Not sure why you don’t discover simple things till you hit 50 but there it is. I’d never done anything with the bones and meat scraps left on them after butchering a deer till recently. Turns out this really extends the amount of food you get from the deer, plus it’s also some of the best parts to eat from the deer because Sara is so good at making soup or stew from it.

Making stock from deer bones is pretty simple. After removing the meat from each quarter, I roast these bones, along with the neck and back bones, in the oven. There’s always some meat left on the neck and back bone and that’s good. Roast on a baking sheet for 20 minutes at 450 degrees. When the bones come out of the oven, I let them cool. If the bones of the front and hind quarters weren’t cut through with a saw when I butchered the deer, I cut through them now. The bones are pretty soft after roasting, and I use a serrated bread knife or the like to cut part way through the bone, then wack the bone at the cut on the counter when Sara isn’t looking and they break easily. This will expose the marrow, which is some of the good stuff you’re after for the soup stock. I put the roasted bones in a pot and cover them with water. I don’t add any vegetables to the stock as we add them later when we make soup or stew. I bring the pot to a boil on the gas stove and let it simmer for an hour or two. When it’s cold enough outside that we have the wood stove going inside, I’ll get the pot boiling on the gas stove, then transfer the pot to the wood stove and let it simmer there.

I don’t have a specific time to let the thing continue boiling. At some point it’s going to look like like soup broth, and I take it off the heat, pull out the bones, strain the liquid through a fine meshed strainer, and put the liquid outside to cool. If there’s any fat in the stock, it will harden to a solid white lid on top of the broth when the broth is cold. This is easily pulled off in a few pieces and discarded to the ravens. From here I pour off the liquid into 1 quart-sized yogurt containers or just freeze it in 1 quart volumes in baggies.

Sara does the ribs in the same way, only with the ribs, we’re after both the meat and the bones. I cut each side of the rib cage into about 3 sections, and trim as much fat as I can, but you never can get it all it seems.  Then roast the ribs for a short time in the oven, like the bones. After roasting, we boil the ribs. When the meat is falling off the bones, they’re done. We separate the meat and bones and toss the bones. Sara makes “pulled pork” from the rib meat, and we freeze it in portions to make sandwiches. The water left in the pot is soup stock from the ribs, and we handle this like the bone stock. There definitely will be a white lid on the rib stock for sure, so don’t skip the step of chilling it down and removing the fat lid as deer fat can be kind of strong tasting. Making stock from the bones of your deer is a healthy way to use more of our harvest. Eating venison is great, but there’s something about eating a soup or stew from the stock by the wood stove on a cold day that’s even better.

I picked Bob B up about 6 am. The forecast was for sunshine and light northerly winds. We got to the ramp, and it was foggy, but not pea soup fog. There was some visibility, so we headed out and kept wiping the windows inside and out, and our heads on a swivel for any opposing traffic as I navigated by GPS. Cruiseship season is over so that made us a little more at ease. As we got out into Stephens Passage we could see the lower 20ft of Admiralty Island and knew we’d be fine now.

We were the first boat in to the bay we wanted to hunt – and why we left before sunrise. Even in the wilderness there can be competition for a hunting spot near Juneau. For most hunters, if you see a boat anchored near shore during deer season, you find another spot to hunt. I bought a little Zodiac raft at a garage sale to use to float to shore after anchoring the boat. It only weighs about 50lbs and it worked great. The only issue with rafts is beaching on the barnacles so I noted I need to take waders so I can get out of it before it touches shore. Bob caught the nose of the raft at the beach where I’d offloaded him and our gear. He took the spool of line tied at the other end to the anchor. He payed out the line up the beach and I put the raft on my head and we carried our cargo up above tideline. We took a compass bearing for returning to the boat, shouldered our packs and guns, and headed up the hill.

Fog was still settled up above the trees but we could see fine in the woods. We hiked uphill and called at some great looking muskegs and no deer. We crested the hills and headed down the backside that drains into Chatham Strait. The sun finally broke through the high fog about 11 am. We got to a muskeg with thick cover on both sides, and dropped our bags to call and have lunch. I had just put the granola bar into my mouth when Bob said “hey”. And pointed to the cover on the opposite side about 75 yards away. I looked to where he was pointing and there was a deer looking straight at us. The granola bar dropped out of my mouth so I could put the call back in, and we got our guns ready. Hearts were pounding. I almost called again when here the deer came, right towards us. Too many times I’ve been impatient. The deer was clearly on it’s way to us and all we had to do was sit and wait. I could intermittently see it working through the trees and grass. The deer kept moving towards us and at about 60 yards, we had a clear shot, and dropped it. I stood up and could see some slight movement in the grass on the ground and after we saw no movement otherwise, figured we had a deer down.

We walked over and saw a nice blacktail deer. I think the first deer of the season is always the best one. Especially when our freezer is bare of venison, having eaten and given away all of last year’s deer. Turns out a lot of non-hunters like deer and they don’t forget the favor. Bob and I are a good team and he’d seen me butcher a deer last year and knew what to do. I cut off the scent glands on the hind hocks, cut around the butt hole to free up the large intestine, and cut slits through the back hocks which we’d slide a stick through. Then I slit the abdomen and removed the innards, removing the heart from it’s protective sac for burger and the liver for my mechanic friend Izzie. I found a suitable cross stick, and Bob climbed a scraggly bull pine and threw the line over a branch. I lifted up on the stick that had the other end of the line attached in the middle between the deer’s legs, and Bob pulled his end around a nearby tree and when the deer’s head cleared the ground, he tied it off. After cutting off the hocks and slitting the hide up the front forearms to the chest, we set to skinning each back leg until we got down past the tail. Then the hid simply pulled off the rest of the way with minimal cutting. The deer had so much fat the hide just stripped right off. It was the easiest hide removal I’ve seen.

We cut the deer in half at the “waist” just forward of the pelvis. I took the ribs, front quarters and neck in one piece, and Bob took the rest in one piece. A group of ravens were now in the surrounding trees, squawking up a storm, and there was a magpie too. We looked up often, as we both guessed any bear in the area knows what the raven racket means. We shot the deer about noon and were on our way about 1 pm. We had to climb back up over the hill to the boat, and we took our time, which was easy on such a sunny day. We called at a few spots on the way back, but didn’t take the time we’d taken at each spot the way we did on the way in – duffing our packs, getting a comfortable spot, and taking our time. We just sort of came up to a tree, leaned against it, I’d call a time or two, and we’d move on. Of course, this cost us a deer.

Not too far from the beach, as we were moving after I’d called, Bob raised his rifle to a deer I could not see. He said to call again, which I did. He did not fire. Bob said the deer was coming to the call, but we’d already started walking again and when the deer saw us it turned around and walked back where it had come from, and when I called again, it took off. I never saw it. Instead of using my gps, I simply used my compass as I did before I had a gps, and this took us directly back to the beach within a couple hundred yards of the boat. The boat was floating and right side up. Not the way my previous boat was found last Nov. I told Bob there might be a few barley pops hidden somewhere, and after loading up and idling out, I found the secret stash, which never tastes better than after a full workout. We got back to town and I dropped Bob off. We decided I would cut off one of the backstraps on my piece, and call it good for dividing the meat, so when I got home, I took off a strap to take back to Bob as he planned to have it for dinner. Sara went with me back to Bob’s and when his wife got home, we decided we might as well all have dinner since Sara had just baked a pie with Haines cherries from Roy and Brenda’s.   That was a great meal. I never really thought about how good fresh meat is – like fresh fish. I think that’s how I’ll try to celebrate future successful hunts.

Yukon River Moose Hunt 2017
My friend Bob P had been asking me to go with him on his annual moose hunt on the upper Yukon River, and this year I committed to go.  As things worked out, Bob went up by himself a few days before I did, so it was a solo drive for me.  I’d driven several times up to interior Alaska from Haines, but never taken the Taylor highway that starts east of Tok.  I got on the ferry to Haines on Sept 10 and arrived in Haines about 10am in the morning.  I’d bought a boat and kicker from a friend of Roy’s and stopped to pick that up on the way.  I’d made a custom roof rack with U bolts and 2×4’s on the GMC Denali Yukon, with eye bolts on the ends of the boards for ratchet strapping the boat down.  When I’d seen the boat earlier in August when we were up in Haines fishing, I was a bit concerned it might be too big for the car, but it fit just fine.  I ran 3 straps over the hull, tied down the front and back, and it was tight and didn’t affect driving.  I was on the road by about 1 pm.
I stopped at Canadian Customs, where I handedin my already filled-out gun transport forms and paid the $25 fee with Canadiandollars someone tipped me with on the whale watch boat last year, and was on myway.   Another group on their first trip through Canada with firearms, it seemed, didn’t have any paperwork pre-filled out so must have wondered how I was in and out so quickly.
The drive from the border to Haines Junction in the Yukon is my favorite part of the drive, with stunning scenery and little traffic.  I got fuel in Haines Junction at the PetroStop, and also an excellent homemade monster-sized spring roll sold by who Iassumed was the lady who owned the gas station.
I saw a pile of bunnies along the road as eveningapproached.  Looks like it should be agood year for lynx trapping up there. Saw some spruce grouse here and there, too.  I made it to Tok about 9 pm and couldn’t finda place I liked to just pull over and sleep so I bought a tent space at thelocal camp ground where I could unload what I needed to put down my sleepingpad and bag in the car, and slept like a baby.
Next morning I was up early and went to Fast Eddy’s in Tok forbreakfast.   I had to get a my mooseharvest ticket at the sporting goods store across the street, so I wasn’t in ahurry.  The owner opened the shop earlierthan posted because it’s moose and caribou season.  I got my ticket and a thermos of coffee and was off to Eagle.
I backtracked the 12 miles to the junction with the Taylor Highwayand headed north.  I was traveling up thehighway several days after opening day for moose and caribou in the area.  The first part of the road was deceptivelynice, made of payment and a normal width.  After awhile, the road turned to gravel, but still in good shape.  Hunting along this road is apparently done by4 wheeler, and every turn out from the road held about 5 trucks with trailers.  Their occupants were gone on their 4 wheelers for moose or caribou.    The passes were foggy and there was rainoff and on.
I got to the town of Chicken, which I realized was a miningsite, and got some coffee at the store. The road around Chicken was newlypaved, and again, a deception.   The roadsoon went to dirt and gravel.  I came tothe junction where you can go left to Eagle on the Taylor Highway or right to Dawson City in theYukon over the Top of the World Highway. The road was now mainly mud.  Itook the left, and continued on my way. The road go steadily narrower and moved along steep canyons.  Many of the turns were blind hairpin turnsand barely 2 lanes.  I had to go so slow due to the road and just hopeda person coming the other way would be going slow, too, and you’d have time toavoid each other.  The drop off down themountain to the river below was breathtaking – in a bad way – and you knew ifyou ever went off the road, death was a guarantee.  There’s even a sign noting where a borderguard had died when he went of the road some years back.  At one point, the road was down to almost asingle lane at one of the steepest and longest drops down, but at least it wasa straight section where you could see if another vehicle was coming.  Lots of squirrels and a few grouse along theroad.  And still trucks with empty 4wheeler trailers at every pull out.
When I finally reached Eagle, I was frazzled from thedrive.  I stopped at the restaurant forlunch, and told the waitress the Chamber of Commerce should have a persongreeting people coming into town for the first time with a comforting hug and tell them it’s all gonna be alright now.  Iimmediately liked Eagle.  Everyone seemedfriendly, with some neat well-kept rustic houses and buildings and several logbuildings both old and new.
Now for finding the boat landing and getting the boat downfrom the Yukon myself.  I easily found the boat ramp from Bob’s map and was able to getthe boat down with minimal damage to the rig. I put it in the water, and just like the seller told me – no leaks.   I mounted the kicker – a 1981 9.9 hp Johnsonoutboard.  I thought I’d better test theboat before loading it.  The outboard firedright up on the second pull, and  aftersome adjusting of the trim on the motor the boat and motor seemed to run justfine.  I  loaded the boat with my tent, campinggear, and food and rifle.  I parked theYukon in the lot at the ramp.  I left theextension rack holding the spare tire and gas on the back of the car andtrusted that no one would steal it as people seemed so nice in town.
As I got on my way, it was near 60 degrees and I was inshirtsleeves thinking – here I go, down the Yukon River, which I’d never beenon before, in a boat I’ve never driven, and everything is falling into place.  I easily found Bob downstream at camp an houror two later.  He was surprised to see methis early as I thought I wouldn’t get down to camp til the following day buteverything had gone so smoothly that here I was.
I got the tent set up oh the gravel bar next to Bob’s.  I have an ancient Thermos Prairie Schoonertent I bought from friends at ADFG back in my days in Kodiak who said theybought the tent for $25 for elk hunting and that’s what they’d sell it to mefor.  It’s a great tent that you canstand up in and easy to set up.  I set up a luxury lite cot I bought a few years ago for traveling to Sierra Leone, and put a 2 inch foam pad on it and my Wiggy’s sleeping bag.  Slept good all week and could have stayed there a month.  Or permanently. Bob told me the game plan of how he thought we should hunt.  We were at a place he thought the moose wouldcross from one side of the river to the other, and that we’d set up on eitherend of this long gravel bar area and wait for one to cross.  The river is only about a quarter mile widehere and only running in a single channel on the far side. The stream beds between the islands and the mainland on the near side were dry at this time of year. I could hear owls hooting across the river and Bob said it sounded likea great horned owl pair with an offspring just learning to hoot. They hootedday and night.  A cross fox that Bob thought was young of the year came around camp each night and had no fear of us, which was not comfortable for us.  Bob scared it away a few times and in future tours it steered a little more clear of us.

The colors were unlike any I’d ever seen in Alaska.  The hills were a sea of various shades of yellow, with some green, orange and red mixed in here and there.  The longer we stayed, the more yellow was added as the green leaves turned color.

The next morning I got to my hunting spot, and there weretracks galore.  Moose, bear, wolverine,fox, and maybe otter or beaver tracks. There were moose tracks that came across the gravel bar and right to thewater so it definitely was a spot where the moose did cross, as Bobthought.  I saw 3 swans fly over so low Icould see the definition on their tucked under feet – probably an adult pairand their fledgling.
On the second day, I saw something black from my huntingstand, which was on the dry stream bank in the crook of the roots of a tree I’d dragged to the spot which afforded me a view both ways up and down the dry streambed.  At first I thought it was a ravenhopping along the far bank, but then when it crossed the dry stream bed at thebend it turned into a blackbear.  I had no time to set up and shootbefore it was gone out of sight.  Ifigured it either would stay in the stream bed and Bob would see it from hisstand, or it would go up into the brush, so I didn’t pursue it.  I never heard Bob shoot and he didn’t see the bear.    Each day Bob would go to his stand and me to mine.  A few days in, I made a little blind of sticks to break up my outline sitting on the dry stream bank.  I read the ADFG hunting reg book to stay awake the 2nd day, but had not brought any books. Luckily, Bob had a huge novel – Once anEagle – he was reading.  The book was sobig he’d cut it into about 200 page sections, and gave me the sections he’dread so I would have something to read during the the rest of the days hunting.  I read like I never remember reading before.  Reading 150 to 200 pages a day.   Later the next day, I heard shots.  I gathered my thingsand headed Bob’s way.  He’d shot the bearI’d seen the day before.  Bob was prettykeyed up as you get when you shoot something, and he led me to the bear.  I’d never skinned a bear, so school was insession.

Bob placed a tarp next to the bear, and took out a knife hisparents had given him in the 60’s. First, he pulled out the intestine and I got to show Bob now toremove the intestine from the crotch area since we do this on deer.  He’d primarily only harvested bigger big game animals like moose, where youleave the guts in and simply take the quarters off as you go.  When he got the intestine out, he had me holda bag while he removed what he called the “mezzanine fat” from between thesections of intestine.  Apparently, thismakes the best fat or lard.  When he gotto the end of the intestine at the stomach, he sliced open the stomach to seewhat the bear had been eating.  It lookedlike a bowl of fresh berries, ready to eat. The greater section of the stomach was packed with high bushcranberries, and there was another small section where the bear must have founda patch of low bush cranberries.  Theberries were undigested and if you didn’t know they were in a bear’s stomach,they looked fresh and ready to eat.  Bobthen deftly skinned the bear out where it lay on the sand, leaving not a hairin the meat nor letting the skinned meat get into the dirt.  As he went, he cut off the quarters which hedropped into the game bag I was holding. I put each filled bag on the tarpuntil all the quarters were removed. Then we put the remaining torso in a game bag.  School was still in session, as Bob showed mehow to make a meat hanging pole.  Hefound two about 12 foot sections of small diameter beach logs, and tied themtogether side by side as tight as he could. He then crossed the tied sections into an “X” standing up off the ground, and in the top of the Xplaced a third log that extended down to the ground.  The two tied logs supported the third log andwe hung the game bags on the third log.  Bob then covered the logs with a tarp to keep the meat dry, and he putthe hide skin side down over the top of the tarp to dry the hide and keep thetarp in place. Brian bought me a Jet Boil for Christmas and I put it to work on this trip.  He’d bought me the coffee press attachment, too.  Every morning I filled the pot with water and put in some Folgers on top and brought it to a rolling boil.  Then turned off the heat, plunged down the grounds, and filled my thermos for the day.  At night, I cooked pouch meals Sara had sent, putting in some smoked sausage from Jerry’s meats to taste.  The Jet Boil is the best stove I’ve ever owned.  You can pack the stove and fuel cannister right in the pot and it boils water very quickly.   At night fall, we usually had a campfire and I’d share cookies Sara made with Bob and wait for the northern lights. One night in particular the northern lights were as spectacular as I’ve ever seen.  They’d go from nothing to a streak across the sky and right over our heads.  At one point, they looked like something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark, with a billowing cloud of lights that looked like candle ice in the sky directly overhead.   It looked supernatural.  Maybe it was.   The last two days in camp we picked high bush cranberries.  I picked about 4 gallon bag fulls.  Bob picked about 10 gallons in a honey-hole he’d found.  Unlike here, the berries there seem to all have wild roses growing alongside them, and I got a few hips from the bushes, along with an annoyingly large number of thorns in the top of my hands while picking the cranberries. We hunted the rest of the week and never saw a moose.  The glorious dry weather that was warm in the day and cool at night may have had something to do with it.  Bob said the moose move more when it’s colder.  We found out the ferry was full from the 21st to the 25th, so I either had to make it down to Haines by the 20th or not get my vehicle back til the 25th.  Bob had a reservation for the 21st, so we decided to leave on the 19th.  I packed up camp and left first thing in the morning since I had to be in Haines a day earlier than Bob.  I was soon loaded up and on my way.  The outboard ran about a 1/4 mile and quit.  I thought maybe the fuel can wasn’t venting, so cracked the cap a bit more and got another 1/4 mile and again the outboard quit.  I then looked to see if the water pump was discharging water, and sure enough, the old outboard had the discharge hose going through a tiny nipple out the back of the outboard that a grain of sand could clog.   I removed the hose from the nipple, then removed the nipple altogether and just ran the hose out the hole the nipple was in. I had to jam a stick next to the hose to keep it going out the hole, but that did the trick.   I got back out in the river and was on my way.  The I was moving slowly upstream and didn’t have any more outboard issues.  The boat was plowing and going slowly, and I just thought that’s the way it would be.  I tried moving gear forward but that didn’t help.  About an hour or two into the upstream trip, I was coming by the ADFG sonar site, where they were busy test fishing along the shore.  I was going to stop and chat and dropped to idle for a second before changing my mind and speeding up.  That was like cutting off an anchor.  The boat planed right out and I was now going twice as fast as before – another lesson learned.  I probably could have cut an hour off my return time if I’d done this earlier. I got to the ramp in due time.  Now for unloading the boat and somehow getting it onto the Yukon myself.  Another guy came in in his jet boat with wife and two young kids.  I asked him how it went and he said it was basically a camping trip because of the two kids, who looked to be having the time of their lives.  He beached his boat then was up in his truck with trailer eyeing me like he wanted to back down to the spot I was at.  I asked if he wanted me to move and he said he wasn’t  in a hurry.  I moved to the other side of the ramp anyway and he backed down and loaded his boat.  I think it was then that he saw my roof rack and no trailer and asked if I needed help putting the boat on my car.  Did I!  I quickly unloaded the rest of the gear and he and I had it on the roof in 5 minutes with no harm to the car.  That was a Godsend.   Turns out he’s a logger on Afognak so we talked about elk hunting out there.  I got the car packed, stopped at the restaurant for a thermos of coffee, and was on the road at 1 pm.  It was a beautiful day and the road was dry and no fog.  The good luck just kept coming. When I saw all the vehicles and hunters along the road on the way to Eagle I wondered how the moose population could support such pressure – which I know, compared to lower-48 public land, is probably no pressure at all.  On my return trip, I changed me mind.  The weather was beautiful and the road now was dry and my apprehension of driving the road again was much less.  And I didn’t pass another vehicle going north for 55 miles.  Nearly all the hunting vehicles were gone from the pullouts.  As I looked over the country on either side of the road, all I saw was rolling hills and wilderness.  Not a sign of human design like roads or buildings or runways.  As far as I could see.   Just moose and caribou habitat – much of it burned black spruce that was replaced by willows and other deciduous trees and grasses.  Lots of country for a moose to hide and with so much country it could support a lot of moose and hunting pressure.    When I got to the Alaska Highway junction, I automatically went right towards Tok.  In less than a mile, I turned around and headed towards the border and assumed a gas station would be open between here and Beaver Creek in the Yukon. Plus I had my spare fuel still onboard.  I stopped at the station at Northway.  I asked the clerk how moose hunting was going and she said her boyfriend had gone towards the border and seen a cow and planned to try to get it the next morning but that a pack of wolves had beaten them to it.  I told her I was going to stick with deer hunting because of my lack of luck with moose, and she was surprised there were deer in Alaska.  She thought maybe they were introduced but didn’t know there were indigenous deer on the coast.  Just shows what a big state we live in.  I got through the border and headed for Haines.  I saw two sets of cow and calf moose, and several lakes still had swans in their last few days of young-rearing before they fly south.  I committed somewhat of a crime of driving through the northern part of Kluane Park and sheep mountain after dark, but I was wide awake and thought I’d drive as far as I could that night.  Wow, my 53 year old eyes cannot see at night.  The gravel parts of the road had no center line or line along the curb and I almost stopped several times when other vehicles passed me as I couldn’t tell where I was on the road.   I pulled over about 15 miles out of Haines Junction.  It took a little while to remove enough gear from the rear of the Yukon to put my pad and sleeping bag in but I slept pretty good once settled.  I awoke not long after sun rise.  I started the car and got out to take a leak.  The Bob Dylan CD was playing “When the night comes fallin’ ” and right on cue a small owl flew low overhead  and landed at the top of a spruce tree across the road.   I was soon in Haines Junction and not a restaurant is open at this time of year for breakfast.  After checking with the lady at the Petro Gas station to be sure I wasn’t missing an open eatery, I headed to Haines.  Back through my favorite stretch of the trip.  I stopped about half way and put in my 10 gallons of extra gas plus about 4 gallons of boat gas, emptying all my fuel containers so it would be easy to put them under the skiff on the roof when I got to Haines and then take off the rear basket that goes into the receiver hitch and put that on top of the boat so as not to have to pay for the extra length of my vehicle on the ferry. I stopped at Pete’s on my way in to Haines to get the boat registration that I forgot when I picked up the boat, but no one home.  Lots of high bush cranberries along his road.  I got to town and went straight to the ferry terminal to be sure my tickets were there and I was good to go on the evening ferry.  I called Brenda and she invited me out to her office for her birthday cake at noon.  I had breakfast at the Bamboo Room, then dropped off the egg containers Roy had given me duck eggs in earlier in August at the house, and went to the party.  Brenda works with a bunch of nice people and I even met their person who was in town from Craig and whose kid went to high school with my niece there.  I gave Brenda a gallon of my cranberries from the Yukon River.   I got out to the ferry early, and there were lots of moose hunting rigs there.  I put the gas jugs under the boat on the roof, then put the basket on top of the boat on the roof and tied it tight.  Then I got to looking at the other vehicles.   Every one of them that was moose hunting had a moose it seemed.  Everyone but me.  I talked with a guy I knew from Juneau and he got what he thought was a 1500 lb bull late in the last day he was hunting so I guess there’s some luck to it after all.  They had a small freezer in the bed of their truck running off a little Honda generator, and they were rotating the meat in and out of the freezer to keep it cool but not freeze it. I made my first batch of high bush cranberry ketchup on Saturday morning.  It’s the first time I remember using a manual food mill to remove the seeds and extract the pulp and juice from the berries, and the product was beautiful.  I had about 48 cups of berries plus about 12 cups in the freezer from last year.  I put the berries in the pot and added a few cups of water so the berries wouldn’t scourch.  When the berries were hot and soft, I started culling them out and running them through the food mill.  The 60 cups of berries made about 23 cups of pulp.  There was a quart of juice left in the pot after pulling all the berries and I saved that separately.  I put the pulp in the pot, and added 12 cups of diced sweet onion, 10 cups each of cider vinegar and sugar, 15 teaspoons each of salt, allspice, ground cloves and cinammon, and 5 teaspoons of pepper.  I put the pot on the woodstove to boil down.   After a few hours, the onions softened up and the consistency looked right.  I canned 48 half pint jars.  I tried the sauce with tortilla chips, and as a salad dressing and it’s all good.  Should be good on venison, too.    Bob had checked in via text.  He’d made it back just fine and got on the last ferry out of Haines as after his ferry got back, it broke and so no ferry for 3 days to Haines and they already were backed up and booked solid. Yikes.  The tent is hanging in the garage to dry it fully before putting back into the bag, and the sleeping bag is airing out near the woodstove.  I did a few repairs to the boat hull, put a new longer hose for the water discharge on the outboard, and put the hunting gear back up in the garage. This is one of those trips I’ll always remember.    With no moose, time to start getting serious about deer hunting.

We had a dry day with another forecast and all our smoke fish had been given away so time to smoke more fish.   I thawed all the coho we caught in Craig plus the king salmon back bones I’d saved from the April trip that had burst their vac pack bag seals.   I thawed all the salmonberry juice left in the freezer I’d saved from 2015 and 2016 and added 2 cups salt and 2 cups sugar into our largest stainless bowl. That made enough brine for half the fish.   I put the first batch of fillet pieces in for 50 minutes, and the second batch into the same brine for about an hour to account for any loss of salinity, etc.  I let the fish drain in colanders. After cleaning off the smoker racks, I put the fish on them in the refrigerator smoker John helped me build.  I left them with just the fan on overnight.   The next day the fish were drying nicely.  I noticed a blow fly on one of the pieces.  I scraped off the eggs and maybe need to put some netting over the vent holes in the bottom if it’s a problem again. I left the fan on and put in the electric frying pan I bought earlier in the day at the Salvation Army store and loaded it with some alder chunks.  The pan heated but would not ignite the chunks.  So I put in the hot plate with a little cast iron pan on top and that did the trick.  I left the electric frying pan on to add more heat.  I added more wood chunks to the pan about 4 times over the next day and a half.  The fish had a beautiful pellicle with no cracking or oil breaking through, but the bigger body fillet pieces were mushy inside.  I finished those in the oven at 300 degrees for 45 minutes.   We let the fish cool then I loaded the bags I’d saved and rinsed out when I took the fish out of them from the freezer, and Sara ran the vac packer.   Seemed like a big pile of fish out of the freezer but didn’t even fill our smoker.  The batch made about a milk crate full of smoked salmon to put back in the freezer.  We’re good for smoked fish for awhile.

With Ron and Jeanne’s escape from Juneau, I was wondering if I’d get to go to Haines again and fish for sockeye in the river with Roy. Andrew said he wanted to go, and Roy indicated we were welcome, he needed to get some fish, too, and the cherries were prime for picking when we weren’t fishing. So Andrew, who works two full time jobs, was able to get off Saturday and Sunday. We boarded the fast ferry to Haines on foot because for the first time ever, I couldn’t get the Yukon on the ferry because it was full for vehicles. Roy would do the driving. The fast ferry does 36+ knots and cuts the travel time to Haines in less than half- only a 2 to 2.25 hour trip. I talked for about half an hour to Andy, a trooper from Hoonah who is back working in his hometown after a stint in Craig and maybe Juneau. We’ve known each other for 20 years, and he was off on a solo sheep hunt up north. He had lots of good bear stories.

We arrived in Haines and Roy took us to the house to get the boat. Brenda greeted us like long lost relatives, and we spent an hour catching up on pet life histories and Haines politics. Then we were off to the river with the jet boat. We picked up a cooler of beautiful flake ice at Haines Packing on the way. We fished from the downstream boat launch up to the bridge. We caught few sockeye or other salmon in several drifts. Then Roy said we’d try a method I’d not done before. Andrew and I would get out on a sand bar and hold a line on one end of the net. Roy would back off the beach in the boat and pay the net out of the bow until it was all deployed, then he’d drift downstream with his end and we’d walk the beach with our end, keeping it close to shore. We immediately started catching fish. Not many, but at least a few. Being from Sierra Leone, Andrew was keen to keep everything legal and edible. By the end of the day, we had a 3/4 filled cooler of sockeye and a few chums and pinks. Andrew loved the river valley and the fishing. It may have been early to do better sockeye fishing, but we did well enough.

I told Roy that Ron and I had never done this kind of fishing before, and that was probably because Ron would get wore out watching me do all the work fishing from the boat, and would probably succumb to exhaustion if I was doing even more work handling the shore line. We returned to Roy’s and I taught Andrew how we’d clean the fish. I soon realized that, of course, he was a good fish cleaner. Sierra Leoneons can clean a motorcycle to like-new condition with a tooth brush. He was meticulous about scraping out the kidney, etc. We soon had the fish dressed, and I showed him how we belly ice the fish and pack them. The next day I showed him how little the ice had melted because the quality of the Haines Packing ice was so good.

After fishing we started on picking cherries. More than I’ve ever seen on Roy’s spread. Over the rest of the day and part of the next morning we filled 2 five gallon buckets and there were plenty left on the trees. Since we got a smaller number of fish than expected, Roy and I let Andrew have them all. The cherries would be my prize for the weekend.

Along with eating. Brenda is a trained chef, and fed us one simple, delicious meal after another, using greens and vegetables from their garden, eggs from their ducks and chickens, fish we caught or from the freezer, and maple syrup from Pat in Bolivar. They also gave us a dozen duck eggs each to take home. On Sunday afternoon, we helped Brenda load the truck with furniture we were donating to a lady who’d lost her cabin in a fire. From what I gathered, she lived with her husband on a fairly remote gold mining claim until he died, after which she stayed out there for another 10 years or so with no utilities, etc. In the summer, she could get to town, but once the road snowed in, she’d have to use a snow go. A mistake by a young man starting the wood stove caught the cabin on fire. When Haines townspeople heard about her loss, she was offered a cabin nearer to town, and people like Brenda donated furniture, etc. When we dropped off the furniture, we were greeted by a bunch of goats and dogs and had a nice talk with her. A real Alaskan.

After that, we went to look at the boat I bought on the Haines Classifieds website from a friend of Roy’s. A 13 foot skiff with a 10 hp outboard that I plan to take moose hunting on the Yukon River next month. As we drove up the seller’s (Peter) driveway, we saw a well-kept lawn with a coop and pen full of chickens and several geese in another pen. There were well-stocked wood piles in the neat wood sheds and a clean chain saw in the garage. I hoped the boat would be as well cared-for, as I’d bought it sight unseen. I was not disappointed. Since Roy would be out of town when I came back through to go moose hunting, I asked Peter if he’d be able to help me put it on the Yukon and he gladly obliged.

Andrew was taking the 24 hour+trip in and not saying much. When we returned to Juneau and Sara picked us up, he raved about the people with their chickens and nice gardens in Haines, and how the Russians probably wished they hadn’t sold Alaska. I realized these places were a lot like his home village with people growing food and living off the land a little bit. He really enjoyed the fishing, too, and seeing two brown bears along the river on the drive home from fishing. I realized then he’s basically been working mostly non-stop for several years here. His kids have traveled the region a bit, but not him. Haines was his first trip to another Southeast town and I could tell it whetted his appetite to see more and maybe work a little less. It hardly rained in Haines. Not the sun I’m used to in year’s past, but mostly dry. The monsoon started as soon as we headed toward Juneau, and continues through this morning. While much of the country is being warned not to look directly at the sun during the eclipse happening right now, there’s little worry for eye injury here in Juneau. I can’t even see Thane from the Douglas bridge.

Just back from 2 weeks in Craig with my 15 yr old nephew from Pittsburgh who has been up before. Smilin John and his buddy Billy met me in Craig for fishing in late July. The boys fished Eagle Creek and Angel Lake and caught lots of trout, dolly varden and salmon. We went gillnetting with Brian for an opening. Good experience for the boys but not their favorite I don’t think. Billy went home after a week so just me and John the second week.

The next day was my favorite. Kevin and George joined Brian, John and I to move a floathouse. The float logs are aged and need to be replaced soon, but the house on top is in great shape and will be an incredible luxury to hunt and trap out of if it all works out as planned. We moved the floathouse with one boat pulling and the smaller boat pushing. The next day we went king salmon fishing on the outside waters right at the big ocean. We caught 7 kings and a few cohos and black rockfish. Lots of humpback whales there amongst the charter boats and us. That night we went with Ellen on bear patrol at her friend’s place. Bears were raising hell with the friend’s chickens and bees as not many berries and no fish in the creek yet.

John and I went trolling with Mike and Cheryl for a day. I hadn’t been on a troller for 10 years or so but it was like riding a bike putting out the gear and bringing it in and landing and cleaning fish. Next day we split firewood with Ellen. They have a splitter but I felt no less of a workout bulldogging huge rounds to the splitter, where Ellen ran the splitter and John threw the wood on the stack. They burn 24 inch logs in their wood furnace, and even split the pieces are heavy. The next day 6 of us went salmon and halibut fishing. We didn’t have as much luck getting salmon with just one king but several cohos and black bass. The whales were right next to the boat this trip.

Halibut was a different story. Before long we had 8 hogs on the deck, and some yelloweye. Luckily we had lots of hands so the butchering went quickly when we got back to town. Took John to the plane the next morning and saw a bear in Klawock and a buck cross the road as we got to the airport. John was a tired pup after another trip of a lifetime. At 15 he’s an old hand at flying all the way back to Pittsburgh by himself. I got another window put in the container house this trip, and I helped Brian put in most of the septic lines and tank for our place right up to the last minute to my plane at 5pm. Won’t be too much longer and we’ll be able to use the container house. The freezer I sent down from Juneau with Brian’s nieces worked great and a welcome addition. At the Ketchikan airport I met the daugher (and niece) of sisters from Sand Point I knew at UAF. I’d known her as a child and she looks just like her mom now, and as talkative as her mom and aunt. We were about the only people in the airport waiting area and talked for half an hour   She said she’s glad she can get her parents flights now after they’ve been so good to her. How many kids say that? A great trip. Whale watch boat driving tomorrow and back to cubicle hell on Monday.