Pursuing Alaska's Untamed: A Spirited Quest

Pursuing Alaska's Untamed

A Spirited Quest

By

Douglas C. Myers

Copyright 2010 – Adventure Alaska Ltd

Renewal Copyright 2020 – Insightful Gains Unlimited

Smashwords Amplified Edition – All Rights Reserved

License Notice: This ebook is licensed for your personal reading and viewing pleasure. Hopefully you discover it to be enjoyable, insightful, and inspirational.

The amplified ebook provides a virtual trip to Alaska's intriguing wild.

Foreword

Throughout my life I have known an enthusiasm for risk and a satisfaction from each adventure accomplishment. My friend, author Doug Myers, reflects the same spirit. Many of the experiences he writes about reminds me of my own adventures. While reading, I found myself sharing in the details of each event. The passions talked about are the same that promoted my own wilderness pursuits. The theme presented throughout of surrendering to adventurous desires is what I know to be important in daring to dream big.

The writing describes in interesting detail the instinctive behavior of several of Alaska’s wild creatures. Accounts of the salmon’s spawning ritual and encounters with brown bears are interestingly informative. For those readers not familiar with such experiences, the book offers a good understanding of instincts specific to Alaska’s wildlife.

I am also impressed with Doug’s writing about Alaska’s Native people. It is a personalized account that emphasizes the harmony between Aleut and Yup’ik cultures, their subsistence efforts (including the use of the ulu knife), and a hospitality that is uniquely Alaskan.

Doug’s dedication to discovery is one I know to be essential in living a full life. It was a pleasure for me to read each chapter with a desire for more. I especially enjoyed his thorough account of the annual winter Iditarod trail race and work with sled dogs.

When describing his wilderness adventure experiences, Doug effectively humanizes the wild creatures and events in order to illustrate the essentials in living a fulfilled life. I recommend 'Pursuing Alaska's Untamed' to anyone who appreciates a sensitive, thoughtful understanding of Alaska’s wilderness, its Native people and culture, and wildlife.

Norman D. Vaughan,

Member, Antarctic Expedition

For a descriptive account of Colonel Norman D. Vaughan's illustrious life refer to 'About Norman D. Vaughan / Adventurer-Explorer-Expeditioner' listed in the 'Table of Contents'.

Table of Contents

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on the underlined title location to return to 'Table of Contents'.

Author

Preview

Where Wild Remains a Guarded Treasure

Prologue

Spirit of Adventure

Katmai's Other Eruption

Best and Worst of the Alaska Dream

Message of Goodnews

Promised Land

Seeking Subsistence

Ancient Privilege

River Wildlife Potpourri

Adventures of Father and Son

Streams of Dreams

Alaska Peninsula’s Silver-Lining

Sourdough Legacy

Prospecting Harbinger Herring

Island Extreme

Emerald Gem in Alaska’s Gulf

Highway to Heaven

From Hope to Heaven’s Gate

Dogged Determination

Heart and Soul of Alaska

Unity in Diversity

Winter’s Allure and Summer’s Prolific Embrace

Surviving the Surreal

Moose Twin’s Torment

Epilogue

Soulful Journey - A Last Frontier

Appendix

Work of Art

About Norman D. Vaughan

Adventurer-Explorer-Expeditioner

Dedication

Commemoration

Acknowledgments

Contact Information

Author

(Photo by Toshiko Ihle)

Douglas C. (Doug) Myers served professionally many years in agency and private practice settings. His tenure in the state of Washington included Director of Family Court, Snohomish County Court of Domestic Relations. He also served as a consultant and counseling therapist encouraging reconciliation, personal growth, and relationship sensitivity.

As an adventurer, fisherman, and photographer he is privileged to realize the pleasure in personal fulfillment stemming from inspiration. As author and artist Myers’ goal has been to illustrate in written narrative and on canvas Alaska’s scenic treasure, historic Native culture, and wildlife display. Individuals who have tasted Alaska’s raw cultural and environmental servings can again savor the excitement by reading these adventure accounts and/or viewing his oil paintings.

Newspaper columnist Linda Bryant wrote of a therapist/author/artist who discovered peaceful renewal in Alaska’s wilderness. The article titled 'The Art of Peace' was written about the author. It was a published account about a psychotherapist who for many years helped others recover their passion for living. In writing about people and places that shape life, the columnist explored with Myers the intrigue of the last frontier and how his writings and oil paintings bring to life Alaska moments rarely experienced: For Myers, renewal comes in the wilderness of Alaska with a fly-fishing rod in hand and a camera in his backpack . . . In his work, he helped others find healing peace; in his avocation, he has found it for himself. He says his studies of Alaska offer a remote wilderness experience that touches the very core of life. . . . hundreds of memories feed his spirit and connect him to the wild and scenic land that is his home.

Preview

Where Wild Remains a Guarded Treasure

The photo illustrated ebook shares personal adventure experiences throughout southwest and southcentral Alaska. A series of rare and exciting excursions is an Alaska odyssey experience. Various wild discovery episodes provide windows for the reader to view enchanting wilderness pleasures associated with Native hospitality and wildlife disclosures. Each chapter is a separate account that in concert with all others includes some or all of the following: wilderness wanderings, remote Alaska Native hospitality, scenic landscapes, sport fishing excursions, wildlife observations and encounters, Iditarod Trail race phenomenon, and extremes in Nature. A passionate perspective introduces a common bond understanding, or oneness, between wildness in the environment, wildlife, and the human spirit.

The pursuit of pleasure's greatest ambition,

a soulful journey is life's best realization,

for the sensitive has no other destination.

- Author, dcm

Prologue

Spirit of Adventure

In addition to Alaska's Native Eskimo/Indian population are inhabitants who have migrated from the 'outside' for a variety of reasons. Many from the 'lower 48' moved north to fulfill a military assignment. Some were attracted by the prospect of quick financial gain offered by corporate giants of the oil industry through oil/gas-line development, commercial harvesting of Alaska's bountiful seafood resource, or the visitor/travel industry. Others may have viewed the 'Last Frontier' as an opportunity for emotional and social independence not discovered elsewhere, or to distance a painful past. For these new residents the search is not for financial favors alone but for spirited discoveries in the heart of Alaska's pristine recreational reserve.

Financial ambition without inspiration in Alaska is when the untamed becomes the focus and not its pursuit. Extreme work conditions, inclement winter months, and/or separation from family and friends living a great distance on the outside can erode the footing necessary for growth. Dark winter months and the feeling of isolation may discourage firmness in favor of ambivalence.

Nature's requirements for all landscape inhabitants are universally inflexible. Negotiating with Nature is pointless. Ask the early season moose calf or late season spawning salmon. Fairness has never been a consideration, only survival. For Alaskans the challenge is to surrender to limits while seeking the limitless. Only when residents have been seasoned by years of challenging extremes can they fully appreciate the Alaskan sourdough's claim to riches. Serenity and seclusion are incentive treasures awaiting the enduring, while soulful characterizes their emotional journey.

Among the heartfelt are Alaskan sport fishermen. For these anglers of fortune childhood dreams of fishing excursions are resurrected. Neither cold, wind, mud flats, or swift current can deter the river angler. Only an occasional meandering bear guided by the smell of success will temporarily interrupt the casting rhythm of a dedicated fisherman.

Chorus line utterances of 'Fish On!' are especially stimulating when echoed along the richest of Alaska river shorelines. For the patient angler ecstasy is discovered when braced against an arched fishing rod directed by the zigzag cutting movement of a tight line. Repeated surface splashing enhances an angling ensemble that includes the zinging sound of a drag tested reel. Colorful trout of golden, brown, and rainbow-crimson caught in mountain streams elsewhere may become a faded memory when battling Alaska's king size migrating salmon with shades of red, pink, or silver.

Exploring untamed regions of Southwest and Southcentral Alaska was a personal quest of a spirited connection through discovery. It was passion’s palate savoring adventure’s vintage wine sipped from a wilderness goblet. Selected memoir accounts reveal affectionate disclosures of remote Alaska’s Native people, habitat, and wildlife.

The narrative is written for the outdoor devotee, culturally curious, and searching romantic who embrace the suspense in wild and reverence for the pristine and historic. For some, it provides the vicarious realization of an elusive dream. All will feel the freshness in new discovery. Stitched throughout the written fabric are soulful revelations couched in metaphors and imagery.

Popular books such as 'The Last Frontier' and 'The Call of the Wild' are testimonials to an intrigue with the untamed, or wild. This writing proclaims an invitation to Alaska’s wilderness spectacle with a resounding 'call to surrender'. 'Surrender' is not understood here as submitting to another's will nor as giving up, but as giving in, or over to a curious and adventurous spirit. Love's requirement abolishes restraint. To surrender is to give in to risk while reaching for desire's reward of being more alive. It is an invitation to the accomplishment of dreams.

Each descriptive narrative is a fascination with the innocence of wild in new discovery. The courage to crave is a requisite for living an inspired