The Alaska Professional Hunter
Feature #2 We are a family of hunters. As a child, I was taught to cherish, value and respect the animals we hunt and the environment in which they live. It was an easy lesson. My family’s 40-acre homestead is situated within a designated wilderness, surrounded by a National Wildlife Refuge that adjoins Katmai National Park. I grew up sharing the wilderness with the wildest of living beings. Summers, I ran barefoot through the tundra hunting small game with my bow, spent hours fishing the streams, and trapped during winters. The hope and promise of a game-rich land first attracted my parents to the area. And the Bristol Bay region of the Alaskan Peninsula is nothing if not gamerich. With a host of species ranging from the world’s largest Brown Bears, herds of caribou to an abundant moose population, it was an ideal place for a young family to start a guiding business 35 years ago. But it’s
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the wilderness that kept our family here. A healthy, fully intact ecosystem that has allowed us to live the majority of our years surviving, thriving and enjoying this place we call home. Our ‘lodge’ is tiny. It consists of a 24x24 rustic main building my father built in 1987, along with a modest scattering of outbuildings constructed utilizing surplus World War 11 Jamesway arches. My parents still insist we paint everything “tundra brown” or “alder green” to better blend in with our surroundings. “We don’t want to stand out and be an eye-sore,” mom explained while covering our buildings in drab colors. When early, archaic home-solar panels came out, my father installed them on our roof. He later invested 20 years of research and experimentation into a tiny wind generator that produces the majority of our power.
PROTECTING BRISTOL BAY RESPECTING THE ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH WE LIVE BY TIA SHOEMAKER
