Rainy Pass Lodge celebrates 75 years of business, history

RAINY PASS — Steven Perrins was 6-years-old the day the magazine arrived in the mail that would shape his life and his family’s for decades.

Perrins remembers how the magazine looked tucked in the black mailbox affixed to the front of the family’s New Hampshire home at 119 Morey St.

Mostly, he remembers the photo of an Alaska moose hunt on the cover and how it set him to dreaming.

Kids who pick a career in kindergarten often change their minds a few dozen times. Not Perrins.

From the day that magazine was delivered until this, Perrins has worked to be an Alaska hunting guide.

He and a group of his buddies started saving money for a trip they planned to Alaska when he was a teenager.

“I worked toward this trip all through high school,” Perrins said. Even the truck he drove up from New Hampshire had a personalized license plate that said ‘Alaska.’

More than that, he wrote to the state of Alaska and requested a copy of the list of Alaska’s registered guides and outfitters, about 300 at that time, he said.

Using the addresses on the list, the tenacious teen sent letters to every address on the list.

“I got a surprising number of replies,” Perrins said. He said he still has some of them, too.

Fate took the reins when Perrins convinced his friends to dip into their trip savings to see a presentation by Alaska guide Buckey Winkley at the local school. They paid the $2 each for tickets and eagerly watched his 16 mm movies of hunting and fishing in Alaska. Perrins still has that ticket stub today.

When the presentation ended, the teenage Perrins went up to Winkley and introduced himself.

“I offered to buy him a steak dinner if he’d tell us about Alaska,” Perrins said.

Winkley accepted and over dinner filled the boys’ heads with tales of his Alaska hunting adventures. Before the evening ended, Perrins asked for his boss’ name and phone number.

“A couple of years later, I showed up on the Branham’s doorstep in Anchorage to apply for a job,” Perrins said. That was November 1976.

75 years of service

If Perrins’ story sounds like the stuff of movies or a TV reality show, it is.

Since 2008, Steve and Denise Perrins’ family has been the subject of a TV show, called “R5 Sons Alaska.”

“R5 Sons Alaska” has aired nationally on RFDTV, and in Alaska on GCI Cable and MTA, and it launches May 1 as one of Alaska Airlines’ in-flight offerings.

Family friends Tim and Kathy Hiser from Colorado visited the lodge shortly after the Perrins purchased it. Tim, a former Hollywood actor, conceived the show after experiencing the family on site.

“The TV show has really caused us to be in charge of a second business,” Perrins said.

The two families started Rainy Pass Productions and produce the show through the lodge.

“We’re having severe growing pains,” Perrins said.

Between taxes, licensing and the accompany paperwork, operating a wilderness lodge in Alaska isn’t as simple as it was back in 1964 when legendary Bush pilot Don Sheldon dropped Winkley off at Rainy Pass Lodge.

Registered guide No. 34, Winkley still lives at the lodge and has been guiding from Rainy Pass Lodge for nearly 50 years.

Located along the Iditarod Trail in the Alaska Range about 125 miles northwest of Anchorage, the lodge celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. The lodge sits on the shores of picturesque Puntilla Lake and serves guests year-round, but is only accessible by plane, or by snowmachine during the winter.

In its 75-year history, the lodge has had just three owners. The Branham family built the lodge and operated it from 1937 to 1977. Vern Humble and family owned and operated it from 1977 to 2003.

After working for the Branhams at their various hunting and fishing lodges and ranches around the U.S., the Perrins — now Steve and his wife Denise — returned to work at Rainy Pass Lodge in 1978.

After working for the Humble family for a few years, the Perrins eventually purchased the property in February 2003.

A precedent for service

Today the couple, their five sons — Steve II, Shane, Clayton, Chase and Colton — and their families continue to serve the offspring of some of the same clients the Branhams hosted there seven decades past.

“The Branhams had third-generation hunters hunting there,” said Steve Perrins, Master Guide 123. “I tell people, ‘I’m not after your business. I’m after your grandkids’ business.’”

A native of Crandon, Wisc., Bud Branham came to Alaska as a pilot during World War II and flew out of Kodiak and Fairbanks.

Branham built Rainy Pass Lodge in 1937. His brother, Dennis Branham, joined him in 1941.

Perrins said the brothers built their business around catering to top-shelf clientele and people who wanted a first-class hunt, but who had to save for a couple of years to afford it.

“They set kind of a precedent for us of what service is,” Perrins said.

Folks who book a trip out of Rainy Pass Lodge should expect a level of personal service mostly absent in the modern era, he said.

Perrins said he’s taught his sons that customer service is key to their success.

“We take off their hip boots and hang ‘em by the fireplace for ‘em,” he said. “That’s what we’ve brought back.”

Denise Perrins is the lodge’s head chef and has been since she was 20 years old. And she’s still serving some of the recipes she learned from the Branhams, including a fresh blueberry pie recipe visitors still savor.

In February, the Legislature — led by Sen. Linda Menard — approved a commemoration honoring the lodge’s 75th anniversary and its place in state history as the oldest hunting lodge, as written by Perrins oldest son, Steve II, and brother, Keith.

“This is quite an honor for us,” Perrins said.

75 years of Rifleman’s Rifle

Rainy Pass Lodge is putting together a yearlong celebration of the anniversary, Perrins said.

One of the main events is collaboration with Winchester Repeating Arms and Rainy Pass Lodge that will mark the 75th anniversary of the Model 70 rifle and the lodge.

The Perrins have commissioned a limited edition run of the rifles with a bear Winkley drew engraved on the faceplate with text saying “75 years of the Rifleman’s Rifle Model 70” and “75 years of Rainy Pass Lodge 1937 to 2012.”

Each rifle also will be engraved with the notation that it is one of 75 made.

“Those will be offered to our clientele first,” Perrins said. He said he expects the firearms will be snapped up quickly.

He said they also are putting together various theme weeks to mark the milestone.

“We’ve got a lot of neat activities planned this year,” Perrins said.

The lodge’s on-site museum also will help trace its trail back into the past.

In addition to Winkley, who is a living part of the lodge’s history, the museum includes more than 800 photos and various artifacts from its past and Alaska’s.

Among the newest additions to the lodge is a Model T snowmobile the family had restored in New Hampshire and flown to Alaska — with a lot of help from friends in the aviation community.

“We wouldn’t be where we are today without all the help we’ve had along the way from so many true Alaskans,” Perrins said.