Frontier Journal
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January/Febuary 2005

     Churning steel grey waters in the Lynn Canal have caused their damage to some of the ferry terminals in Skagway. "Skagua" is the oldTlingett (klin=ket) name for the town which means "place where the north wind blows", and apparently it blows (the wind)). The churning water seas have also done their damage to our favorite ferry and benefactor, the m/v Fairweather. The four diesel engines from Detroit (via Germany) and four powerful water jets from Sweden (via Rolls Royce) fought some darned powerful swells of wave in the area just near Berners Bay which is just past Juneau. The Motor Turbine Union Engines did well. The Rolls Royce jets did well. The hull, compliments of Derektor Shipyards of Conneticut got a "D-" though. Cracked like an eggshell the first time it was challenged.
     How embarrassing, either for the one who shelled out the forty million or for the builder of the vessle, and possibly just as unfortunate for yours truly since, without a ship I have no enterprise with which to make a living in this great Alaska towne.
The great land.
     I think I'll try my hand at hunting Moose and/or Black Tail Deer this coming year. Ironically, I did befriend a Black tailed deer family this past summer. In the Mendenhall Peninsula, where I once lived, upon a gentle incline in some lovely and lush moss covered forest land next to Auke Bay, there, in my back yard which bordered the non pathed forest did I meet the family this past summer. These petite animals are dears, so they are very wary, but in my back yard (which was really just a paved black-top driveway, a sharp incline and a green, primordial forest on top of a hill that buzzed with sea planes and helicopters during the busy summer sight seeing season) they would just kind of stare at me as I sat sometimes on the deck with my guitar.
"They" are a doe (a deer, a female deer beneath a "ray" or drop of golden sun) and her calf or whatever a young one is called. At first I only saw the branch legged, hoof footed, light brown haired body of what I thought was a youngster (kid, calf...?). Apparently these deer are very small though and that one turned out to be the mother and soon her branch eating youth would accompany her. They kept a wary eye on me as I would come and go from the brown panel house on the edge of the thick forest on top of the hill.
     My car would disturb their reverie more than I would I guess...my car was a Subaru that my brother in law and sister gave me for my sojourn to Juneau...four wheel drive and devoid of muffler, radiator fan and brake calipers (on one side...my humility car) and when I started it birds would abruptly flee the trees flying off in a loud flutter (which I was blissfully unaware of in the rumble of the brown bomber car), windows would fly open from the nearest neighbor one quarter mile away and the little black tailed deer family would stop chewing its rain forestry branches, freeze and stare: "Is this a predator?" "What is that?". they would then shake their heads a little in disgust, roll their eyes and continue eating as the baritone whale of my gravelly voiced engine receded into the distance.
Anyway, these were my friends, Even the Black Bear and her cub that came around once in a while were my friends and though I can rarely think of an instance whereas I have had to think of friends in terms of a satisfying game of hunt, kill and eat, apparently this is where my thoughts are going now.
     Well it IS the wild. Jagged snow capped mountains filled with thick furred mountain goats on their sure hooves; Moose lining the sides of the highway in Haines (well, not literally lining the street but hey, I'm from Cleveland...if I see one moose it's automatically "there were HUNDREDS OF THEM, MAN!!!"), moose with their skinny legs (another hoofed animal) in their raggedy blankety fur of dark brown and huge chests and massive head and snout...moose are very large animals kind of like horses on steroids and I have heard enough about how great moose meat tastes, how "you'll never want beef again" that I would like to try some and since it is not for sell at the IGA, Fred Meyers or Costco I must either find someone that has some or I have to find a weapon and; A)avoid shooting myself; B)avoid being shot; and C) shoot a moose using the proper licenses and procedures that are socially acceptable to everyone except vegetarians and even the vegetarians in Alaska eat meat that they shoot themselves... and then, so I hear, I will take the "Back straps", the meat along the back I'm assuming and the quarters and leave the rest...apparently this is what's done....lot of meat on a moose and not a thing to be done alone...you couldn't get the meat back...well, I'm six feet, one inch and 220 lbs and probably weigh as much as one hind leg of a moose, probably less...
So in ought five mayhap we shall go hunting in Hoonah, a native village on Chichagoff Island near Icy Strait near Glacier Bay...about forty miles from Juneau. Hoonah means "City by the cliff" and the Huna, a Tlingett people, have lived there for many a year. Commercial fishing is a large industry there.
     There is the second prong of my ought five skewer: I am going to have to pull an Alaskan (Pacific) Halibut out of the cool Pacific waters and eat it in many interesting preparations as well as share some (I guess that should've been first). This goofy, flat fish has two eyes on the same side of its face (because it's flat and hovers across the bottom of the ocean floor)...Halibut is delicious, that's all I can say.
     So I have to get a weapon and some fishing gear...and possibly a boat and a guide and some bait and some camouflage clothes and some beer...I probably have to get some beer sometime in ought five anyway..sounds like a plan.