Owl In The Smokehouse

Daylight is slow coming in this norther region. As the sun slowly crept over the horizion at ten AM, I checked out the back window and see if the local pine squirrel was at the bird feeder that is set up on the side of the smokehouse. It usually sits and eats the beans or seeds or crusts of bread we put out there for him. The birds, who struggle to survive in this snowy climate, also come to nibble on the treats.

On this crapisicular morning I could just make out a ghostly pale silhoutte of a small owl perched on one of the upright posts. He sat at the top, on the pointy end of the verticle post; from his advantage point he could see the bird feeder where some seed was scatterd across the snow. There, the voles were getting a free lunch as well.

I could see his head slowly rotating while he scanned below for the slight movement of a vole searching out the seeds in the snow. I sat and watched as it became full daylight and realized the squirrel would soon arrive at the bird feeder for his customery breakfast.

I went in the kitchen and got a cup of mocha (that was my morning ritual) and by the time I made it back to the window all hell had broken loose. The squirrel had arrived and was loudly chattering and bouncing around the side the smokehouse like spiderman on crack. All the while cussing at that owl - that didnt look much bigger than a ptarmigin. To tell you the truth, had this been Las Vegas I would of put my wager on the squirrel. He was fearless of me and the neighborhood dogs that would send him scampering up the pole to the feeder. But once just out of reach of the dogs, he would sit and cuss their mother and everything else about them and showed no fear of even God himself.

Well he went spinning around the smoke house chattering for an hour, while the small boreal owl swiveled his head around trying to make sense of all the commotion that was going on while he was trying to take a nap in the new morning sunshine.

The owl eventually seemed to get aggravated and flew to perch on the piece of plywood that was partially covering the smokhouse door. He fluffed his feathers and ignored the squirrel as best he could while dozing off.

The squirrel still seemed upset about the owl's presence at "his" feeder, but was content to sit just above the owl on the smokehouse. There, he could keep and eye on the intruder and doze off into the morning sunshine with him.

Moose And Me

After a rough ride through the broken ice on my snowmachine I got to the other side of the river. There is a high cut bank that detours me down river a short ways until I come to a small creek that allows me acces up the bank. From there it's a big frozen swamp with huge areas that the snow is pawed away. Often times moose get down on their front knees, while their hind ends are still standing and eat the plants that are froze under the snow. They gather in these areas in large numbers when the snow is not too deep. There they forage while also scraping bark from the willow bushes with there lower front teeth. They munch the tips of the branches usually by method of grabbing the branch in there mouth and breaking it down for easy access.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game estimates 4000 moose in this area and down river to the coast.

The moose are a blessing for sure. This part of Alaska was meat hungry as early back as the 1980s. The moose population was dier and they closed hunting season for 5 years in hopes they would repopulate. They sure did. It was a success story unlike any other. The population increased rapidly, due to what many believe was the fires upriver. They think they drove many moose down to inhabit this lush willow rich country. With very few wolves in the area as well, they have a pretty easy life around here.

I also can see a down side to having too many moose, especially when I come riding down a thick willow trail and there is a moose or three on the trail ahead. The drill goes like this: Do a face off for a few minutes and see if he leaves the trail. If not, yell and clap my hands. If that doesn't work, I get off and start manually turning my machine around on the tight trail all the while keeping one eye over my shoulder watching the moose.

Once, while having a face off and getting about midway turned around I had a impatiant moose charge down the trail towards me. I had to jump off the trail and flounder through the chest deep snow to a tree to climb. I was able to get five feet up before the now running moose decided he would jump over my snowmachine. He leapt through the air with form much like you would see a flying reindeer on Santa's sleigh. The moose's leap fell short; his back hooves didn't clear the machine and caught on the back rack and he fell like a grand piano right in the snow next to me in the small tree. He looked over. We shared a glance while he layed there for a moment gathering himself. Then he got to his feet and trotted down the trail in the direction he so desperately wanted to go; like nothing ever happend.

Crossing the Yukon River

The ice in front of the village has stopped flowing and jammed early last week. With the colder temps the river is now locked under hard water until mid May when it breaks up again. It will be our highway, our grocery store, and from its banks we will utilize the driftwood to heat our homes through out the long winter. The women will gather down on the ice in front of the village and jig for pike through the ice. They will catch them to be freeze-dried on fish racks out in there yards so they can keep a close eye on them and keep the ever hungry ravens at bay.

The men will be busy with their nets and fish traps out on the ice, so there is a social atmosphere about it. There is always someone doing somthing out on the ice.

The ice quickly thickens with the colder weather and by spring it will be as much as four feet thick in some places.

The water is low during the fall freeze-up so the tops of sandbars are sticking out and can blow sand during storms much like a desert dust storm.

The men are eager to cross and usually one man will walk on the jumbled broken ice (that looks like broken glass pushed into piles and ridges) testing with an ice pick ahead of each step to see if it's safe enough to drive a snowmobile (snowmachine) across.

If he succeeds and makes it, he will return with his snowmachine and get his sled. Then he will gather driftwood poles and stand them up in small holes chipped in the ice with his ice pick to mark the trail. These will be used so when it snows folks can find the marked trail and make it across safely. Some places are still open so we must not deviate from the trail for fear of going through a thin spot on the ice until everything is solidly froze over in a month or so.

On the far side of the river is a mud cutbank that's ten feet high and must be climbed with the snowmachine to access a network of trails called portages cut through the thick willow and alder brush with stands of cottonwood mixed in.

These trails are arteries that lead to sloughs that we can travel on. They lead to lakes and that's where the country opens up and travel is uninhibited by lack of trees so we can go most anywhere.

The men will busy once they get across the river. Some will be hauling driftwood logs and loading sledloads of firewood before the snow gets deep and the wood is burried. Others will be setting blackfish traps in the marshes. And many will be setting out and tending their traplines to catch meat and fur- the latter for much needed winter income to buy gas and everyday needs.

It will be the beginning of the long Alaskan winter. A time to slow down and enjoy the peace and tranquility only the winter snow seems to bring.

I will be out there almost daily doing my thing. It is my favorite time of the year.

The Morning After: Alaska Bering Sea Storm

   The view in my backyard hasn't changed.

Well here it is, the morning after the expected apocalypse and everything seams fine. The winds last night were atrocious and had the house shaking on its very foundation, but we didn’t wake up in the land of OZ.

We are inland 75 miles from the Bering Sea so it seems we didn’t get the full brunt of the storm. So far I have not heard of any major flooding on our immediate coastal area. Even Nome was relatively dry. As far as water and ice coming into town as predicted, so far there has just been some roof damage and one village lost power. That is about the extent of it, from what I have heard. The winds here this morning are calm, but a lot of our snow is gone. It simply blew away from the high winds we had last night. The temps have warmed and the morning is gun metal gray. So we can expect some more snow or possibly rain yet today, or yet another wave from the storm to wrap around and hit us again before all is said and done.

Folks here are used to these storms. They roll in as old remnants of Japanese typhoons. Often times they are from the tropical storms that come to die in the western Bering Sea. Much like the salmon, they soon lose strength and become just another snow storm or rain and high winds.

And yet some are very much alive, and can pound our small villages on the west coast.

As long as there is not high water rolling through the main streets, the villages are pretty much bullet proof against these storms. As they have endured others just like it and are still standing. Sometimes I look at some of the old buildings in town and wonder in amazement how they are still standing after such a storm, despite there leaning like the Tower of Pisa even before the onset of the storm.

Around the village life will go on as normal. People will go to the post office despite no mail plane yesterday. The local store will be open for business. Even school is on for the kids. Most locals will say it was nothing really, just another storm, and wonder why all the international media hype. They will go about their normal daily lives. The nets will be checked, the wood chopped, as any another day in the life of the village.

Alaska Bering Sea Storm Update

 A picture of the village with our first few strong gusts. Approximately 6:00 AK time.

Satellite Shot of the storm Curtosy of Alaska Weather Service

Alaska Bering Sea Storm

After getting the net checked this morning, I got some wood cut and brought into the house to feed the always hungry wood stove. All was accomplished during what is made out to be the mother of all storms, headed our way. The Yukon River spills into the Bering Sea and the small Yup'ik Eskimo villages that live along its low lying areas are about to be flooded. That could be bad in more ways than one. First off, it's pretty much winter here and the low-lying villages are barley above sea level so when the wind blows the water up on shore during the high tides people will have virtually no high ground to get to.

I experianced one bad storm on the coast while on a hunt. When the tide came up and the small cabin we were staying in was flooded and we actually floated the cabin on a high tide that was six feet over the bank. Had I not tied two big set net anchors to hold the house in place before hand, the house would of floated inland with us in it. It was one of the most hair raising experiences I was ever in. At one point the tide went back out and we were set back on the ground. We opened the door and let the two feet of water that was sloshing around like bilgewater out. We simply lit the stove again with wood we had piled on the bunks to stay dry along with all our bedding.

We were tired but alive and all went to bed only to be awoke again because of the waves rocking the house again. And this time they were much bigger. We floated up again. The logs under the cabin acting as pontoons to keep up afloat, but this time the winds got even worse and one of the anchor lines pulled loose and the house went sideways in the wind. one anchor still held but we were no longer afforded the leward side of the house where we could tie to the boat out of the waves.

My partner and his young boy of 16 yrs old decided it was time to try and call on the VHF on channel sixteen [the emergencey channel]. But his call for assitance went unanswerd. We could see now, as it was getting light. And though we could jump into the boat and try to make it up the Yukon River to the safety of the river banks, they too were flooded. We pushed off and rolled in the huge surf of the Bering Sea in our 20 foot open skiff. It felt like a toy in the bath tub as we rode up one big wave and down the back side. Slowly but surely we made our way up, and after a few miles made it into the relative safety of river banks that were still somewhat flooded even miles up the river. We were tired and stopped at a fish camp to rest. The floor of the cabin was wet, so we knew the water came up that far. We lit the stove and slept for a day eating and drying up.

The next mornning we continued up river the remaining sixty miles and made it home where even here the water had rose overnight from the storm surge and went down again.

So now I sit and wait for our 948 millabar low that's supposed to decend on us tonight. If this was the lower fourty eight states they would call it a hurricane. But here it's still just a storm.

We hope and pray for those on the lower Yukon River and Bering Sea coastal areas, that they can find high ground and get out of harms way. We should be OK here with minimal damage, but those poor lowland folks could have ice chunks pushed by water crashing through there village tonight.

Our river here is fresh froze over with ice, so it will be interesting to see if the high water surge makes it upriver seventy miles like it did last time. Some fishing nets recently set in the new formed ice could be lost if the ice opens up again.


I can expect the house to be shaking from the high winds. It's a common occurance here. We can expect to lose our internet, perhaps even the power we all depend on.


But here we will be fine. We have freezers full of meat and fish and woodstoves to keep warm.

We hope for the storm to have mercy on the poor souls that cannot get out of it's path.

How To Set an Ice Net

Fish is a very important food source here on the big river. During summer it's salmon and in winter there is four species referred to as whitefish or white meated fish. There is burbot, lush, sheefish (that can get huge and look like a tarpon), and then two smaller species of actual whitefish.

These are important for fresh fish during the winter months and most families here will keep an under ice net all winter.

Early in November when the Yukon has frozen over only a few inches, all the men will go out on the new ice right in front of the village. There, they strech out their nets on top of a smooth patch of ice to create a marker for holes that they will chop to set the net. Laying the net down helps to measure the length.

At each end of the net a hole is chipped through the ice, until we have a round hole about 3 feet in diameter.

We also have a long pole or board about ten to fifteen feet long. A short string is tied on with a net floater (or an empty air-tight jug) attached to it.

The pole is laid on the ice as a marker in between the two holes and more holes are chopped through the ice at each measured length of the pole.

Then a line is tied to the floater and pushed under the ice until the floater pops up in the next hole. The line is then untied and held while the pole is retracted out the way it came. The line is tied again and pushed under the ice again until the floater pops up in the next hole and so on until you have a line under the ice from the first hole to the furtherest hole.

Then the net is piled in front of one hole and tied to the line. Going to the other hole, pull the line as the net feeds down the hole and under the ice. Continue to pull until it pops out at the other end. It is then tied to a long pole (approximately 6 to 8 feet). That pole is submersed down the hole several feet and tied to a brace stick that is frozen in the ice beside the hole for support. (To create the brace stick, chop a hole beside the large hole and place the brace stick inside. By the time we finish setting the net the brace stick is frozen into the ice enough to hold the other stick). The other end is also tied to a pole in the same manner. We push the stick straight down through the hole into the water and tie it off on a wooden support brace frozen into the ice as well.

When checking the net daily, ice is chopped out of the two end holes and the slush is scooped out with a shovel. Then a line is laid out the a little longer than the length of the net on top the ice. One of the poles is then untied from the support and pulled up out of the water. The net is untied from that pole and tied to the line stretched out on top the ice. It is let go. Then we go to the other end; that pole is untied from the support then pulled out of the water and left tied to the pole as the net is pulled out of the water. We pile the net on top of the ice in front of the hole and each fish is carfully picked out of the net as they come out on top of the ice.

Once you reach the end of the net the end is thrown back into the hole. The line at the other end, at the far hole, is pulled and the net feeds itself back under the ice. The pole is reset on the support stick and the other end is untied from the line and reattached to the pole and tied back to the support.

The line is rewrapped and the fish are loaded up in a sack to be shared with friends and family back in the village.

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