Alaska Magazine September 2018 Issue preview

FARM TOURS FOOD PROCESSING YUP’IK FEAST The Magazine of Life on the Last Frontier

Photo Essay:

BEAUTY IN THE HUNT

HARVEST Issue

FAMILY MOOSE HUNT ALASKA’S BOUNTY KOBUK “TURKEY”

09.18 V OLUME 84, NUMBER 7

FEATURES

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Photo Essay: Beauty in the Hunt

Harvesting for winter in Alaska Text by Charlie Ess Images by Cheryl Ess

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Tuntuvak Time

A family moose hunt on the Yukon River

By Jacquelyn Crace-Murray (Ayagiaq)

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Kobuk “Turkey” Ptarmigans make a festive meal

By Michael Engelhard

Jakob Murray helps field dress and pack moose meat on a family hunt.

JACQUELYN CRACE-MURRAY

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Alaska’s Bounty Food from land, sea, and sky

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DEPARTMENTS

QUOTED

“Eating local, from the land’s riches, makes perfect sense.”

The Cache 22 Backyard Bounty Alaska students reap benefits of local food production

~ IF YOU HAVE TO ASK NICK JANS P. 18

22 Fresh in January Converted shipping containers allow for year-round produce growth 24 Diving for Cukes Alaska’s lesser-known fishery 27 A Local Solution Co-ops get healthy foods to Alaskans at a reasonable price

Discover 30 People

A Traditional Feast

32 Rambles

30

34

PALMER

SOUTHWEST ALASKA

The Island Stepchild

34 Try This

Farm Tours

38 Sense of Place

Formed by Glaciers

40 Sportsman

Four Seasons in One Day

42 Gear

PLUS: 6 My View North 10 Feast 12 Alaska Exposed 18 On the Edge 44 Natural Alaska 46 History 48 Community 79 Interview 80 This Alaskan Life

On the Cover: Nelson Merrell loads golden king crab into a tote while offloading the hold of the F/V Morgan Anne in Juneau. ~Photo by Chris Miller/csmphotos.com

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPTEMBER 2018

TOP: BEACON MEDIA + MARKETING, BOTTOM: COURTESY TOM BOL, MAT-SU CVB

Food Processing Equipment

Alaska’s Other Natural Resource Local foods and nature’s store provide sustenance

days that should an interruption in freight service occur anywhere along the transportation route, our grocery store shelves would be bare within three to five days. Lucky for us, we’ve got a plethora of local food options right out our back doors.

Alaska imports about 95 percent of its food, but in recent years, farmers markets have popped up like mushrooms (some even operate year-round), and the support-local trend—actually an age-old concept all but abandoned in modern times—has the Great Land firmly in its meaty little clutches. In my larder alone you’ll find locally bought or harvested items like blueberries from—(you didn’t really think I’d reveal my secret picking spot, did you?) in the freezer; raw goat milk from a Wasilla dairy farmer (Alaska law forbids the sale of raw milk, so people participate in herd shares); birch syrup from trees near Talkeetna; eggs I purchase regularly at a local pet and livestock supply store; potatoes overwintered and sold at an Anchorage farmers market all year; chutney made with rhubarb from my mom’s garden; salmon and moose my family caught and shot; whole barley and barley pancake mix from a farm in Delta Junction; alder-smoked sea salt from Sitka; and beer and hard cider from Alaska breweries. As I write this column in mid-June, I sip nettle tea from back yard leaves I dried last week and snack on freshly plucked neon-yellow dandelion flowers sautéed in butter—another good reason to love edible weeds.

The fall harvest—or any season’s reaping—in Alaska isn’t just about stocking up on food or enjoying its flavors. It’s also about the lifestyle. Alaskans love to get out of town to stalk a Dall sheep up impossible rocky ridges or fight that strong, slippery, silver salmon or sit on the tundra filling buckets with wild, organic berries. Work and school be damned! Fall is short and we must get it while the gettin’s good! In fact, last year a school district in western Alaska cut 20 days off of its school calendar partly for financial reasons but also to accommodate rural subsistence practices that conform to natural rhythms for hunting, fishing, and gathering.

In this issue, we share with you a variety of harvest stories— from a family moose hunt to traditional Native foods to a community that works together to feed itself. We hope you enjoy.

Susan Sommer Editor editor@alaskamagazine.com

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Blueberries in a good year.

As I write this column in mid-June, I sip nettle tea from back yard leaves I dried last week and snack on freshly plucked neon-yellow dandelion flowers sautéed in butter—another good reason to love edible weeds.

Editor’s notes CORRECTIONS: The photo of Ray Troll in our April issue was taken by Marc Osborne. We’d like to correct the spelling of Nicholas Galanin’s name on page 27 of our July/August issue.

NOTE: Beware of fake subscription renewal notices in the mail. Legitimate notices will go to Palm Coast Data, 11 Commerce Boulevard, Palm Coast, FL 32164.

COURTESY SUSAN SOMMER

I

T’S FAIRLY COMMON KNOWLEDGE AROUND ALASKA THESE

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Homeowners, and condo coverages are writtenHathaway throughInc. non-affiliated companies and are secured throughpayment the GEICO Agency, ATV coverages arecompanies, underwrittenorbyin allGEICO Indemnity is a registered service bymark of Government Employees Insurance Company,renters Washington, D.C. 20076; a Berkshire subsidiary.insurance © 2018 GEICO Some discounts, coverages, plansInsurance and features areInc. not Motorcycle available in and all states, in all GEICO situations.

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Homeowners, and condo coverages are writtenHathaway throughInc. non-affiliated companies and are secured through the GEICO Insurance Agency, Inc. Motorcycle and ATV coverages are underwritten by GEICO Indemnity Company. GEICO is a registered service mark of Government Employees Insurance Company, Washington, D.C. 20076; a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. subsidiary. © 2018 GEICO

Your best friend invites you to go berry picking.

What’s your response?

This month at

alaskamagazine.com Log on and explore life on the Last Frontier.

The Magazine of Life on the Last Frontier

Yippy! Can we stay out all day?

I’ll bring the bucket!

I would politely decline, stay home, watch a movie, and when my friend returned, I would pester him for a bag of his fresh berries.

How many buckets, and who’s bringing the bear spray?

GROUP PUBLISHER EDITOR

Susan Sommer

SENIOR EDITOR

Michelle Theall

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Melissa Bradley

ART DIRECTOR ASSISTANT EDITOR GEAR EDITOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR HUMOR COLUMNIST DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGER

Give us your best shot!

Share your best photos with us on Facebook and tag us on Instagram for a chance to be featured on our social media or here. Above is a shot of the Kenai River at Cooper Landing, a popular fishing spot, taken by JR Reeve of Timeless Aerial Services.

Daryll Vispo captured the image below with his cell phone on a late evening summer hike.

DIRECTOR OF PUBLISHING SERVICES

Shock and confusion…hmmm, must have dialed the wrong number.

John Lunn

SPECIAL PROJECTS PRODUCT MANAGER

DIRECTOR OF MANUFACTURING

Steven Merritt Alexander Deedy Bjorn Dihle Nick Jans Susan Dunsmore Seth Fields Karen Fralick David L. Ranta

Where can we find salmonberries?

YES. Since I’m a serious berry picker—I’m considering getting “Pick Berries To Live, Live to Pick Berries” tattooed in Sanskrit on my neck—I’d likely already be in one of my favorite secret patches. I’d probably pepper spray my best friend if he showed up, then put a bag on his head and march him in circles so he’d forget the location, before throwing him in the trunk of my car. After I was done picking, we’d go for coffee.

Mickey Kibler Donald Horton

I’d get ready to make a fresh blueberry buckle.

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPTEMBER 2018

Alaska, ISSN 0002-4562, is published monthly except for combined July/August and December/January issues by MCC Magazines, LLC, a division of Morris Communications Company, LLC. Editorial and Advertising Offices: 301 Arctic Slope Ave., Suite 300, Anchorage, Alaska 99518. Not responsible for the return of unsolicited submissions. Known office of publication: 735 Broad St., Augusta, Ga. 30901. U.S. subscription rates: $24 for one year; $46 for two years. Canada and Mexico add $20 per year (U.S. Funds only). Outside North America add $40 per year (U.S. Funds only). Our trademarks registered in the U.S. Patent Office and in Canada: “Alaska,” “Alaska Sportsman,” “Life on the Last Frontier,” “From Ketchikan to Barrow,” “End of the Trail,” “The Guide Post,” “Main Trails & Bypaths,” “Alaska-Yukon Magazine.” Periodicals postage paid at Augusta, Ga., and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Alaska, PO Box 433237, Palm Coast, FL 32143-9616. In Canada, periodicals postage paid at Winnipeg, Manitoba; second-class registration number 9771, GST No. 125701896. Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 279730. © 2018 Alaska magazine. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. Volume 84, Number 7.

FACEBOOK POLL RESULTS

Tell us about what you’ve been able to harvest from Alaska.

Below are a few reader comments from the poll question posted on facebook.com/AlaskaMagazine Alex Karas: Sure do love the blueberries.

Everybody loves Alaska.

Discover why our clients love advertising in Alaska.

Have a conversation with Melissa today about your marketing goals. melissa.bradley@alaskamagazine.com

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907-275-2152

Terry Aitchison: Low bush cranberries, huckleberries, and tundra tea.

Gayle Lucky: I harvested a treasure trove of photographs from the wondrous state of Alaska.

www.akstarfish.com 907.344.0223

Homer • Seward • Anchorage

Authentic Alaskan Clothing Designs

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Laura Townsend: I have fond memories of harvesting Labrador tea in the woods behind our house when I was growing up. I can still remember the taste and wish I had some now!

Earlene Thornton: We picked blueberries, cranberries, lingonberry, rhubarb, salmon berries. They were all wild and very tasty.

SEPTEMBER 2018 A L A S K A

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Sometimes simple is best. Sprinkle a wild Alaskan salmon fillet with seasonings and bake or grill.

A Guide to Alaska’s Wild Salmon

BY SUSAN SOMMER

S

ALMON IS A STAPLE IN ALASKAN

diets. We encourage our readers to always buy wild Alaskan salmon— never farmed—to help keep the state’s thriving fishing industries healthy, and to ensure consumers are getting the beneficial oils and nutrients of wild-caught salmon. Here is a short guide to help you unravel the mysteries of the five salmon species present in Alaskan waters.

Sockeye/Red: Sockeye salmon retains its

bright red color when cooked. The color and flavor are due to a diet of plankton and krill. The same preparation methods used for king apply to sockeye. The name “sockeye” is a translation of suk-kegh from British Columbia’s Indigenous Coast Salish language. It means “red fish.”

Coho/Silver: Firm flesh, delicate flavor,

and an orange-red tint make coho an attractive choice for those new to the flavor of salmon. Grilling is often the best cooking method. “Coho” most likely comes from the Salish language.

Chum/Keta/Dog/Silverbrite: No matter its variety of names, this species presents a light flavor, firm pink flesh, and low oil content and grills or roasts nicely at a lower temperature than king, sockeye, or coho.

Smoking is a very popular way to preserve 10

A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPTEMBER 2018

Wild Alaskan salmon is a nutritious addition to any meal. From top: king, coho, keta, pink, sockeye.

it. Males develop dog-like canines when spawning, hence the moniker “dog” salmon. “Chum” is a Pacific Northwest Indigenous version of tzum, meaning “spotted” or “marked,” while “keta” is part of the scientific name (Oncorhynchus keta).

Some say “Silverbrite” is just a fancy marketing term, but others relate hearing Alaska Natives use the term for these fish when they are caught in or near the ocean

Salmon Nutrition

A side-by-side comparison

Compiled from information at alaska seafood.org.

(rather than far up a freshwater river) and when the skin is still silvery.

Pink/Humpy: Often canned rather

than sold fresh, pinks have a mild flavor, soft to medium texture, and— you guessed it—pink flesh. The term “humpy” comes from the large hump that forms on the backs of males during spawning.

For Alaskan salmon and other seafood recipes, visit alaskaseafood.org/ foodservice/recipes/commercial-recipe s.

COURTESY ALASKA SEAFOOD

King/Chinook: The largest of the five species of Alaskan salmon has bright red flesh, a rich taste, and firm texture. It also has the highest oil content, which makes it perfect for a number of cooking methods including grilling, broiling, sautéing, roasting, poaching, and smoking. “Chinook” refers to the name of an Indigenous culture of the Pacific Northwest. “King” refers to its comparative size. The king salmon is Alaska’s official state fish.

Where do you read Alaska?

We read the May issue of Alaska magazine in Klatovy, Czech Republic, near Black Tower (built in the middle of the 16th century). We received Alaska as a gift from my friend Luke, who lives in Nome. I was goldmining in Nome 18 years ago and our friendship lasts, no matter the passing years or huge distance. We are still in contact. This is my eight-year-old daughter, Joli, in the picture with Alaska. As she starts learning English at school, such gifts are useful.

Martin and Joli Burda Klatovy, Czech Republic

My wife and I have had a long subscription to Alaska magazine. We have had family living in Alaska since the early 1950s. Our niece, Melodye, still lives there, and my brother, Dwight, taught school in Glennallen. My sister, Mariam, was a bus driver for the school district in Wasilla. This picture is from Hellesylt, Norway, with the waterfall that flows through the center of the fjord town. We are both retired school teachers and have had the pleasure of traveling to 114 countries. My school chess team also had a chess match with the Barrow Junior High chess team back in the 1990s. We made the moves and sent them by fax twice a week. Barrow teacher Mr. Culbertson was a great help.

My wife and I, along with my two daughters and sons-in-law, all celebrated our wedding anniversaries on Memorial Day weekend on Mackinac Island, Michigan. Located between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, it’s a spectacular place, but Katmai, Kodiak, Denali, the Kenai Peninsula, and all of the great Alaska places we have visited were also on our minds. I’m wearing my Rust’s Flying Service hat from my fifth visit to Alaska and brought along Alaska magazine to read on the Grand Hotel’s longest porch in the world.

David Schoem Ann Arbor, Michigan

Dewain Barber My daughter and I, along with her husband and three friends, floated a section of the Noatak River in 2015. We decided to camp across from the mouth of the Kugrak River where chum salmon were spawning.

It was a beautiful spot with clear water and the Kugrak Valley spreading south into the distance toward Danger Pass. The fishing at this spot was great with grayling, char, and chum all eager to pounce on our lures. We humans were not alone though, as you can see the local population of bears had a tasty

meal of fish on their menu also.

With the bears on one side of the river and us on the other, we were able to share the fishing hole without any altercation and took some memorable pictures of these magnificent animals. My daughter had the foresight to bring a copy of Alaska magazine with a cover image of a similar bear. We enjoyed watching them in the wild while reading about them at the same time.

Ray Kelley Palmer, Alaska

Connect with us! Send us pictures of where you read Alaska and submit letters to the editor at editor@alaskamagazine.com.

SEPTEMBER 2018 A L A S K A

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ALASKA EXPOSED Plenty of Fish

Darlene Lincoln and Gloria Alirkar of Toksook Bay in western Alaska show off their cleaned and braided herring, hung to dry on a fish tepee.

JIMMIE LINCOLN

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ALASKA EXPOSED Berry Bliss

Blueberries, crowberries, bunchberries, and cranberries on aspen leaves in Denali National Park.

PATRICK J. ENDRES / alaskaphotographics.com

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ALASKA EXPOSED Preparing the Catch

Wild Alaska salmon is a staple in kitchens around the state.

Focal length: 55 mm Shutter speed: 1.3 sec Aperture: f/18 ISO: 200 JODY OVERSTREET /

jodyo.photos

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SEPTEMBER 2018 A L A S K A

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If You Have To Ask

I

STOOD AT MY KITCHEN TABLE IN AMBLER

on a September afternoon, knife working through a caribou hindquarter—gorgeous, wine-red meat, layered with fat. A growing mound of full, labeled freezer bags adorned the counter behind me. Meanwhile, a stew of tender backstrap medallions bubbled on the woodstove, and strips of drying, spiced jerky hung from my indoor rack. On a slab of cardboard on the floor lay a front shoulder, waiting its turn.

Thanks to my always-generous buddy Seth Kantner, I’d struck it rich in the Alaska bush sense: a jackpot of prime, well-caredfor meat, enough to keep me fed while I was home for my autumn visit, and still more to tide me through a winter far south. Add in the char, sheefish, and pike that already lay filleted in the freezer, plus a chunk of bear that had been passed my way, and I was all set to deal with a faraway world where such delicacies—my Inupiaq neighbors would argue necessities— weren’t to be had at any price.

Wild protein, preferably rich in fat, stands as the nutritional currency of Arctic Alaska. Moose, ducks and geese, beaver, bear, various species of fish, plus hares, ptarmigan, even lynx, porcupine, and more, find themselves onto tables across the bush. A competent hunter-gatherer can usually fill the home freezer and caches with dried, smoked, frozen, or fresh-in-season meat and fish. Especially skilled and active individuals, male and

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BY NICK JANS

female, routinely manage to keep an extended circle of family, neighbors, and friends provided for.

The land can be generous with its protein, as delicious and organic as it gets; but you can’t survive on that alone. A straight diet of lean meat will lead to serious nutritional deficiencies— meat sick, the old timers call it. However, if one adds loads of fat and water to catalyze the metabolic process, meat can indeed be the staff of life. That’s how the traditional Inupiat managed to not only survive but thrive for millennia.

Of course, scarce vegetable matter is highly prized, when it can be found in the brief snow-free season. Most important are a variety of berries. Assorted wild greens and a starchy root called masru (Eskimo potato) are eagerly sought, especially by old folks steeped in tradition. Inupiat from centuries past would also eat the fermented greens in a caribou’s stomach—though it’s hard to find anyone who’s tried it lately.

Today’s bush residents still depend on the land’s bounty. But over the past decades, folks have become increasingly reliant as well on a cash economy, and what elders call “store food”— canned, fresh, or packaged goods that come from far over the horizon. In the world beyond roads, these modern necessities arrive by barge, plane, skiff, and snowmobile from bush hubs like Barrow and Kotzebue, or direct from Alaska’s large cities (Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau), or even the Lower 48. Any

NICK JANS

Nature supplements “store food”

Nick works from his van packing groceries and supplies to mail from Fairbanks.

Caribou jerky ready to hang and dry at Nick’s house in Ambler.

trip outside the village, whether for medical, work, or social reasons, is bound to include forays of serious power shopping, everything from fresh produce to canned fruit, flour, and soda pop in case lots.

On my way into Ambler for my annual autumn stay, I’ll plan a minimum two days in Fairbanks for shopping and shipping. I start at the big box outfits and work my way down to supermarkets and specialty stores for items I don’t want a dozen of—hot sauce, say. Then I figure what I should carry as excess baggage; stuff requiring refrigeration or delicate handling gets priority.

Last, I head for the post office, and spend hours in the parking lot working out of my van, packing, labeling, and taping, sometimes up to two dozen boxes; not only groceries, but anything from freezer bags to outboard motor parts. Some stuff may not be food, but it’s nevertheless vital for hunting and gathering. One thing’s for sure: if you don’t plan ahead and keep careful lists, you’re bound to miss things, with replacements a few hundred miles away.

Sure, you can also order things online and have them mailed in. That’s a major part of the logistics dance as well. I use Amazon Prime and other freight-included suppliers as I can. But they filter what they’re willing to ship to certain zip codes, and you can’t get everything you need from them. Doing the shipping yourself from a major postal hub helps keep costs and waiting down. I stuff as much weight as I possibly can in Priority Mail boxes and also take advantage of a special parcel post rate in Fairbanks that’s the last vestige of once-generous Alaska postal subsidies.

So, why not just lug everything along as excess baggage?

Consider the cost on Ambler Air: $1.50 per pound, after exceeding 30 pounds. As it is, last fall I paid more than 300 bucks for accompanying freight and dropped another $250 at the post

office. There’s just no cheap way—just a somewhat cheaper way—of getting your grub and other necessities to the bush.

What about village stores? Ambler, population 300-ish, currently has two, including the one I helped build and manage back in 1979 (long ago passed to new ownership). Their current costs reflect the expense of getting things in, plus a realistic profit margin tacked on that still renders prices crazy by Outside standards. Consider seven dollars for a bag of chips, almost three bucks for a can of vegetables, or four for a battered head of lettuce. My buddy John once said, after paying $30 for a twopound box of frozen breaded shrimp (this back in the mid-80s), “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”

Back in those days, I always did ask, and bought frugally at the village stores; then I went home to an unlimited buffet of caribou, moose, or fish, combined in various recipes with mail-order staples like rice, macaroni, canned vegetables, potatoes, and so on, with stuff like canned chili with extra cheese for a change-up, and Snickers bars for dessert. Bush food tastes great, and anyhow, spending past a certain level for something that ends up in the outhouse has always seemed crazy, if not downright immoral.

Eating local, from the land’s riches, makes perfect sense. Even more so now that I spend so much time away. No wonder that I pack up two ice chests of meat and fish, and freight it Outside at high cost, John’s words ringing in my ears. Each time I cook a caribou pot roast or bake a slab of char, it brings me home. You can’t put a price tag on that.

Nick Jans is a longtime contributing editor to Alaska and author of the award-winning memoir The Giant’s Hand, available from nickjans.com.

SEPTEMBER 2018 A L A S K A

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Be inspired by the light of the Aurora Borealis. Renew your energy under the Midnight Sun. Experience the warmth of Fairbanks—Alaska’s Golden Heart—and the gateway to Denali, Interior and Arctic Alaska.

Call 1-800-327-5774 for your free Fairbanks Visitors Guide.

Explore your Alaskan vacation at explorefairbanks.com.

Cache The

09.18

“The Cache” is written and compiled by Assistant Editor Alexander Deedy.

Alaska Grown

The bounty of fall produce, harvested at Alaska Pacific University’s Spring Creek Farm in Palmer.

KERRY NELSON

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the CACHE

Lettuce grows year-round in the Belleque’s enclosed hydroponic growing unit.

FRESH IN JANUARY

BACKYARD BOUNTY

Alaska students reap benefits of local food production

A third grader from Palmer shows off her dirty hands while preparing the school garden for winter.

SINCE LAST THANKSGIVING, WHEN ANCHORAGE STUDENTS SIT DOWN for lunch and dig into a pile of mashed potatoes, they’re eating potatoes that were grown just north of town, in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. Not only are the mashed potatoes more flavorful than the prepackaged, dehydrated bits that were served before, they’re cheaper, says Alaska Farm to School Program Coordinator Jodie Anderson.

The state’s Farm to School program has been facilitating relationships between school districts and local producers since 2010. Now, schools all over the state are finding ways to get locally harvested food in front of students. In coastal places like Bristol Bay and Cordova, students get to eat fish caught practically out their front doors. Tok operates a greenhouse with enough capacity to send produce to every school in its district. Galena has so much donated moose it has considered swapping for fish with Dillingham. Schools in the Bering Strait School District have grow-walls in or near their cafeterias. “The kids get so stoked when they actually have herbs that are fresh cut and put in their lunches. Pretty cute,” Anderson says.

As of the last survey taken in 2015, more than three-quarters of Alaska school districts were participating in some type of farm to school activity.

“People laugh when we talk about ag in Alaska because they think it doesn’t exist,” Anderson says. “The fact that farm to school is pretty popular up here, it’s pretty exciting.”

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FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS, KYLE BELLEQUE and his family have run an acre-sized garden in the back corner of his property in Dillingham. The garden is mostly for family meals, and occasionally excess harvest is sold. The long summer days make for a great growing season, but it’s just a little too cold and the season is just a bit too short, so Belleque was always interested in figuring out how to expand his growing opportunities.

When he got a call from Anchorage-based Vertical Harvest Hydroponics about purchasing an enclosed hydroponic growing unit, Belleque seized the opportunity. Now, in addition to his family garden, the Belleque property features a 40-foot, insulated shipping container outfitted for hydroponic growing that allows for year-round harvest.

Even in January, the container is chock-full of a variety of lettuces as well as bok choy, kale, chard, and other leafy greens. Next to the produce grow herbs like basil, dill, oregano, and Italian parsley.

The farm offers weekly deliveries to customers, but Belleque says he’s still working to get people in the community used to the idea that it’s possible to have tasty, fresh produce in the depth of winter.

“The people who enjoy it really enjoy it,” he says.

“Then other folks kind of try it and realize it’s nice to have a fresh salad in February.”

It’s only been in the last generation or two that Alaskans have grown accustomed to the idea of food showing up on a barge or cargo jet. The Belleque farm is just one example of many rural Alaskans returning to the idea of producing local food and establishing self-sufficient food communities.

“The thought is if we can grow and have our own fresh stuff instead of flying it all in then that’s what we should be doing,” Belleque says.

(TOP LEFT) COURTESY JODIE ANDERSON (TOP) COURTESY BELLEQUE FAMILY FARM

Converted shipping containers allow for year-round produce growth

ALASKA GROWN An iconic design

EATING ALASKA

A few foods harvested in Alaska that are worth a taste REINDEER Reindeer store fat outside their muscles, which results in lean meat high in essential fatty acids that makes for delicious sausages. Reindeer meat sticks make a great snack for when you’re out experiencing a new Alaskan adventure.

KELP Harvested in southeast Alaska, kelp has been turned into salsa, pickles, and a blend for topping foods.

BLACK COD Not as famous as its other Alaskan seafood cousins, black cod is definitely worth a taste if seen on the menu. The oily fish is so rich it’s sometimes called butterfish.

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DIVING FOR CUKES

A diver holds up his bounty of two juicy sea cucumbers.

Alaska’s lesser-known fishery IN OCTOBER, WHEN WINTER IS DESCENDING on Alaska, some hearty fishermen layer up and start their season, descending beneath the waves to scour the seafloor for elongated, sluggish blobs: sea cucumbers.

Though it flies under the radar when compared to Alaska’s massive salmon, crab, halibut, and other A-list fisheries, a small dive fishery hums along in Southeast at the beginning of each winter. Since the first harvest in the 1980s, fisheries for sea cucumbers, geoduck clams, and sea urchins have been active from the beginning of October through about early December each year.

“It’s kind of an important wintertime fishery here in southeast Alaska,” says Phil Doherty, executive director for the Southeast Alaska Regional Dive Fisheries Association.

Roughly 200 permit holders actively harvest sea cucumbers and about 70 bring in geoduck clams, selling much of their haul to Japan, China, and other Eastern countries.

Though the profession gained some urban notoriety as a dangerous lifestyle, Doherty says recent years have been safe and it continues to be an important economic driver for some small southeast Alaska communities.

BY THE NUMBERS 760

95-98

Roughly the number of Alaskan farms

Percent of Alaska’s food that is imported

$224.6 million

$2.29

Value of wild salmon harvested in Alaska commercially in 2017

Cost of iceberg lettuce per pound in Fairbanks last year, compared to U.S. average of $1.31

(TOP LEFT) COURTESY ALASKA DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE (TOP) COURTESY SOUTHEAST ALASKA DIVE FISHERIES ASSOCIATION

THE ALASKA GROWN LOGO was designed in 1984 as a way to let consumers know the product was locally grown or raised in the state. The brand flourished and is now one of the most recognizable in the state, says Jennifer Castro, an Alaska Division of Agriculture spokeswoman.

Alaska Grown T-shirts, sweatshirts, and other apparel are nearly ubiquitous and as much a state staple as XTRATUFs and smoked salmon. Plus, the state’s agriculture and meat industries are flourishing too, Castro says.

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DUCK SOUP & MUSKOX STEW

Maniilaq elders and Alaska’s lieutenant governor, Byron Mallott, prepare for a meal of muskox stew.

Unique program brings traditional foods to Native elders

GROWING FRUIT TREES IN ALASKA

Guidelines for success

they would get multiple helpings of duck soup,” says Chris Dankmeyer, environmental health manager for Maniilaq.

Through the nonprofit’s hunter support program, hunters are reimbursed for gas, ammunition, and other requirements for hunting, fishing, and gathering berries. When the items are donated, Maniilaq puts them through a rigorous evaluation and processing regimen, to ensure quality and safety. Then the meals are prepared in an on-site kitchen so elder residents can breathe in the aroma of a dinner they’ve been eating since childhood.

“You see that their expression is so much brighter,” says Maniilaq’s Cyrus Harris.

1. Choose a hardy variety, more likely to survive Alaska’s extreme conditions.

2. Select a site on a south-facing, gentle slope.

3. Ideally, plant in soil that drains water at one to two inches per hour.

4. Plant trees 10-30 feet apart, depending on species.

5. Plant early in the growing season.

6. Water once or twice a week and prune broken, dead, or diseased branches.

7. If root stabilizing is necessary, stake the tree so it can sway a few inches.

8. Protect from hungry browsers, like moose.

Information compiled from the University of Alaska Cooperative Extension Service.

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(TOP) COURTESY MANIILAQ ASSOCIATION (BOTTOM LEFT) CCREATIVE COMMONSN

WHEN THE MANIILAQ ASSOCIATION, A NONPROFIT that provides health and social services to northwest Alaska residents, opened its new long-term care facility in 2012, the operation fell under regulations that required only certain, approved foods to be served. That left Alaska Native elders eating typical American fare instead of their lifelong staples.

After years of work and an addendum on the national Farm Bill, elders in Maniilaq’s care are again able to eat muskox, caribou, moose, fish, berries, and waterfowl. In addition to boosting morale, the meals help residents eat healthy and get enough nutrients.

“Where an elder may not eat much of the chicken pot pie,

Kodiak is in the process of opening a food co-op grocery store with a focus on locally caught seafood and Kodiak-grown produce.

A LOCAL SOLUTION

Food co-ops get healthy foods to Alaskans at a reasonable price THE COST TO FEED A FAMILY OF FOUR in the southeast Alaskan community of Sitka nearly doubled between 2006 and 2016, while wages remained relatively stable. When about 15 residents gathered and realized the need for healthy foods at a cheaper price, they voted on the spot to launch a food cooperative.

“That’s what co-ops are about. People banding together to solve a problem for themselves,” says Sitka Food Co-op General Manager Keith Nyitray.

TYLER KORNELIS/KODIAK HARVEST FOOD COOPERATIVE

For seven years, the co-op has been bringing in food and popping up a temporary store twice each month to sell to Sitka residents. It now serves about 230 households and businesses in the community.

Nyitray estimated that members have saved over $450,000 by buying through the co-op and are able to spend those dollars in other community businesses. The next step, he says, is to open a permanent storefront.

Fairbanks already has a food co-op that is operational, and Kodiak has a co-op that is also building up to opening a store.

Despite the fact that they live on the banks of a world-class fishery, it can be hard to buy fresh seafood at local grocery stores in Kodiak, says Kodiak Harvest Food Cooperative board member Tyler Kornelis. So the aim is to open a full-service grocery store with a focus on locally caught seafood and Kodiak-grown produce.

A FARM IN THE CITY

Urban food forest for residents CINDEE KARNS LOOKS AT ALL THE OPEN SPACES in Anchorage that grow grass and she sees potential gardens.

In 2016, Karns helped create an urban food forest at Anchorage’s Central Lutheran Church. The system channels runoff water from the church parking lot and funnels it through a series of berms that grow food. The first berm, full of mushrooms and iris, filters the water. The rest of the berms grow food like apples, cherries, and rhubarb. The idea is that the food grown in the forest belongs to the community, and anyone, especially people who have a difficult time obtaining food otherwise, can harvest from it at any time.

This year, Karns helped plant some trees at the city’s public library, and she hopes they will be used to teach people how to

An urban garden at an Anchorage church provides food for the community.

COURTESY CINDEE KARNS

grow their own food.

“We’re creatively redesigning urban areas for food,” she says.

Karns, who lives in a completely waste-free home and teaches courses in sustainable, self-sufficient agriculture, envisions a future in which Alaskans get back to their roots of self-sufficiency and community sharing.

“It’s not just about gardening. It’s about changing the community,” she says. “It’s about building responsibly.”

SEPTEMBER 2018 A L A S K A SEPTEMBER

23 27

09.18

E XPE RIE NC E T HE L A ST F RO N T IE R

Eat Local

Alaska’s food and drink are as varied as the state’s geography and include wild and Alaskagrown meats, produce, dairy, grains, and delicacies foraged from land and sea.

JODY OVERSTREET/

jodyo.photos

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PEOPLE

Anna Sattler shares Yup’ik food and culture

A

NNA SATTLER WAS RAISED ON A DIET

of porcupine adobo, ptarmigan with grapes and tarragon, and salmon pie. Just thinking of any dried fish still makes her mouth water. She grew up the daughter of a rural Alaskan pilot and schoolteacher, following her father’s work to villages like Kwethluk, Tuntutuliak, Platinum, and Kenny Lake, most of which are off the road system and all of which have resident populations under 1,000. She spoke Yup’ik before she began learning English in kindergarten and spent every summer at fish camp between Kwethluk and Bethel, in western Alaska. By age nine she had her commercial fishing permit, and as a kid she operated a tender boat, transporting catch from overstuffed fishing vessels back to processing facilities on land.

Her traditional Alaskan meals were often made from ingredients harvested or gathered from the land. When she moved to Anchorage as an adult, that didn’t stop.

Every weekend from spring to fall, Sattler heads out from the city to harvest greens, pick berries, or catch fish. She’ll trade goods from southcentral Alaska for commodities harvested in other areas of the state, like seaweed from Southeast or muktuk from the coast. She spends as much time harvesting, trading, or preparing food as she does on her full-time job working for the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative.

“It’s sort of like the fabric of my whole being, being able to harvest food,” she says.

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPTEMBER 2018

BY ALEXANDER DEEDY

About two years ago, Sattler attended a gathering at her friend Jennifer Christensen’s house. The conversation turned to a discussion of longtime dreams that had yet to materialize, and Sattler shared her vision of creating a cooking show in which she discussed traditional Alaskan recipes, the rural lifestyle, and Alaska Native culture.

“My friend and I said, ‘you need to do this.’” Christensen recalled. “Both of us just recognized it as one of those ideas.”

The company Christensen co-founded, Beacon Media + Marketing, teamed up with Sattler to help make it happen. Together, they developed the name for the show—Anna’s Alaska: Off the Eaten Path—and filmed a couple of short episodes of Sattler making salmon pie and akutaq, a dessert made of Crisco, sugar, and berries.

Those episodes caught the attention of The Food Network and The Travel Channel producers, who asked Sattler to make an appearance on some shows. In 2017, Sattler and Beacon decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign in order to film a proper pilot. It may seem like a lot to happen in two years, but for Sattler, it can’t happen fast enough.

Alaska Natives are too often singled out for negative distinctions like a high suicide rate and substance abuse, Sattler says. Anna’s Alaska touches on such obstacles facing rural communities, but it also profiles Alaska Native leaders and people who are making positive

(TOP & TOP RIGHT) COURTESY BEACON MEDIA + MARKETING (BOTTOM RIGHT) PATRICK J. ENDRES/ALASKAPHOTOGRAPHICS.COM

A Traditional Feast

Traditional meals and harvested food are central to Anna Sattler’s identity.

Sattler pours seal oil over an Eskimo salad made of muktuk, smoked salmon, herring eggs, cabbage, and carrots.

differences in their community.

“I just want to show us in a real light,” she says.

In the pilot episode, Sattler travels to Unalakleet, a village of about 700 in western Alaska, where she interviews longtime residents Donna Erickson, and Nick Hanson, an Inupiaq man who competes on the show American Ninja Warrior. For a light-hearted end to each episode, Sattler takes to the kitchen with her guests where they laugh, talk, and prepare a traditional dish.

The show gives Sattler a chance to be a cultural ambassador and help bridge two worlds she knows so well. “I have always, since I was a little kid, been a huge defender, advocate of anything Alaska Native,” she says, “…instead of being ashamed of it as maybe a lot of people were. I was really proud.”

Though she can confidently navigate both the traditional Alaskan world and the western world, as someone who grew up in rural Alaska, she occasionally still feels uncomfortable on the road system. She’ll sometimes wonder if she’s judged for being Native or coming from a village. The show, she says, has helped her overcome that fear. The episodes aired online received overwhelmingly positive feedback and showed her that people are just curious and want to know more about her culture.

“They just want to learn. They want to try new things, and I don’t have to be so defensive,” she says.

Christensen says Sattler is the perfect person for viewers to learn from because of her unique background.

“I think she’s just incredibly authentic,” Christensen says.

“She grew up cooking and fishing with her friends and enjoying that lifestyle and that community.”

Plus, she’s a tremendous cook. When Beacon was filming the first few web episodes, Sattler brought a homemade salmon pie to the office for everyone to taste.

“It was unbelievable,” Christensen says.

Muktuk, or bowhead whale blubber, at Utqiagvik’s annual Nalukataq festival celebrating the successful subsistence spring whale hunt.

SEPTEMBER 2018 A L A S K A

31

RAMBLES

The Island Stepchild

A black sand beach on St. George Island in the Pribilofs.

St. George Island beckons visitors with isolated charm

T

BY JILL MISSAL

St. George Island

32

The majority of visitors to the Pribilofs opt for St. Paul, with its well-established infrastructure for birders. But visiting both islands on the same trip is simple to do; most planes hop between the islands before heading back to the mainland. Despite its proximity, few St. Paul visitors bother to stop by St. George and, if you ask this traveler, they’re missing out.

Time visiting St George is well spent soaking up the ambiance of the emerald-green rock in the middle of the ocean, from its historic buildings to local hikes and wildlife watching opportunities. My love affair with the island began after visiting on a work trip. My client and I opted to stay a little longer to hunt the reindeer that roam the island, the descendants of a herd

A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPTEMBER 2018

transplanted there to promote reindeer herding as an industry for the island residents. The reindeer herding endeavor failed, but the historical remnants of the stone fences used to contain the animals remained, along with free-roaming, wild, and growing herds in need of regulation in order to protect the island ecosystem. The land can only sustain 100 individuals, so hunting permits are issued from the Native corporation.

Teaming up with another party, we harvested about a dozen animals, finding the hunt enjoyable but not too strenuous; after all, there were only 40 square miles to cover. The enormous industrial kitchen on the ground floor of the hotel provided ample space to

(THIS PAGE) JILL MISSAL (OPPOSITE PAGE) BETH NORRIS

ravel delays, omnipresent fog, one lodging option, and no restaurants equal paradise on St. George Island, the smaller of the two Pribilof Islands. Rich in cultural and geological history, as well as wildlife, St. George provides a backdrop for days of exploration.

The Russian Orthodox church on St. George Island was completed in 1936.

process and store the meat (and keep it safe from the island’s roaming foxes, who were sly enough to snatch a few bites regardless of our vigilance).

But you don’t have to fill your freezer to enjoy the island’s outdoor offerings. The classic visitor’s hike takes you on a wander across the hummocky tundra to the black sand beach on the far side of the island.

No trail exists, but the wayfinding is simple thanks to topography: just follow the valley. You’ll enjoy a quiet and peaceful ramble, likely devoid of other hikers. The beachcombing on the soft sand of the far beach rewards visitors with the chance to find marine creatures and other treasures. Hundreds of fur seals rest here, camouflaged among the giant logs littering the beach, as if the gods abruptly abandoned a game of pick-up-sticks.

Back in town, visitors can revel in the culture and artifacts of the island. The historic buildings on St. George include the Russian Orthodox church (we were permitted to ring the bells) and the fur seal museum. St. George islanders were amongst those Unangan (Aleut) people enslaved by private companies that leased the island from the U.S. government and provided lodging and food to residents in dubious exchange for harvesting the fur seals, which continue to be endangered due to decades of overharvesting. Despite being decommissioned in 1983, the fur factory where the pelts were processed is still standing and in remarkable condition with the harvest implements still in place, and the machinery used to process the furs intact, and probably operable. Oral histories told by the island elders of sealing days are both legendary and fascinating.

Fur seals remain endangered and protected here; there’s a large fine for disturbing them in any way. Still, it’s a thrill to see them during your visit to the island. They can be heard bellowing from every spot in town,

Time visiting St George is well spent soaking up the ambiance of the emerald-green rock in the middle of the ocean, from its historic buildings to local hikes and wildlife watching opportunities. including your hotel. You will also have ample opportunity to view hundreds of varieties of birds with birders and scientists. On my last visit, I watched a small group of biologists stuff a bird into a sock headfirst to immobilize and calm it. Afterward, they tagged the bird and recorded research data before releasing it.

As we boarded the plane to leave, the passengers, both local and visiting, enjoyed a companionable moment when the sun pierced the fog, burnishing the grey ocean a deep blue as a light breeze scattered tendrils of mist into the craggy rocks of the surrounding landscape. St. George Island offered a mystical send-off, while reminding us to come back again soon.

Jill was raised in Kodiak and still calls it her true home. She is now a writer living in Anchorage (and she visits the island whenever she can).

SEPTEMBER 2018 A L A S K A

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Many farmers in the Matanuska Valley use hoop houses to start their vegetables early in the season.

TRY THIS

Not Always About Seafood

I

N HER HOME ALONG THE BANKS OF THE MATANUSKA RIVER,

Margaret Adsit’s 18-month-old daughter plays with a vintage Fisher Price family farm set complete with cows, chickens, and a red grain silo. Outside the window, Pioneer Peak rises like a sentinel over some of Alaska’s most fertile farm country.

Adsit and her family are at home here, and some might consider her Alaska’s ambassador for agriculture.

While Alaska may be known for its giant vegetables—the largest pumpkin weighed 1,469 pounds—Adsit says big veggies are only part of the farming scene on the Last Frontier.

“Alaska’s food story hasn’t fully been told,” Adsit says. “People think about edible Alaska being salmon and crab. But Alaska farms grow some of the freshest, sweetest produce in the world.”

In 2015, Adsit started a small company, Alaska Farm Tours, in response to requests from visitors who wanted to learn more about Alaska agriculture. She directed the Alaska Farmland Trust from 2010-2012. More recently, she contracts as their program coordinator. Adsit has always seen the value of educating people about the importance of preserving farm land from sprawling development. Taking people on tours of historic farms turned out to be a fertile idea. She has organized and led hundreds of visitors in showcasing Matanuska Valley farms and breweries. She enjoys letting people see and taste for themselves the bounty of the soil.

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPTEMBER 2018

BY KAYLENE JOHNSON-SULLIVAN

From cool, virgin loam to extended hours of summer daylight, the growing season in Alaska creates a unique and challenging environment for farming. The history of agriculture in Alaska is one topic that Adsit discusses during her tours.

In 1935 during the Great Depression, as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, 203 families from the Midwest traveled to Alaska by train and ship to create the Matanuska Colony. While the social experiment ultimately failed, it set the foundation for a small agricultural industry that thrives today.

Adsit grew up in Wisconsin where her family ran a grain operation that included beef cattle. She was fascinated by the way farms in Alaska operated especially without the typical infrastructure and support of farms in the Midwest. Getting supplies from the Lower 48 is a big economic challenge.

“I mean, how do you farm without a TSC [Tractor Supply Company],” she says.

Weather is the least of a farmer’s concerns in Alaska. Moose can cause thousands of dollars of damage to a crop in just one night of foraging. Soils left behind from retreating glaciers are fertile but lack certain nutrients. These challenges lend themselves to innovation, and part of Adsit’s tours includes a discussion of technologies that help Alaska farmers succeed.

Although the acreage may be small compared to the Lower 48, these farms typically yield big results.

COURTESY TOM BOL, MAT-SU CVB

Farm-to-Table tours highlight Alaska’s exceptional produce

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At Spring Creek Farm in Palmer, an extension of the Alaska Pacific University campus and one of the stops on some Alaska Farm Tours outings, students are educated in all aspects of small-scale organic vegetable production. New growers learn by doing where the “classroom” is a six-acre field of rich glacial silt in which they cultivate a diverse and robust polyculture of subarctic crops.

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPTEMBER 2018

Weather is the least of a farmer’s concerns in Alaska. Moose can cause thousands of dollars of damage to a crop in just one night of foraging. to kids who like small animals.

Based out of Palmer, Alaska Farm Tours provides transportation from Anchorage. Some tours include farm-to-table dinners; other tours include a visit to local breweries. All of the tours include Adsit’s sense of humor.

“Farming in Alaska is like having a super-model girlfriend,” she says. “She’s gorgeous but it’s not going to be easy.”

Like Alaska farmers in general, she has a deep streak of optimism. “If you didn’t have that, you wouldn’t go back year after year to do it.”

Kaylene Johnson-Sullivan lives in Palmer and is the author of several books about Alaska and the people who live here. For more information visit her website at kaylene.us.

COURTESY TOM BOL, MAT-SU CVB

“Here in Alaska an eight-acre farm can support a family and seasonally employ several workers,” she says. “The cornucopia effect is stunning. It’s a regular old Eden on small acreage.”

Alaska farms supply fresh produce to local restaurants, grocery outlets, and farmer’s markets. Even so, more than 90 percent of Alaska’s food supply is still shipped from the Lower 48.

Alaska farms are important in creating a local sustainable food source. Adsit insists that Alaska should become better known as a regionally distinct destination defined by its breweries and food. Just as Tuscany is known for its cuisine, Alaska should be known for its unique and fresh fare from land and sea.

“Food is an intimate experience,” she says. “A universal language.”

Agritourism is becoming increasingly popular worldwide.

Many travelers tour specifically to sample local foods and culture. Other travelers are interested in organic farms and sustainable living. Yet others have personal connections to farms and are curious about how it is done in Alaska.

Adsit recently met with farmers on the Kenai Peninsula who are interested in cultivating farm tourism in their region of the state. Many farmers see it as a way to diversify their seasonal income and market their products. A few individual farms around the state offer tours. For example, Kackleberry Farms in Homer offers tours of their organic homestead farm and caters

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Guests aboard small ship cruise line Alaskan Dream Cruises enjoy a kayak excursion at the face of the Reid Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park.

SENSE OF PLACE

Formed by Glaciers Tip of the Iceberg: My 3,000-Mile Journey Around Wild Alaska, the Last Great American Frontier by Mark Adams details his Alaskan adventures following in the wake of the historical Harriman Expedition of 1899 and wondering if the trip would become his event of a lifetime. This excerpt is reprinted with permission by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright (c) 2018 by Mark Adams.

GLACIER BAY NATIONAL PARK

Our two-person kayak skimmed the surface of Glacier Bay’s glassy water, the bow pointed like a compass needle at the rocky lump of Russell Island. The sun was out, always a pleasant surprise in Southeast Alaska, and a light mist lingered around the island’s upper half. We’d been paddling for about an hour, but I had no idea how far we’d come or how far we had left to go. My sense of scale hadn’t yet acclimated to the vastness we’d entered—water, sky, and mountains were all I had to work with.

Aside from the splash of our paddles and the occasional tap-tapping of sea otters cracking open mussels, all was quiet.

“Will there be anyone else on Russell Island?” I asked David Cannamore, who was seated behind me. David was a former college athlete who guided kayakers around Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve all day, every day during the summer. He paddled with the metronomic grace of a professional tennis

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPTEMBER 2018

player and accounted for perhaps 80 percent of our forward progress.

“I seriously doubt it,” David said. “I’ve camped a lot of places in this park, but never on Russell Island.

There probably aren’t even any bears there.”

Bears were just one subject I’d never given much thought to back in New York City that seemed to come up again and again in Alaska. Others included the five varieties of Pacific salmon, the structural integrity of permafrost, recipes for moose meat, the declining quality of rubber boots, and a simmering resentment toward Washington, DC, that fell under the general rubric of “federal overreach.” Glaciers were another popular topic. As David and I paddled across the silent immensity of Glacier Bay, we were surrounded on all sides by the park’s namesake rivers of ice flowing down from the mountains. Their frozen innards glowed a phosphorescent blue that eclipsed the cloudless sky above. A few times every hour, the giants discharged ice from their wrinkled faces—crack, rumble, splash—

COURTESY ALASKAN DREAM CRUISES

An isolated island becomes a destination for reflection

one of nature’s most spellbinding performances.

According to the slightly damp map I kept pulling out of a pocket beneath my life vest, the glaciers of Glacier Bay were doing something else, too. They were melting, and had been doing so for some time. There was no better evidence of this than Russell Island. In 1879, the then unknown conservationist John Muir had first scouted the bay in a dugout canoe guided by Tlingit Indians. Russell Island marked the furthest reach of his journey, for it was embedded in two hundred feet of solid ice, a pebble crushed beneath the leading edge of a glacier that flowed back up beyond the horizon into Canada. For the next twenty years, Muir returned repeatedly to Glacier Bay and its everchanging landscape. On his seventh and final visit, in 1899, Muir estimated that the ice wall had retreated four miles. Russell Island was surrounded by open water.

Wavy lines on my map, each labeled with a year, demarcated the former extent of Glacier Bay’s namesake ice in decades past.

These were the shrinking borders of an empire under siege, evidence that in the century following John Muir’s visits, the frozen kingdom whose praises he’d sung had been dissolving like a popsicle in the sun. Muir Glacier, named to honor the writer who literally put Glacier Bay on the map and almost singlehandedly created the market for scenic Alaska cruises, had withdrawn more than twenty miles since 1879.

From a distance, Russell Island had looked like a good place for a prison colony. When David and I landed, we found a perfect deserted isle with a panoramic view: two rows of dark mountains tapering toward a massive white block of ice. We set up camp in a patch of tall grass above the beach. David cooked a simple dinner, careful to keep even the tiniest scrap of food a

Wavy lines on my map, each labeled with a year, demarcated the former extent of Glacier Bay’s namesake ice in decades past. hundred yards away from our tents in case any hungry bears came through. He’d grown up in Alaska and had encountered plenty of bears, and he didn’t seem too concerned about the megafauna threat level on Russell Island. He’d seen none of the usual signs of bear activity: claw marks, scat, the large divots they dig out to sleep in.

“If you get up before the first cruise ship comes through, have a good look around,” David told me before we crawled into our tents for the night. “At that hour there probably won’t be anyone but us for twenty miles in any direction.”

[The next morning,] I sat on a rock that had been deposited by the glacier’s hasty retreat sometime between John Muir’s first visit, in 1879, and his last, in 1899. When I looked up, I saw immediately that David’s observation about our morning solitude needed a clarification. We were definitely the only humans on Russell Island, and probably the only people for many miles in any direction. But we weren’t exactly alone.

Mark Adams is the author of the bestselling books Meet Me in Atlantis and Turn Right at Machu Picchu. His magazine credits include GQ, Men’s Journal, and Rolling Stone.

SEPTEMBER 2018 A L A S K A

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Rolling tundra and rocky outcrops dominate the landscape in the interior Alaska region the author describes.

ALASKA SPORTSMAN

Four Seasons in One Day

A brief tale of squandered opportunity and a chance for redemption

W

E HEARD HIM FIRST, THE RHYTHMIC

unkh, unkh, drifting eerily through the morning fog. Closer he came and louder, and suddenly he was on us, wraithlike in the drifting mist, coming straight at us. Nearer now, he solidified, the brush he’d tangled in his antlers jiggling with every purposeful step. To avoid detection, we melted into the side of a large boulder, but he really wasn’t paying attention to us, anyhow. It was September, and he had The Urge.

My son flipped the foam cover off of his rifle scope and kneeled in readiness. The bull was close enough that we could see the dew beaded on his brown hide. The set-up was perfect: legal, close, morning, and not far from camp. What more could my son ask for on his first moose?

“Chris, you better let him go. He’s in full rut, and he’ll taste like crud. We’d best find something more edible,” I whispered.

Chris lowered his rifle and darted me with an unbelieving stare. “He’s right here! It’s an easy shot.” I again shook my head, knowing every time we cut into those hams, we’d regret pulling that trigger.

The moose swaggered past us at 80 feet and off into the rest of his life. I looked at Chris’s mom, Crystal, suddenly wondering if I’d made a poor decision. Even at age nine, Chris was pretty tough, but I could see a few

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPTEMBER 2018

tears of frustration squirting out no matter how hard he tried not to show his disappointment.

At the time we lived in a remote trapping camp on the north side of the Alaska Range. We had spent the previous several days spiked out hunting for our winter meat. Our only supplies flew in with us in September and the rest we caught or shot. And what we shot had better be reasonably tasty. A mid-September moose with brush in his antlers and grunting every few steps is a very long way from tasty. All that said, I still felt like a pretty crappy parent right about then. I needed to remember this wasn’t just about dinner. I needed to remember my first moose. I needed to remember what it was like to be nine.

Dejected, we discussed our next move. Crystal and I were kicking ourselves for passing on such an easy opportunity and really questioning our fitness as parents. How could we have squashed such an important moment for our son? Chris didn’t feel much better. I proposed to stay and hunt more, but Chris’s spirit was so low he just wanted to go back to the main camp. We packed up our 4-wheel-drive Coot and began the long five-hour ride towards home. The fog had lifted and we motored down the trail, our progress slow and lurching.

Suddenly, off to our right burst a flutter of wings, and a grey body rose into the top of a nearby tree. Spruce hen! Chris jumped down, grabbed the .22 and quickly

ERIC M. BEEMAN

BY ERIC M. BEEMAN

dispatched the unlucky bird with a shot to the head. He fetched the grouse and delivered it to us with an excited smile.

When you’re nine, it doesn’t have to be something big.

With the bird cleaned, we again set off homeward. The trail wound through a pleasant mix of spruce and small cottonwood. Our mood slowly improved.

After all, it was mid-September in interior Alaska. How bad can that really be on a sunny day?

The trail broke out into open tundra.

Crystal suddenly cried out, “Stop, stop.

Look!” Over the nearby mountain ridge swirled a mob of caribou, flowing down towards the valley floor.

“Chris, there’s a nice bull in the bunch,” I exclaimed. “Grab your rifle and let’s go!”

While Crystal secured our two dogs, Chris and I hotfooted it up to a bluff overlooking the milling herd. The bull was easy to spot, but it would be a long shot.

Chris had proven a decent shot with his 7mm08 at 100 yards, but this was almost three times farther.

“About 275,” I whispered.

Chris lay prone over my backpack. “I can’t see,” came his strained reply. A small piece of tundra blocked his shot.

I scrunched up my packsack and placed my binoculars on top. “Try that,” I said.

Chris locked into a steady position, exhaled, and pressed the trigger. The wham of the ignition, followed by a meaty thud signaled success, and the bull collapsed on the autumn carpet.

Off the bluff we raced. Approaching the fallen animal, I don’t know which of us was more excited, probably Chris, but you can bet I was the most relieved! When we parents blow an opportunity, it’s rare that another one strolls down off the mountain so soon. When Crystal pulled up, her tears splashed a mother’s story of pride, and perhaps a bit of sadness for the magnificent creature below.

I somewhere read that while Luck may be blind, she is not invisible. Once squandered, the Lady’s offering may not come again and you had better be ready if it does. I let one opportunity slip by. I’m just glad I was given another chance.

A bull caribou weighs about 350 to 400 pounds.

That equates to about 100 pounds of meat.

Eric M. Beeman is a lifelong Alaskan who began hunting as a child and has spent many years in remote areas of the state. He lives with his wife in Kachemak Bay. SEPTEMBER 2018 A L A S K A

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EDITOR’S CHOICE

GEAR

A Taste of the Wild Gear for processing and preserving nature’s gifts

BY BJORN DIHLE Hunting, fishing, and foraging is a way of life for my family and me. Except the taking of life part, I love the whole process—everything from entering the woods to eating and sharing wild foods. Having a direct relationship with what I eat is a privilege I value more with each passing season.

Whether it’s a deer, a bucket of blueberries, or a bag of mushrooms, it’s important to process what you harvest in a way that ensures you can eat it for months to come. Here are five products I tested that will help you preserve food for a winter of good eats and experience the rewards of living close to your food.

Cabela’s Carnivore Commercial Grade 0.75hp Grinder I grew up with an old hand grinder, and burgering scrap meat off a deer took about as long as watching the movie The Last of the Mohicans twice. While I took a certain pride in memorizing every line and was often inspired to run around without my shirt on to try to impress people—even though I resemble a ghostly version of Shrek—I don’t miss the many hours spent grinding. With Cabela’s grinder it takes me about two minutes to turn 20 pounds of venison into beautiful burger. That’s barely enough time to recite the “I will find you!” scene before Hawkeye leaves Cora with her pale bosom heaving and leaps off a waterfall. This grinder is so amazing that my number of friends, all of whom want to borrow it, skyrockets during hunting season.

If you’re a hunter, you’ll fall in love with this product. It’s easy to clean, dependable, and has a lifetime guarantee. It comes with sausage funnels too. Cabela’s grinder is a game changer when it comes to processing meat. $399.99; cabelas.com

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPTEMBER 2018

FoodSaver GameSaver Big Game Vacuum Sealer The GameSaver Big Game is the size of a typical vacuum sealer but functions more like a commercial grade food preservation system. It’s great for fish, fowl, game, and just about anything edible. It’s so easy to use and efficient, it’ll make you sing a Disney song, dance like a toddler, and wave your arms in spasmodic joy—stuff all us serious outdoor folks enjoy doing when we’re alone and have a free minute—as you process your freezer trophies. With up to 80 consecutive seals, you’ll be able to make quick work of a deer, fish, and whatever else you want to preserve. I’ve used a wide array of food preservation systems and can say that for size and price, the GameSaver Big Game Vacuum Sealer might just be my favorite. $210; foodsaver.com

Ball FreshTech Electric Water Bath Canner + Multi-Cooker I love canning and Ball’s FreshTech makes it way easier than traditional stovetop canners. It’s electric, heats water quickly, and makes it easy to maintain temperature. There’s a spigot to drain off water once you’re done with a batch so you don’t have to haul heavy water. It can fit seven quart jars for big loads but is also great for smaller jars better suited for jams and sauces. It doubles as a great electric cooker for delicious seafood, pasta, and soups.

I’m excited to experiment with the different recipes Ball sends out on its email chain. $125; freshpreserving.com

Gerber Vital Big Game Folder Knife Just released, this fine knife is one of the safest exchangeable blade systems available for processing in the field and home. While marketed for big game, it’s great for fish or harvesting mushrooms. It comes with blunt blades perfect for skinning in the field. It’s lightweight, grippy, built tough, and comes with an extra four easily exchangeable blades. Whether you’re a hunter, fisherman, or a gourmand who prefers your kitchen to the wilds, this knife is a good addition to your kit. $59; gerbergear.com

Open Country 500-Watt Dehydrator with Jerky Kit This is a great and affordable dehydrator for everything from drying jerky to making soup. You can also use it to dehydrate fruit, trail snacks, and meals, which, when vacuum-sealed, will last indefinitely through all your overnight outdoor adventures—or the apocalypse.

The end must happen eventually, so why not have a little fun preparing? It comes with four trays, two screens, two fruit roll sheets and a jerky kit and gun.

The thermostat is easy to adjust and maintains temperature well. It’s easy to clean and works more quickly and efficiently than most models its size. You’ll have almost as much fun dehydrating your food as you will snacking on it in the year to come. $120; basspro.com Photo courtesy Bass Pro Shops

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The hunt and harvest of a mysterious fungi

I

T’S AN AMAZING THING, TO BE STANDING IN A WOODLAND

where the forest floor appears empty of mushrooms, and then, as if by magic, that same ground is suddenly rich in fungal fruits.

This is what sometimes happens when hunting morels, though of course the mushrooms were present all along.

It’s simply that morels are challenging to see, especially to the untrained eye. But once a mushroom hunter has recognized the conical, earth-toned form and honeycombed, ridges-and-pits texture of a single morel, he will often notice others nearby, especially if willing to get on his knees and slowly crawl along the ground.

That certainly has been my experience, since I entered the world of Morchellaceae. And from the stories I’ve been told, it’s true for other morel seekers too.

While many fungi boldly announce their presence with bright colors, large sizes, or unusual shapes, morels have perfected the art of camouflage. Or as a friend once put it, members of this mushroom family are known for their ability to “hide in plain sight,” particularly in mature,

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BY BILL SHERWONIT

undisturbed northern forests. In large part that’s because they poke out of the ground in spring and early summer, when their earth-toned caps easily blend with brown and brittle leaves and other forest debris.

For those wondering why anyone would spend their energies seeking such hard-to-find forest residents, it helps to know that “true” morels are considered among the tastiest of wild mushrooms. They’re in great enough demand that commercial harvesters in the United States and elsewhere will travel great distances to pick these fungal delicacies. Occasionally they even come to Alaska, as they most notably did after forest fires scorched much of the state’s Interior in 2004.

The mention of fire points to another curious aspect of morels: They tend to occur in two very distinct circumstances: undisturbed forests and damaged landscapes.

Before examining those in more detail, it helps to know that morels—and mushrooms generally—are the “fruits” of much larger organisms that form networks underground. Exactly where the fruits appear, and why, remains

SUSAN DUNSMORE

The Magic of Morels

Hidden in plain sight: Morel mushrooms are known for their ability to camouflage themselves on forest floors.

For reasons not fully understood, forest fires tend to produce huge quantities of morels the year following a fire. a mystery, like much that happens within the fungal kingdom.

In Alaska’s mature, intact woodlands, the number of morels is generally small and, to the human eye, sporadically distributed. But once you discover a patch, you’re likely to find them there year after year. For that reason, many morel hunters are highly secretive about “their” patches.

Morels associated with large-scale “disturbance events”—for instance, fires and insect infestations—are an entirely different kind of fruit. Strong evidence suggests that morels inhabiting burns are different than those in undisturbed habitats.

For reasons not fully understood, forest fires tend to produce huge quantities of morels the year following a fire. Large burns may yield tons of morels, which is why they lure commercial pickers. Not only are the mushrooms present in much greater numbers, they’re also easier to see in the ashy soil. Picking becomes less of a hunt than a straightforward harvest.

Unfortunately for pickers, the bounty in burns is short-lived. Large-scale fruiting normally occurs only the first and sometimes second season following a fire.

Like so much else about morels, the reason remains a mystery.

Most research into Alaska’s morels has occurred in the Interior, largely because enormous fires within its boreal forest can yield prodigious quantities of the mushrooms. The most intensely studied event was the 2004 fire, which scorched nearly seven million acres and, the following summer, lured a small army of commercial morel harvesters to the Tok area. Together, locals and nonresidents picked an estimated 175,000 pounds.

Studies of Interior morels indicate the primary fruiting season to be June and July. I’m most familiar with the sprucebirch-cottonwood-aspen forests of southcentral Alaska, where the peak occurs between mid-May and mid-June.

Morels often appear in conifer and hardwood forests the year after a fire, but can also be found in undisturbed areas.

Here, morels seem to be closely associated with members of the poplar family—aspens, poplars, and cottonwoods.

In Alaska as elsewhere, the “true” morels harvested for food include several species, which range from cream to brown to almost black. All have spongy, conical caps with honeycombed texture; those caps are “fused” with the mushroom’s white stem, forming a single unit.

Certain other types of mushrooms, called “false” morels, vaguely resemble true morels, and they, too, appear in springtime, in similar forest habitats. Those false morels are dangerously poisonous to humans. Eating them can lead to serious illness or death.

Because of the dangers, mushroom

experts recommend an experienced picker accompany novice hunters. If unsure whether a morel is true or false, leave it in the ground. Even true morels— like all edible wild mushrooms—should always be cooked. It’s also best to initially consume only a small portion, to avoid any intestinal distress.

One final cautionary note: As one who’s become entranced by morels, I know well their ability to cast a spell. Whether hidden or revealed, they hold a certain magic.

Anchorage nature writer Bill Sherwonit is the author of more than a dozen books about Alaska, including Animal Stories: Encounters with Alaska’s Wildlife and Living with Wildness: An Alaskan Odyssey.

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The Con King of Skagway

Soapy Smith’s deception and demise

BY MICHAEL ENGELHARD

the Irish employee of the new White Pass and Yukon Railway, Jesse Murphy, shoots the uncrowned “King of Skagway.” Soapy dies on the spot, the final slug lodged in his heart. The date, July 8, 1898, marks one of the last Western shootouts, the end of a most notorious con man’s reign.

“I beg to state that I am no gambler. A gambler takes chances with his money, I don’t,” Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith declared four years before his dockside death. After running gambling and prostitution rings in Denver and Creede, Colorado, he had moved his operations to the gold rush towns of Dyea and “Skaguay.” As head of a band of about 20 “heelers, rounders, and cappers” he set up shell games and other scams. His bunko-men hoodwinked rubes freshly disembarked or robbed them at folding game tables on the trail to the Yukon’s headwaters lakes.

Suave, soft-spoken, and smartly dressed, the native Georgian had earned his nickname by hawking soap bars to Colorado miners. By sleight of hand, the 20- to 50-dollar bills with which he wrapped prize packages as bait always made it back into his, not the buyers’, pockets.

Soapy’s rogue gallery featured muggers and pickpockets, burglars and prostitutes —“Soiled Doves.” Yeah Mow (“Wildcat”) Hopkins was a bodyguard during San Francisco’s Chinatown wars. “Big Ed Burns,” a companion from Smith’s Denver days, chomped whole cigars as chaw. The benign-looking “Reverend” Bowers, dressed as a preacher, relieved newcom-

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Andy Thomas’s The End of Soapy Smith, a meticulous recreation of the Juneau Wharf showdown.

Suave, soft-spoken, and smartly dressed, the native Georgian had earned his nickname by hawking soap bars to Colorado miners. By sleight of hand, the 20- to 50-dollar bills with which he wrapped prize packages as bait always made it back into his, not the buyers’, pockets. ers of their grubstakes. Smith thought the cheechakos were better off losing their belongings in port rather than inland, where they’d perish anyway or be a burden to fellow stampeders.

Jeff Smith’s Parlor (still standing) served as a fake telegraph office and gang headquarters. Miners paid dearly for wire messages, but the line ended a few feet away, in the wall. Fleeced targets or “marks” raising a ruckus were either recruited or else silenced with steamer fare home. Smith was adept at political machinations also, and his oyster parlor

became known as “the real City Hall.”

When the Spanish-American War broke out that April, Smith formed his own volunteer army, approved by the War Department, commended by President William McKinley. During the Fourth of July parade four days before his demise, Smith led his company from a gray horse and afterward met with the governor. His thug army, calculated charity, and bribery of the sheriff and city officials ensured that for a while, the cogs of his mini-empire turned smoothly.

Eventually, concerned citizens

(THIS PAGE) COURTESY ANDY THOMAS FINE ARTS (OPPOSITE PAGE) COURTESY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, KLONDIKE GOLD RUSH NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, ROBERT T. WHITING COLLECTION, KLGO 04.08.01.01.041

H

AVING WRESTLED THE WINCHESTER FROM A SEVERELY WOUNDED “SOAPY” SMITH,

opposed the gang’s depredations with a vigilante “Committee of 101.” A posted notice urged all 1.577characters” pt “objectionable to leave or “prompt action” would follow.

Things came to a head on July 7 when John D. Stewart tried to exchange his heavy gold poke for cash. Posing as a helpful Sourdough, “Old Man Tritt” lured the prospector into Soapy’s parlor. A shell game out back quickly derailed. It was a setup. In the ensuing confusion, one swindler bumped into Stewart and fled with his nest egg. Next day, informed of the miner’s grievance, the vigilantes gathered on Juneau Wharf ’s boardwalk. After downing a whiskey, Smith stormed to the harbor to uphold his reputation and sway. There, the lantern-jawed Indian fighter and former schoolteacher Frank Reid confronted him. Two close-range shots from Reid’s pistol felled Soapy, but return fire from Smith’s Winchester wounded the vigilante guard mortally in the leg and groin.

With the help of the Army summoned from Dyea, Smith’s henchmen were quickly imprisoned or exiled from town. The king was dead. The curtain had dropped in a drama worthy of a bard.

Michael Engelhard is the author of Ice Bear: The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon and of American Wild: Explorations from the Grand Canyon to the Arctic Ocean. His only experience with gambling is watching Bingo in Nome.

Soapy riding in Skagway’s 1898 Fourth of July parade (gray horse on left).

Amanda smoked while she was pregnant. Her baby was born 2 months early and weighed only 3 pounds. She was put in an

Some of the reasons to quit smoking are very small.

Amanda, age 30, Wisconsin

incubator and fed through a tube.

Amanda could only hold her twice a day. If you’re pregnant or thinking about having a baby and you smoke, please call

1-800-QUIT-NOW.

#CDCTips

SEPTEMBER 2018 A L A S K A

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Ionia

Ionia community members Cathy Creighton, Mary Creighton, and Eliza Eller chop cabbage to make fermented sauerkraut.

Intentional community eats with purpose

BY AMY NEWMAN

Alaskan way: Alaska’s Native people have led a subsistence lifestyle for generations; sportsmen stock their freezers with salmon and halibut in the summer and moose and caribou in the winter; weekend foragers spend the late summer months filling buckets to overflowing with berries for jellies and jam. Yet even in a state where subsistence living doesn’t elicit much awe, Ionia, a 200-acre intentional community located in Kasilof, 160 miles south of Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula, manages to stand out.

The 45 men, women, and children who live in the semi-isolated community focus on living as naturally and healthfully as possible, said Eliza Eller who, along with her husband, Tom, was one of the community’s founders.

The idea for Ionia was formed more than 30 years ago, in 1970s Boston. Four families, each experiencing mental and behavioral health issues, were searching for a way to cope in an increasingly chaotic world, Eller explained. Their solution was a community centered on meaningful, natural connections with each other, and a return to a natural environment.

“We really just needed to stabilize in a more natural way, a way in which we could find some shelter from the pressures that were in society,” Eller said. “Sometimes, simply rekindling those connections and providing a sense of hope can provide the spark in recovery.”

Alaska seemed the ideal place to fulfill that dream. They spent time in Anchorage before purchasing five acres of land in Kasilof, which gave them the space to build, grow their own food, and retreat from the larger community.

“It was a very slow, organic process,” Eller said of Ionia’s growth. “We found some systems that worked well for us, (and as) people came with their expertise, we’ve learned more.”

Ionia’s ability to provide food for itself is

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one area that has evolved. Believing that diet plays a crucial role in their mental and physical health, Ionians follow a macrobiotic diet, which is rich in whole grains, beans, vegetables, and fermented foods, and devoid of meat and all processed foods.

In the community’s early days, a local farmer helped them clear space for a vegetable garden.

“We were people from the city; we knew nothing,” Eller said, laughing.

As the community grew, so too did their knowledge of farming practices and their production capacity. They grow winter pantry staples like potatoes and squash, and what Eller calls “the fast food of the vegetable world”—radishes, turnips, lettuce, and other produce typically grown in a kitchen garden. They’ve also added produce that’s either too expensive to purchase or not readily available in Alaska, like leeks, daikon, and burdock. Partner-

ships with local farmers to purchase traditional crops, like cabbage and carrots, frees up space to grow the low-demand crops that figure heavily into their diet, Eller said.

They’ve become more ambitious with their harvests as well, experimenting with adapting crops not typically grown outdoors in Alaska. While repeated attempts to grow rice in the fields have failed, Eller said, they’ve successfully adapted three types of beans, and have had great luck growing spring oats, barley, winter rye, millet, and grain corn.

Alongside the field, rows of kale, sunflowers, and beans—fava, black soybean, cranberry, Jacob’s cattle, and yellow Indian—grow in high tunnels, which they received as part of a USDA program encouraging micro farms.

Wild foods have become more of a focus in recent years as well. Seaweed harvested

(THIS PAGE) COURTESY CLAIRE JOHNSON (OPPOSITE PAGE) BILL JOHNSON, COURTESY CLAIRE JOHNSON

L

IVING OFF THE LAND IS THE

from Homer’s Kachemak Bay is hung to dry in the eaves of Ionia’s 12,000-square-foot barn, and they take advantage of the many berries, plants, and herbs that grow in the vicinity, making sure to be mindful of how much they harvest. “Wild foods are awesome,� said Eller’s son Connor, who grew up in Ionia and lives there with his wife and child. “We bring home cases of wild cucumber, which we ferment. A visitor from Estonia taught us how to forage wild mushrooms. All the work you put in growing vegetables, and there’s just this bounty out there.�

While Ionians keep themselves somewhat segregated from the larger community, their food efforts have expanded from providing for themselves to supporting local growers and espousing the health and environmental benefits of local food production as well, Eller said. They play a large role in the Harvest Moon Local Food Festival, participate in the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium’s Plants as Food and Medicine Symposium, and as much as possible, purchase what they can’t grow from local farmers. “We don’t ever think we’ll grow all our own food. That isn’t even a goal,� Eller said.

Two of Ionia’s founding mothers, Cathy Creighton and Victoria Becherer, help hang the community’s yearly harvest of wakame, a sea vegetable used for making miso soups and other delicious dishes.

“It’s more about eating more local food, whether that involves growing it, farming it with other farmers, wild harvest, or all of the above.�

For more information about Ionia, visit ionia.org.

Amy Newman has written about Alaska’s people and places since first stepping off the ferry 17 years ago. She spent her first seven years as an Alaskan in Juneau, which she still misses 10 years later. She now lives in Anchorage with her husband and two daughters.

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Clarence Ess, the authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and photographerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s son, glasses for caribou on a successful hunt off the Denali Highway.

Charlie Ess stops to gorge on blueberries along a wooded bench, while Cheryl successfully hunts a young bull moose.

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Text by Charlie Ess Images by Cheryl Ess

BEAUTY in the Hunt

Harvesting for winter in Alaska THE DRAW OF AUTUMN pulls on the fluid of

When the bearberries turn crimson, the Esses head north to look for caribou.

our brains like some great tide, creates an ebb in our common sense, and beckons us to make

choices we’d call irrational any other time of the

year. We’ll run rapids in a dilapidated raft, climb mountains until our quadriceps cramp, crash

through miles of devil’s club, put up with roots

and rocks jabbing our ribs when we lie down for

the night. We’ll shiver in thin sleeping bags—all for the chances to bring home autumn’s bounty.

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Charlie Ess hunts with a vintage 1970s Fred Bear recurve bow. It pulls 67 pounds. He makes his cedar arrows in the dead of winter and dreams of the hunting seasons to come.

It takes two trips to pack out Cheryl’s bull. Her dad, Jerre, and his wife, Winnie, joined in the hunt.

Left to right: Charlie Ess, Jerre Wills, Winnie Wills.

THIS IS THE MEAT SEASON.

We’ve moved past the harvest of summer’s salmon, packed or pickled in jars or confined to bins in the freezer. There’s time yet for the plunking of berries in our plastic buckets, but our eyes won’t linger long near the ground before we raise our heads and squint through our binoculars for the glint of sun on antler. It’s late August or early September, and we’ve entered the era of yellowing birches, bullet on bone, and the feel of our favorite knives in our hands. Home decor, if we’re lucky, becomes a blend of hind quarters and freezer wrap sprawled across the kitchen table, and it’s legal now to accent our windowsills with rifle cartridges, arrowheads, and sharpening stones.

BUT THERE’S MORE TO AUTUMN THAN MEETS THE FREEZER.

Changes in the Earth’s tilt make for shorter days and longer shadows—a perfect opportunity to lurk in a wooded plot we never visit any other time of the year. Sunset slants into the clearings, and the stage has been lit for the evening show. We did not come to be entertained, however.

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Charlie lingers in the warmth of a late-night fire after a long day hunting caribou along the Denali Highway. As the days enter their sharp taper toward the dark of winter, the value of fire morphs from recreational to primordial.

We’ve come instead for our annual lessons in hope and to live in the suspense that builds with each passing moment. Grasses sway in the breeze. A large cottonwood leaf flutters and twirls, prolonging its fall to the ground. It is bright yellow and lands with a smack near my feet— one of fall’s first cards thrown down on the table in a game that ends in bare trees. Our eyes revert to center stage. A bull moose could suddenly step into the clearing. Or a bear. Or maybe not.

Our days have never been lost to the absence of game. Forays into our favorite hunting spots slow our lives to a pace of immeasurable recompense against obligations to our jobs and other engagements tethered to clocks. In the heart of the hunter, the apparent lack of success means we get to do it all over again tomorrow, live another day in a season we wish would never end.

Even with 11 gallons of blueberries at home in the freezer, the Esses can’t pass up one more chance to taste the sweetness of autumn.

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The best hunting camps are not always the most comfortable.

An aspen root that protruded only slightly above ground when Charlie rolled out his foam sleeping pad turned into a sleepdepriving monster as the night wore on. But all forces come to equilibrium in moose season: The couple had a great lookout for moose not 20 feet from the entrance of the tent.

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No other season pulls the colors of the spectrum together like autumn. Reds, yellows, oranges, and purples play against white clouds and the blue of the sky.

IN THE MOUNTAINS THE BEARBERRY LEAVES HAVE TURNED RIOTOUS RED. The hills have been punctuated with strands of golden willows against the pink and peach hues of dwarf birch. We hike, we glass for game, and stop to gorge on autumn’s last berries. Like the pikas and ground squirrels foraging in the last warmth of the sun, we are all connected in the game of gathering fat stores for the long winter ahead.

Daylight becomes a fleeting commodity at the end of the hunting season. Unlike summer, our fires fill our needs for light and heat. We pitch our thin tent in proximity to game, on ground that is rarely smooth and level in the resolve of the camps’ ulterior purpose rather than camping for camping’s sake.

We never really settle in for the night, anyway.

We linger near the fire, listening for the grunts of bull moose, or stand vigil for big bears prowling about the grasses. It is the season to celebrate the return of the moon and the constellations in the night sky. We wait up past midnight for the possibility of northern lights. Eventually, we crawl into our lightweight bags and fall asleep to the clattering of an aspen leaf that refuses to let go and become a part of the carpet below.

It’s when we least expect it, when our thoughts are miles away, that our quarry suddenly appears. Moose, caribou, deer, or bear, our reaction always seems the same. Our hearts beat high inside our throats. Weapons flash. Time slows, and the brain blurs details that will become vivid hours later, while we pack out our winter’s meat.

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Jadelyn and Jakob enjoy the family’s last night on the river in front of the fire.

They wear their malaggayaqs (fur hats) Jacquelyn made from beaver and river otter pelts her brother had trapped on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Tuntuvak Time A family moose hunt on the Yukon River

s the sound of the Yukon River laps against the stern of our landing craft and the whispery sounds of a raven flying overhead drip down off its wings, I reach for my camera. The sunset has painted the sky in such rich, vibrant colors that I know no picture can do it justice, but I have to try. It is hard to tell where the sky ends and the river begins, with the water reflecting an exact mirror image of the trees, hills, and magnificent strokes of color in the sky. The serenity that surrounds us only adds to its beauty, anchoring it as one of many memorable moments to come on our family journey down the Yukon River for moose.

Each year we begin planning our trip in February, discussing what to pack, repairing tents and inflatable boats if needed, discussing the amount of dried, smoked, and canned salmon we will need to “put up” during the summer so we will have enough for the trip, checking that our gear still fits and doesn’t leak, calculating gas costs and more economical ways to transport fuel for a 1,700-mile trip, etc. Sure, we could probably cut down the impact this trip has on the kids’ school attendance records

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Jacquelyn’s most recent moose harvest: a bull moose at 300+ yards with one shot, using a .30-06.

and on our pocketbooks but we would be hard-pressed to replace those sacrifices with equitable experiences that not only build character but pay homage to the spirit and wilderness of Alaska. I have always felt that this beautiful state demands

JACQUELYN CRACE-MURRAY

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By JACQUELYN CRACE-MURRAY (Ayagiaq)

Translations n Ayagiaq (Ah-yah-ghee-uq): The author’s Yugtun name, meaning: “The One Who Wanders/Goes” n Quyana Ellam-Yua (Qoo-yah-nah Ell-um-You-ah): Thank you, Spirit-On-High n Tangerciqamken (Dong-ughr-chee-qumken): See you soon n Tuntuvak (Doon-do-uck): Moose n Yaaruin (Yah-roo-een): Storyknife (Yaaruin is the name of the author’s landing craft.) n Yugtun (Yoogh-doon): Yup’ik people/ language Note: There are no equivalents in English for the “r”, “q”, “ll”, and “g” sounds in Yugtun.

diligence from its people, and taking shortcuts only hinders that relationship.

Proper preparation, the gift of time, and a healthy dose of respect for the wild are the least of what we can offer the Yukon if she is to bless us with our meat for the winter.

Having grown up in villages in southwestern Alaska, I have experiential knowledge of Native customs and languages. As I was taught by my family and elders, the river and the land offer respectful hunters its bounty. Without that respect, hunters may be “successful” by western standards, but not necessarily from an Indigenous worldview. Simply put, “bagging a moose” is very different from harvesting an animal that will sustain people during a long winter. It is a life lesson I live by and by which I raise my children as well. Having said that, I am not immune to the contagious and competitive nature of searching for that one bull moose that not only puts meat in the freezer, but also graces the wall with an impressive rack. If the situation arises where both are met, all the better. If not, thanks is given, nonetheless, and the experience becomes the trophy.

This annual trip is not only a time to harvest our meat but also to come together as a family. Generational lessons are passed on, and we disconnect from the digital world—allowing space for other senses to develop and catch up. I cannot express enough how much I enjoy sitting in the cabin of our boat, listening to my dad (Tim) and husband (Steve) discuss how to navigate the river while my son reads several paperback books,

Jakob chops wood in front of the wall tent.

the beach for animal tracks, and sets up camp. Jadelyn and I collect firewood and start a fire, dad sets up the “kitchen” next to the fire while searching the willows for the perfect cooking and eating utensils, and I add to the documentation of another trip with more pictures. As mundane as these tasks may seem, it is often the repetitive nature of things that provides the most comfort and gives us that sense of security that is all too important when you are miles and miles My teenage children, Jakob (Jake) and Jadelyn, began joining us on this trip once away from home.

A week before the trip, we are busy little they were old enough to pack out a beavers, shopping for food items, significant portion of their own harvests since anything less would be disrespectful pre-packing and pre-mixing cooking ingredients and trail mix, bagging dried to the animal, and to our own backs. A moose jerky, re-checking gear, putting quiet symphony plays out when everyone minutes on our satellite phone, schedulknows their role and gladly fulfills their responsibilities. While on the river, I often ing fuel pick-up, loading the boat, fall asleep in our tent listening to my mind double-checking hunting regulations and replay the events of the day: the boat comes units, coordinating maps with the GPS trail, checking on our village contacts, to shore, Jake throws out the anchor and and rigging up new ways to transport and lowers the bow and begins cleaning the deck while Steve anchors the boat, scours store numerous shotguns and rifles and my daughter draws pictures in her notebook while curled up in her sleeping bag on the seat. The conversations range from who ate the last of the pilot bread, to what kind of major they want to pursue in college, or (thanks to the National Geographic channel) who does the best impression of a silver-backed gorilla.

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Tim Crace, the author’s father, cooks dinner in the camp kitchen.

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next to, or a site with just the right amount of rise to provide the perfect view of the northern lights from the tent’s opening. These are things that make midnight trips to “the outhouse” more bearable and, dare I say, downright enjoyable. There is nothing quite like standing on the bank of the river while watching the aurora borealis dance among the stars. It is quite different from seeing them off your back porch at home, surrounded by light pollution. The journey to the hunting grounds is just as much fun as the hunting.

Each day is a new adventure, full of new challenges and opportunities to learn, teach, excel, overcome, practice, and create.

Alaska is the largest small community I know. It is common to run into the same people miles and miles apart.

Hub towns and villages grace our vast landscapes, making up a small portion of inhabitable area when compared to the size of the state. Traveling from village to village or town to town is a way of life, making Alaska one of the last places where airports are still a fun greeting place. Knowing that shipping and travel is expensive, we often bring supplies to friends along the way. One such place is Galena, where our friends the Wintersteen-Echeniques live and work. In the spirit of good trade, we deliver vegetables, fruits, and other foods and sundries in exchange for great company, a hot shower, a home-cooked meal, a warm bed for the night, and a few jars of salted salmon eggs.

We frequent other villages each year as well, sometimes

JACQUELYN CRACE-MURRAY

without taking up precious room in an already crowded boat cabin. Nobody complains as they run up and down the ladder to the boat, loading bag after bag and cooler after cooler, because we know that it is just a drop in the bucket compared to what lies ahead. People often ask me how I can withstand the long, cold, dark winters of Alaska and I tell them that it is easy because we store up such rich, warm memories that sustain the mind and soul all year long. For me, it doesn’t get better than watching my 16-year-old son hold his own alongside grown men five hours into a moose pack or my 13-year-old daughter keep up with seasoned veterans two hours into skinning, quartering, and cleaning out a bull moose. It’s not the competition that makes me smile when I remember these times, but rather the knowledge that they have swallowed the Alaska life, living by it and for it.

After a seven-hour drive to Fairbanks, and then another three hours to the Yukon River bridge, the Yaaruin is put in the water and we begin downriver. Each night on the river, grandad and Jake take the seats in the cabin and Jadelyn stretches her hammock above the captain’s chair, hook-tohook. From a teenage girl’s perspective, the sway of the hammock as the river rocks the boat at night is a small price to pay for not having to worry about bears entering camp while she sleeps. The hubby and I sleep in a small pup tent, and it is a good day when we find a stretch of beach smooth enough to forego using the inflatable pads under our sleeping bags or having to stretch a tarp overtop as a rain guard. We occasionally find a small stream to set up camp

stopping at ones new to us. We consistently meet people we are proud to call our friends. Chatting with Wilson in Anvik about the moose season, going to the washeteria to fill up water jugs, meeting Ivan (the chief) of Grayling, getting gas from Dale in Kaltag, and watching village residents push their fish wheels back upriver are all precious encounters that make up life off the road system, and life traveling the Yukon. We cherish these relationships, knowing that the lessons learned from watching a lady do traditional beading at the co-op, and hearing Koyukon Athabascan spoken on the village roads are moments that strengthen our bonds as humans and as people who work to preserve these traditions and ways of life. I purposely expose my children to all this in hopes of instilling in them the same Indigenous values I learned as a child.

Once we reach where we want to hunt, it is time to set up a more permanent camp and start chopping wood. We put away the pup tent and get out the wall tent and sheepherderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stove while Jake puts his Paul Bunyan skills to the test with his Snow and Nealley axe. Dad unpacks all of the coolers, setting up a kitchen that would impress even the most discerning chef, complete with vegetables, spices, eggs, and cheese. Aside from moose jerky and salmon, we forego bringing meat

Jadelyn, age 13, harvested her first bull moose at 160 yards with a .243 rifle.

The authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s landing craft Yaaruin (meaning storyknife) on the Yukon River.

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Mauvaq (Jadelyn) gives away the meat of her first moose harvest to a Yugtun elder, Mary Alexie of Manokotak.

season “opens” for my husband and me, depending on whose turn it is in the shooting order. With several big game harvests under each of our belts over the years, the friendly competition between the two of us focuses more on the length and difficulty of the shot, and the size of the animal. I am leading, having harvested my last bull moose with one shot from 310 yards. He had outranked me in moose for several years, and I him for musk ox and caribou. We both look forward to what next year brings.

Regardless, once we harvest the animal, it is time for the entire family to pitch in and get to work.

Most years we are blessed with a good frost to help care for the meat. It is quite a sight to have 2,500 pounds of moose meat, three sets of antlers, three hides, and some leg bones loaded onto the boat.

Needless to say, the way back upriver is precarious, rotating the meat so the quarters get a nice frost on all sides, managing the stops for fuel (which are more often with a much heavier boat), and avoiding sandbars in the river at all costs. Trying to get a loaded-down landing craft off a sandbar at dusk would ruin anyone’s sense of humor.

Around the 11th day, we break camp and start the journey back upriver. It is always bittersweet to begin the trip home; however, by the 15th day on the river, we are all aching for a shower that doesn’t consist of baby wipes and boiled river water, and our conversations are often riddled with desires for pizza and ice cream.

While passing villages, the silence is

broken by the sound of our cell phones reminding us that we are back in range, and somehow life has gone by without the need to check our inboxes or voice messages. As we begin to reach the road system again, I can’t help but thank God for no injuries to life or limb, for another successful hunt with meat for the winter, and for the kind of memories that make women out of girls and men out of boys.

Quyana Ellam-Yua. As the days get shorter and the nights get longer, these are the memories that we will recall.

I am also reminded each year in late September that it is my birthday. Standing arm in arm with my family, I watch the silky silhouette of a moose rack cast a shadow onto the river from the top of the boat cabin, slowly fading out as the sun dips below the horizon. What better way to celebrate the passing of another year, knowing that this hunt was one for the books?

If you happen to see the Yaaruin on the big river, be sure to stop in for a cup of campfire coffee.

Until then, Tangerciqamken.

Dr. Jacquelyn Crace-Murray (“Ayagiaq”) grew up in villages in southwestern Alaska and is trilingual to include Yugtun, Spanish, and English. She recently completed her doctorate in applied linguistics from UAF as part of a cohort focusing on Native language maintenance and revitalization. She lives in Wasilla with her husband, Steve, and their two children, Jakob and Jadelyn. When she isn’t writing, photographing, or teaching, she can be found traversing Alaska’s great landscapes with her family and Labrador retriever.

JACQUELYN CRACE-MURRAY

meat since there is nothing like hunger to motivate you to bring home some fresh grayling, duck, spruce hen, or moose for dinner. Even the pickiest of eaters can ignore a little ash or dirt on a juicy campfire hen after a long day of hunting.

My best meals on the river have been sitting under a tarp while it pours down rain. There’s something about a tired body and obvious climate that makes food taste incredible. The coffee and tea taste warmer than usual, the moose tenderloin sandwiches are juicier than normal, and the campfire stories—well, they are side-splittingly funny.

The day a moose is harvested is always a good day. There is a special field where both kids have harvested their bulls. It is picturesque, as far as moose pastures go—a field with chest-high grass and marsh, a pond in the middle, and plenty of tree cover all around. Steve takes great pleasure in calling in the moose, using a homemade moose call, while my dad and I take turns talking to the kids and passing time. I love watching the kids listen to grandad’s hunting stories, while they search the field for signs of life. It is incredibly satisfying to feel time slow down, and to exist in the moment, noticing every drop of dew that dangles from a blade of grass, every sound that comes from the woods. Aside from the occasional gun shot in the distance reminding us that we are not alone during hunting season, we are made aware of our place in God’s country—tiny, but integral.

Some memories I guard as simply ours—not needing any fanfare or recognition outside of stating that they were beautiful and deserving. I can say, unabashedly, that the day each of my children harvested their first large game animal was a grand day, respectively. Not only did they put food on our table, but they also followed Yugtun tradition: giving away the meat of their first harvests to elders and those in need. It is a practice that ensures the hunter remains successful in the years ahead. Some of my favorite pictures include capturing cloud images of angels in the sky before the moose showed up in the pasture, and my kids giving thanks to God for their moose after felling them with great respect and accuracy. It warms a mama’s heart to know that each of them fed several families those years. The details of how those scenes unfolded are saved for another campfire.

Once the kids harvest their moose, the

Steve Murray packs out a moose hind quarter.

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White-tailed ptarmigan in its spring plumage.

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Kobuk

“Turkey” Ptarmigans make a festive meal

BY MICHAEL ENGELHARD

MATTHEW QUAID

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ourmet cooking remains an exception up north, yet holidays matter. At village stores, turkeys can be hard to find or unaffordable. Undaunted by this, residents of the Arctic celebrate by serving common local fare. Feasting on the land’s bounty and giving thanks for it has a long tradition in the high, inhospitable latitudes. One of the most reliable staples is a pigeon-sized fowl that happens to be Alaska’s state bird.

Combatting seasonal shortages, Native northerners for millennia clubbed, stoned, or stunned ptarmigan with blunt arrowheads to roast, smoke and dry, eat raw, or make into soup. (The bird’s East Greenlandic name mitigak translates as “he at whom rocks are thrown.”) Men, women, and children downed the plump protein packages with ivory-weighted bolas or snared them with braided sinew or wire loops set in willow twig fences. “Old women were never without ptarmigan nets,” one Yup’ik elder recalled. These looked like seines, and hazed or ambushed birds would entangle in the mesh; during their migration, 50 or 60 could be intercepted this way in one coup. Decoys fooled amorous, territorial males. An Eskimo hunter would clear a soil patch and sculpt a bird from snow, dressing it with russet grass around the neck to simulate spring plumage.

The 19th-century naturalist Edward Nelson thought that especially in the territory’s northern two thirds, ptarmigans often were “the only defense Eskimo possess against the ever-recurring periods of scarcity and famine.” Many Nunamiut elders from the Anaktuvuk Pass area remember winters without ptarmigan when some people starved to death. Unfortunately, like snowshoe hares, the birds have little fat. According to the late Simon Paneak, eating boiled ptarmigan without some kind of blubber is like dining on moss.

Permafrost pits served as summertime freezers, emergency caches. Raw eggs made simple snacks out on the land. The leafy-greens stomach content yielded vitamins that are in short supply in high latitudes. The pungent droppings seasoned a dish of seal meat, oil, and blood. Always traveling light, the Gwich’in cooked ptarmigan by filling the chest cavity with water and dropping a hot rock where a hot heart formerly pulsed. People traded the feathers or used them to scrub hands and dishes after a meal.

With such prodigious consumption, ptarmigan was the northerner’s bison, though far easier prey. Small wonder ptarmigans transcended mere sustenance.

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White-tailed ptarmigan in its winter plumage.

PHOTO BY MATTHEW QUAID

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In place names, aqiggiq alighted on the landscape; it whirred through people’s music, stories, and dreams.

Its eyelids were red, Its back was brown, And right between its buttocks Sat the sweetest little itiq.

Eskimo carved-bone bola, for bringing down birds and small game.

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This song by a salivating Greenlander seems to veer into raunchy territory. Sometimes translated as “arse,” itiq instead is a sweet, oily morsel, the “steamed clam” of Arctic gourmets.

Non-Natives cherished the tender game just as much. In a sport hunting manual from 1883, the New York zoologist Charles E. Whitehead considered ptarmigan the “chief delicacy of the Arctic explorer,” and “plentifully in the larders of the posts of the Hudson’s Bay Fur Company.” Accounts by late-19th-century travelers bring to mind the passenger pigeon tides. One describes willow ptarmigan by the thousands deluging an area measuring half a mile across on the lower Kuskokwim. Birds covered the bushes like Christmas candles. When the men drove their dogsleds into their midst, they took flight, and the swell of wing beats sounded “like the rumbling of thunder and seemed to make the very ground tremble.”

Sir John Franklin’s ships carried ptarmigan taken from Scottish moors, salted and barreled, and a paunchy Wyatt Earp, or his common-law wife, Josephine, served fresh ones for Thanksgiving in 1898, while ice-bound in Rampart, on the Yukon. Friedrich Trump’s Arctic Restaurant and Hotel (and brothel) served ptarmigan as well as meat from horses that dropped dead on the Klondike’s infamous White Pass Trail.

(THIS PAGE, TOP) COURTESY P277-015-0009B ALASKA STATE LIBRARY, WICKERSHAM STATE HISTORICAL SITES PHOTO COLLECTION (THIS PAGE, BOTTOM) COURTESY THE COBBS AUCTIONEERS • (OPPOSITE PAGE) MATTHEW QUAID

An Inupiaq boy hunts ptarmigan with a blunt-headed arrow near Nome, circa early 1900s.

Rock ptarmigan in its summer plumage.

Celebrating with miners, Joseph Grinnell praised ptarmigan as the “turkey of the Kobuk”—the director of Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and author of Birds of the Kotzebue Region valued it above all other game.

Gold Rush-era roadhouses had wild “chicken” on their menus. Allegedly, proprietors feared ridicule for idiosyncratic spellings: Termigen, tarmaken, tormichan, termagant, pthannakin.

Folklore has it that Chicken, Alaska, likewise owes its name to semiliterate, embarrassed sourdoughs. One old-time trapper hung his birds in a spruce, retrieving the frozen treats as needed from this “Christmas tree.”

The meat is “dark coloured, and has somewhat the flavour of the hare,” one 18th-century naturalist wrote. Baked into pies, ptarmigan brightened the drab dinners of ships’ crews. In a newspaper handwritten onboard HMS Assistance during the search for Franklin, her captain W.H. Austin in 1850 ranked them “foremost in the list [of birds] for flavour and delicacy of fibre.”

Because it is illegal in the United States to sell game, mostly hunters and their families enjoy ptarmigan. Like grouse, the bird does not lend itself to being farmed and is too “gamey” for mainstream palates. Ptarmigan will eat Labrador tea and old berries in late spring, while they wait for willow buds to sprout. This

gives the meat an herby aroma, which people prefer over the willowy tang the birds get later in the year. They are said to taste best in the fall when gorging solely on berries.

Thinking about camp and your next meal, you may flush ptarmigans inadvertently from willows while hiking in grizzly bear country— your heart promptly will miss a beat. They won’t, however, sailing off with staccato, guttural kok-kok-koks, feathered windup toys running down. Their flashing white wings and alarm serve to distract enemies from a nest.

They can also spell the birds’ death. When discovered and “put up,” Audubon noted, they are “easily shot, on account of the beautiful regularity of their flight.”

Chance upon downy claws or severed wings in the barren lands and you know a raptor has struck. (True gourmets, falcons above all relish breast muscles and brains.) Conversely, signs of a pillow fight—remnants from the feed of a wolf or a fox—suggest not carnal frenzy but a heavenly dish descended to earth.

Michael Engelhard is the author of Ice Bear: The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon and of American Wild: Explorations from the Grand Canyon to the Arctic Ocean, a Foreword INDIES gold medalist. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, and works as a wilderness guide.

During the gold rush, Mary Akimoto worked in a Fairbanks brothel and died there in 1906 under mysterious circumstances. The town was a focus of Japanese immigrants, who also ran a laundry and restaurant.

Dress, clean, and cut up a fowl. Put in a stew pan, cover with boiling water and cook slowly until tender, adding one-half tablespoon salt and one-eighth teaspoon pepper when ptarmigan is about half cooked. Thicken stock with one-third cup flour diluted with enough cold water to pour easily. Serve with dumplings.

Recipe from The Good Time Girls’ Guide to Gold Rush Cuisine, by Jay Moynahan (Chickadee Publishing, 2006).

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A flock of willow ptarmigan flies away.

PHOTO BY JIM MCCANN

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The 19th-century naturalist Edward Nelson thought that especially in the territory’s northern two thirds, ptarmigans often were “the only defense Eskimo possess against the ever-recurring periods of scarcity and famine.”

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Alaskaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bounty We Alaskans take our annual harvesting rituals so seriously that we schedule momentous events like weddings and direly needed vacations around hunting seasons, dipnetting dates, berry picking, and gardening. The cornucopia of food options obtained by our own efforts keeps us active outdoors, and when we buy Alaskan-made food and drink at farmers markets and grocery stores, we bolster the local economy. Here are a few more images that highlight that bounty.

An Inupiaq woman pulls a sheefish through a hole in the pack ice to share with elders in Kotzebue.

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(THIS PAGE) STEVEN KAZLOWSKI/ALASKASTOCK.COM (OPPOSITE PAGE) COURTESY SUSAN SOMMER

Food from land, sea, and sky

Carrots grown under the midnight sun store well for the long winter ahead.

Barbecued moose ribs roasting over the fire.

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Spot shrimp from Prince William Sound.

These giant Alaskan “prawns” can grow to over 12 inches long.

PHOTO BY PATRICK J. ENDRES/ALASKAPHOTOGRAPHICS.COM

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A dipnetter on the Kenai River cleans his catch.

(THIS PAGE, TOP) COURTESY STEVEN MERRITT; (BOTTOM) COURTESY SUSAN SOMMER (OPPOSITE PAGE) PETE OXFORD/NPL/MINDEN PICTURES

Honeybees gather pollen from fireweed and other wild and cultivated flowers. Local honey is sold at farmers markets, specialty shops, and some grocery stores.

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Walrus meat hangs to dry outside a house on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. Walrus is an important sustainable subsistence food for coastal Alaska Natives.

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPTEMBER 2018

Sporting Travel & Activities

• Exclusive garments in Alaskan village patterns • Qiviut Hand-knitted by over 200 Alaska Native members

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SEPTEMBER 2018 A L A S K A

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A L A S K A M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPTEMBER 2018

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Giants Under the Midnight Sun Walter Chastain grows award-winning vegetables

Walter Chastain is a lifelong gardener. After he moved in 2005 from Georgia to Alaska to become the onsite manager of a church camp in Wasilla, he became enthralled with the enormous vegetables he saw at local growing competitions. He’s been competing for at least five years and won numerous blue ribbons at the Alaska State Fair for vegetables including a one-pound beet, a 42-pound rutabaga, and a carrot that was nearly six feet long. ~as told to and edited

by Alexander Deedy

Walter Chastain with a giant turnip from his garden.

So how did you get your start in growing giant veggies?

I saw them at the [Alaska State] Fair and I was just amazed at the proportions of some of these vegetables. My original thought when I saw one of the competitors, Scott Robb or someone else, come in with a hundred-plus-pound cabbage was, “Wow, I would love to see what one of those looked like growing in my own garden.”

What’s an average day like for you in the garden?

Typically, with our schedule here at the camp in the summertime, the kids obviously come first and the garden comes way down that list. I usually spend between one hour and two hours a day in the garden between watering, fertilizing, weeding, that sort of thing.

COURTESY WALTER CHASTAIN

What vegetables do you have growing?

Besides my edibles—I grow a normal garden like most people do up here—I grow giant kohlrabi, giant rutabaga, giant carrots, giant cabbages, and then occasionally, there will be a beet or a turnip or something like that that I will try to grow.

Can you give me any of your tactics or strategies that you use for getting them to be so huge?

Well a lot of it is you’ve got to have the proper genetics in your seed that have the potential to grow large. You’ve got to have good soil, a good fertilizer program, and the main thing, really, I’m learning is consistency in growing. If you’re going to fertilize once a week, fertilize once a week on the same day. If you’re going to fertilize them every day, do it every day. You’ve got to be consistent in how you grow.

The giant vegetables that you don’t enter in the state fair, do you eat them?

Most of the time I don’t. Some of the vegetables when they get that large they’re really not very palatable so they usually wind up in the compost pile.

In 2017, Walter Chastain won Alaska State Fair ribbons for a beet, carrot, celery, kohlrabi, onion, and tomato. Here, he poses with his cabbage entry.

What do they taste like?

Some of the vegetables will be strong tasting or they’ll be bitter, something like that. And then some of them are just as good. The cabbage generally is just as good as a normal store-bought cabbage. But some of the vegetables can be quite strong and have a bitter taste.

What is it besides competing that you enjoy about gardening?

Gardening has just always been one of those things that is relaxing for me. It’s almost a therapy in a sense. I just love to be in the garden and play in the dirt.

In the wintertime when there’s snow on the ground, what’s your pastime then?

I like to woodwork. I do a lot of woodworking and I build furniture and make lathe-turned bowls.

What’s your end goal for the garden?

With the giants it’s really and truly all I want to do is get better and better every year. If I can beat last year’s weight, I’m perfectly satisfied with that. Ultimately, it’d be nice to see a world record or something. But I still consider myself an amateur and that’s one of those goals that I’m working toward.

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This Alaskan Life

September Swan Song The beginning of the end

BY SUSAN DUNSMORE

of fun. Summer got off to a late start but there was that nice weekend in July before we started the slow decline into autumn. Late August and early September bring regular sprinklings of “termination dust,” the snow on the mountain tops that signals the end of summer and the beginning of the ski season. Some people think this is a good thing. (The savvy reader has figured out by now that I am not one of those people.) Honestly, summer is short enough and extending winter by strapping skis to your back so you can schlepp them up a mountain to reach snow when it’s perfectly nice down here is something I’ve never understood.

September really is beautiful, don’t get me wrong. High-mountain berry bushes glow bright red. Leaves in the valleys are golden. Summer rains give way for a month to blue skies. It’s stunning, until the first windstorm shreds it all, leaving sticks everywhere.

The sun is headed south again so the change in the amount of daylight is quite noticeable. It’s a strange thing. Back in late March when we had 13 hours of daylight we remarked at how light it was getting. The possibilities for life are seemingly endless in March. In September, 13 hours of daylight makes us feel like something is being stolen from us. In March, the NPR weather forecasters tell us that we are gaining nearly six minutes of daylight every day. In September, they don’t say we are losing light—it is reported as a “change,” like marital problems, or spinach on your teeth. It is hinted at, gestured about, but not something people talk about outright.

Good things do happen in September.

At the fair, you have time to eat fried

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Susan Dunsmore shows off her fancy boots.

things on sticks, and fresh oysters. The Alaska State Fair is the only one I’ve been to where there is a booth that serves fresh, local, oysters on the half shell. I’d be very nervous about oysters at a fair anywhere else, too, but they are delicious.

Walking briskly away from the topic of fresh and delicious, Three Dog Night is coming to the fair this year. The first rock concert I ever went to was Three Dog Night, in 1977. I thought they were old guys then but I was 12—I thought everyone was old. It takes a while for things to get to Alaska, so even Three Dog Night is a big deal. Not as big as when we got our first Target, but we keep the bar of expectations low around here. We’re really only in contact with the outside world for the three months the tourists venture up, so trends tend to arrive decades behind when everybody else knew about them.

Pokémon Go! should arrive sometime after the next presidential election. Some stuff misses us completely. We may never get around to eating Tide pods. Or fashion, we’re not much for that either.

Danskos are sexy shoes in Alaska.

XTRATUFs go with everything.

The Performing Arts Center fires up its season around now, as does Whistling Swan. I always feel kind of bad for the performers we haul up here during the months that even we won’t go outside, but I’m thankful they show up. The lucky ones arrive for shows in September and think it’s amazing that we have so much light, and we humor them. One of the beauties of the arts is its ability to transport us from our realities, and the reality is it’s getting dark fast. Performers scheduled for early January comment to us from the stage that they don’t know how we can handle how dark it is. I guarantee you, everyone in the audience knows that we are gaining six seconds of light, and half the audience will loudly point it out. The performer wonders how anyone can acknowledge six seconds of light, but we are Alaskans. We know.

The author spends September doing the things that people Outside have another month to get around to, like canning, and figuring out what to do with all the cabbage in the garden before the slugs make the decision for her.

SUSAN DUNSMORE

W

ELL, THAT WAS A BUNCH