My
childhood was a little, well a lot, different than most. My
parents, who met while attending college in Oregon, decided to
protect us from the rest of the evil world, and moved us to a
very remote cabin miles from Fairbanks, Alaska. So remote that
we didn’t have electricity, running water, or an inside
bathroom, not to mention radio or television. Now, that sounds
tough for the kids, but think about potty training three kids
all about two years apart in an outhouse located several yards
from the house in deep snow! Or, imagine hauling water from a
creek nearly a mile from your house on a toboggan using six
5-gallon jugs with three kids piled on top! You guessed it, we
never talked back to mom!
Our mother worked as a reporter for
a public television station doing stories on remote villages,
even more remote than ours! In fact, they were so remote that
they could only be reached by airplane. In many cases, she was
the only Caucasian ever to set foot in some of them. She flew
in on their supply planes with cameras in hand. The villagers
were surprisingly accepting of her and taught her to sew and
make mukluks, and filet fish by touch without looking. That
was always an amazing party pleaser, and she never left any
bones in them! My brothers and I always wore parkas with fur
trim and mukluks. We weren’t the coolest kids at school, but
we stayed warm. Mom also read to us every night by
candlelight. My brother’s favorite books were Robinson Crusoe
and The Swiss Family Robinson, but I’ll never forget the
entire series of Little House on the Prairie. I think she
might have read it twice, actually. I still have the torn and
tattered books.
My
father was, and still is, a wonderful bush pilot and former
hunting guide who made a life trekking across the Brooks Range
in search of sheep and caribou, counting fish, and radio
collaring wolves. Unfortunately, I wasn’t given an opportunity
to hunt with him. My brothers fondly cherish the memories of
their successful sheep and caribou kills, however. Mine wasn’t
the kind of family where complaining was even close to being
acceptable, so although I would have loved to go, I never
mentioned it. My parents divorced and we moved to the Kenai
Peninsula, eventually to the property where my mother’s family
homesteaded back around the 1940s with a beautiful underground
spring fed lake. We used to kayak and swim and play on that
lake all day in the summer, and the loons sang us to sleep
with their beautiful songs. It is a gorgeous place where my
mother still lives and I love to visit.
My
mother remarried a man who trapped for a living. I remember
always having something dead hanging in our kitchen. He used
black powder guns and usually cleaned them right before
dinner. Being the least bit squeamish also never went over too
well in our household! We usually ate dinner with a
half-skinned coyote or wolf carcass hanging next to us in our
small cabin that by dinnertime smelled very similar to rotten
eggs! This time we had electricity, and although we had a
television, we barely got one channel with tin foil covered
rabbit ears. We (tried to) watch Little House on the Prairie
every week, and that was the only show we were allowed. I
remembered some of the stories from the books mom read when we
were little, and I loved watching it. I read some of the
stories to my little girl, but she didn’t get it like I
did.
I miss Alaska for a lot of reasons,
but I decided to raise my family in Oregon. I met my husband,
Matt, while we both worked at Nosler Bullets. He was the
Director of Ballistics at the time, and also handled most of
the customer service calls. He was the guy who always walked
around the plant asking everyone if they’d killed anything
lately...no sense pussy footing around about it! I was the
Executive Assistant in the office, and dressed up for the job.
I know I didn’t look anything like someone who would answer,
"Well, as a matter of fact, I just shot a deer last weekend!"
Not everyone at Nosler hunts, and very few of the girls in the
office did. The requirement is simply that they be okay with
it, and no animal rights activists should apply. I could tell
by the excited look on his face, he wasn’t expecting that
answer from me. Then he found out that I grew up in a cabin in
Alaska and my dad was a pilot and hunting guide, and my step
dad was a trapper. Matt trapped and sold fur while growing up,
back when it paid off better than it does now. He paid for his
first year’s tuition at Gonzaga with his trapping
money.
We spent
a lot of time together after that, beginning with a "first
date" pheasant and chuckar hunt...when I tripped over a hot
wire and fell flat on my face! Matt never laughed, although
his friends did. The details of that are a separate story all
together! I’ve been seriously hooked on hunting ever since,
and we love hunting together more and more every
year.
My daughter is twelve, and she got
her first, very own .22 for her birthday. She’ll be taking the
ODFW Hunter Safety course so she can get her first deer next
fall. She spots them everywhere now, but shoots only at
targets and pop cans. Her favorite shirt is a Sneekee t-shirt
that reads, "Girls shoot better".
Matt and I still get so excited at
the site of big bucks and bulls that our hearts pound so loud
we’re afraid we might scare the critters away. The thought of
helping our kids get their first deer and elk is almost
overwhelming! Although we take several guided hunters for deer
and elk every year, we traditionally reserve opening weekend
of mule deer season just for the four of us. Our son is one,
and doesn’t remember going last year, but he hunted deer and
elk with me safely tucked away in my tummy and was born less
than a week after elk season. I got a smaller bull than normal
that year. This year, his first and favorite word was "Buck".
He was being packed around by Matt with his earplugs in when I
shot a gorgeous deer. He was so excited, "Buck" was all he
said the entire rest of the day, and ever since! Bulls are
beeeeg bucks! The photos are adorable because he never stopped
smiling and laughing. He has three rifles of his own already,
gifted to him by different hunting friends, and wears almost
every camo outfit Gap came out with last year. They released
their camo line just in time for him! We both agree that we’ll
support the kids in anything they choose to do, but we kind of
doubt we’ll be attending any ballet recitals!
