Guide sets us on right path

Last week we ran a story describing the subject of a criminal trial, a man who twice in his life has fled from police and thrice had airplanes seized by authorities, as a “rogue guide.”

We apologize for the description.

To be quite honest, it wasn’t until we got a call from a law-abiding big-game hunting guide frustrated with our word choice that the error occurred to us.

“If a person was impersonating a doctor, would you call him a rogue doctor?” the caller asked.

No, as a matter of fact we would not. Point taken. (And, by the way, thank you, sir, for stating your case so politely.)

It is the nature of guiding that until a guide — real or phony — runs afoul of the law, the profession does not often rate a mention in the news pages of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. Of course, there are plenty of guides opinionated enough to occupy space on the opinion pages.

But overall, we admit we lack deep expertise when it comes to guiding as a profession.

So here we’d like to say thanks to our caller, who in his gentle, albeit frustrated, way made us aware of what it takes to earn a license to guide commercial clients. It’s a complex process involving multiple years as an apprentice and a testing process full of hurdles high enough to ensure that only the best, most dedicated aspiring guides are licensed.

That’s not to mention knowing a host of arcane rules that vary from region to region and from season to season that, as a layman, seem relatively easy to run afoul of when actually guiding a hunt.

Having acquainted ourselves with the profession, we would compare being a guide to being a lawyer or a police officer. Sure, there’s some skill involved and the most successful of them often have great skill. But a large component of the work seems to depend on keeping and maintaining in your mind a clear picture of the rules.

We apologize to any guides offended when a man pretending to be a certified guide was described as such in our pages. We will do our best to make the distinction clear in future reports.