Adak Silver

            Typically I’m not the man who is in the right spot at the right time.  But that day, as I stood waist deep in the frigid Bering Sea casting a pink and silver streamer across the gently rolling surge of tide, I had no doubt my time had come -- and without question -- I was that man.

Behind me a nameless Aleutian stream emptied itself into the salt water and my eyes, as they so often do when I find myself at the edge of the ocean, scanned the horizon.  Abruptly, several hundred yards in front of me, the swelling sea erupted in total chaos.  A school of salmon a thousand strong broke the surface of the ocean like a wild swarm of bees, vaulting and leaping in an unbelievable display of aerial acrobatics.

            Instantly, striking at the heart of the school, a killer whale tore through them like a crazed torpedo, busting out of the ocean with his wide mouth opened in a toothy grin, his gullet filled with salmon.  A wall of water pushed out around him and in its surge rode hundreds of fish, appearing like silvery minnows against his huge black bulk.  His body cleared the ocean completely and then smashed down onto the school in a great crash.

Then, just as quickly as the frenzy began, the ocean with its ever rolling surge, swallowed them all, hiding its’ turmoil down below. 

            In disbelief I stood there for several moments.  Often I had seen a pod of killer whales cruise the edge of the island, slowly rising and sinking as they hunted the shore, but never had I seen anything like this.  Here it wasn’t me with my fly rod who was top dog to the salmon, it wasn’t the eagles with their crushing talons, it wasn’t the seals, or the sea otters – it was the killer whale.

            For an hour I stood in the sea casting, hoping the whale would move the fish in close.  But there was no more schooling salmon, no more killer whales, only an empty open ocean and a gray cloudy sky.  The cold water became unbearable and my legs felt like boards attached at my hips. Fishless and cold, I turned my back on the sea and moved into the stream. 

In August, at the peak of the pink salmon run, fish were everywhere here.  I spent many summer evenings wading in the cold crisp water wearing my arms out catching them.  It was easy to lose count of the fish I caught.  With hundreds of salmon waiting out in front of me, I simply forgot about the one just released and started immediately thinking about catching the next one.  

            I quickly learned how different these cold water fish were from their warm water brothers I caught back home in Indiana.  Back home if a fish was foul hooked and released, chances were it wouldn’t survive.  Soon it would be back on the surface gasping its’ last breath.

            These salmon were warriors.  Some I caught escaped the powerful talons of eagles – punctures wounds pierced them from side to side.  Others managed to wrestle away from the hungry grasps of sea otters or seals – deep gashing claw marks ran down their bodies and chunky bits of flesh were bitten out of their backs.  But, still they fought as hard as any salmon I caught.

            On that day in September the harsh Aleutian winter signaled its’ approach.  The green tundra grass stood a dull brown.  During the night, under the cover of cloudy darkness, the snow had crept further down the mountains.  Though the temperature held seasonable, the wind blew in off the ocean with a cold foreboding chill. 

The pink salmon run was dead and I became even more amazed at those fish.  More than likely born in this stream, they had spent years in the ocean, travelling thousands of miles and somehow, against great odds, made it back to their birth place to spawn and die.

            The salmon didn’t know or perhaps they didn’t care of their destiny.  They littered the stream.  Everywhere I looked, they were there – hundreds of bodies of decomposing, hanging flesh.  Some more skeleton than fish, yet still they attempted to swim.  Their bodies had lost the ability to go where their minds told them to so instead they floundered on shallow banks and gravel bars.  There they waited patiently for the ravens and fox.

            On that day they were not why I was there.  I was after my first Alaskan silver salmon – just like the one’s I had seen disappear in the mouth of the killer whale.  I had been told they moved into the stream when the pinks were finished.  I’d also been told they were twice as big and twice as fun to catch.

            I worked up into the stream wading from hole to hole looking for the silvers, but finding none.  I was glad to have the rotting pinks for company because among them were beautiful dolly vardens and rainbow trout gorging on their living corpses, and they kept my line busy.

            In front of me the stream curved in a gentle sweep. In the bend of the stream the years of slow moving water had gnawed away at the fragile bank and created a deep undercut hole.  A tall knoll rose sharply above the bank and upon it perched a mature bald eagle.  For a moment, my attention drifted from the stream and onto the big bird and I strayed carelessly close to the hole before my eyes caught a vague movement of something in the water.

I stared straight at them for several seconds before I realized what they were.  They moved in a shifting silvery wave in the current, their bodies big and shimmering bright -- fresh from the sea and perfect for catching.

The salmon were schooled below the undercut bank, all but those on the very edge safe from the eagle above them.  I couldn’t resist trying to get a better look at them, so I climbed out of the stream and slowly worked across the bank on my belly and lowered my head over the side.  With my eyes inches from the water my heart started to race.  Directly under me were over a hundred salmon and some of them were giants.  The biggest ones were well under the bank putting them out of reach to my cast.

Cruising under the salmon were several dolly vardens that made the two-pounders I caught earlier look small.  Underneath my nose was a salmon that would go eight pounds.  For a moment I wished I was that eagle because with a quick grab of a talon he would have been mine.  With my face almost in his world I looked down on the salmon and decided then and there somehow that fish would end up on the end of my line.

For thirty minutes I casted to the fish, my fly drifting too far into the middle of the stream for it to drift past the salmon, or my line carrying too far up onto the bank and snagging in the tall tundra grass.  More than once I had to lay my rod down on a gravel bar and sneak around the hole to free my line.

Then, at that moment when I was just going through the motions, something different happened: I made a perfect cast; my fly carried in the current to the waiting salmon; as if on cue I noticed a flare of the salmon’s gills; my fly line stopped where one hundred times before it had drifted past.  Instantly I raised my rod and with a whoosh my line lifted off the stream sending thousands of tiny water droplets spraying into the air.

My rod doubled over and the salmon glided slightly to the left.  Feeling the bite of the hook he exploded and bulldogged his way to the head of the pool.  With a great leap the fish was out of the water twisting and shaking, sending its power surging through my rod down into my hands.

Instead of running away the salmon brought the fight to me and I recovered line as quickly as I could.  With no place to go but back into the pool or downstream the salmon made a run for the sea.  His muscular silver body split through the shallow riffle at my feet throwing water on me with his powerful tail.  In an instant he was past me and my reel was into nothing but backing.  I decided if I wanted to land this fish I better get after him.

I let out a war whoop and gave chase down the middle of the stream.  By the time I caught up I was completely drenched and out of breath.  Luckily the salmon was just as tired and was soon swimming at my feet.  Gently I lifted the fish from the water, snapped a picture, removed my fly and returned him again.

The salmon edged to the side of the stream and held in the slack water.  I gathered my rod and walked back upstream to the grassy knoll and began to climb.  Halfway up I waved my arms and yelled.  The big eagle vaulted from his perch and soared into the distance until his form melted into the gray cloudy sky.

“Today,” I said, “this salmon will be caught only by me!”

Fish weren't the only thing on the menu for the eagles.

I couldn't tell if they were breeding or fighting over the fishing hole.

A mom with her pup.

My first Alaskan Pink Salmon.  The Bering Sea is a cold wade!

When the hole below me was fished out with artificial we could always dig some earthworms and catch a dozen more.

A beautiful little rainbow trout.  Unfortunately my best fish pictures were lost when my camera sunk in the Bering Sea!

Wading the Creek

I could tell you the best place to be on a late July day when the weather person says it will be ninety-five degrees by noon -- but, I don't think I will.  However, I will tell you this.  This place is better than staying in your house in the air conditioning; there all you will do is sit on the couch and watch television, maybe do a little cleaning, and then decide it is even too hot for that.

This place is even better than going to your favorite swimming pool -- which at first you will think is the only place to be --  until you get there and you see everyone else thought so, too, and there will not be enough room to swim.  There will only be enough room to wade through a crowd of people.

You might as well be on a crowded New York City sidewalk.  Only if you were in New York City, you could walk on the shady side of the street, which would be a cooler place to be than under the sun in the swimming pool, because the water there will be warm enough to take a bath in and soon enough you will wish you were back home in the air conditioning.

I could tell you where the best place to be on a horribly hot, late July day is and I will.  The best place to be on such a day is wading through a creek that slowly meanders between two steep wooded hillsides.  Maybe you are asking yourself this:  Why is this creek the best place to be on such a day?  Well, because if you are lucky you have a memory from your childhood of wading in such a creek.  It might have been a creek on your grandma's farm, or, it might have been a creek that you waded on a family vacation to the Smoky Mountains one summer.  But anyway, if you are lucky you have that memory and it is probably a good memory.  I can tell you this: wading in a creek as a grown-up will give you just as good a memory, especially if you have a fishing pole in your hands.

If this in itself is not a good enough reason to be wading in this creek on a scorcher of a July day, maybe this will convince you.  Here, giant sycamores, cottonwoods, beech, and poplars grow along the edge of the creek, reaching up into the open space above.  Under these grand old trees grow smaller maple and box elder, filling in the void.  So when you are wading in the creek, with the trees growing in such a way, it seems as if you are wading inside a tunnel of trees.  Only the big trees have more weight to hold and sometimes their roots cannot do the job and they end up falling into the creek.

But the reason I am telling you about the trees, is so you know when you are wading in this creek, the sunlight that falls across the water has first passed through the big trees and also through the smaller trees; and even on a hot July day, when you are here, under the shadows of the trees, as the sunlight touches your skin, it does not feel at all like a hot July sun, but rather more like a warm May sun.

The best place to be on a hot, late, July day is wading through the water in this creek.  This water is not anything like the water you will find in your favorite swimming pool.  The water here slowly lumbers along, constantly flowing, but never in a hurry to get anywhere.  This time of year the creek is not fed by runoff water; it is late July, not a single drop of rain has fallen in a month -- there is no water to run off of anything.  This creek runs through cave country and is fed by underground springs.  The water you wade through here has been underground so long that it has become very cool.  When you are here waist deep in the creek and you wade through the seeping springs, chills will run up your spine.

For the time being, this creek is away from development.  There are no roads or bridges across this particular stretch of creek.  On a hot July day, you can wade the creek with a friend and not see another person the entire day.  Behind you, you can float a small minnow bucket, a seine, and a cooler.  Sometimes the creek will become shallow enough that each of you will have to grab a handle on the cooler and walk it over the rocks, but most of the way the cooler will float.  At other times the creek will become deep enough where if you are six feet tall, you will have to wade the creek on the tips of your toes, hold your fishing pole above your head and bend your neck back to keep your mouth and nose above the water.  If you are not six feet tall you will have to find shallower water closer to the bank.

Catching fish is easy enough.  This particular stretch of creek has been forgotten about for now -- nobody ever fishes it.  In the shallow stretches of the creek, you seine, enough creek chubs to fill your minnow bucket and you are all set.  When you reach deeper water, you hook a creek chub through the tail, and gently toss it out into the water in front of you.

The smallmouth bass in this creek are mean, fat, and greedy.  You would not prefer them any other way.  And because they are not used to being caught, they strike again, again, and again.  The fish are big, too.  In fact, the fish are so big, that later on, when you are talking to other fishers, you will not tell them about these fish.  Only a fool would tell somebody else about this spot.  Besides, nobody would believe you anyway.  Not every fisher gets to see a five pound smallmouth bass walk across the water in front of them.  And then, because you are standing in its world, you look down as the fish swims between your legs, thumping your knees with its mighty tail.

Later in the evening, when the sun has disappeared behind the wooded hill on the western side of the creek, you know it is time to turn back.  Even though there is still fishable water ahead of you, those fish will have to wait for another day.  Wading back to the truck, you find a big tree that has fallen across shallow water and you have a seat.  Sitting on the tree with your feet in the creek and a beer in your hand, you realize you are cold.  You have been in and out of the cool water for almost eight hours and your body temperature is low.  You are not just cool, you are cold to the point where goose bumps are popping out on your arms and legs.  If you were in Alaska on a cold, January, day you would have to do something quickly -- goose bumps are the first sign of hypothermia.  Because you are here in this creek and because this is one of the hottest days of the year, you know you will be okay.  But thanks to those goose bumps, and thanks to the fact that you have been outside all day long, you know that there could not be a better place to be on such a terribly hot, late, July day.

Trapping Pete's Farm

Pete's Farm covered 400 acres of Ohio River bottomland at the foot of the Falls of the Ohio.  The farm was the heart of an original 150,000 acre parcel of land granted to General George Rogers Clark and his militia after they captured control of the Northwest Territories from British forces.

In 1803, along the southeast riverbank of the farm, Meriwether Lewis met up with General Clark's brother, William Clark.  Here, they began their famed expedition across the American West.

I was connected to Pete's farm by a long creek that ran past the end of the road where my parents lived.  At the age of fourteen I began sneaking onto the farm to trap muskrats.  For two miles, I waded the creek in old, leaky, chest waders, following the watery path through neighborhoods, behind warehouses, and under railroad bridges until I eventually made my way onto the farm.

At one time, Pete and his brother Ernie made a living farming the river bottom.  But, as the years caught up with them, more and more of the farm was left alone.  The land, no longer turned under by their plows, grew into a wild, tangled, mess, of heavy fields and thick wooded bottoms.

Beavers were free to build dams on the muddy creeks and ditches meandering across the farm, turning the low fields into wide, shallow marshes.  Muskrats then scattered reedy dome houses across the shallow water.  Mink and raccoon prowled the farm, and even though the place was surrounded by urban development, an occasional red fox hunted the fields.

Ernie passed away years before I began making my forays onto the farm, but the neighborhoods boys trembled with fear at the thought of Pete catching them on his property.  Generations of boys passed down stories of how Pete handled trespassers.

"If the old man catches you on the place, he'll empty a twelve-gauge load of rock salt into your behind," the older boys warned the younger kids.  "It'll make you burn like you was sitting on top of a stove."

Their words of warning weren't enough to keep me off the place, the pull of the farm was too great for that, but, as I roamed the farm I always kept a careful eye out for a man carrying a shotgun.  Whenever I heard dogs baying off in the distance, I figured he was hot on my trail.  More than once I hunkered down in some old muddy ditch, or hid in a thorny patch of briers, certain Pete was walking the farm trying to find me.  Yet in three years of sneaking around setting traps, I never once saw the old man.

The year I turned seventeen I'm not sure if my conscience finally got the best of me, or if I just tired of being in a constant state of fear while trapping the farm, but I knew I could no longer sneak onto the place.  With the passing of a few short teenage years, no more could I allow myself to trespass on the farm.  However, the thought of letting a winter slip by without wading through the marshes was too much to bear, and I knew I had only once choice: I had to ask Pete for permission to trap the place.

"There is no way the old man is going to let you trap his farm," one of the neighbors told me.  "He won't let anyone set foot on the place."

Nevertheless, opening day of trapping season found me at the old white farmhouse banging on the solid wooden door.  From inside I heard Pete rustling about.

"Hold your horses!  Give me some time!"  His heavy voice sounded through the door.

Several minutes later the old door creaked open and Pete's eighty-plus-year-old frame filled the doorway.  He stood a head taller than my six feet and his shoulders stretched wide across.

"What do you want, boy?"  Pete commanded as he stared down at me with cold eyes.

Right then, at the sound of his voice, I thought about turning around and going back to the truck.  But, somehow I mustered the courage to speak up.

"Pete, I know you don't know me," I began.  "But, my grandpa Stanley used to live up the road and I think he helped you butcher hogs."

Years before, when my dad was just a boy, he lived down the road from Pete's farm.  He told me how his dad and Pete had been friends, but that was long ago.  Grandpa Stanley had died in a farming accident when my dad was only fourteen years old.

Pete's cold gaze continued to stare through me.  "Anyway," I stammered on, "I would be real grateful if you would allow me permission to trap your farm."

For a long hard moment Pete continued his gaze, but I was certain his eyes were losing some of their coldness.

"So you're Stanley's grandson ya' say," he finally spoke.  "Every Sunday afternoon Stanley would come over here and we'd pitch horseshoes.  Once in a while, he even let me win."

The old man's eyes softened, and he continued.  "I suppose if you want to get down there in that grown-over mess of brambles and briars and set some traps that would be just fine with me."

At his words my heart leaped in my chest and I could hardly believe what I was hearing.  I had expected to be turned away with my tail between my legs.

"First things first, though," he added.  "Some low-down varmint is killing off my chickens.  Two nights ago I lost thirteen hens, and my red rooster is a nervous wreck.  I want you to put a stop to it."

I followed Pete out to the chicken yard, and after a thorough inspection I found a spot where I though something might be getting in under the chicken wire and I placed a trap in front of the opening.  Two mornings in a row the trap sat empty, but nothing bothered the chickens.  On the third morning, Pete was waiting for me outside the farmhouse.

"Those chickens was making an awful ruckus last night," Pete said.  "I suppose either something got them, or you got something."

I was so anxious I could barely stand walking up to the chicken yard at Pete's slow, time-eating pace.  But, he said he wanted to see if I had caught anything, and I though it would be rude of me to run ahead.  In Pete's time he had been a trapper, too, and I knew he was enjoying the anticipation that comes with checking traps as much as I was.  When we finally got there, we were both amzed at the size of the possum that lay dead in the trap.

"Well," Pete amusedly said.  "I ain't never heard of a chicken-killin' possum, but I ain't never seen a possum that big before, neither."

For another week I left the trap out.  Nothing else was caught, and no more chickens were killed.  Pete then gave me permission to trap the whole place.  But this time, he threw in these words:

"You see anyone else down there, you tell 'em to git the hell out!"

From that day on, instead of walking tow miles each way, I drove my dad's old Chevy pickup right onto the farm.  Each time I pulled off the main road onto the dirt track leading back into the marshes I felt like the king of the farm.

Upon Pete's order, anytime I caught a mink I was to stop at the old farmhouse so he could see it.  He told me of a little hidden drainage running out of one of the marshes where he thought I would be certain to catch one.  I set a trap there and the next four mornings in a row the trap held a raccoon.  But, on the fifth morning, the trap held a large buck mink.  As soon as I finished checking the rest of my traps I ran straight to Pete's house.

"I used to love to trap mink," Pete said, cradling the dead mink in his weathered, time-hardened hands, gently running them over the silky, still-wet fur.  "There ain't no better bait in the world for a mink than a dead redbird.  Them minks love to eat redbirds."

I'd never heard that before, but as I waded through the marshes, Pete's words became evident.  Every so often I would find a bunch of red feathers spread out under a low hanging bush where a mink had made a meal of a cardinal, protected from the deadly grasp of  a hungry hawk or owl.

Every so often, I would stop at the farmhouse to visit with Pete.  I would tell him the state of the farm, and what the animals were doing there.  Then he would tell me his own stories about the times he spent rambling across the same places.

"One cold winter back in the forty's, everything was froze sold," Pete began.  "The Ohio River was a sheet of solid ice, and I could've walked clear to Louisville if I wanted to.  One morning, after a fresh fallen snow, my brother Ernie and me went out rabbit hunting.  We hadn't seen a thing when we found an old culvert pipe lying in a ditch.  A bunch of rabbit tracks went in, but none came out.  I know this sounds like quite a story," he continued, "but it's the God honest truth.  Ernie carried that old single-shot twelve gauge leaning against the wall there, and we only had six shells between us.  Anyway, I picked up one end of that pipe and began lifting a little at a time.  One by one, them rabbits tumbled out and made a run for it.  Well, ten rabbits came out of that old pipe and six of 'em went home with us."

Every trapping season on Pete's farm, I knew I was enjoying something special.  Wading through a marsh filled with dried cattail stalks and marsh grass has a way of growing on a person.  With each step, I would stir the decomposing vegetation of seasons past lying hidden under the water.  Tiny air bubbles would come oozing to the surface of the water, drifting a pungent, surprisingly pleasant, smell to my nose.  Each season brought a memory I will never forget.

One frosty fall morning, just as the sun was breaking the horizon, I waded out of a small feeder creek into the biggest marsh on the farm.  A veil of fog hung low over the marsh, and spilled out around it, hiding me in a shroud of mist.  Through the fog, I looked out across the water and it appeared that every square inch was covered with some type of waterfowl.  A lone mallard hen spotted me and began to swim in a tight circle, not quite sure what to do.  When she decided to take flight, she set every other bird into panic, and the marsh came alive in one great big explosion of cackling birds, slapping water, and whistling wings.

I had never seen anything like it before, and I'm certain I will never see anything like it again for as long as I live.  Thousands of ducks and geese darkened the sky over my head, casting a shadow over me that made it seem as if the sun had gone back down.  Those birds still on the water frantically swam in circles, wating for the first available air space so they, too, could take wing.  Ten minutes after the mallard hen lifted off ducks and geese were still flying overhead.

Every November I made my way back to the farm.  Even though, in Pete's time, the skyline filled with tall buildings from the city across the river, he chose to live in a different time.  He made do without running water or electricity.  In the wintertime, he heated the old farmhouse with wood and coal.  With every visit to the farm, I felt as if I was going back to a simpler, better, time.

I wa living in California years later when my mom called to tell me that Pete had died -- I have not stepped foot on the farm again.  Though there was nothing more between us than a few hunting and trapping stories, we had somehow connected thrugh our experiences on the farm, and I felt the loss.

Another decade has passed since Pete's death.  The State of Indiana bought the farm and posted it off limits to trapping.  Every November I drive past the place.  I still get the urge to sneak in again and wade through the marshes.  I know of a hidden little drainage where I would be certain to catch a mink.  But, I don't think the state would like that very much.

"Besides," I tell myself, "maybe there's a teenage kid from up the creek, going against his better judgement and sneaking onto the place, anyway."

I hope there is -- I guess there's worse things a boy could do than wade through those marshes trapping a few muskrats.

The biggest marsh on Pete's Farm.

My first mink.  A big buck caught in a trap intended for a muskrat.

The #1 Victor Longspring held this big beaver by one toe.  I was one lucky trapper that day!

A good season's catch from the farm for a budding trapper.

Aleutian Island Trapline

A soldier stood at the pearly gate, his face was wan and old.  He kindly asked the man of fate admission to the fold.  "What have you done?"  St. Peter asked, "to gain admission here?"  "I've been in the Aleutians for nigh unto a year!"  Then the gate swung open sharply as St. Peter tolled the bell.  "Come in," said he, "and take a harp, you've had your share of hell!"

Unknown

Adak Island, to those who have been here is known as: "The Birthplace of the Winds."  Today the weather on the island is living up to its Aleutian reputation.  The wind screams off Shagak Bay at a steady fifty knots and my ears are deafened by its' roar.  The snow and sleet make the wind even worse.  The frozen glass like crystals sting fiercely against my exposed face as I watch the steady shifting wall of white move in front of me in a harsh horizontal pattern.

I button the top of my Navy issue extreme weather parka and pull the fur rimmed hood low over my head, trying my best toward off the winter squall.  The label on the coat states waterproof and windproof, but today the wind finds every open nook and the snow and sleet, as if they themselves want to escape the winter storm, crawl inside.  Fortunately, the insulation in the coat still keeps my body warm.

Fighting for each step, I force myself into the wind as it furiously works against me, doing its best to drive me back and topple me over.  I walk bent at the waist, using my upper body as a wedge to gain ground in the wind.  My feet trudge slowly along the rocky shore of the bay and I stay just out of reach of the rough, foamy, water, using the shoreline to guide me home.

On a good day the walk would take me a couple of hours, but today the time has doubled, and there are several miles still to go.  The fully prime Russian Blue Fox in my pack reminds me of the reward I am receiving for my efforts this day.

I'm not worried about the extra time I am spending in the bay today.  I have pulled all my traps, and I know I will probably never make it back to this spot again.  I am determined to enjoy the rugged, remote, isolation the best I can.  In a few weeks I will be transplanted from the island to the hustle and bustle of Southern California.

I make my way to the leeward side of a grassy knoll, to escape from the relentless striking of the wind and snow and sleet.  For an hour I nestle into the soft brown tundra grass to take a breather, eat a snack, and wait for a hopeful break in the weather.  As I rest the skies to the west empty of clouds and the snow and sleet fade away.  That's the way with the storms here;  They can move in on you without warning and last for days, or they can disappear as quickly as they came.

I know the break in the weather could be just a short lull, and I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.  I climb to the top of the knoll and look down upon the bay.  Twenty miles to the west, Kanaga Island rises from the Bering Sea.  The volcanic island had erupted several months before -- blowing away part of its' cylinder.

Smoke and ash still steam from its' crater in a a heavy stream.  The evening sun beyond it glows brightly and the sunlight filtering through the smoke and ash colors the sky into countless hues of crimson, violet, and blue.  For a long while I sit on the knoll, taking in the scene and reflecting on my days on the trapline and wildlife I have seen.

A lone harbor seal was wintering over in the bay, and seemed to be notably fond of a remote stretch of rocky beach I walked.  From a safe distance in the water the seal kept me company, swimming along with the pace of my walking, barking out at me as I strode the shore.  If I stopped too long to watch him, he would sink into the ocean and wait to join me again only after I resumed my march along the bay.

Further down the beach, a boulder as big as a house rested upon the edge of the ocean.  Often, a mature bald eagle perched atop the boulder like a king, watching me curiously as I approached.  Unafraid of me from his safe vantage, the big bird would allow me to close the distance between us to mere yards before he would soar across the bay to another of his lofty perches.

Once, as I stood beside the boulder, I watched in awe as he glided low and easy across the bay and splashed his huge talons down into the salt and snatched out an unsuspecting fish.  Without a doubt he was the most patient and graceful fisherman I had ever seen.

My trapline consisted of only fours sets, three of which connected with four Russian Blue Fox.  All of the sets I made were simple dirt holes with a fish oil attractant.  I didn't go to great lengths to conceal my scent: Aleutian winters are harsh and the fox get hungry.  Trappers on the island were scarce, too.  I only knew of one other trapper and his trapline was on the other side of the island.  The fox just weren't very educated about traps.

Russsian Blue Fox aren't native to the Aleutians Islands.  Russian fur traders released them to most of the islands beginning in the 1830's when Alaska belonged to them.  The fox adapted well, and have taken a heavy toll on the native waterfowl.  At one point over the years the fox had nearly eaten the Aleutian Canadian Goose into extinction. 

My best set was a dirt hole at the base of a World War II machine gun bunker built onto a long narrow peninsula of rock and tundra that protected Shagak Bay from the ever-pounding waves of the Bering Sea.

To a Midwestern boy this thin spit of land seemed otherwordly.  Standing there, at what seemed to me to be the end of the earth -- I found it hard to believe there was any other place more wild and desolate.  Mighty waves of the Bering Sea crashed in and pulled away at the spit, tossing and rolling large sea polished stones as they came and went.  The sound of the roaring waves and clashing stones melted together with the salty wind in an untamed symphony.

Though Adak was never occupied by Japanese forces during World War II, nearby islands were and the airfields built here in the fall of 1942 by U.S. Navy Seabees, Army Engineers, and Infantrymen made it possible for American Forces to drive the Japanese from the islands in less than a year.  The Aleutian campaign is mostly forgotten now, but some of the battles waged here were as fierce as any in the Pacific War.

I can't imaginge how difficult it must have been for the men living that first winter in their makeshift shelters, much less trying to conduct a war.  The past two years I'd walked their old meandering trails past foxholes and dilapidated weathered shacks.  Rusted, dulled, punji sticks and barbed wire still crossed the tundra hillsides, a constant reminder of the violent past.

I could have stayed on the grassy knoll for a lot longer and enjoyed the view, but the sun was quickly sinking and it seemed as if the cold Bering Sea was swallowing it up and putting out its' flame.  I reminded myself of the fur handling chores that remained to be done and unwillingly turned my back on the bay one last time.

With my dream of running an Alaskan trapline finally realized, I walked up the mountain pass back towards the base.  Even though I knew I would never be back, I understood fully how such a wilderness can grow in a person.  You may leave it, but it will never leave you.

The bay where I trapped in the winter and fished in the summer.

Just back from the trapline.  I used the mountain bike as my transportation.

The volcano was still smoking and sputtering the day I left the island.

A prime Russian Blue Fox.

The machine-gun bunker.  Notice the GI's shovel still leaning against the bunker -- sixty years later!