Bush Rat

TALKEETNA — The old adage that any craft worth perfecting requires 10,000 hours of dedication should take a page out of “Yukon Don Tanner’s Talkeetna Territory Papers”.

Yukon has spent 60 years in the state, traveling far, wide, from Ketchikan to Barrow and every thicket of woods in between. He bought an old homestead with a cabin in the Talkeetna Territory only accessible by ATV or snowmachine. He graduated from Chugiak High School and Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka. The “Talkeetna Territory Papers”is a 115-page report of how to be a “bush rat”’ as he describes himself repeatedly. The book stems from Yukon’s completion of a certification as a naturalist from the University of Alaska Southeast in which he was asked to ask and answer 20 questions of himself. He repurposed the work from the course for the book, which has since drawn interest as a use for curriculum.

Yukon’s writing style verges on something you might see from a Department of Fish and Game report, but with more humor. There are more actual pictures of flowers than there are flowery and excessive words: Yukon gets straight to the point. The book was released in December of 2017 by Todd Communications and, in the event of an emergency, can be used a survival guide in bush Alaska. The 20 chapters lie somewhere in the gray area between academia and old sourdough’s tale. He covers mammals, flowers, trees, plants, the indigenous people that were here prior to Russian occupation, Russian occupation, various explorers who documented the areas, the economy, and everything in between. Yukon has spent a lifetime collecting data, facts, and tricks for helping to enjoy the wonders of the Last Frontier.

“If old Jack were here, what story would he tell?” asks Yukon on page 69.

The homestead he purchased in 2000 had originally been claimed by Jack Warner. A 1942 Caterpillar was left on the property when Yukon purchased it with an old toolbox with Warner’s name on it. Yukon tracked down Warner, who had become an ordained minister and traveled the state to preach. The book sprouted from 20 questions reads like Jack’s story as a guide in both survival and appreciation of the lands both Warner and Tanner have settled.

In 1910, 16 people were living in Talkeetna, with nine of them being indigenous Athabascans. Yukon details the digs conducted in 2011 on the west side of Clear Creek show the fish camp used by the Natives for generations before Russians and homesteaders came through the area.

Yukon outlines nearly every plant that has ever grown in the Talkeenta area and which of those plants are edible and how they can be used. Chaga, otherwise known as Clinker Polypore, has been used for medicinal benefits since 3300 B.C., and Yukon tells you where to find it and exactly how to harvest this miracle fungus that has been linked to healing cancer.

Chapter three discusses the most populous residents of the state, telling of the 7.2 million mosquitos living in the state. Yukon may very well have counted each one of the ‘Alaska State Bird’ (pun intended) himself throughout the course of his travels and studies.

Yukon’s handlebar mustache, featured throughout the personal photos in the book behind large harvested caribou and mammoth gold nuggets, may be graying now at age 68, but his sage wisdom acquired the hard way is passed on through his pages. He has been in pursuit of the bush rat lifestyle for 60 years, and has now learned to work smarter and not harder.

“I’ve figured out ways to take the hard work out of it. The real hard work I did early on knowing I might not be in the same shape and able to perform the way I want,” said Yukon. “I’ve got good equipment. I’ve done this and the learning curve has been pretty steep over the years. I’ve got it nailed down pretty good now.”

He hauled 1,000 lbs of lumber out to his cabin in the winter crossing the frozen Talkeetna River to build a dock on the lake this summer. As of Friday morning, he was about to embark on a ride on the Alaska Railroad, competing with his granddaughter for how many books they could sell to the other travelers. Yukon does not credit any other authors with stylistic influences, but does reference studies and scientists throughout the book as further sources of information. The book reads as it might if you had boarded the train in Seward on a trip to Talkeetna and struck up a friendly conversation with the man next to you in a Filson hat and Carhartt pants bought half a dozen years ago and weathered through the trials of living off the grid. His direct and acute manner of addressing the elements of the bush rat lifestyle read like Hemingway if he had taken a job with the Department of Forestry.

Yukon’s favorite section of the book is the story of the Freeman homestead, which carried another name of Jack Warner before he departed. The Bureau of Land Management had allowed 160 acre plots to be claimed with stipulations. Warner flew into the area and began building a cabin by hand with a flat roof before he heard a voice from on high tell him to preach the gospel. Yukon says that Warner asked the voice if he could finish his cabin and got no response. Yukon built a cabin that had burned down, but constructed another out of white spruce with logs flown in from Talkeetna over three summers.

Yukon’s discussion of the flaura, fauna, mountains and rivers of the area come with a respect and knowledge of those who first inhabited The Great Land.

“The Athabascan natives call it the huge one or great one. They lived hunted and fished in it’s grand shadow for thousands of years before a white man showed up. To some it was a holy place and to some it still is,” writes Yukon.

A cheechako (newcomer to Alaska) named Dickey from back east, was the first to call the mountain McKinley.”

Saturday June 7 of 1913 was first summit of Denali. Yukon’s son Jesse conquered The Great One in 2009. Yukon’s knowledge of the area surpasses that of the casual Alaskan. He notes the medicinal and caloric values for plants including the use of dandelions in a bath to relieve muscle tension or to be made into homestead wine, which may relieve a different type of tension.

While Yukon’s travels throughout the state can be seen on the first to last page and span each corner of Alaska, his home and heart are present in Talkeetna.

“The village of Talkeetna remains just that, a village rejecting any organized form of government,” he writes on page 82. Talkeetna’s Mayor Stubbs recently passed in 2017. “Talkeetna must have the cleanest air in America to support this amount of growth you have here,” he recalls a scientist telling him.

The chapters may not have been laid out during his naturalism course as they are in the book, but they flow from the history and the humans to the changes and the ever present life all around the Valley, mammal, insect, or plant. He features photos he has taken around the state, but one photo is unique. He presents a photo of an owl capturing its prey after a fresh snow, an encounter he had only photographed twice in his 68 years. His final chapter discusses Alaska Phenomena and describes his pleasure in bundling up in the dead of night during the frigid Alaskan winters to lie down in the snow and stare at the night sky, witnessing the Aurora Borealis.

On page 111, he notes “God’s greatest display of electrons”