Outdoors in Alaska

Kyle Wilkinson had an article in a recent edition of the Frontiersman newspaper about places he goes to look for, and update used outdoor equipment he uses in his excursions in the Alaskan outdoors. That made me think, not about finding different equipment, but about updating equipment I already own and use.

Before I mention the additional upgrades I’m hoping for with this particular piece of equipment, a little background history. About ten years ago, I was drooling over a Polaris six-wheeler a friend of mine had. He had “tricked” it out with several upgraded improvements to better withstand hunting moose far from road accessible locations. I guess I talked about it to my wife more than I thought.

I bought a 2016 Polaris 6-wheeler, with the dealership performing a number of upgrades, partially based on what my friend had done to his machine. I had them install a fully enclosed cabin, a heater, windshield wipers, power steering, a gun rack, and heavy-duty springs on the front axel to offset the added cabin weight.

After using the machine for a while, I had a much heavier duty custom bottom skid plate mounted, replacing the “flimsy” factory skid plate, a custom rack on the dump bed to carry extra fuel, a high lift jack, a spare tire, and a custom camouflaged full cover over the rack to keep anything I was carrying in the dump bed dry if it rained or snowed while I was using it. I had this work done over a couple of years because of cost (this stuff wasn’t cheap!).

As I used it more, I found other things to improve, like adding a rear “bumper” to help protect the rear of the machine when out in the woods. I found a fan to blow colder air over the engine when working the machine on a warm day--heat rising off the engine could make the cabin uncomfortably warm. A small added light bar on the front end helped vision when running after dark. I found a small manual “crane” I could mount on the rear end receiver hitch to make loading or unloading heavy items into the dump bed (think moose quarters or fuel barrels) much easier on one’s back!

I’ve added other small items over time (like a battery trickle charger, side mirrors, and a GPS mount) which I think make the machine more “user friendly” while out in the puckerbrush. Now the question is: after adding all this additional stuff, along with the additional cost, have I ever actually used the machine for hunting and/or fishing? Not as much as I had hoped, but yes, I have.

The machine has been out on several day moose hunts with no success yet, a week-long caribou hunt, and a “remote” fishing trip. The only success was on the fishing trip but running the machine over the muddy, flooded trail to and from the fishing site taught me a lot about handling a machine that size on a winding, tree-choked trail.

This describes the machine as it currently exists. So, what else do I want to do to it? First, I had to replace the battery last year and the smallest non-Polaris battery I could find was too large to fit on the battery tray. I altered the plate to work with the battery but had to come up with a different way to secure the battery in the vehicle. I’m thinking I might just bite the bullet and get a Polaris battery and a replacement battery plate, so everything is “factory” and not “shade tree mechanic” style.

I'd also like to have a functional compass inside the cab. If I could find an electronic compass that would work inside the steel cab, I’d be interested in talking with the dealership about getting it installed. There are other options if that isn’t feasible. I’ll just have to chase the idea and see what happens.

I’m planning to use the 6-wheeler for surf fishing and I already have a custom rod rack which fits in the rear trailer receiver hitch. The machine might also see service on our crane hunt this fall. We’ll see.