The Hunter's Alaska Read online

  Table of Contents

  Forward

  Maps

  1 - A Bit of HistoryandThe Coming Golden Years

  2 - Alaska

  3 - Some Background

  4 - Guns, BallisticsandOther Interesting Stuff

  5 - Proper Sights for Alaskan Hunting

  6 - Stocks

  7 - The Best Rifle

  8 - Kenai Rifles,the .450 Alaskan &A bit about Garrett Ammunition

  9 - Shooting Ranges

  10 - Elmer Keith

  11 - A Bit about Double Rifles

  12- Pistol Thoughts

  13 - Bush Flying

  14 - The Mountain Goat

  15 - Goats are Tough

  16 - Learning About Goats

  17 - The Doc's Hunt

  18 - Goat Hunting Details

  19 - The Great Bears

  20 - Grizzly Hunting

  21 - Dall Sheep

  22 - Moose

  23 - Moose Shooting

  24 - Caribou

  25 - Wolves

  26 - Binoculars

  27 - Camping

  28 - The Bombardier Tractor

  29 - Fishing for Hunters

  30 - Hunting Knives

  31 - Some Hunting Philosophy

  32 - Random Thoughts

  33 - In Closing

  About Roy Chandler

  Books by Roy Chandler

  The Hunter's Alaska copyright © 2005 and 2015 by Katherine R. Chandler.

  All rights reserved.

  Publication History

  2005

  Iron Brigade Armory, Publisher

  Jacksonville, NC

  ebook: 2015

  Katherine R. Chandler, Publisher

  PO Box 322

  St. Mary's City, MD 20686

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any other means without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Front Cover: Vernon Gessner of Lykens, Pennsylvania took this magnificent ram while hunting with Master Guide Ray Atkins in the great Alaska Range.

  Kindle book production: John Booth, Nokomis, Florida.

  Forward

  The first letter from Tok, sent to me sometime in the middle 1950's by my closest personal friend, Roy Chandler, began my introduction to, and my subsequent lengthy love affair with, that incredible vastness of solitude and grandeur to the north called Alaska.

  Later letters continued to prod me, and so, I too began leaving my tracks on the Alaskan tundra. Many of those tracks, many made decades ago, are still there, for that is the way it is in the arctic. Things change slowly; drop a match and the burned woods will be seen for years—seventy or more; kill a moose and it will be years before another bull survives the hostile environment to make it to trophy class.

  If you should go to Alaska to hunt, try to be a guest. A truck full of caribou shot from the roadside as a herd migrates across, and road signs full of bullet holes, are not indicative of mature mentalities or much foresight. Alaska's breadth is the equal to the distance from New Jersey to California. It is a huge land, but the total big game count is only a third of Texas' white-tail deer herd. If we could quietly back out of Alaska and let nature take its course, the Great Land would be worth a thousand times more than all the resources it could ever yield. But, that is not the nature of man, and Alaska remains as one of the few places left where we could prove or disprove man's ability to coexist with anything.

  In a span of more than fifty years, Roy and I and those we hunt with, have observed great changes in Alaska. Many of these changes, we are afraid, will ultimately prove to be not good. I hope to be gone and away to join the great majority before someone builds a waterslide into the grizzlies' fishing hole out by Bristol Bay.

  You will like this book of Roy Chandler's. It is a book to enjoy vicariously those things that are now possible, and it is NOT, hopefully, a history of things soon gone.

  Roy writes this book for everyone. As they read, those who have been to Alaska will enjoy again their own experiences, and those who would like to go will daydream as they too live these fascinating stories and learn how it is done in the great state of Alaska.

  Arthur B. Troup, Jr.

  Arthur B. Troup, Ph.D.

  The author's hunting companion for many wonderful years, Doctor Troup, now retired, has been an educator, a professional photographer, and was the finest fixed-wing, light-aircraft pilot this author ever encountered. Wow, could Art fly! Troup is an instrument rated commercial pilot and a retired infantry officer.

  June in Alaska

  The sun at midnight

  During the earlier fall hunting seasons, a hunter can expect the light to be strong from about five in the morning until eleven at night. In the north, up in the Brooks Range, daylight is a bit less, but there is still more light than a hunter needs. Even the most dedicated hunter has to sleep now and then, but a strange phenomenon takes over, in that, when it is light, hunters become less tired than when darkness closes in at early evening. I offer no explanations, but it is observably so.

  Maps

  There are problems with author-drawn maps. They are usually crude, and what the great writer thinks is crystal clear information may actually be a bit foggy. We resort to them because they are the author's work—as he drew them for hundreds of lurid descriptions of Alaskan hunting. They lend authenticity … or something.

  Alaska is a discouraging land to sketch. Almost everything appears to be located in the southeast quadrant of the immense state. That is where the roads are, as is the populace (including most guides), and the mountains of that quarter are those most talked and written about-as well as the most hunted. Game and humans seek the best weather, and excepting the panhandle (where it rains an awful lot), southeast Alaska gets the attention. Those facts jam up a map, and unless one can realize the incredible size of the state it can seem as if hunters might be bumping against each other. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is more likely that a hunter will never encounter another group or individual in the field.

  Take the Brooks Range of mountains far to the north. Within that magnificent range there are at least nine named mountain systems. A hunter could spend his lifetime among them and not explore it all.

  This is BIG country—bigger than your imagination can allow.

  To exemplify, we include a detailed sketch of hunting Area 20D, where the author spent years and speaks of often herein. The Granite Mountains as drawn include about 900 square miles but, on a map of the state, they do not rate even a dot. We locate them by pointing out nearby Fort Greely. (As this is written, Greely has become our nation's anti-ballistic missile center. My, my … what must the sheep, bears, buffalo, caribou, and moose think?)

  Much of Alaska is mountainous and, in lower elevations, there is hunting in most of those mountains, as well as on the vast flats between ranges. The question arises as to which areas offer the best chances, which can be reached, which include guide service (for those requiring such assistance), and what kind of game is to be found in a preferred hunting area.

  The maps that follows can help orient the hunter to areas mentioned in this book; they indicate where the best hunting has historically been found.

  The author on a warm Alaskan day in the 1970s

  After all of these decades, I remember the previous photograph being taken. We had been out glassing moose. The bulls were still in velvet and we had located two big old boys grazing near a distant pond. How big and how many points? We had to get closer.

  We approached low, down on our praying bones, slow and careful, mostly hidden by the stuff around our legs. We liked to think we were clever—like wolves on the hunt—and we got close enough to see well or to shoot, if that had been our intent. Inciden
tally, it was before hunting season, and we did not have rifles. Jerry did not carry a pistol, and if he had skills with one he never displayed them, but my revolver added to the picture, and to tell the truth, I had worn the Ruger for so long that I was almost unaware of its presence.

  When Jerry Rausch snapped this photograph we were about one hundred yards from the bulls. We stood up, and the moose just stood there. So much for our skillful stalking. They probably knew we were there all the time, and simply did not give a rap.

  1 - A Bit of History

  and

  The Coming Golden Years

  Every hunter visiting Alaska will be told that times have changed, and the great hunts are mostly behind. It will be claimed that freedoms have eroded, and that restricting state and federal regulations rule. Old timers will state with certainty that the caribou are thinned out, the moose are hard to find, and full curl rams are rare. Big trophy bears? Almost non-existent in most areas, they will complain.

  Well, don't buy it. Although at times a bit thinned out, the game is still there. The great mountains, the moose pastures, and the goat meadows are unaltered. Still, the claims that the best times are gone bear looking into.

  The most Golden Years of Alaskan hunting lasted about a decade, roughly 1950 through 1960. Before 1950 Alaska was hard to get to, and most prospective hunters came by ship and laboriously gained the Alaskan interior by train from Anchorage to Fairbanks. After 1960 over-regulation began intruding. Times were still good, but the best had passed.

  The first road to Alaska, the Alcan Highway, was completed in 1944, but years were required to establish the gas stations, eating joints, and tourist cabins, and some log hotels that made driving the great road practical. By 1950 travelers of every ilk could safely drive from the contiguous forty-eight states and into the southeast quarter of Alaska. Many of those visitors were big game hunters.

  Before about 1950 few of even the most seasoned resident hunters had barely penetrated the various mountain ranges that comprise Alaska's best hunting areas. Why would they? Hunters were few and game was plentiful in every neighborhood. To this day, dropping a moose or a caribou more than a mile or so from a road or track creates a brutal "getting it out" problem.

  Because big animals are so difficult to pack out, and the law required saving all edible meat, Alaskan big game hunters rarely established the remote hunting cabins commonly found in the lower forty-eight where smaller deer-size carcasses are the norm.

  Except for a countable number of long-established hunting camps (particularly on the Kenai and on Kodiak Island), most Alaskan hunters put up tents and used horse trains. Few went in deep. That meant that most Alaskan game had never seen a human. Of course, humans had never seen them either. For the most part, despite contemporary head shaking, the land of the 1950s and the game animals thereon were pristine.

  Modern sheep hunting in the Brooks Range

  In the distant Alaskan past, game animals could be taken and sold at market. Sport hunters and even subsistence hunters (residents who took game only to feed their families.) had little chance as indiscriminate slaughter by greedy market hunters butchered everything reachable. That ended in 1925. Market hunting was declared unlawful and wild game could no longer be sold. The following circa 1909 blurry photograph shows moose, caribou and a flock of geese taken by market hunters being sold.

  Note: Please bear with us when you encounter ancient photos like the one above. Old pictures show how it used to be, but they can never be duplicated.

  While market hunting has been responsible for virtually decimating species—the buffalo come to mind—sport hunting has never endangered a species and never will. Alaska has an enlightened game department that will continue to put the welfare of the animals ahead of human hungers to hunt. That is as it should be, and no one need fear that Alaskan game will again be thinned to the vanishing point.

  Before 1900, a man became an Alaskan big game guide by announcing that he was one, but always remember that in those days almost nobody lived up here. The entire population of the Territory of Alaska (that was twice the size of Texas) numbered less than 300,000 sturdy souls.

  Ninety or so years ago, the few professional guides were hardy characters most of whom managed only marginal livings finding trophy animals for well-heeled patrons who could afford a hunt's expense and the time commitment required.

  In 1908 a series of Territorial laws began licensing Alaskan guides, but early qualification to be a registered guide required only "Being a good and honorable man"—willing to pay $25.00 for a license.

  Most Alaskan hunting guides are remembered only during their lifetimes and within the memories of those they guided. How many of us recall Andy Simon from the Kenai who guided for fifty years beginning in the earliest 1900s?

  Andy Simon

  This photo of Andrew Simon was taken in the 1950s. If you wanted to hunt, say in 1911, you contacted Andy in Seward, Alaska. Simon guided famous and wealthy men who recorded their adventures in diaries and magazines. All are gone and mostly forgotten now.

  Simon himself is immortalized by the Andrew Simon Research Natural Area within the Kenai Wilderness. This unique ecological area of one million acres on the west side of the Kenai Mountains is home to Dall sheep, caribou, mountain goat, brown and black bear, and moose.

  Oscar Vogel

  Does the name Oscar Vogel ring a bell? Not for many, probably, but Vogel was very successful and extremely well known from the 1930s through the 1960s. This is how the hardy guide looked in the late 1950s. (The author wonders where these ancient photos come from. I discover them in my files, but the sources are probably long gone, as are their subjects. I have no idea and can offer no credits.)

  How about Slim Moore? Slim was guiding into the 1960s and was particularly proud of having guide license number one.

  Slim Moore

  I took this photo of Slim in 1973 at his home in Anchorage. We reminisced about times past, and the occasions we had met sheep hunting in the mountains near Big Delta. Slim had hunted everywhere, and his mind was sharp—a good memory for me.

  There is an old saying, "When you take your hand out of the water bucket, the hole disappears." That rule applies to even the most famous of us. We fade rapidly from memory, no matter how marvelous we may have been during our times.

  Big game guiding took a terrific beating from the Great Depression of 1930 through The Second World War. Most American men were relatively poor and interest lay in making livings and in winning the most terrible war in our history. Sport hunting was out. Only subsistence hunting was in. That was a good era for the big animals with little human hunting pressure to add to predator harvesting.

  A large percentage of the small, pre-WWII Alaskan population worked for the government and often had little interest in hunting beyond meat for eating. (Alaska remained a territory until 1959 and to this day retains a significant federal government presence.)

  Being a miner or a logger did not automatically qualify a man to be a skilled hunter or a hunting guide. There were homesteaders struggling with subsistence farms, but most of them had grown up while living in other states. Their hunting skills were often limited to dropping a moose that wandered through or a bear that came too close. If caribou migrated nearby, men went hunting, but the Dall sheep and the high-climbing goats were rarely threatened.

  By the 1950s, Alaskan residents had been in place long enough to build and to accumulate. The permanent population had risen to about 350,000. The Alcan Highway was being continually upgraded and long-haul trucks were plowing their ways north in dramatically increasing numbers. A non-resident hunter had only to plunk down a fifty dollar hunting fee, and he could go out there and do his best on animals of his own choosing almost anywhere in the territory.

  In those halcyon days, a hunting guide was not required. Whether they recognized it or not, cheechako hunters desperately needed guides, but for hunters skilled and knowledgeable, doing it alone added spice and adventure to their hu
nts.

  At the war's end (1945), professional guides with experience and measurable qualifications began surfacing. Through the writings of men like Outdoor Life magazine's Jack O'Connor, sheep hunting became a new and accomplishable dream for ordinary red hat hunters of other states.

  If you hunted sheep, many wondered, why not goats? And if you were up there doing that, why not seek out other mighty animals residing in our nation's game-rich northern climes? Conversely, if you went north, at great expense, to hunt the huge brown bears, why not try the high climbing game animals? Many did, and most enjoyed rugged if primitive wilderness hunts with remarkable trophies and unforgettable memories as their rewards.

  The photo above from the 1950s shows Steve McCutcheon holding on a brown bear. Mac was a famous photographer in Alaska (Mac's Photo®), and we have heard that he did not shoot this animal. We can sort of date the photo because Mac's rifle is sporting a Lyman Alaskan scope. No other sight that we know of had its adjustment turrets way out on the front of the tube like these are. The Alaskan had a skinny tube and a post reticle. Its power was 2 1/2X. Few continued to use these very excellent sights after the 1950s. It may be of minor interest to know that the author used this sight on his US Army issue 1903A4 sniper rifle in the Korean War, and it was the primary scope used in his 1952/53 sniper school in Japan.

  The bear guides of Kodiak Island wrote books and advertised in out-of-door magazines showing astonishing photos of gigantic bears with proud hunters crouched behind. Trophy hunters willing to pay handsomely for the chance to drop a big brown bear were becoming numerous and hunting thrived.

  Do not misconstrue the above to imply that hunting guides have ever made big money. Rich guides are as rare as hens' teeth. Guiding is not a convenient route to worldly wealth. Professional guides of earlier times chose their careers because they liked what they did.