyway.

SOP

They knew who you were.

They knew it was a trap 😀

Why did I go look?

Last summer the nut job was hanging at a lodge on Admiralty Island.
If you can't stand listening to him, scroll to the last 5 seconds of this video, it pretty much sums it up.



He went back to the burned out cabin in 2020 and built a 8x10 shed....outta plastic.
I'll let him tell ya about it.



In Fall 2020, I had a six man crew help build a small 8'x10' outbuilding for storage. In assembly line fashion.

After 5 weeks and 6 men, it doesn't seem like much, but we completed a lot.



We later fashioned a door, then surrounded the lower five feet with tin to keep the bears from breaking in. After it was all covered, we finished the floor.

Tyson Steele

O
M
G
!

Anyone care to predict the date for 'round 2 rescue'.

I never watched the video. I looked at his structure and just about puked. Edk

I had a buddy who had a generator shed kept all four of his generators in the same shed guess what happened when the generator said burned down

"Deal with it", is what I tell people who ask "What if something goes wrong out there".

It always does.

Murphy and me - best buds, damn the bastard!

Leanwolf, get a life. Two year old threads, C'mon man

the short time I spent in Alaska made me realize just how disconnected you are from the things we take for granted in the lower 48.

Usually I visit a place like Idaho or Colorado and the next day I'm talking up how great it would be to live there. Someone asked me about Alaska after my trip and my response was I don't think I could.


Beautiful country but daily living is just too different, even in the larger cities.

Then to read that story or what JeffA did as a matter of just, well, its what you do in that situation. I don't know, I love the idea of being remote, but there is remote and then there is on your own remote.

Then why are you looking and reading? Don't you have more to do in life that's interesting than following a two year old thread? Obviously not, poor fellow.

L.W.

I been riding sled ie snowmobiles out in skwetna to shell lake, Eastwoods, and donkey Lake in the winter that is a busy area. Don’t understand how he didn’t know who his neighbors are or were.

As some said alaska can grab you by the ass real quick. Winter moose hunt up the little delta, day we went in temps were around -40 to-45. We ended up with a moose next day hunted next day then left the following day. In the picture over my back is the split between the East and west fork of the little delta. We went down the west fork, anyhow day we left temperatures warmed up to -15 and we had bad overflow. Unfortunately I hit a hole and as I tried to skip over it my track sucked up a broken tree branch sled just stopped. We got it pulled out, stick pulled out but the pull cord wouldn’t budge. Some more looking the clutch was broke. So popped the belt, hooked up some ratchet straps and my buddy pulled me 35 miles back to the trucks. Talk about a cold miserable ride back.

Gotta look at the bright side, you had a tow strap and someone to pull ya.
Although the temps might of been just right for walking back, probably wouldn't have felt cold at all after a mile or ten.

In a earlier interview, this odd fellow that burned his cabin down stated he knew there was someone living at Donkey Lake, 5 miles away but he knew nothing more than that, he'd never seen the need to check that out.

I would’ve turned around and walked back to the cabins that sit between the East and west fork and stayed warm.
The guy that owns those cabins has friends fly over them in the winter to see if their is smoke coming from any of them. If so they land and see who is their and see what’s going on.

Good plan, ya could always come back later and chainsawed your machine outta the ice, nobody would've stolen it froze down and all.

I always have an emergency bag with me when in the big woods.In it I carry a 10'X10'wall tent ,20 gallons of water ,a machette,my M4 with grenade launcher ,a wood stove and two full cords of wood,my chain saw,cot ,sleeping bag. generator for the lights and TV about 100MRi`s,spare clothes and a rubber doll.When I was a Boy Scout I learned to BE PREPARED.Every one who goes in the woods should have a kit like mine or they are just wannabes!!

What? No booze?

It's there, just not in the E-bag!

.

That's some boss shiet right there

Indeed I do, but when YOU post a comment from a TWO YEAR old thread I don't know that it's TWO YEARS old. I have to click on the thread then say to myself "Hmmmmm I think I read about this before". THEN I have to go to the ORIGINAL posters post and see when it was posten and say "YA, I KNEW I READ ABOUT THIS BEFORE".

Thanks Jackazz

Used to like you for realze but you're just another Hollywierd Dipsshit

Im still pondering:10 x 10 wall tent for emergencies.
That come with an alpaca and a bale of alfalfa?



Pffftt


Mylar foil blanket and a rusty tin can to drink my piss from.

Thought you was up in [bleep], surely you're not letting your dad drive!

My sincere condolences tho, was down in California (PA) yesterday moving furniture for my baby girl.

REALLY fugker bleeped K untuck wtf

Oh golly, gee whiz, SKANK-hunt, how can I possibly get through the night knowing I've triggered your animosity and dislike?? What a blow to realize you're no longer a fan. Woe is me.

Could things possibly become worse in my life? I suppose I'll have to try to find some way to assuage my hurt feelings and disappointment in knowing I am not liked (anymore) by a member here. Perhaps, if I am very, very lucky, I'll manage to get by.

L.W.

LOL GFY

If you are not man enough to tote my E bag ,just say so,