Mark in Sierra Leone

Ebola in Kangahun. What now.

As I sit here in my little North Douglas home next to the woodstove, I contemplate the past 2 weeks and how things have changed forever for my friends in Sierra Leone. I worked in Kangahun, a remote village in the eastern part of the country in the Kono District as a fish farming extension agent in the late 1980s. Solomon Saidu and his brother Francis Kamara soon adopted me into their families and were my keepers. We were all 20 somethings. Solomon and Francis needed only a machete (called a cutlass there) for their livelihood. With it, they could do anything they needed for their living, from cutting down a section of bush to burn it for a rice farm, to cutting cane and then splitting it to make a trap to catch crab and fish in the creek that ran near the town, to making a fence around their farm and then making ingenious traps in the fence to catch animals for meat that tried to get to their rice. I’d been a fishing guide on remote rivers in Bristol Bay and so was used to living without utilities. Getting to live full time in west Africa was a perfect fit for me, and my new brothers there were quick to accept and teach me.

I left Kangahun in 1988. Not long later, the country fell into what was called a “civil war”. It was really more of a war against the population, where the “rebels”, who supposedly were trying to overthrow the government, were really thugs who would come into a village, kill or maime anyone who did not escape, loot the town for anything of value, then burn the village to the ground and move on to the next village.

When the war found it’s way to remote Kangahun, Francis, with the help of Solomon, lead some four dozen people into the rain forest of the hills surrounding the village. When the rebels pursued them into the bush, Francis told me on my visit there in 2013 that it was not his skill, but only by “the grace of God” that the rebels, when they came to the spot Francis and his family had camped, had gone to the right, and Francis and his family, ranging from newborns to elders in their 80’s, had gone left. They fled further east and survived for 3 years in the far corner of Sierra Leone near Guinea until the rebels finally found their way there, and Francis led his people across the border and into Guinea. Mosquito, a notorious leader of the rebels, followed Francis and others across the Mano River into Guinea to the refugee camp. He came to Francis and asked him to come back to Sierra Leone, where the rebels said they would take care of them. Francis said that sounded like a great plan. He said he’d gather up his family and be ready to return to Sierra Leone in the morning. Francis had no intention of returning to Sierra Leone with this rebel leader responsible for killing and maiming countless innocent villagers during the war. That night, Francis gathered his family and fled further into Guinea.

They spent 5 years in Guinea. When I was working with Francis on his farm in 2013 planting rice, he said “you know Mark, we didn’t struggle in Guinea. We did just what we do here. We asked the local chief for a piece of land and farmed it. In fact, Guineans don’t farm by hand like we do. They farm with draft animals. When they saw the productive gardens we grew by hand, they asked us to stay and be extension agents for them”. That was a big compliment to Francis, as extension agents were usually college-educated. Francis had left school at an early age when his father died to provide for his family and was illiterate. Even in Guinea. In a land of a different language. With nothing but the set of clothes he was wearing and a cutlass, Francis made friends, gained the respect of his community, and lived pretty well.

Francis and family eventually found their way to Guinea’s capital, Conakry, then down the coast on what was likely his first boat ride to Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown. Over the next several years, he and his family found their way back up the country and back to their village. What they found was the scorched earth the rebels had left in their wake. The village was no longer there. The rebels had burned it to the ground, and the bush had taken over. Francis had to live in Koidu, the capital city of the province of Kono, until he and his fellow villagers could rebuild their village. Over the course of the next 10 years, the village was slowly rebuilt. Francis was so proud of his two wives, Femusu and Manyeneh, who made friends with a woman from the Fula tribe (the traders of West Africa). The Fula woman set them up with small amounts of goods to trade in the Koidu market. As the Fula woman saw that Femusu and Manyeneh were honest and hard working, she gradually increased their inventories for sale and the two of them did their part to provide for the family. In the village, everyone worked on the farm. Now in Koidu, there was only small plots of land to make gardens, and so learning the market business was how they survived. Meanwhile, Francis grew whatever he could in a garden, took jobs in the diamond field or whereever he could, and would return the 20 miles to Kangahun as he could to grow crops and beat back the bush that had grown for over a decade around his coffee, cacao and oil palm trees. All by hand. By the time I returned there in 2013, Francis, Femusu and Manyeneh had been back in Kangahun fulltime for 2 years. He was working a large plot of land in the rain forest raising rice, and living in rooms on loan from a village brother. Solomon had developed adult-onset epilepsy at some point, and now had to live in Koidu to be near what rudimentary medical care was available. Not only did epilepsy cause him to live a life he did not know – in the city, away from his life as a farmer- it also led to his being somewhat of an outcast. As someone “possessed” from the seizures. His wife left him. Some of his children were farmed out to other family. When I got there in 2013, Solomon looked a bit gaunt. He was still the same person who had been my best friend in the village, but the epilepsy had certainly taken its toll. When we would eat, Solomon would eat like a starved man. I asked if he ate regularly, and he said yes. Although there might be a day or two when he didn’t eat, he generally ate regularly. He was at the mercy of his extended family, and they, like him struggled to get by in the city. Solomon is not one to ask anyone for anything. If there wasn’t food for a day or two, he wasn’t going begging for it. We ate and ate during my week long stay. Damn, it was good to eat rice and sauce again. Solomon never had a seizure while I was there. When he and I went to the village, he worked and worked helping Francis and his nephews plant rice on Francis’s farm. Happy to be back doing what he loved doing, which was being a farmer. I would make sure Solomon would never be without food again by sending him money monthly when I returned home. His seizures, however, did return. Could be he was spending all the money on his children. Or could be that’s just how epilepsy works.

Francis’s oldest son Alieu,, was only a year when I left in 1988 and I thought he might not make it because he was so sickly. He was now a strapping young man of 25, living in Koidu and working as a motorcycle taxi driver. I think he finished high school as far as he could but could not continue his education in order to help his father and their family. Cheap motorcycles from India had replaced the small pick-up taxis used for transport when I was first there. The motorcycles were more suited to the brutal roads of Kono District. Alieu explained he drove for the owner of the bike, and paid the owner the equivalent of $7 dollars US a day Monday through Sat for use of the bike, and on Sunday he got everything he earned. Alieu paid for the fuel. We discussed the cost of a new bike ($1,200) and going into business for himself. We decided I would loan him the money and he’d pay me back in a year and then use the money he repaid for his father to build a house. I would ultimately be repaid by having a house to stay in whenever I returned to Kangahun. Alieu repaid the loan in 6 months. Francis had a new house less than 6 months after, built with supplies carried as needed on Alieu’s motorcycle from Koidu. Likewise, Solomon, still living in Koidu so he could be near medical treatment for his epilepsy, had a free ride whenever he needed it. Solomon’s wife would return to him later that month. The future was starting to take shape for the families after 25 years of war and rebuilding.

Francis and Solomon are once in a lifetime friends you feel more and more privleged to know as you grow older. They were my my keepers in the village. The Peace Corps shapes everyone who serves. For me, it’s been the cornerstone of my life, largely determined what I believe in and how I see the world. I left Sierra Leone with my two Peace Corps friend travelers Jeff and Jim in July 2013. They had similar experiences visiting their families 25 years after last seeing them.

A few months later, the first cases of ebola surfaced in Guinea – not far, actually, as the crow flies from Kangahun, but the distance was by bush roads and therefore not subject to extensive travel. The main roads from the Guinea outbreak went south to Liberia, then west through Sierra Leone. Our village of Kangahun, isolated from the main corridors, had been isolated from the ebola epidemic to the south in Kailahun and Kenema areas. Although four from Kangahun had died from the virus, all were living in Freetown when they contracted it.

During the first week of December, Solomon was tending to his garden in Koidu when he had an epileptic seizure. People who did not know him contacted the ebola response team, fearing Solomon had been taken down by the virus. The team responded, put him in an ambulance that had carried other ebola patients, and carried him to an ebola ward of potential ebola patients. His blood was drawn and sent to Kenema for testing. He waited several days in the ward and the result came back negative and he was released. His family decided to send him to Kangahun as he had not been in good health before his recent seizure and they thought it best he be cared for in his village.

Solomon arrived in the village about Dec. 11. He stayed with his younger brother Tamba Saidu. When Solomon was born, Solomon’s father gave him to Pa Saidu to raise as was custom to join families in Kono. Solomon had “step” siblings born of Pa Saidu and his wife Mary. The oldest was Finda, who was a teenager and cooked for me when I lived there. Her brother Tamba was a few years younger. Eia was Tamba’s younger brother.

Tamba was now the caretaker of the Saidu family and tending to the family farm. Mary Saidu had lost her husband to old age years ago, and Finda died of illness in about 2014. I spent time with Mary on my recent trip there. Mary was of the Temne tribe in northern Sierra Leone and somehow married a Kono man. I gave her a fish pin on one of my first days in town in 2013, and she wore it everyday I was there. I sent her fish from the market woman, too, for her dinner. Mary brought food to Solomon everyday.

On December, I received a text from Alieu. Solomon had suddenly died in Kangahun. I feared he had contracted ebola from the ambulance or hospital ward when taken in after his epileptic seizure. Upon his death he was tested again and the test came back negative, if I understood the text communications correctly. As his elder brother, Francis saw to his burial. Solomon was buried in sight of my former hut and across the street from Solomon’s childhood home. Both buildings were long since destroyed by the rebels during the war.

I still had my suspicions about ebola causing Solomon’s death. I looked up the incidence of death due to epilepsy and found that although it’s not common, it’s not altogether uncommon either. Perhaps he did die from complications from his epilepsy. A negative test is a negative test, right? I hoped for his sake he’d died with little pain. He’s seen enough already.

On Christmas Day, I began receiving texts from Alieu that Francis had taken ill. Francis was transported from Kangahun to Koidu, over the terrible road. He might have gone the whole way clinging to his son on the back of the motorcycle. Francis had his blood drawn at the Koidu hospital, and the sample was sent to Kenema, some 5 hours drive south, for ebola testing. The next day, his condition worsened and he was transported to a treatment center in Kenema. Upon reaching Kenema, he was directed west to Bo about an hour away. I don’t know why. Perhaps the Kenema center was full. Perhaps Bo had better facilities for advanced care. Alieu sent a text saying he’d lost his uncle (Solomon) and if his dad died, what was he going to do. That was the last communication I heard from him that day.

On December 28, I got a call from Darlington in Washington, DC. Darlington was a young boy in Kangahun when I lived there, and his father was an old blind Pa who made hand made hammocks. The Pa’s children would gather grass for him, which he rolled across his leg and wove into long lengths of rope. The rope was dyed, attached to wood frames at each end, and crafted into beautiful hammocks. I had an endless list of hammock requests from Peace Corps friends to buy them. Darlington somehow got out of Sierra Leone during the war and has been in the states ever since.

Darlington asked if I’d heard about Francis, and I said I was receiving updates via text. Darlington said Francis had died. As had Tamba Saidu. Three brothers, the keepers of their extended families, gone just that fast. I hoped somehow Darlington had received the wrong information. Not long after Darlington’s call I received a text from Alieu confirming his dad was gone. He’d seen both his uncle and father pass away and was understandably at a loss for what to do. I sent some money for his current arrangements and said we were here to help as needed.

Christian is a Kangahun brother who lives in Koidu and took care of Solomon for many years. He sent an email telling of the situation and that we must band together for the families. He said Solomon had six children and Francis thirteen. Some are grown and some are still school-age. So we wait for the families to grieve and then decide what to do. Where will the young children go? What will they need for support for living expenses. And school fees. School is not free in Sierra Leone. Education for his children was important for Francis.

After visiting there in 2013, I planned to bring Francis, Femusu, Manyeneh, and Solomon to Alaska. Not to move here. Just to visit. People who in a day when life shuts down for when the internet or computer network shuts down, can still live by their own wits, by their own hand, off the land. People who can draw their ancestry back hundreds or thousands of years on the land they live. People whose existence isn’t dictated by the stock market or joy determined by the winner of American Idol. They had their culture. They took pride in being farmers. They paid tribute to their elders now deceased. They loved their children and grandchildren.

It’s hard to fathom people who were so independent. Who had endured so much. Being taken by a microscopic virus. Letters written to my congressmen and congresswomen gained return form letters saying how hard they were working to protect Alaskans from ebola. They had no concern for those dying from ebola. These were not their constituents.

So I sit here in our first world half way across the globe with plenty of money. A hospital nearby. Friends who would do anything for me. I couldn’t get to my village now if I wanted to. They are under quarantine. Francis’s eldest son Alieu and I are in contact most days by cell phone text. “What am I going to do” he asks. “I’ve lost my uncle and my father”. I have no good answer for him.

I send some money to Alieu for now, knowing he was with his father all the way to Bo and may now be infected, too. Along with his mothers and others back in the village. I am angry that the US and the western powers ignored the outbreak for a year before taking any meaningful action, well after it was too late. But then again, maybe money could not have fixed anything. You can’t bring a country without health care to a country with health care with money alone. It takes personnel. Infrastructure. Expertise. Education. Money alone can’t make these things happen. All of them take time to develop.

Francis Kamara is a man I look up to more than anyone I have ever met. He kept his extended family alive for 2 decades of war and rebuilding. He cared for his brother. And that care lead to his infection and undeserved death. Like 8,000 of his West African compatriots.

So now I wait for the family there to grieve. To remember Solomon, Francis and Tamba. They will also be watching each other for signs of Ebola. Like Francis, his wives and children may have been subject to infection. And the same for Tamba’s family.

My Alaskan Life

Ron’s 2 sons used our cabin with 6 of their high school buds the two days following Christmas.  They got 4 deer in the two days. Only 1 cellphone lost.
Two of them went out later in the week and they got 2 more.  Now Ron has some deer for the year and hopefully will be back getting his own again next year.

Hunting With Matt

Forgot to write about my hunting trip with Matt. He got a new hip a few months back and so picked a spot with muskegs not far from the beach he felt he could comfortably reach. I got the old 150 going and it ran fine down to the spot on Admiralty. The area was great but we didn’t see any deer and only a few tracks in the shallow snow. On the way out, I looked and saw what I thought was a seal not 10 yards away in the water. Then I realized it was a river otter, so I chambered a shell and the otter dove. He came up for a close shot, but I missed. The otter moved off shore and swam south. Everytime he came up he’d look back, and stayed well off shore till he was out of sight.

We got the boat loaded up. It would not start. I wore down one battery and then the other. Luckily it wa s nearly flat calm so I cranked up the 8 hp kicker and we ran home on it. I was glad I remembered the propane heater since it was not exactly wa rm out in the fading sun of late winter. We made it home without incident. I ordered a new used 90 hp Honda 4 stroke from a dealer in Port Angeles and it should be here on the barge and hopefully I can get it mounted this weekend.

Today is Jan 1 and so usually a sad day as it’s a 7 month wait till deer season opens again. But the weather is so crappy with wind and a driving rain that we wouldn’t be out today anyway.

Cabin Christmas

Lost my best friend in Sierra Leone, Solomon Saidu, two days before my birthday. Seems it was not Ebola but somehow I am not so sure. His epilepsy was getting worse, and it seems something from that killed him. At least his family got him back to the village before he passed. Now his brother Francis is also sick and in Koidu for observation. Francis is the patriarch of the family and his son Alieu is in fear now of losing both his uncle and father. Francis will be under observation until results come back from his Ebola test.

Sara is in Hawaii with the Craig town family. I went to our cabin Christmas eve, borrowing Kurt and Jeff’s 16′ lund as I am waiting for my outboard to come in on the barge. It was good to get over there, and I was the only one on the island it seemed. The next day I went deer hunting on Admiralty above the salt chuck. I saw a few tracks but did not get very far up the hill with a late start and early sunset. Spent another night reading old Alaska Sportsmans magazines about polar bear hunting and deer hunting. In 1945 there was a 2 deer limit of bucks with antlers 3 inches or longer west of Cape Yakutaga and a 1 deer limit in Prince William Sound. The season was Sept 1 to Nov 15. Now the limit around here is 4 deer of either sex after Sept 15, and the season runs Aug 1-Dec 31, and there’s plenty of deer this year. With so little access other than by foot, the deer population is in little danger of overharvest.

I decided to return to town the next day as the wind was supposed to switch around to the north and could be a bit hairy coming across Stephens Pass. I met Ron’s two sons and 6 of their friends coming in on their scheduled hunting weekend out of our cabin. I made it home without incident, and the boys got a deer that afternoon and 3 more today.

I got out the high bush cranberries from the freezer and put them in a pot on the woodstove. I spent the day purging my clothing. I put a free ad on Craigslist and found a father who gladly took it all for his son. By evening the cranberries were thawed and boiled a bit and I got to making more syrup. Last year I tried making jelly but it didn’t set but the resulting syrup was so good I decided I liked it better so made that this year – 13 pints worth.

Still no snow on the ground at sea level. I awoke about 3. Don’t sleep much these days with all that’s going on with the family in Sierra Leone. I washed the dishes from the syrup making, sewed some blade guards for my skates from my old jeans, and sewed up a nice poly pro shirt I’d burned a hole in when it was too near the woodstove drying. Then set down here to print of an order sheet to send my otter hide off to Moyles. The ADD kicked in and here I am writing for the blog.

I tried the pressure washer for fleshing the otter I got last year. I’d never tried fleshing one and after putting several holes in it, stopped before I made things worse to learn now to do it properly. Then I found out about pressure wash fleshing it, and it’s nearly a miracle how well it works. I sewed up all the holes first, then got to it and thought it wasn’t working at first and then realized it was working perfectly. I plan to send it off to get tanned and sew a hat or something from it.

Crafty doe

So this is for those of you who have hunted behind our house. If you recall, there is a muskeg up the hill towards Mike Hatch, maybe a 10 or 15 minute hike from the house.

With the first dump of snow for the year, I thought I’d see if any deer were pushed down from above the ditch trail. I moved up the hill and towards the muskeg, but with no intention of spending time there since I figured the deer would be in the woods with all the snow.

I busted out into a little clearing and saw another hunter’s track. The track was angling uphill towards the bridge, so away from where I was going, but it still meant others were in the area. I also spotted a pile of high bush cranberries on a bush, then looked around and saw several other bushes with lots of cranberries, so I decided to switch to berry picking as I figured the deer hunting wasn’t going to be so great with others hunting the hill. I picked all the berries in the area, then continued up the hill to find more and soon busted into the lower part of the muskeg. I saw more tracks and thought there might be one or two other hunters on the hill, in addition to the tracks crossed earlier. As I worked my way around the muskeg berry picking, I noticed people had walked all over it earlier this morning. After working the edge of the muskeg, I headed towards the brushy area in the middle of the muskeg.

And there she was. A large doe. Standing broadside. 20 yards away in an opening in the brush. With snow on her back. Looking at me, but not alarmed.

I chambered a shell, brushed snow out of the scope, clicked the safety off, aimed as the deer turned to walk away, pulled the trigger, and nothing. I thought the safety was frozen shut as it had been dumping snow all morning. I finally realized what I thought was the safety was actually the bolt release, and is located where the safety is on the .243 I’d been hunting with on Prince of Wales for 3 weeks. On the 30.06 I was holding, however, the safety was right under the back of the bolt. And it worked easily when I finally figured it out.

As soon as I figured this out, off I went, easily following the deer’s track. She didn’t run hard. Stopped to pee and poop in a spot. Looked like she stopped and looked back at one spot. She led me down the hill to the left, then right across the hill, then left and uphill again right back to the muskeg where we’d started. The whole time in the brush.
She crossed my track where I first started tracking her, as well as the tracks of the other hunters. The only time she ran was when she came into the wide open part of the musket and took a few bounds into the big woods above the muskeg. I quit tracking her there as I figured I wouldn’t be able to catch up to her to see her again. It looked like that deer was in the brush in the muskeg the whole time the other hunters came through, and as I was just going from tree to tree berry picking, maybe she thought I was not a threat until we locked eyes, and I jacked in a shell and aimed. Had that been a bear coming at me, he’d still be eating right now as I’d never have figured out the safety thing in time. I got a half gallon of berries for my effort and know there are more berries I left when I started after the deer so I’ll get back up there for more.

Next time I’m taking the 30-30 with open sights. I don’t think after that first chance I had that I would have even been able to see through the scope as it was iced up, so a smaller gun with open sights will work better.

The best stories are always about the ones that get away.

Hunting with john

Oct 31 we hunted my favorite bay. I had required John to take Hunter Education in PA before I would take him hunting here, even though it’s not a requirement in Alaska. PA does not include shooting with it’s hunter ed, so the first thing we did when we were dropped off and hiked up to the logging road was to have John shoot the .243. I shot first and showed him how the gun worked. Then he shot. He hit the paper from 50 yds and said he was good to go.

Hunted all day in the pouring rain and saw nothing. This spot can either be on fire or dead. Seems the deer come in here in November during the rut and they just weren’t in yet. On our way back down we almost tripped on a buck with tiny fork antlers. The deer just looked up at us, then continued to feed. I asked John if he wanted the deer and he was trying to get off his scope covers and load a bullet. I got nervous and asked John if he wanted me to take the deer and he said sure, and one shot to the neck and that was it. I wondered if I should have waited for John to take the deer, but hoped we’d find him a bigger one. This gave me the chance to show him how to field dress a deer, as well as good shot placement for a quick kill. John was not real impressed with removing the innards from the deer. Neither the blood, organs, or smell. I don’t think being an emergency trauma doctor is in his future. I moved some of my gear from my pack to John’s pack and tied the deer to my pack to carry it out. Again, it sucks to be 50. Sister Julie had gone to hunt with Ellen and they got trapped in the same bowl surrounded by cliffs I did last year and didn’t see any deer. We set dungy crab pots on the way home. Later that evening, Brian’s brother and nephew stopped by and picked us up to fish cohos in the river. I’ve never seen so many coho spawning and jumping. They caught fish till dark.

Nov. 1 we were all bushed. I was sore all over. But mid-morning we got around to hunting and I felt better after a couple ibuprofen and moving around. John and I went to a small island you could walk around in a couple hours. I was calling in a muskeg for about 20 minutes when a big buck came in. I think I immediately thought I was happy I’d taken the small buck the day earlier as this was a big deer. I saw him coming and tried to get John in position. I was between John and the woods where the buck was coming. John had a hard time seeing the deer through the scope from the sunny muskeg into the dark woods. John said when he did find the deer in the scope and was ready to shoot the deer moved and he could not pick it up again in the scope. Had the same problem shooting at a buck on Douglas a couple years ago with Matt. That time it was just plain dark in the woods with the 4 power scope and when the deer finally moved from behind the tree I couldn’t find him and he walked off. I got the big 3 point that same day, though. Anyway, I was on my back and didn’t have my gun and never saw the deer again. It was a great time for both of us to see that big deer. Later in the day we were in some thick woods and I called in a doe exploded from the spruce trees and just about bowled over John.

Nov. 2 we hunted in a logged off area and walked a road in from the beach. We called in 2 doe on a bench but saw no bucks. I cut up the first deer that night and we got it vac packed and into the freezer.

Nov. 3 we hunted an island across from the house. On our way to our spot, we saw a buck on the beach. John and Spencer rowed the punt to the beach to take it. By the time they got to the beach, the buck had walked up into the woods. John and Spencer walked up into the woods where they rowed in to see if they could see the buck. Not long later we heard a single shot. Then a phone call. John had his first deer. After a while, we saw them emerge from the woods with Spencer dragging the deer. They got into the punt to row back, and John almost rolled out out the beach but kept his balance. I’m sure Brian was thinking of my rolling the same punt 2 years ago when I went to shore after a buck. John had made a perfect shot in the neck. Again, he’d seen me take the one 2 days earlier so that may have helped.

We continued to our drop off spot. We only had one tag for John, so now was doing the calling for Uncle Mark. The first place he called, in came a doe. I said to watch the direction from where she came as a buck might be trailing her. I looked up and there was a buck. I waited for it to walk towards John and into a small opening so I could take it. It stopped when it saw John, who did not have his gun as he’d got his deer and had no more tags. John said later he could see the whole deer and could have easily taken it. I got one more look at it and when I raised my gun to fire it hopped away. We could see parts of it later but not for a shot. We saw another doe or two but no more bucks that day.

Nov 4 was a homework day in the morning. I got up at 4 am and butchered John’s deer. John worked on his homework. In the afternoon, Ellen took Later in the day, Ellen took John and I to the range to practice shooting. He shot a .22 rifle at several different positions that Ellen coached him through. Then a few shots with the pistol. Finally, we moved to the long range and .243. John was a crack shot at targets at 100 yards. He now had alot more confidence and it paid off the next day. In the evening, I took him to catch some coho in the river. We got some rods from Brian and stopped at Black Bear store to buy some vibrax lures. I bought 2, and John quickly lost those, so we drove back to the store to get some more. He hooked several and landed a few. Fish were jumping everywhere in the river. Never seen coho like this before in Nov when they are ready to spawn. We also bought John another deer tag.

Next day was Nov 5, and we went back to the same island John got his first deer. Spencer and Ellen got dropped off at other spots and John and I at about the same place we missed getting the buck 2 days earlier. We got to the first good spot to call, and John, with a fresh tag, still did the calling. He called once, then said he had a doe to his left. Next thing I see he’s raising his rifle to look, brought it down, brought it up again and fired. I heard a deer running through the salal but never saw the deer nor heard it pile up, and we were only 10 yards apart when he shot. He said the deer was not a doe but a buck. He said he was going to shoot it in the neck, and when he went to fire it moved so he shot it in the body. We went over to where it had been standing and started putting up flagging. We followed the trail out where John thought it went, and saw no blood or hair at the impact site or the trail. When I got down the trail about 20 yards, there were some deadfalls and I thought maybe John had shot it further away than he thought, so I started back to the impact area a little further away. I saw a log with just some faint blood on it, and a salal leaf with a single drop of blood. Bingo. We had a trail of sorts. I then thought I heard some thrashing – but just barely over the sound of a nearby creek. Had it not been a sunny dry day, the creek may have been running harder and I wouldn’t have heard the thrashing. i called to John that I had found blood, then headed on the trail, which showed the deer actually went downhill from the shot, then had backtracked uphill. I found the deer about 20 or 30 yards up the trail. When I saw it, it was with it’s back to me, and was my first sighting of the deer. It had a wide rack and a wide shoulders. A big deer. It was not dead so I shot it in the neck where it lay. John came along and when the neck shot did not suffice, I shot again at the base of the ear and that put the deer out for good. It was a nice wide fork horn buck with eye guards. Turns out John had shot it in the back ham. It hit no bone but perhaps the femoral artery since it went down so quickly. I told John later when we talk about hip shooting, it’s shooting the gun from the hip, not shooting the deer in the hip. He didn’t think it was all that funny of a comment. Brian and Ellen did. I told John I have a million of these jokes.

John had watched me gut his first deer and this time he had to do it himself. I tried to get him started and going, and he kept implying he couldn’t do it and that I should show him how to do it again. I said I had all day and night if necessary and he would be doing it or it wouldn’t get done. It took awhile but he finally got the deer gutted. I explained numerous times about reaching up through the severed diaphram to feel for the heart and lungs, then cut above them. When he finally reached up far enough and felt the organs his eyes lit up as the light bulb went on. I dragged it down to the beach and marked the spot with flagging so we could find it later, and put a waypoint on the GPS. We didn’t see another deer all day. Ellen and Spencer also got a deer that day.

On the way back we checked the crab pots, and they were full. We got home and I skinned John’s second deer.

Nov 6 was another homework day. I butchered deer during the day. At mid day, we went to check the shrimp pots, which had lots of shrimp. We’d hoped to go to the range another day but it didn’t happen.

I can’t remember what we did Nov. 7. Nov 8, John and I took the ferry to Ketchikan in the morning to meet his dad, who is a commercial pilot. He came up on Alaska Air from Seattle and met us in Ketchikan. I walked them back to the airport ferry, then went to the sporting goods store to kill some time before catching the returning ferry in the evening with some more friends of Brian and Ellen who they went bison hunting with last winter.

Nov. 9 I went back to the same spot John got his buck. I hiked in the same way, but moved up the hill to the right instead of the left. I did not call any deer. It got to be about noon and thought I’d better start back. I came down out of the woods and came into a clear cut. I thought I’d eat lunch here in the sun and try calling. It was a spot that deer could probably only come in below me due to the slash arrangement in the clear cut.

I called in a doe from my right. I could see her coming up the hill by the trees wiggling like a downhill skier going through slalom gates. She finally came into view 15 yards away. She stopped. looked up, kind of hopped across to my left, and I never saw her again. I thought like the buck we’d seen when John called and I missed that a buck might come up behind her on her trail. I kept calling and in maybe 5 or 10 minutes, I see the trees wiggling again. A small buck came and stopped in the same spot the doe had, and I dropped it. It was not an easy drag back. When I got to the spot the deer lay, I couldn’t even tell how either of them made it around all the slash to get to the spot. The drag out was over and under logs of felled logs and deadfalls. I took my time since I had it, and called a few more places but saw no more deer.

Nov. 10 I was dropped off at a new place. It was an area of logged off land and I was to climb up to a road, then walk the road and look for deer. It was pretty tough walking. Not far from the beach, the dead falls and slash from logging started and I had to climb over and under the trees. When I broke into the clear, I saw a big buck lumbering up a creek wash. I was on felled trees at the time, and tried to find a rest as the deer was 200 yards away. I called and stopped it on the road but was trying to balance on the trees and find a rest for a long shot and the deer didn’t wait long enough and walked out of sight. There was a patch of woods to my right going up to the road, and I continued to call hoping the buck might come down. I did call in a few does but not the buck. I worked my up the wood patch and called again and probably spent 1.5 hours getting up the short distance to the road hoping to see a buck.

When I got to the road, I walked as directed and soon came to logs in the road, and it was hard to tell if I was even on the road anymore. I saw some unlogged woods to my right as I rounded a point, and made my way down the road until I could find a trail through the clear cut up to the woods. In reality, I had just rounded a point on the road and by going up to top of hill where the woods were I was headed back over the top to the spot where I reached the road. I got up into the woods, which bordered a clearcut that was uphill from where I’d come out of the woods onto the road when I first came in. It was a great place to call and see and I settled in on a sunny day in the dark woods. I called a few times, and saw a doe come up from the edge of the clear cut, but she did not come all the way over to me. Not sure if she winded me or what but I never saw her. I kept calling and same as the day before, 5 or 10 minutes later here comes a buck, but this time, a big buck. I got ready to shoot and it stopped behind some trees along the trail about 20 yards away. I waited and then gave a soft mew on the call. The buck couldn’t take it and took a couple steps forward, and I dropped it with a neck shot. A nice big fork horn.

I found a place to hang the deer because although it wasn’t all that far to the beach, I already knew it was a crap fest for walking. It was a little after noon and I had plenty of time. I skinned the deer and butchered the deer. Cut off the quarters, back strap, and tenderloin. Then filleted off the neck meat, and filleted the rib meat. Probably took 1.5 hours and I took my time. I put the meat in my pack, checked where I was on my GPS, then headed for the beach. I came to a very nice muskeg that I was on the edge of in the woods but I didn’t know it at the time. I blew for awhile in the muskeg thinking if I got another buck, I could field dress it and hang it and come back the next day to retrieve it. But I didn’t see another deer.

When I came down from the muskeg I was much closer than I thought to the road, and I hit the road near where I’d come up to it. That’s when I realized the buck on my back may well have been the buck that I saw coming in. I butchered the Nov 9 buck that night, and hung the bags of deer parts from today.

Nov 11 was deer butchering day. I butchered the deer, vac packed all of it, put it in the freezer. Heading home tomorrow. What a great time here. One of the best weeks ever with John. Hope the nuns like his story back at Catholic middle school in Pittsburgh and keep his detention light from all the new words he learned in Alaska.
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