Swallowed Alive, Volume 2: Fighting for Life in Alaska

By Larry Kaniut

Just as travel and danger walk hand in hand in the Far North, Swallowed Alive, volume 2, follows in the footsteps of Swallowed Alive, volume 1, presenting stories of misadventure in the arms of Mistress Alaska. Danger is but a whisper away from those who travel Alaska's trails. And danger never falters in her efforts to unseat

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paper Talk
• Release date: Aug 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781955728133

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

I had wondered if the Inlet would swallow me up. I’ve lived here all my life and most people who crash in the Inlet or get stuck in its mud never get out of it. From duck hunting and hooligan fishing experiences as a kid, I had realized how easy it is to get stuck. -- Bob Elstad, Alaskan plane crash survivor, Page 284, Danger Stalks the Land (author: Larry Kaniut)

Alaska’s vast wilderness, punctuated by diverse topography, variable weather and unpredictable animals, creates a playground that embodies adventure, and, all too often, misadventure. This wilderness playground is very fickle. She teases and coerces. Many are her wiles. Her clothed beauty, disrobed, reveals her dangerous and disastrous ways. She is known to literally or figuratively swallow men alive.

In her arms man encounters a multitude of dangers that could include animals (bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars, crocodiles, sharks, snakes); lightning strikes; severe cold; becoming lost; falls; aviation related events; gunshot tragedies; poor or mis-planning; improper knowledge and/or water conditions.

Swallowed Alive volumes 1 and 2 are a collection of stories and anecdotes capturing serious outdoor experiences primarily in Alaska. As long as man ventures into wilderness country, tales will be told of the tragedy and/or the foibles he faced. If you are nose to nose with danger and challenging Alaska’s treacherous terrain and terribly cold temperatures with hopes of returning to civilization, you’d better have your ducks in a row…because nature ain’t fooled. This collection includes those who perished as well as those who lived to laugh at their experience.

The title Swallowed Alive is all too telling of many who faced danger and were literally swallowed alive by Mistress Wilderness:

Cynthia Dusel-Bacon survived a black bear which tore and ate her flesh;

Reuben Lyon and Dennis Long watched as their pilot succumbed to the water;

Steve Keiner and a 17-year old youngster disappeared into glacial crevasses;

one person perished under the snow-laden roof of a ramshackle cabin;

Patrick Hallin vanished beneath the waters of Turnagain Arm while windsurfing;

Cook Inlet claimed another when his anchor rope pulled him overboard.

You can never trust yesterday…the situation may have been safe then…but this is a new day.

These are not isolated cases. On a regular basis one hears over the electronic media or reads in the print media of one or more persons in Alaska turning up missing or perishing in the wilderness. On the morning news August 24, 2000, for instance, I heard about a missing plane with four aboard being found on the side of a mountain. Following that story was one about a man who rented a kayak Sunday, August 20, was reported missing on Tuesday and was found floating in a saltwater bay beside his broken kayak Wednesday. It is not uncommon to hear of numerous outdoor tragedies every week in Alaska. (APPENDIX 4 TID BITS This list is a smidge of headlines that appear on a regular basis in Alaska’s newspapers)

But the bottom line is for the outdoor adventurer to go prepared or risk being swallowed alive.

The Mountain:

It is often said that men climb mountains because they’re there. And so it is with those who challenge the outdoors. Alaska is not the only mountain men have scaled or sought to conquer…there are other venues. The mountain is the challenge facing all outdoor adventurers who push the envelope. Some are more greatly challenged or confronted by the mountain than others. There is risk in the arms of Mistress Wilderness…risk in the form of geography, animals and weather. But when one is lost or in need of rescue, the message is always the same…

The Message:

To the rescuee: Never give up. Fight on.

To the rescuer: Rescue the perishing. Let it not be said of me that I did not try. Without the risk there is no reward.

The Measure:

Some men set a standard of excellence of Herculean proportions. They raise the bar high enough to challenge those of us who remain. What is the value of an adventure? The price of an adventurer? The cost of rescue? What is the lesson to be learned? How can we cope with the injury or loss of a friend or brother? Is the price of trying too great?

The Meaning:

Often the reward of rescue is the return or the eventual restoration to health of the rescued. Sometimes the reward is merely a combination of the return and the effort expended. Frequently the only reward is in the failed effort. The failure does not overlook the knowledge that the effort was expended…that an exhausting and thorough search or retrieval was accomplished. Unfortunately sometimes the winds of ill fortune blow across the land, depriving man of his desired results.

The Mentality:

Men who face the mountain, be they adventurer or rescuer, must steel their bodies, minds and spirits to the task, face the endeavor, determine to achieve and expend their highest and most noble effort to accomplish safe return.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

SECTION 1 GENERAL INTEREST

The Lost Patrol

Bear Makes Bad Decision

Whaler Dies

Man’s Best Friend

Twenty or Thirty and Stupid

Sixteen Days

Mistake on a Mountain

Southwest Alaskan Size Bird

Home Alone

Moose Needs Rescue

Search On in Year-Old Disappearance

Mother Prevails

Hitchhiking Seal

Nasty Crevasse

Moose Drops in

Jogger Meets Grizzly

Justin Drops the Hammer

I Don’t Know How He Survived

Moose Attack Cyclist

Floatplane Narrowly Misses Whale

Right Time…Wrong Place

Big, Mythical Bear

Trapper Jack and the Marten

Hiker Killed in Fall

Moose Tramples Runner

Bear Incidents Gone Wrong

SECTION 2 BIZARRE

Beer and Boom

Humpback Whale and Diver

Bear Meets Frying Pan

Honeymoon Gone

The Trail Led North

Caribou Casualties Counted

In the Blink of an Eye

Little Diomede Man Dies

House Mouse

Sea Lion Plucks Alaska Fisherman Off Boat

Falling Moose

Exit Glacier

Anchor Point Man Found Dead

Here’s One for the Books

APPENDIX 1

MANUSCRIPT ROUGH DRAFTS

Never Again

Surviving the Snow

Marlin

APPENDIX 2

WOLVES

Yesteryear, the Youngster and Yellow Eyes

Anonymous Aerial Shooter

He Wrestled a Wolf

Larry Rivers on the Defense

Wolf Attacks On Humans

Other Reported Wolf Attacks In The Wild

Wolf Attacks on Humans (Domestic Incidents)

APPENDIX 3

SURVIVAL BOOKS OF NOTE

APPENDIX 4

TIDBITS

APPENDIX 5

REST OF THE STORY

APPENDIX 6

KANIUT TITLES

SECTION 1 GENERAL INTEREST

Some of the stories in this book may not be hair-raising or blood-curdling, however I’ve included them for the readers’ interest.

The Lost Patrol

by Anonymous

In 1967 my wife Pam and I agreed to drive the Alaska Highway with my college dorm mate Frank Morgan. We stopped in Whitehorse and visited the museum. I copied a poem that was truly amazing. Over the years I misplaced it. I spent some time writing different sources before I received the following copy from Rhonda L. Lamb, Manager of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Historical Collections Unit August 5, 2008. I hope you find the anonymous copy of The Lost Patrol as amazing as I did way back then.

The Lost Patrol

When the fame of all the riders is writ upon the scroll,

And each one is in order they deserve,

For him whose name and glory has blaised from pole to pole

The space right at the top we must reserve.

For Fitzgerald of Macpherson, Fitzgerald of the North,

Fitzgerald of the riders of the plains,

The man whose deathless message from Arctic snows came forth

A monument to British pluck remains.

We heard the news with sorrow; we heard the news with pride.

It stirred our blood and gripped us where we stood;

How he suffered, how he hungered, and how at last he died,

And read his loving message writ on wood.

The patrol set out for Dawson from Macpherson on the Peel,

A far flung Northern outpost grim and drear,

Where the frost stabs flesh like needles, where the dog sleigh runners squeal,

An outpost where one must know nought of fear.

But they never reached far Dawson, for Carter failed as guide,..

And they wandered o’er the trackless waste of snow,

They sought in vain a river to pass o’er the Divide,

And one by one the Reaper laid them low.

In golden Dawson City, they watched for the Patrol,

For Fitz, the bearer of the British Mail,

For Kinney, Taylor, Carter, the little muster roll

Of blazers of the chartless Northern Trail.

Then tidings filtered post-wards that they were at Mountain Creek

The day that ushered in the new-born year,

But when two months had vanished their fears began to speak,

And they longed the whining runners’ song to hear.

But the grim North held her secret, and they had to probe to find,

So they sent from Dawson a relief patrol;

With fifteen dogs a-speeding, three loaded sleighs behind,

And Turner, Fyfe and Dempster in control.

For twenty days they journeyed, and hit the long, lone trail,

And then a silent cabin came in sight,

And they found the Fort despatches, and the precious bag of mail,

And they thought that Fitz was pressed hard, running light.

But we’ll never know the anguish, we’ll never know the pain,

As at last they lay down side by side to die,

And the one that sent the bullet through his numb and tortured brain

Has surely won his pardon from On High.

Fitz had left the camp equipment to his comrades stricken sore,

And battled on to try and bring them aid,

And only God knows truly of the agony he bore

And the last heroic struggle that he made.

On, on, the bleak hills called them, "On, on, relief patrol,

Go seek your great white chieftain of the North,

Don’t tarry with the taken, for God has claimed their souls,"

And they covered them with willows and went forth.

They saw the trail besprinkled with silent things that spoke

More eloquently than an open book,

And they found a pair of snow-shoes as the drifted trail they broke,

And they knew they had not far to look.

And then they found Fitzgerald, and new history was made

To add a lustre to our British fame,

For they saw his mighty dying when they saw how Carter laid,

And gazed upon his wasted, tortured frame.

With damp upon his forehead he laid his comrade out,

And crossed his hands upon his sunken breast,

For his heart was kind and gentle, though manly, brave and stout,

And his eyes he covered as he laid at rest.

As through the mist we see him, a-crouching o’er the fire,

And thinking of his mother far away,

As with his aching fingers he traced words to inspire

The doing of great deeds for them that stay.

With charred wood from the embers he wrote his loving will

Which left his mother all on earth he owned.

And his dying words God bless her which made the empire thrill,

Were writ with hands that throbbed and lips that groaned.

And the dying camp fire flickered, and the embers turned to gray,

And Fitzgerald sat and waited all alone,

And he knew he’d made his last patrol upon this earthly way;

And his spirit left his tortured flesh and bone.

And thus his comrades found him lying where the fire had died,

A sacrifice laid low on duty’s shrine,

With his left hand o’er his bosom, the other by his side,

And his stomach nearly flattened to his spine.

In one grave at Fort Macpherson they laid them side by side

With the military honours they had won,

And at last they found their river and crossed the Great Divide,

And are resting from their earthly race well run.

And when the last great trumpet-note a-down the world shall roll,

When the hymnal glory from above we hear,

O Infinite Redeemer, receive the Lost Patrol

As they rise together from their graveyard drear.

(Author unknown.)

Contributed to the R.C.M.P. Museum by Sub-Inspector J. Brunet, April, 1935.

Bear Makes Bad Decision

by Larry Kaniut

Bear killed at day care as it charges trooper

AGGRESSIVE: Officer found it on a slide at Little Bears Playhouse.

Sarana Schell, Anchorage Daily News, August 15, 2002

Alaska State Troopers shot and killed a brown bear Tuesday night in Girdwood after it repeatedly charged residents and refused to be driven off, state officials said.

When trooper Bill Welch responded to an aggressive bear call from the Girdwood Volunteer Fire Department about 10 p.m., he found the culprit in the fenced-in yard at Little Bears Playhouse day care, sitting on a slide. The bear was apparently one of two grown siblings seen with a sow on Glacier Creek over the past month, Welch said. The sow had charged several people, state Fish and Game biologist Rick Sinnott said.

One man who lives near the creek said the bears were very aggressive toward his children when they played in their yard, Welch said.

I was told some tourists had shot the mother when she was being aggressive toward them a few days earlier, Welch said. Troopers are investigating that report, Sinnott said.

One volunteer firefighter said the bear just seemed curious, doing a lap around the fire station, hopping up on the fire chief’s truck, then wandering off to the day care.

A crowd had gathered at the day care by the time Welch arrived, he said, and as he approached, one young man hopped over the fence into the yard. The bear charged, and the man hopped out, then started walking along the fence closer to the bear.

The bear didn’t know which way to turn with so many people around, Welch said.

Meantime I’m kind of losing my patience with this guy, said Welch of the young man. Welch said he managed, from outside the fence, to shoo the bear out a gate in the far side of the yard into the woods. I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I have a few common sense left.

But the bear turned and started coming back.

The first rubber pellet Welch fired didn’t slow the bear, so he tried another, and another.

The bear sped up.

Welch changed to real bullets, and dropped the 2- to 3-year-old.

I hate to, said Welch, adding he wouldn’t hesitate if he knew the bear was going to harm someone. But you’ll never know if it would’ve.

The bear’s meat was given to charity, Welch said. The hide and skull will be turned in to state Fish and Game, which will do a follow-up investigation.

Whaler Dies

by Larry Kaniut

Alaska Digest, The Associated Press, October 4, 2002

BARROW Whaler dies after boat overturns while helping to tow whale to shore

A whaler died Thursday when his boat overturned off the coast of Barrow, North Slope Borough police said.

Ralph Ahkivgak, 69, was one of six men who fell into the frigid water when their boat capsized. The 20-foot vessel was part of a string of boats towing a whale to shore, said police, who were notified of the accident at 10:45 a.m.

The other five men were rescued by whalers in the other boats, but Ahkivgak was submerged in the water. He was not breathing when he was pulled out a short time later.

Resuscitation efforts were started on Ahkivgak as he was taken to shore on one of the boats before being transferred to Samuel Simmonds Memorial Hospital in Barrow. The other men on the overturned boat also were taken to the hospital and treated for hypothermia.

Ahkivgak was pronounced dead at 2:30 p.m.

Witnesses told police the boat overturned after the motor quit and the bow dipped into the water, pulling the vessel under. Ahkivgak went down with the boat, police said.

Man’s Best Friend

by Larry Kaniut

The following story caught my attention because son-in-law Brad Risch and I met Roger and Marilyn Stowell at the Coeur d’ Alene Sportsman Show February 2, 2002. During our visiting that weekend and the following week at the Pacific Northwest Outdoorsman Show in Portland, Oregon, Roger shared information about his lodge and his caretaker. What a surprise to read about Bill Hitchcock three weeks later. Wow! I combined and condensed three stories about Buddy and Bill. (Missing caretaker’s black Labrador leads searchers to the body).

For 12 days, Buddy stayed 1, 2002; Loyal black Lab to join Chignik mayor’s family.

Dog, new owner ‘are going to be a real match,’ lodge owner says, Lucas Wall, Anchorage Daily News, March 6, 2002; New owner has Buddy put down by his dead master’s side on remote island, Lucas Wall, Anchorage Daily News, March Adopted retriever bit Chignik