The wild fishing in Alaska

The phone rang on a Monday night in early April, and I (Peter) answered. It was Carin, a new friend of ours here in Fairbanks. She asked if I wanted to go out fishing with her husband Bob early next morning? I wondered for myself why Bob didn’t ask me himself since I could hear him in the background, but then I realized that it was probably hard for him to hear and understand me on the phone – so his wife had to act like a ”fishing-interagent”, and I for one would never turn down such an interesting offer!
      I neatly parked the car outside Fred Meyer’s at 7 am next morning, where we had arranged to meet, and bought a 2-day fishing permit for Harding Lake. I left the car in the parking lot and jumped into Bob’s GMC-pickup, and we headed southeast towards Delta Junction. We drove by the town of North Pole (wonder how that I got its name...), and passed a gigantic air force base. During the drive Bob told me about his amazing fishing adventures, including fishing for King Salmon, Halibug, fishing combined with caribou hunt along a river in northern Alaska, and more. He also told me about his experiences from the ”lower 28”, and how some of the waters there have been destroyed by waterpower plants – just like back home I thought. The difference is that here in the states the lakes have been succesfully restored, for example by building facilities that produce nutrients for the lakes. Thanks to that the lakes are now better than ever, in terms of fishing!!! He also knew about lakes in Cana that used to be among the best in the world for Rainbow-trout fishing, where someone came up with the idea to stock them with other fish species – with the result that the Rainbows disappeared.... – and they were not able to get those back again. On top of that, in some areas lakes have been stocked with fish that after a while have been protected, so now lot’s of money are being spent to protect the fish that you once spent a lot of money stocking, and the income from fishing tourism has gone down..... Unfortunately, Bob knew about places here in Alaska that are starting to have the same problem. Established fish are disappearing, and new once are being stocked.... With Bob, who is of a pretty calm and down-to-earth person, I could sence some anger and frustration about some of these ”less gifted” decisions that are being made. Then they try to make things right again, and it just gets worse.
      Along the way towards Harding Lake, Bob pointed out some good spots for fishing King Salmon by the Tanana River. The Kings are unfortunately very good eat when they’ve been swimming this far up the Yukon and into Tanana. It still made me think about breaking one of my normal fishing-rules to only fish what I eat – it would be great fun to feel a big King at the end of the fishing line! – perhaps they are still ok to smoke?
      At Harding Lake, we drove out on the lake. Almost 30F below is no big deal when Bob is bringing his fishing shed. The Alaska shed is a bit different from the once we are used to in northern Sweden. It’s a great protection against the wind, but has no insulation and no floor (although some models have a detachable floor to use). The ones that we use in northern Sweden are ment more to be used for a prolonged stay on the mountain lakes. During the drive out on the ice (which was also quite new to me), I tried to navigate after the GPS-coordinates that Bob knew would take us to a good spot, the deepest part of the lake. At the spot, we unpacked, put up the shed, and started the heater. The shed had a pretty smart solution with a very comfortable bench inside. Well seated on the bench, Bob brought out his ”Fishfinder”. Fishing got pretty exciting with that little thing. When you’re fishing at 35 yards depth and it shows you a big fish at 15, you know that you quickly have to move your bait to where the fish is! The bait also showed up nicely on the display of the Fishfinder. It’s pretty fun to know that the fish is there, even if they won’t bite, makes your heartbeats go up a bit.... But it was not easy to get the fish to bite!! We could see that they were there, but they were just curious for a while, and then the display on the Fishfinder turned all black and empty....
      After a couple of hours of fishing I managed to trick a fish up to 9 yards depth, and thought that - ”now we have to be able to see it through the fishing hole”. I must have looked pretty funny, cause Bob smiled when he saw my face – it was among the biggest trouts I’ve ever seen in my life!!! It’s hard to guess the size of a fish when it’s in the water, but if I say 17 pounds I have not excaggerated!!! Holy Smoke – I must have been dreaming of that fish the following night, because I woke up snatching away with my arm as if a big fish just took the bait!! We kept on fishing and fishing all day, but still did’nt catch anything. We hoped for better luck next day, when we were gonna leave earlier in the morning.
      The next day we took another spot on the lake where we could see that someone else had put up a shed before. We felt a bit lazy and tired. Bob made some new holes with his motor-driven ice auger, and I started unpacking the shed and the equipment. Then Bob told me that he used to make 8 inch holes, but once got such a big fish that he could not get it up through the hole! So now he’s only using 14 inch augers..... Well, what on earth can you expect to catch on this lake!!
      The biggest trout Bob ever caught on this lake weighed 24 pounds, and the smallest well over 2. We satared fishing, but felt nothing, and saw nothing on the display. After a couple of hours a car stopped outside and 2 guys asked us how the fishing was going? They told us that they had been fishing and fishing all winter, even at 35 below, and had’nt seen the trace of one signle fish. ”We’ve tried everything” they said. I started to feel that it was perhaps a bit useless to keep on after that information. Well, at least we’ve seen a fish, I thought, thinking about the big one yesterday. Bob admitted that on average he used to catch one fish for each visit here. ””I’ll show you what bait I’m using” he said, and brought up a 6 inch white jigg. You could almost see the eyes popping out of the guys that were visiting us. ” Well, we have’nt used anything close to that” they said, and took of to the nearest fishing gear store to invest in new stuff...
     After a while, the battery to the Fishfinder died, and then even I (who never ever get bored while fishing) started to feel a bit tired.... – that was a pretty funny little thing to look at! I started to get inpatient and changed bait and lure every 10th minute... Then I looked at a white Salmon-fly that was lying there in my box – ” that ought to work here too, since it has a lead-head to keep it down – What the h... – I’ll give it a try, have nothing to loose!!” I let it sink down to a depth of 5 yards, where we had’nt really tried fishing yet. I kept on for quite a while, and then I said to Bob ”There must be a reason why  the people who used this spot before moved away from here”. At that exact time a fish took the bite!! Surprised I snatched my arm just like in my dream! It did not feel that heavy, so I started to bring in the line and looked down the hole – what a fish!!! An Arctic char – the biggest one I’ve ever seen!! At that time, the fish must have realized that he was in trouble, cause it went down towards the bottom of a lake with the speed of a war missile!! I never thougth he would stop, my rod was bent like a ”U”. I tried to direct the line so that it would not get near the ice edge and get cut off. Started to feel that nervosity was moving in.... ”No - I’m not going to do anything rash”. I knew that I had good gear, but was nervous aobut the sharp ice edge... – I’ve lost some big fish on that before... Oh no – the line got stuch there anyway!! Luckily I could hook it off from the ice with some really careful work..... The char finally started to get closer and closer, and after a while I could see it starting to lay down on its side. But oh my Lord, how hard it was to get its big head up in the hole!! I had to let it down a couple of times as it was in the wrong angle towards the hole, but finally, finally I got a small part of its head up the hole and just held it there. Then it nicely swam right up by it self – it kind of had nowhere else to go. OMG how happy I was!! What an arctic char!!! 11 punds and 30 inches long!! Just the frontal fens were 6 inches long (and that’s the size of a an entire char that I’ve unfortunately hooked before from time to time..). Bob was just as happy over the fish as I was. After this we got really motivated again, and continued to fish. I had left the Arctic char in the shade outside the shed, and we could se the ravens moving in..... Bob disappeard towards the car and came back with a real Clint Eastwood classic: a Magnum 44....”the raven are protected here in Alaska, but we must be allowed to protect our property” (which was the fish). What a great guy! After a while some ravens started approaching again, and Bob gave them a good scare, I thought my ears were gonna blow of my head. No more ravens after that salutation, I can tell you that!
      We did’nt catch any more fish that day, but we will definitely take more trips out to Harding Lake. A hard-fished lake for sure, but what fish!! When it gets a bit warmer perhaps my wife might also be patient enought to fish for a few hours after she’s seen this monster..... Hopefully, we’ll get some new nice fishing memories, maybe we should get a Fishfinder and a gun too....
      Back in Fairbanks, the parking lot where I'd left my car outside Fred Meyers in Fairbanks was really crowded. But what now? – My car was almost in the middle of the drive-thru between parking spots!! During the warmth of the day, the lines showing the parking spots hade emerged from under snow, so the rows of cars were not where they were in the morning..... my car was a little bit out of line, to put it mildly. With a lot of angry and curious eyes on me I crawled into the car, moved it and drove away quickly. Back home I discoverd that someone had written ”Learn to park” in the dirt on the rear window....   That was the humouristic end of two great days with Bob on Harding Lake.

The wild hunt in Alaska

Now I (Peter) would like to tell you a little about my first huning trip here in Alaska. In the end of October I was invited to join two friends: Ben and Dean, to a hunting area close to White Mountains out of Fairbanks. We were mainly going to hunt grouse, of which there are 5 different species here, but if we would happen to see a bear, Dean had brought his "special gun". Dean and Ben are a little bit like John Wayne (especially Ben who walks and talks like him). With great confidence and a good sence of humor they are playing with words and throwing funny comments back and forth during our trip north towards the "Whites". One fantastic hunting story follows after the other, and I'm listening with big wide open ears. These guys have a lot of experience from hunting in the wild Alaska, so I am of course trying to get as much as possible, and to learn something new. They've been hunting everything from bobcat, lynx, wild goats, moose, deer, buffalo, wolf, and coyote, to black bears and grizzlies. Just like home in Sweden, moose is considered to have the best meat, and as being the best game to hunt. Carol and I have thanks to our good friends tasted some moose meat here, and it does taste a bit different from Scandinavian moose. Perhaps it has something to do with what they are eating, here in Alaska there is a greater variety of forage species to choose from 

      So our ride goes on, Ben, in his big pickup-truck with one four-wheeler on the back and one on the trailer, takes off from the main road and we're zig-zagging our way in to smaller and smaller roads as I watch the thermometer to see how the temperature keeps dropping. Just below 0 F now. It.s going to be a bit cold to hunt in the morning before the sun rises.  It took us about an hour, and then we stopped, unloaded the four-wheelers, and put some warmer clothes on. I went riding in the four-wheeler with Ben, who had heat inside - no need to worry about the temperature yet!!  Then we took off up the mountain, following some of the narrow trails that we could see everywhere.  I noticed that there was more and more snow on the ground, and I hoped that it wasn't going to be all too deep - it's tough to wade and walk through deep snow while hunting....  After about an hour we stopped and looked out over the mountains, and had some coffee.  A great view, with the sun rising from the east over the Whites. When there's such a beautiful light in the sky it's so amazingly beatutiful. Especially at sun rise up here in the mountains. Down in a valley we could see some old goldmines and piles of rocks and sand, they are all over the place around here.  There's still some gold left around here since the old gold rush, that started in western Alaska after "three lucky Swedes"  found gold close to Nome - Scandinavians were here early!   Large areas of land has since then been turned upside down to find the precious metal. A very hard work due to the permafrost. Imagine digging by hand, then making a fire to heat up the ground, or flushing it with steaming hot water, dig some more, etc, etc. The permafrost runs deep here, and at the same time, you have to be lucky enough to dig at the right place....  Only around 3% of the miners made some kind of a fortune out of it, most lost more than what they came with. Those who really made it out here were the people who started some kind of business in the mining towns....
We kept on driving, and after 15 minutes or so I started wondering when we should reach the hunting areas and start walking? I was just about to ask Ben when it struck me - this is the hunt!  I hade never even thought about it - being Swedish...  sitting in a vehicle hunting!  Well, that was a completely new hunting experience in it self!  After a while we went around a bend, and Dean suddenly stopped ahead of us, pointed further up the trail, and there was a grouse! Ben choose the shootgun, took a step out of the vehicle, and there was our first steak - a Spruce grouse. I then had to tell the guys that I thought we were going to hunt in the traditional way, and Ben and Dean just laughed out loud! "you have a lot to tell about the crazy americans when you come back to Sweden" Ben said, and laughed even more. We moved along in our safari, and got to see some moose and some ptarmigan at a distance. Suddenly a whole flock of them lifted from a tree, flew right over the trail, and landed some distance away. Ben handed me the shootgun and brought out a handgun (!), and said "lets go kill some birds", as we tried to sneak up on them. 

        The birds were good in hiding, we had almost passed them when we suddenly heard them take off behind our backs "we'll get them on the way home" Ben said, sounding like John Wayne again. We did get one of them one the way home, a grouse on top of a birch tree that Dean got with a good shoot from outside the four-wheeler. A few weeks later I came along for a pick-up hunt, but I'll save that story for later.... From this first day, I brought home the memories of a great new experience in a fantastic early-winter weather, with a beautiful sunset, great views, great guys, some animal meetings, and a different kind of hunting.

Dogs all over!

A couple of weeks ago, we went to  Anchorage to see the start of the Iditarod sleddog race, and experience “Fur Rendevouz”: more than a week of festivities with dogs, fairs, sleddog races, music, reindeer races, and lots of people. Anchorage is only a 1 h flight to the south of Fairbanks. We stayed at a cosy B&B (Anchorage downtown B&B, Raspberry Meadows), with walking distance to downtown and a beautiful walk along the shoreline. It was nice to experience some “citylife” (sorry Fairbanks J), and enjoy the multitude of nice cafees, restaurants, and Anchorage’s own brewery. At the B”&B there  were three nice cats that liked to socialize with us guests. Two of them were usually quite shy, but jumped up on our laps – perhaps they could feel that we really missed having cats and dogs around?

This years Iditarod had more than 60 competitors. They had a tough trip ahead, about 1300 miles eastwards, to Nome by Berings Sea. There are no roads to Nome, so to get there you have to travel by air, boat, or the traditional way – by dogsled!  A couple of weeks earlier, we saw the finish of Yukon Quest, a 1000 mile dogsled race between Fairbanks and Whitehorse in Canada.  The main difference between the two races is that Yukon Quest is so early in the winter, with freezing cold and snowstorms, and passages over a couple of really challenging mountains. There are fewer teams that take on that challenge, and during this years race many scratched due to the tough conditions, and unfortunately two of the dogs died. It was a very special feeling to wait by the finish line at midnight, standing on the ice of Chena River in downtown Fairbanks, and watch as the teams finally reached the end of the race.  The bond between the mushers and their dogs is so strong, and it is fascinating to see how the well-being of the dogs goes ways before that of the mushers themselves.

During this week, we are housesitters for two of my colleagues, and enjoy living in a “a real house” by Tanana River. We also have the company of one big and superfriendly Golden Retreiver, and a big and cat with a great personality. It’s great to be able to just walk down to the river and go skiing, especially now during late winter, when it’s still -30F below in the morning, and the sun is almost melting during the days. Now the freckles will soon appear again!

Winter temperatures are back!

The cold weather is back again -25F this morning, which is quite a few degrees warmer than “downtown” and by the river. It really makes a difference to live a little bit higher, and we can often see the icefog as a grey blanket covering the lower areas. The icefog forms when the moist in the air freezes at cold temperatures, and is quite common here. Last summer it was the smoke from all the forest fires that covered the town instead. I heard from a Norwegian researcher who’s lived here for many years, that when he arrived, he could hardly see to the other side of the street due to all the smoke – I hope it’s not gonna be that bad this summer…


Well, we’ll have to let the skiis rest for a few days now, until the temperatures get more comfortable. We can see on the web that it’s just as cold back in Sweden, and it probably feels colder there than here, since we almost always have clear skies, no wind, and very low moisture in the air here, which makes it feel much warmer than what you can read off the thermometer.

We’ve had a nice and relaxing weekend, with visits to the gym and dinner with our friends Scott and Julia, who has lived in Scandinavia for many years. Last Friday we also got a nice surprice from Ann, a Swedish PhD-student – real Swedish cinnamonbuns!! Yummy! They came from IKEA in Seattle, flown in by the husband of another Swedish girl who lives here. Hopefully we get to meet them too.

Overall, life is moving on quite fast. There’s been many late nights at work for a while now (I’ll try to blame that for not blogging for a while…), so the only thing we’ve done apart from that have been skiing, going to the gym, and sometimes meeting friends during the weekends. We have now booked a long weekend in Anchorage in the beginning of March, to attend the “Fur Rendevouz”, and see the start of the Iditarod race, the sleddog-race between Anchorage och Nome. Right now, I’m re-reading the book “The cruelest miles” about the background of the race, when Nome had an outbreak of diptheria during winter. The people were in desperate need of serum, which could only reach Nome by sled-dogs. A fantastic book that I can highly recommend.

Later this week, Peter will start to help a Norwegian researcher with a hare- and lynx project. He’ll be out on skiis and snowmobile – a fantastic and exciting job! Now he’ll surely have good use of the superwarm beaver-mittens that I finished last weekend…. Me, I get to sit here in my office, an ex-lab without windows, but I’ll definitely join him during the weekends. Peter is also taking an evening-class in fly-tying (he started doing that when we lived in Abisko, northernmost Sweden), so he’s making new friends and getting nice recommendations of where to go fishing. That sounds very promising for the summer – in more than one way . He’s also practicing bowling one afternoon a week, so now they’ll have to watch out when he returns to the tournaments in Rena, Norway.

Happy New Year!

So now year 2010 is over, a year that has been great in many ways! A lot of exciting things have happened. The year started in Mangsbodarna back home in Dalarna, Sweden, with great skitours and nice times with friends and family. Peter and I worked in Norway then, which also was quite an adventure, we really liked it there and made many new great friends, and had a lot of great experiences. In January I went to Scotland together with the Hunting, fishing, and guiding students at the course I was working at – a memory for life! And sometimes nerve-wrecking when driving on the “wrong side” of the road…. Last winter gave us lots of days with sunny shiny weather, great skiing, and lot of fun. We spent Easter in Mangsbodarna too, with more skiing, more friends and family, and before we knew it spring arrived! We had some exciting days at the camping site in Rena, Norway where we lived during the weeks, as the River Glomma rose during the spring flood…   In June I made a short visit to our dear Abisko in Northern Sweden, and then we had a lot to do home at the house before we left for Alaska. A great summer with blooming lilacs, sun, warm weather, and many heart-warming visits. Many thanks to all friends and family for all your help before we left – we wouldn’t have made it without you! Now we have experienced a wonderful Indian-summer, fall, and early winter here in Fairbanks, a new phase in life that is giving and thrilling in many ways. We have shared some of it in previous blogs, and there will be more later. We now wish you all a great 2011!!

Winterstorm?

Before we traveled to Alaska, we had (like many other Scandinavians) sometimes watched the news from the US, and reacted to all the headlines saying "Storm and Chaos" as soon as there were some rather ordinary winter weather. "It's sure ain't gonna be like that in Alaska" we said - but maybe it will....  This morning, it rained heavily here, which of course led to icy roads and pavements, not much of a surprise there.

When I got to work, about half the staff was at home, and those who had made it left by 11 or so - perhaps to save their homes from sliding away, I don't know. Later in the afternoon all university employees got an email: the university will be closed today and tomorrow, at least, no teaching at all.  In town, all schools are closed too, and all buses canceled. People are encouraged to stay indoors through this "Ice storm” or“Winter storm” as they call it on TV. It is of course great that people are encouraged to be careful and not get out on slippery roads if they don't have to, but it's perhaps a little too much to close a whole town, including major highways leading in and out. One explanation might be that most cars year-round tires instead of studded ones, and the year-round are not as good on ice. A lot of people are a bit worried about the winter, and wonder how we will make it through the season. Peter's English professor almost got upset when Peter was assigned to write an essay about stressfactors caused by moving to a new country, and Peter didn't mention snow and cold! - which wasn't a bit deal for him at all. As Scandinavians we are pretty much used to severe winters, especially after our years in Abisko, above the Arctic circle, where we didn't see the sun at all for two months during the winter. Long lasting extreme cold could of course be a bit too much..... after a couple of weeks with 40 -50 below we might be a bit tired of winter too. We'll see what happens, today - we have drizzling rain.....  

Otherwise, life is good, we've had many wonderful skiing tours in beautiful winter surroundings, and the chickadees are visiting our birdfeeder almost every day. They are not shy at all, and stay around even though we are just a few inches away - on the other side of the window. 

The scent of snow

During my morning-jogg in one of the first snowfall events of the year, it suddenly struck me that something was new - the wonderful scent of new-fallen snow! Fresh and clear and loaded with energy! The coming of the winter is perhaps not that bad after all! I also enjoyed the sound of the snowflakes as they hit the carpet of yellow leaves on the forest floor, soft and sizzling. I guess that the place where you grew up really leaves a strong imprint - I would probably miss the four seasons if I lived in a place where the climate is the same all year round - but winter perhaps doesn't have to be thaaat long...We'll see how we feel after a full year in Fairbanks, by then we might be more than ready to try living in a warm climate for a while, instead of always looking for the cold and snowy places.

Last friday we went to a bonfire among good friends, and once again we could see how social events and alcohol is different from back home in the "vodka-belt". Here, it was nice and quiet, potlatch with both food and drinks, and everyone had some beer, a drink or two, etc, but no one went over the edge, but friends of all ages could spend a good time together all night long. We couldn't help but to compare with how it is during the the 30th of April back home, when all the big bonfires are held, and people are partying everywhere....  Peter and two of the other guys were fit for fight the next morning, and could go out hunting in the mountains. That was also a bit different  - Peter was prepared for hunting as we are used to doing it - long hikes up and down the mountains, staying out all day. Here, they used four-wheelers and never took more than 20 steps away from the vehicles - quite different. He came home with a new experience, and a good memory of a nice day with good friends in beatiful surrounds - and a few grouse too.