For author M. Scotty Lamkin, a conventional lifestyle at a traditional job was a horribly mundane way to approach life. On January 16, 1979, he arrived in Alaska with fifty dollars in his pocket, two duffel bags, and a backpack. A long way from his Kentucky homeland, Lamkin journeyed to Alaska expecting adventure, and he was not disappointed. Chance Is the Providence of Adventurers narrates many of Lamkin's true-life escapades in Alaska's remote bush country. In this half-travelogue, half-memoir, Lamkin tells the sometimes funny, sometimes deadly, stories of his experiences as a professional guide and adventurer-waking up a brown bear at close range, sinking a boat in frigid Alaska waters, crashing bush planes, throwing rocks at bears, and experiencing some of the most beautiful landscapes on Earth. Chance Is the Providence of Adventurers offers a glimpse into the flavor of Alaskan life, provides a firsthand view of the wonders of untamed nature and wildlife, and demonstrates the results of taking a chance to change your life.
Chance Is the Providence of Adventurers
By M. Scotty LamkiniUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 M. Scotty Lamkin
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4759-2323-0Contents
Acknowledgments..............................................................viiPreface......................................................................ixIntroduction.................................................................1Chapter 1 Stupid Should Be Against the Law..................................5Chapter 2 The Old Man and the Bear..........................................9Chapter 3 I Don't Want to Die Anymore.......................................38Chapter 4 Look at the Size of That Bear!....................................57Chapter 5 There's Only One Thing Dumber than a Horse........................78Chapter 6 When the Chips Are Down, the Buffalo Is Empty.....................90Chapter 7 All Stressed Out and Nobody to Choke..............................101Chapter 8 Denny Crum, Lord of the Flies.....................................115Chapter 9 Bush Pilots.......................................................129Chapter 10 Silent Hunt......................................................146Chapter 11 Battle at Bell Creek.............................................162Chapter 12 Planning Our Next Alaskan Hunt...................................171Chapter 13 Parting Shots....................................................181Glossary of Alaskan Terms....................................................187
Chapter One
Stupid Should Be Against the Law
On Tuesday, October 7, 2003, the headline in the Anchorage Daily News said, "Bear Lovers Eaten," an all-too-familiar story here in Alaska. It seems every time I turn around someone is either getting killed or badly mauled by our bears. Most of the time, it's just bad timing, but that is not always the case. The article went on to say: "Among the last words Timothy Treadwell uttered to his girlfriend before a bear killed and partially ate both of them were these: `Get out of here. I'm getting killed.'" Their words were caught on a tape recording of the attack, which also revealed that Treadwell's girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, shouted at him to play dead and then encouraged him to fight back. Alaska State Troopers reported that that is what they heard on a videotape recovered the preceding Monday at the scene of a bear mauling in Katmai National Park and Preserve. The tape was in a camera found near the bear-buried remains of Treadwell, forty-six, and Huguenard, thirty-seven.
Trooper spokesman, Greg Wilkinson, said there were no pictures on the tape, leading troopers to believe the attack might have happened while the camera was stuffed in a duffel bag or during the dark of night. Treadwell had talked to an associate in Malibu, California, by satellite phone around noon on Sunday. He mentioned no problems with any bears.
The remains of the Southern Californians who came to Alaska to live intimately with the bears were found the next day. Treadwell had been coming to Alaska to live amongst the bears for thirteen years; his girlfriend had been coming with him for the previous three years. A large but scrawny old bear with bad teeth that a pilot had seen sitting on top of the bodies, was shot and killed by National Park Service rangers at the scene after it charged them.
This whole event was 100 percent avoidable. Treadwell thought he could connect with the bears. As it turned out, the bears connected with him. It is too bad his stupidity cost his girlfriend her life as well.
These bears don't necessarily kill you first. Let's not get into the gory details, except to say that the tape recording of the attack, found by the Alaskan troopers, went on for six minutes. This was a horribly painful way to die. It should be illegal to be stupid—and stupid usually hurts! In this particular case, it was horrifyingly fatal.
Within this story, there's plenty of stupid to go around. The Department of Fish and Game knew exactly what Treadwell was doing. They did warn him, but they should have gotten him out of harm's way somehow. I have no sympathy for Treadwell; his actions were stupid. He was not a tree-hugger type, as you might expect. No, Treadwell was a distinct sort of less-than-bright adventurer, perhaps a Darwinian evolutionary prototype that went awry, and the consequences of his actions should not be a surprise to anyone who understands Mother Nature, especially in Alaska. She can be mercilessly unforgiving.
I've had my share of near misses dished out by many different elements Lady Alaska has thrown at me. I know that dangers exist everywhere here. In the bush, you must always be thinking ahead—always! So, when walking out to meet adventure head-on in Alaska, what should you equip yourself with? Weapons were a good start for me.
Over the years, I've added experience to my life by doing it! The experience you gain in this country will keep you from making mistakes, like Treadwell. The weapon helps too. Mr. Gibbs would have surely saved them both. ("Mr. Gibbs" is a custom-made .505-caliber rifle machined from the nose gun of a wrecked WWII B-29 bomber that I found in Alaska's mountains. The name was given to the weapon by none other than Denny Crum, Hall of Fame college basketball coach!) You'll learn more about him later and find him to be a most comforting gentleman, offering both security and shelter in some of the most formidable circumstances tendered by the Lady! Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck, either; I've had my share of that too. Let's face it, we've all cheated death one time or another. A little luck is always welcome in my camp.
I'm not writing this book to tell you horrible stories and scare you half to death or bring on nightmares at some predawn hour. I want you to understand there are real wild places left on this Earth which go far beyond any urban challenges. What's required of you in this country goes way past that—way past it! If you get hurt in the bush, you may die. There are no roads that lead to quick fixes when serious trouble starts. There is no 9-1-1 you can dial and expect someone to show up in fifteen minutes to save your life. You are on your own! Therefore, being stupid or doing boneheaded things in the bush is risky business.
Once I found Alaska, I had to find my place in Alaska. In order to stop being silently consumed by caring what other people think, or might think, about me, I concluded one of the answers was to "find yourself." Sure, that's cliché, but everyone needs to find a way to be comfortable in his or her own skin and be okay with who they are. I was looking for experiences that might teach that; adversity adventures, if you will, would be a great instructor, and Alaska was full of them. The New Frontier I had come to was not a set of promises—it was a set of challenges. The New Frontier sums up not what I intended to offer Alaska, but what experiences I intended to get from Her.
Treadwell was doing something he loved to do; I will credit him for that. However, he should have been doing it alone. Wild animals are not there for us to make friends with. They are a part of the natural selection world; they don't look upon humans as peers but merely as a different kind of prey. Nevertheless, Treadwell was doing what he wanted to do, right up until a bear had a mouthful of him.
Approximately two years ago, James Kim died after he and his family were stranded, snowbound, in their car on the Oregon coast. Had that happened to me and my family, we would have been just fine. I would have known to find campfire, shelter, and food. Kill it if you have to. Set traps, snares; use all the primal instincts you have to stay alive—but above all, stay calm! Not staying calm made the Kim family panic. When you panic, you make bad decisions. What guy would leave his family? No way. Stay and fight the elements; help your family fight the elements. However, this guy had no doubt been an office worker somewhere who only went out in the wilderness once in a blue moon. He was totally out of touch with the natural world. How can humans do that? They don't; they just ignore it. Then when, and if, nature ever catches you with your pants down, you become a "naturally selected meal." Darwin would be proud.
I have had clients over the years do some pretty stupid things—things I've almost nailed them for, things that could have caused serious hardship or even cost us our lives. This country requires your absolute attention when you're out in it. There are just too many hazards that don't look hazardous. The elements and our standing in the Alaskan bush food chain can make for a quick demise if one is stupid.
Over the years, I came to understand that I could make a small fortune in the guiding business here. Not a fortune of any size, mind you, but I could do what I loved to do and make some money in the process. Money had nothing to do with it; I wanted to see all of what Alaska had to offer, and the only way I could ever afford to see most of this vast country was by guiding. I knew I would not amass lots of money, and I did not care. Money is only important in providing those things that make a person's life more interesting in allowing him or her to fulfill his or her dreams. Everything else is excess and generally frittered away on useless items that eventually become junk.
So now, it's time for you to put yourself in some of the situations that lay just pages ahead, enjoying the flavor of my Alaskan life. We're going to wake up a brown bear at close range. We are going to sink a boat in frigid Alaskan waters. We'll crash bush planes, throw rocks at black bears, and experience, firsthand, some of the most beautiful landscapes on the planet Earth.
Chapter Two
The Old Man and the Bear
I first met Forrest when he suddenly showed up at our lodge on Boomerang Lake, located in the Talkeetna Mountains. A bush pilot friend of mine named Jack McCarl had flown him in. Forrest just walked into Jack's office at Lake Hood in Anchorage and wanted to go bear hunting. That may sound like common practice, but it isn't. Forrest was from Ohio. Usually, plans for a hunt are made well in advance, not on the spot. Jack, being the kindhearted guy he was, felt bad for him. He knew we were at the lodge winding up the moose and grizzly season and thought we could help him.
Forrest wanted to hunt "big bear." He did not realize that our big bear were the brown bear hunts we offered on the Alaska Peninsula. That season would not be open again for hunting until the following year in October. He politely asked if he could stay for a few days anyway. I felt bad for the likable guy and said okay.
In those days, we scheduled our fall grizzly hunts around the same time as our moose hunts. Bears are attracted to an area that has moose kills. The blueberries are also in full swing, which is an added attraction. By September, all the bears are off the salmon and putting on as much fat as they can by eating all the wild berries that are available in this country. Forrest made mention of how big the country seemed to him; you could see for several miles. Most Lower 48 clients have real trouble with depth perception in Alaska.
I spent some time quizzing Forrest about how far he thought some distant object was. A stump three hundred yards away may appear to be only two hundred yards. It's the vastness around the subject that throws people off. A little quiz really helps newcomers.
We spent the next few days packing up gear and readying the cabins and lodge for the winter. In the early afternoons, I would take Forrest and go out on a point above the lodge, get out binoculars, and glass (please refer to the "Glossary of Alaskan Terms" for an explanation of "glassing") the mountainside and valleys. During that same period, I must have answered at least a thousand questions from Forrest, but that's normal.
Alaska is not a contiguous state. It sits near the top of the planet. It is unlike any other place on Earth. At least, it is for those of us who regularly venture out into it. Its lack of a developed road system has kept this place wild and dangerous—and that's a good thing. Adventure spawns in this wild, vast country.
Forrest had brought along his .300 Magnum, which I noticed he seemed to live pretty close to. That was encouraging to see. Forrest said he had "practiced with it all summer." He wanted a big brown bear.
Forrest wanted to know about the next brown bear hunt. I explained the costs and time frame he would need to allot for his hunt. I also explained to him all about our brown bear hunts next fall; I told him if he wanted me to guide him, he would have to make his mind up before some other client made it for him. I thought Forrest would make a great client for the brown bear hunt. You can usually tell if a man has spent time in the woods. Like Forrest, they'll have custom, homemade hunting knives, tattered camo clothes, some true stories, and they'll talk about their guns as if they were old girlfriends.
Forrest said he had always dreamed of hunting in Alaska for a large brown bear. He also told me that, as a student in grade school, the book reports he'd turn in to his teachers were always about bears. He had the fever. I told him we could hunt grizzly in Alaska; they are mean, but not the size he seemed to be after. He agreed. Besides, if he got a grizzly, he would not be eligible to hunt for bear for four years. It's the law. Again, Forrest's top priority was a large brown bear.
Forrest was a tool-and-die machinist on the B1 bomber project in the Columbus, Ohio, area at the time. As an hourly worker, he made a decent enough wage to afford a trip to Alaska; most don't. We spent the next few days learning more and more about one another as I finished all the lodge chores. Before he flew back, he signed for the fall brown bear hunt. I told him I would be on the road down his way that winter booking trips and doing shows. We made plans to see each other.
Closing up the lodge and cabins each year is very important and requires a little extra effort to keep the bears out. They are the epitome of persistence. If they smell anything associated with food (and that is everything but rocks), they'll try to get at it until they get their way. Bears don't use doors; they make new ones! Bear doors are always constructed at the weakest point of the structure.
Sometimes you must take shortcuts when building a cabin in the bush. Remember, all the parts of your cabin must be flown in. The smaller the lake or runway, the smaller the plane must be. That means ripping a piece of plywood that is four inches by eight inches in half and carrying it under the belly of the plane. The Super Cub, with its slow airspeed, makes it an ideal airplane for remote cabin building. You better tie damn good knots, though! You don't drive around in a pickup in the Alaskan bush. Logistically speaking, Africa is much easier for hunting. At least in Africa you don't have to fly as much to get to your base camp.
We have to take special care to protect the windows from bears. We'll generally take a board matching the width of the window and drive a bunch of sixteen-penny nails all the way through it. Then we screw the board to the bottom of the window area with all those nails sticking straight out. When bears rise up and put their paws on them, ouch!
These boards help some, but the bear usually proceeds to look around the cabin for a spot to make a new window or door. At least it saves the glass. Have you ever tied framed windows to the struts of an aircraft and taken off? Try to avoid it.
Any cans you see in the photo above had holes bit in them. Many pages of books were eaten because a client had food on his or her hands when he or she read it. I also noticed that some of the Playboy magazines were missing. Had to be the cubs! Gas cans outside also have holes bitten into them. For the most part, the entire complex will be wrecked. Therefore, it is very important that you do everything you can to bear-proof your cabins. Otherwise, when you return next season, it'll look like the mess above! Those bear "welcome mats" (nails) are a must in front of all doors and windows.
During the winter months, I find myself on the road doing shows in various spots in the Lower 48. At one point, I had to do a show in Columbus, Ohio. That put me close to New Lexington, about eighty miles east. I thought I would swing by Forrest's place and fine-tune our hunt. I called him up and made plans to visit.
Forrest lived out in the country with a great little wife named Bee. Bee was a school teacher; she also had a part-time job training Forrest.
Forrest had a small farm with a pair of beagles, couple of calves, garden, small tractor, and barn. He was my kinda guy. They lived in a small, comfortable farmhouse with an extra bedroom where they insisted I stay while visiting. It was a fun visit. They took me down to their local watering hole, and I was bombarded. The men wanted hunting information. The ladies were curious about this chunk of Alaskan testosterone.
I did not overstay my welcome at Forrest's home. I had a schedule to keep and a lot of road miles to cover before my flight back to Anchorage. Nevertheless, spending time with clients is very important prior to their hunt date. Over the years, I made it a point never to book clients from the mailbox. In other words, do not book clients you do not know. Knowing them is critical to the overall success of a trip. For example, I have met clients on my trips that when we went out at dinner might say grace before their meal. Then again, some clients sound like Sinbad the sailor at the dinner table. Some clients say grace and then cuss the meal.
Knowing the difference in personalities is crucial. I obviously can't guide all the clients, so I am sometimes required to send clients out to a spike camp with other assistant guides. Two people, who have never met before, go out and live together in a small tent for a few days at a time. Here is what can happen very easily:
Some of the guides go right along with saying grace before meals, and others do not. If I mismatch personalities between guides/clients, then good times are not likely during their stay at spike camp. Knowing your clientele is imperative right from the get-go.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Chance Is the Providence of Adventurersby M. Scotty Lamkin Copyright © 2012 by M. Scotty Lamkin. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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