Alaskan to star in National Geographic series

MEADOW LAKES — For author and longtime Alaskan Michael “Scotty” Lamkin, adventure never ends.

Scotty passed away in his home over Memorial Day weekend this year, but not before he completed filming for the upcoming National Geographic television series, “Yukon River Run,” which premiers Monday.

Though Scotty is not the only star of the show — the cast is nine-strong — the channel issued a statement dedicating this season of “Yukon River Run” to him, in honor of his “brave and adventurous spirit.”

His wife, Sherry Lamkin, can attest to that.

“He just loved the wilderness,” she said.

But that may not seem obvious from his southern roots.

Born in Bloomington, Illinois, Scotty attended high school in Brandenburg, Kentucky, and the University of Kentucky in Lexington. When he came to Alaska in January 1979, with his 5-year-old son in tow, he had $50 in his pocket and a dream of pursuing the unseen and unexplored — described in his 2012 book, “Chance is the Providence of Adventurers,” as “places that had no paths … made by generations of humans.”

In part, it was Scotty’s disillusionment “with all forms of the modern day man,” he wrote, that led him to Alaska.

It’s not surprising, then, that Scotty went on to become a professional hunting and fishing guide, accumulating stories and developing a rapport that kept outdoorsmen coming back with more and more people seeking adventure. The degree of adventure visitors sought varied, but Scotty always made sure to maintain a certain level of comfort.

“I don’t take shortcuts when it comes to food for clients,” he wrote. “If they are fed well, they will sleep well. If they sleep well, they can enjoy the next day to its fullest.”

One client who experienced Scotty’s wilderness-comfort combo was none other than University of Louisville, Kentucky basketball coach Denny Crum.

Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994, near the end of his 30-year college coaching career, Crum was also an avid hunter and fly fisherman, according to Scotty. The two met in Kentucky while Scotty was touring the country selling Alaskan big game hunts, and Crum was quickly sold on the idea.

Crum’s first trip to Alaska with Scotty ended up being a fly fishing trip on the Talachulitna River, but they still managed to have an exciting encounter with a black bear. The hunters had spotted it while fishing one day, then woke up to it lumbering toward their beached raft the next morning. Scotty stood silently by until the bear decided to chomp down on their Hypalon ride.

Miraculously, the boat was un-punctured, and Scotty shooed the bear off with nothing but a rock and a strong presence. Still, it was a close call.

“The bear trying to take a bite out of my raft almost elevated that trip to a 7.0 on the adventure scale,” Scotty wrote. “It would have been a long and difficult journey to get back to civilization.”

Scotty’s longtime friend and Alaskan hunting buddy, Mike Heinz, also had an exciting rafting experience with Scotty, near the Bering River, in 2009. They were wrapping up a kill-less hunt, preparing for pick up, when torrential rains hit.

“The area we had chosen to camp in was kinda low, and the water (from the river) started creeping up,” Heinz said. “Scotty had the fire going already but we had to move the tent. We went to higher ground, then started realizing the water might just keep going up.”

Ever the outdoorsman, Scotty suggested they sit tight inside the raft, and harvested some nearby saplings to form a cover for them from the rain. They lashed the boat to a nearby tree, and waited.

“He was calm through the entire thing,” Heinz said. “I really did think we’d be packing up everything in the middle night … then (the weather) just turned.”

Looking back, Heinz realized he shouldn’t have been surprised.

“He was just so well versed in spending time out in that country,” he said, of Scotty.

‘Normal’ life

By the time Scotty took that trip with Heinz, he had more or less gotten out of the guiding business, and instead took personal hunts with friends.

It was in the early 1990s, when he met Sherry, that Scotty began emerging from the woods more often. Sherry, an electrician, moved to Alaska and in with Scotty in 1993. Two years later, Scotty began Amigalaska Productions, and Sherry became the company photographer. The two purchased a state-of-the-art SGI computer for $12,000, and soon Scotty was producing all the graphics for Rogers American Cablesystems in Wasilla (until the company was bought out by GCI in 2001).

He also compiled “homegrown videos” for the company from photos and clips provided by local Alaskans returned from trips around the state, which aired every Friday. Back then, that sort of editing required totally different skills, as Scotty was working with 8-millimeter-film video cameras, 35-millimeter-film photo cameras, and cassette tapes for music.

The proceeds from all that work “built our house,” Sherry said.

“Every paycheck we got we’d have Spenard (Builders Supply) unload a load of lumber and we’d build our house from it,” she said.

Soon they had two cabins, a pool and a nine-hole golf course on the property as well. In December of 1996, Sherry finally agreed to marry Scotty on the front steps of one of those cabins, in a white leather and fur dress of her own making.

“It was like 12 degrees out,” Sherry said, remembering the day fondly.

Some years later, after Sherry began working for Husky Electric Supply in Wasilla, Scotty put his previous experience as a sales manager for United Lumber Company to use as a manager at Husky Electric.

And in 2012, just before he retired the electric company, Scotty finally published his first book.

Scotty’s many different careers and adventures, Sherry said, were the result of a natural intelligence.

“There was nothing he wouldn’t read. If he needed something done, fixed, he would read (about) it and do it,” she said.

The last days

In March of 2014, many of the evidences of Sherry and Scotty Lamkin’s lives were reduced to memories and Facebook photos by a fire. Their three-story home and most of their belongings — including Sherry’s handmade wedding dress, the SGI computer and all their printed photos — burned to ashes.

But Scotty was never one to give up. They did have insurance, and were able to begin rebuilding that summer. This weekend, Sherry’s daughter will be married in the new, two-story house.

And one thing did survive the fire. Though a bear pelt stored in a freezer was severely damaged, its claws were intact, and Scotty made Sherry and himself matching bear claw necklaces for their 18th anniversary last winter.

After filming Yukon River Run, Scotty’s health began to deteriorate. This spring, when the cancer diagnosis came, Scotty decided to live out his last days at home. He passed in the presence of his family and friends, with no regrets, in his Alaska.

“I have never been disappointed with my decision to come to this vast place and lead the life that I have,” he wrote.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com