I’m up on the slope finishing the second week of a 3 week hitch that will probably end short as the project is about over. I’m working over on Pt. Thomson, about 50 miles by ice road from Prudhoe Bay, at Exxon Mobil’s gas project. The camps have been dismantled and nearly all moved to town. Just a few odds and ends to put on tractor trailers and sent to town. Then the delineators on either side of the road will be removed, the road closed, and another ice road will melt into the tundra.

The ice road was incredibly slippery today. Usually an ice road is “scratched” after water is put down to provide traction, but today the wind was blowing, and even on straight stretches, the pickup truck would fade to the downhill side as there was no or too little scratching to provide adequate traction. Luckily, only the 2nd half of the road near town was like that, but that’s still 20 miles or so of bad road to negotiate. I wanted to kiss solid ground when I got to gravel road today.

Weather is starting to inch above zero most of the day, and nearly 17 hours of daylight now. The sun and glare off the snow hurt my eyes without sunglasses today.

Hooters have started hooting in Juneau. I’m eager to get home and in the woods. Should be a few kings around, too.

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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

I recently ordered the biography “Frank Gannett: A Biography”, written in 1940 by Samuel T. Williamson.  Growing up in a town of little over a thousand people, you’d think there would have been more history told of it would seem, without a doubt, its most famous citizen. 

Frank Gannett graduated from Bolivar High School at the turn of the 19th century (1897).  As a teenager, he was an industrious worker and small businessman in Bolivar, where he learned to hate what alcohol did to people when he bartended at the Newton House (which I believe was situated on the corner of current day Main and Wellsville Street – 2 blocks from where I grew up).  In short, Bolivar in no small part shaped his life and morals.

References are made throughout the book back to his life in Bolivar, where he was friends with two others I never heard of – Dougherty and Jones.  Both went on to major league baseball careers –  Jones as the manager of the Chicago White Sox, and Dougherty as one of Jones’s best players on the White Sox.  Who knew?

The book is written in a style of reminicent of a book I read by a Rochester newspaper writer written about the same time – 1940 ish – of his travels on foot through the Genesee Valley from the river source in Genesee, PA to its terminus in Rochester. I’m not sure if the simple descriptive and introspective style makes this book about the newspaper magnate interesting to me, or the fact that I share the same roots with the subject. Probably both.

Growing up, the town hero was (and still is) Bob Torrey, who played fullback for Joe Paterno at Penn State in the mid-1970’s, then 3 or so years in the NFL. Everyone in my generation knew of Bob, but I dare say few or none knew of Gannett. Most idolized Bob, but few, if any, had thoughts of following him. His combination of size, strength and speed had as much to do with random genetics as they did with talent. All the hard work in the world won’t make you a Division 1 football player if you don’t have the body for it.

Gannett’s story is different, though. Like those that came after him, he graduated from an excellent school system that taught the 3 R’s well and had a town of hard-working families that cared about each other and their town. Gannett took this same education and small-town pride to heights not seen until perhaps Lance Shaner and his success in hotels and oil.

I wonder how graduates from Bolivar would feel if they knew greatness was bred in their hometown – a greatness they all could achieve? Would they think they could achieve anything when they left high school and shoot for the stars, rather than leaving that for what they thought were smarter or somehow more advanced or advantaged people from the big city? Who knows. I do hope when I send this biography back to Bolivar when I’m done reading it that the school will include it in its curriculum, as well as the contemporary history of Lance Shaner. Heroes seem better when they live down the block.

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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK  99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Still out next to the pack ice of the Arctic Ocean. I was supposed to be on my way home today, but the temps dropped below 40 below and stayed there, and that’s the cutoff for the helicopter to fly from Deadhorse to here to get us. One more day of work and pay won’t hurt. It’s too cold for the crew to build ice road in this, so lot’s of gabbing and card playing and tv watching and internet surfing tonight here.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

I’m at Pt. Thompson in the Eastern Arctic Ocean coast of Alaska. It’s about -40 F degrees here tonight. When I get home to Juneau, it is forecast to be about 40 F degrees. A gain of 80 degrees.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Caught 2 more marten this check. One where I caught the first one of the year, and the second at a set where I caught one last year. Also had one trap snapped but no fur. Went back to the cabin and skinned all three according to instructions I found doing it head first. Worked pretty well, and glad to have it done. Now need to make some stretchers.

Weather looks like it’s coming up after tomorrow, so will probably have to go and pull the line tomorrow or might not be able to get back over before I leave for start of winter work on the slope. It’s been about 40 during the days and all the snow was gone in the woods. Lots and lots of tracks on the beach where we got the last deer of the season last week, and the scat looked like the deer had been eating sea weed.

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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

I went over to Admiralty to set some traps for marten and maybe deer hunt the last day of deer season. I stopped in the cove where we’d got the deer two days before, and the boat that we saw there a few days ago was back. I anchored the boat off shore and quick-stepped it to check my set and make a couple others along a cliff where I’d seen marten tracks.

I was not gone long, but when I got back to the beach, my skiff was dry. And since it was only 2 hours after low tide, I knew I was in for an 8 hour or so wait. The 3 hunters returned to their boat at the same time. They had anchored out their boat with a raft, and taken the raft to the beach. When they loaded up to go, they put two fair-sized deer in the boat, so they had a good day.

I spent the first hour getting my skiff together for the long wait. I had a small cook stove and plenty of fuel for it, so that took care of heating my little canvas cabin. I also have an am/fm radio that will run by hand crank if the batteries die, and so tuned that to the college bowl football games. And I had a thermos of coffee, plenty of water, and Farm Show and Fur-Fish-Game magazines to read, so basically it was like being at our cabin but with less head room.

I hoped a deer might come out on the beach at low tide. After awhile, I loaded my rifle and took a walk to at least try to hunt the last day of the season, and set a trap further down the beach. I also went in to check out a cabin nearby in case I needed to hole up for the night. The cabin was padlocked, and I couldn’t find any hidden key. I’d not break in unless my situation turned into an emergency.

I walked down to a point and made a marten set. Then I went up the hill a ways and hunted my way back to the skiff. I called several times, but no deer. I did see some marten tracks, so was hopeful for some success there.

Back to the skiff, and I listened to the game and read my magazines. The tide was a long time in coming. It was not till 9 pm or so that it finally floated the boat. I idled out of the cove. Towards town there were the town lights that showed, but where I was going – to our cabin – it was near pitch black with wind and driving rain and snow. As I left the cove, I thought I should go back where I was as that was the safe thing to do, but kept going.

I had to drive standing up so I could try to see, behind the little canvas cabin, where I can barely reach the steering wheel. Since I’d been traversing this channel for over a decade, I knew where the reefs were. All I could do was try to stay in the middle, but it was hard to steer in the wind at just above idle speed, see with the driving rain and snow, and make out just where I was in the channel. I thought many times this was a dumb thing to do, but once I got started I just kept going.

I finally made it to the anchorage without incident. I put the boat on the easy-out anchor line, and hustled to the cabin. Got the gas lights lit, the propane oven going and a pizza with shrimp from Craig in, and then the wood stove going. Finally, a stiff drink and life was good again.

I got up today and cleaned up the cabin, which needed some tidying as we’d unexpectedly left two days earlier. I was not going to chance checking the traps I’d set the day before and getting tided again. I headed up to the traps I’d set a few days earlier, instead. The first I could see from the boat, and it looked undisturbed. The other set was in the woods where we’d left 3 gut piles on the beach from the deer we’d taken there a few days earlier. That trap had the first marten of the year hanging from the 120 conibear from the newspaper tube set. There still looked like lots of other marten tracks on the beach and it looked like another marten came in and got the bait the trapped marten was after, so I reset the successful trap and set another.

The trip to town was enjoyable, with light rain and a southerly chop for some of the crossing. I spent the evening butchering 2 of the 4 deer hanging in the garage, and now to get ready for Sara’s 50th birthday party tomorrow.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com