It’s nice to be known

I enjoy being part of a community. When I was younger (in college) and my earlier years working for Fish and Game, I seemed to move almost every other year, if not every year. Since I moved to the Valley in 1990, I’ve lived in only two different locations in the Big Lake area and both are within a mile of each other. Being familiar with folks and happenings in a local area has several advantages.

My wife tells me I talk a lot and have never met a stranger. I see that as a good thing. I seem to regularly run into both old and new friends wherever I go. The little picture at the head of this column allows many folks I’ve not met before to come up and say “hi.” Usually, the person is curious about where to go fishing or what’s happening with moose numbers. A few folks have expressed polite disagreement with some of my opinions, but most agree with what I’ve recently said. I appreciate the feedback.

Occasionally, I’m the one to benefit from the chance encounter. If I had to identify the store where I seem to run into the most folks to stop and chat with, I’d have to say Sportsmen’s Warehouse in Wasilla. I stopped in this past week to check on a shoe size and pick up a couple of small items.

While looking at boots with an eye toward the coming hunting season, an old friend from my Fish and Game days wandered by. We worked together at one point in our careers and are now both long since retired. We always talk hunting when we meet and did so this time as well. I mentioned my wife drew an antlerless moose permit in a specific area of the Valley and found out my friend had drawn a permit for the same area three years ago and successfully harvested his moose. He visited the same area last season for some small game hunting.

He willingly gave me an access report and even identified the locale where he shot his moose. I learned that packing from this area would be greatly facilitated by the relative ease of four-wheeler access and several other little bits and pieces of information that help in the hunt planning process. What had started as a five-minute visit to the shoe department became a 45-minute where-to and how-to hunting discussion. It was great!

No sooner did my first friend leave to finish his shopping than another old friend and occasional hunting partner wandered in to look at boots, too. We discussed a mutual friend and the changes happening in his life at the moment and then got down to hunting talk. My shoe department friend had a moose hunt in the planning stages that I had heard about previously. The more we discussed his hunt the better it sounded. He then asked me directly if I wanted to go.

I had thought about this after I first learned about his hunt a couple of weeks back, but didn’t figure I would be a part of it since it was his hunt and he was planning it with another mutual friend. He didn’t have to ask twice, but I did tell him I’d need to work out a few small details first before I could definitely say yes. With this opportunity, I could do some of my own hunting before, hopefully, helping my wife with her hunt and maybe harvesting her first moose.

As luck would have it, my next stop was Fred Meyer and, you guessed it, another friend walked by. We only spent a few minutes talking. He was curious about some of the salmon run strengths so far this season since he had just picked up a fish wheel subsistence permit and was planning a trip. My wife had been along on this shopping trip and was, by now, quite tired of listening to me talk with folks in the stores. We headed for home.

Back when I was much more nomadic in my living situation, this sort of interaction never seemed to happen. I wasn’t a part of those different communities long enough to really get to know local folks. Now that I’ve been settled for more than 23 years in the same locale, I’m familiar with folks and situations, and they’re familiar with me. It’s nice to be part of a community!