Hunting feeds Valley residents' appetite for adventure

MAT-SU -- The highways are crowded with trucks pulling trailers with four-wheelers and tundra buggies. Fresh moose antlers adorn local yards, neighbors are sharing packages of caribou sausage and moose steaks with neighbors and, walking through most work places, you are bound to catch snippets of one adventure story or another.

"I'd just shot a spike-fork when I saw a 55-incher across the way. It was the biggest moose I've ever seen around here."

"The bear had gnawed its way through the box, while we were right there in our tent."

"Never saw a single bull, but had the best time of my l life."

It's what often draws people to Alaska and keeps them here -- hunting season. And it's not just an autumn event. As soon as the salmon have come and gone, Alaskans are venturing onto the tundra and into the mountains on hunting excursions for caribou, moose, bear, sheep, goat, ducks, spruce grouse, snowshoe hares, ptarmigan … and the list goes on.

When they've returned home, butchered and packaged their meat and put away their gear, then the hunters savor their delicious meals and amazing, if not slightly exaggerated, stories during the next winter months. By the time spring comes, they're already planning their next trip.

While it is something many Alaskans have in common, each comes to the hunt for unique reasons and with unique skills.

There are hunters who use bull and cow calls to lure in moose, hunters who haul backpacks up steep cliffs in pursuit of sheep, hunters who venture onto the open tundra on four-wheelers to shoot caribou and hunters who quietly sit in tree stands hour after hour waiting for black bears to amble by. There are hunters who use high-powered rifles, hunters who use bow-and-arrow, hunters who use black-powder rifles and hunters who use goats and falcons. That's right, goats and falcons.

Valley resident Fritz Hanna has left behind motorized vehicles and even horses, instead opting for four-legged eating machines.

Hanna uses alpine goats to pack his gear when hiking into the mountains on hunting trips. They can carry up to 25 percent of their body weight, their hooves are designed for rock climbing and they'll eat whatever is around.

"I wanted an animal that could go with me wherever I wanted to go. If that meant to the top of the mountain, that's what I wanted," he said in an earlier Frontiersman article.

Bob Collins has also chosen an interesting hunting partner -- Tundra Rose the gyrfalcon. He uses the predatory bird to hunt ptarmigan and other game birds. For Collins, however, the thrill comes not in bagging 20 birds but instead in letting Tundra Rose fly free in search of the small birds.

"You can't see her, but you can hear the wind cutting through her wings," Collins said in a Frontiersman article.

Jenny Horstman has chosen a more traditional hunting companion, enlisting the assistance of a German wirehaired pointer. During the course of the partnership, the duo has hunted grouse, ptarmigan and wild turkey and garnered high scores in Alaska's first National Bird Dog Challenge.

More often, though, Alaskans choose their family and friends as hunting partners. Parents take their children, set up camp beside a glacial river and watch the caribou roam by, and old friends head afield together where they hunt hard all day and, when darkness comes, sit beside the campfire to share often-told tales.

While hunting is a sport for Alaskans, it is also a way of life. For many Valley residents, caribou and moose fill the freezer each year and provide dinners of caribou stroganoff and moose tacos.

Nutrition is a another reason to go hunting. Game meat has less fat than boneless, skinless chicken breasts, contains none of the hormones or other additives in some store-bought meat and, according to those who love it, tastes great.

But there is something even more allusive than fresh meat that draws people to the hunt.

As Valley resident Meghan Bowker wrote in a recent Frontiersman article, "I agree with the poet Robert Service: There's something alluring, even addictive, about the land of the caribou. Even though I didn't see my own skin for seven days (and was surprised to find, after peeling off all those layers of clothes that I hadn't gained 10 pounds), I look forward to the next time I get to live the simpler life of hunting on the tundra."