For author M. Scotty Lamkin, a conventional lifestyle at a traditional job was a horribly mundane way to approach life. On January 16, 1979, he arrived in Alaska with fifty dollars in his pocket, two duffel bags, and a backpack. A long way from his Kentucky homeland, Lamkin journeyed to Alaska expecting adventure, and he was not disappointed. Chance Is the Providence of Adventurers narrates many of Lamkin's true-life escapades in Alaska's remote bush country. In this half-travelogue, half-memoir, Lamkin tells the sometimes funny, sometimes deadly, stories of his experiences as a professional guide and adventurer-waking up a brown bear at close range, sinking a boat in frigid Alaska waters, crashing bush planes, throwing rocks at bears, and experiencing some of the most beautiful landscapes on Earth. Chance Is the Providence of Adventurers offers a glimpse into the flavor of Alaskan life, provides a firsthand view of the wonders of untamed nature and wildlife, and demonstrates the results of taking a chance to change your life.
Chance Is the Providence of Adventurers
By M. Scotty LamkiniUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 M. Scotty Lamkin
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4759-2323-0Contents
Acknowledgments..............................................................viiPreface......................................................................ixIntroduction.................................................................1Chapter 1 Stupid Should Be Against the Law..................................5Chapter 2 The Old Man and the Bear..........................................9Chapter 3 I Don't Want to Die Anymore.......................................38Chapter 4 Look at the Size of That Bear!....................................57Chapter 5 There's Only One Thing Dumber than a Horse........................78Chapter 6 When the Chips Are Down, the Buffalo Is Empty.....................90Chapter 7 All Stressed Out and Nobody to Choke..............................101Chapter 8 Denny Crum, Lord of the Flies.....................................115Chapter 9 Bush Pilots.......................................................129Chapter 10 Silent Hunt......................................................146Chapter 11 Battle at Bell Creek.............................................162Chapter 12 Planning Our Next Alaskan Hunt...................................171Chapter 13 Parting Shots....................................................181Glossary of Alaskan Terms....................................................187
Chapter One
Stupid Should Be Against the Law
On Tuesday, October 7, 2003, the headline in the Anchorage Daily News said, "Bear Lovers Eaten," an all-too-familiar story here in Alaska. It seems every time I turn around someone is either getting killed or badly mauled by our bears. Most of the time, it's just bad timing, but that is not always the case. The article went on to say: "Among the last words Timothy Treadwell uttered to his girlfriend before a bear killed and partially ate both of them were these: `Get out of here. I'm getting killed.'" Their words were caught on a tape recording of the attack, which also revealed that Treadwell's girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, shouted at him to play dead and then encouraged him to fight back. Alaska State Troopers reported that that is what they heard on a videotape recovered the preceding Monday at the scene of a bear mauling in Katmai National Park and Preserve. The tape was in a camera found near the bear-buried remains of Treadwell, forty-six, and Huguenard, thirty-seven.
Trooper spokesman, Greg Wilkinson, said there were no pictures on the tape, leading troopers to believe the attack might have happened while the camera was stuffed in a duffel bag or during the dark of night. Treadwell had talked to an associate in Malibu, California, by satellite phone around noon on Sunday. He mentioned no problems with any bears.
The remains of the Southern Californians who came to Alaska to live intimately with the bears were found the next day. Treadwell had been coming to Alaska to live amongst the bears for thirteen years; his girlfriend had been coming with him for the previous three years. A large but scrawny old bear with bad teeth that a pilot had seen sitting on top of the bodies, was shot and killed by National Park Service rangers at the scene after it charged them.
This whole event was 100 percent avoidable. Treadwell thought he could connect with the bears. As it turned out, the bears connected with him. It is too bad his stupidity cost his girlfriend her life as well.
These bears don't necessarily kill you first. Let's not get into the gory details, except to say that the tape recording of the attack, found by the Alaskan troopers, went on for six minutes. This was a horribly painful way to die. It should be illegal to be stupid—and stupid usually hurts! In this particular case, it was horrifyingly fatal.
Within this story, there's plenty of stupid to go around. The Department of Fish and Game knew exactly what Treadwell was doing. They did warn him, but they should have gotten him out of harm's way somehow. I have no sympathy for Treadwell; his actions were stupid. He was not a tree-hugger type, as you might expect. No, Treadwell was a distinct sort of less-than-bright adventurer, perhaps a Darwinian evolutionary prototype that went awry, and the consequences of his actions should not be a surprise to anyone who understands Mother Nature, especially in Alaska. She can be mercilessly unforgiving.
I've had my share of near misses dished out by many different elements Lady Alaska has thrown at me. I know that dangers exist everywhere here. In the bush, you must always be thinking ahead—always! So, when walking out to meet adventure head-on in Alaska, what should you equip yourself with? Weapons were a good start for me.
Over the years, I've added experience to my life by doing it! The experience you gain in this country will keep you from making mistakes, like Treadwell. The weapon helps too. Mr. Gibbs would have surely saved them both. ("Mr. Gibbs" is a custom-made .505-caliber rifle machined from the nose gun of a wrecked WWII B-29 bomber that I found in Alaska's mountains. The name was given to the weapon by none other than Denny Crum, Hall of Fame college basketball coach!) You'll learn more about him later and find him to be a most comforting gentleman, offering both security and shelter in some of the most formidable circumstances tendered by the Lady! Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck, either; I've had my share of that too. Let's face it, we've all cheated death one time or another. A little luck is always welcome in my camp.
I'm not writing this book to tell you horrible stories and scare you half to death or bring on nightmares at some predawn hour. I want you to understand there are real wild places left on this Earth which go far beyond any urban challenges. What's required of you in this country goes way past that—way past it! If you get hurt in the bush, you may die. There are no roads that lead to quick fixes when serious trouble starts. There is no 9-1-1 you can dial and expect someone to show up in fifteen minutes to save your life. You are on your own! Therefore, being stupid or doing boneheaded things in the bush is risky business.
Once I found Alaska, I had to find my place in Alaska. In order to stop being silently consumed by caring what other people think, or might think, about me, I concluded one of the answers was to "find yourself." Sure, that's cliché, but everyone needs to find a way to be comfortable in his or her own skin and be okay with who they are. I was looking for experiences that might teach that; adversity adventures, if you will, would be a great instructor, and Alaska was full of them. The New Frontier I had come to was not a set of promises—it was a set of challenges. The New Frontier sums up not what I intended to offer Alaska, but what experiences I intended to get from Her.
Treadwell was doing something he loved to do; I will credit him for that. However, he should have been doing it alone. Wild animals are not there for us to make friends with. They are a part of the natural selection world; they don't look upon humans as peers but merely as a different kind of prey. Nevertheless, Treadwell was doing what he wanted to do, right up until a bear had a mouthful of him.
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