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| I haven't since I quit guiding in the 70s - except for moose or caribou we ate. Judy and I would go into the Park in October after the snow drove me out of the guiding camps. The tourists were nearly gone, and there were not many people there. We could camp anywhere - gravel pits were a favorite spot. It was the perfect time to photograph the country and wildlife. After a couple of years of that, I just quit hunting. We would find the moose or the sheep, hike up to them, and spend the day with them - often returning over the following days to do the same.
The sheep picture was along a river bordering on the wildlife refuge in the eastern arctic. Two years before that we had been dropped into a high mountain lake and hiked five days downriver, spent a month, hiked back out, and got picked up. I looked at the river and decided that we could float it. Over the winter, I researched it there in Fairbanks, and it had never been floated to the arctic ocean. So, the next summer, we twisted a friend's arm to fly us in high in the mountains and we were the first people do do so. Took a month for the float. Ate a sheep and then grayling down on the arctic plain. Didn't see another person for 28 days. Hit the ocean, motored across to Flaxman Island, and hitched a ride on Exxon's twin otter into Prudhoe Bay. Called my friend in Fairbanks who dispatched for Alaska International Air, who said he had a C130 herc on the ground up where we were. We checked with the pilot who said - sure, just throw your boat and gear on the tailgate and step in. Wake up on the arctic coast after floating a river that had never been floated and hitchhike home - what a place! It helped, of course, that I worked up there in the winters, and that at that time, there were few rules. The next year was when the picture was taken. That was my kid brother.
Really great times - in a fabulous place. Wish I was young enough to do something like that again - but it's a young man's world. I do envy you the diving you're doing now.
Here's a couple more. First - one of our nicer campsites. There was a nest with three immature golden eagles in that spire we were photographing. Wouldn't want to sleepwalk there. Second - motoring across the arctic ocean on the way to the pickup point after floating that river. The back country is still there. Not quite as wild, but it hasn't changed that much other than that.
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All the talk about fish
