Guns and Gifts

Last weekend, I went to my fifth Alaskan wedding. Correction: Not MY fifth wedding, but the fifth wedding I've attended as a guest.  Of the five, one of the weddings was in Anchorage, which is more of a suburb of Seattle than part of Alaska, and another one of the weddings was on a difficult-to-reach glacier, but the other three have all featured guns and dogs.  Two of them I arrived at by floatplane. These are the glaring differences between Alaskan and other American weddings.
As we got ready, my friend questioned my choice of wearing boots with a sundress as a little too casual. Turns out, most of the guests were in Xtra Tuffs and raingear.  The dogs usually wear flower leis, which make them fit in stylishly. Many of the guys wore guns. This is strange mainly because none of those guys wear guns at any other times. Nor do they even use guns as far as I know. But, for a dress-up event, when most men are finding that suit at the back of their closet and ironing (or just using the tumble cycle on the dryer), Alaskan men are dusting off their gun belts. Also worth noting is that everyone in Alaska can officiate a wedding once, so rarely are people married by preachers or judges when a friend will do. Traditional wedding vows must have been lost on the way through Canada, because everyone here writes their own vows, most of them have some poetic allusion to nature. No one mentions the guns.

Outside of wedding circles, I have been talking guns lately. A few weeks ago, I decided that I would like to learn how to hunt. I work in remote areas where I could see this becoming a useful skill. I also am an omnivore who thinks that if you are going to eat meat, you should be able to kill it. Beef and other commercially produced meats are very expensive and fairly poor quality in Alaska, not to mention the 'carbon footprint' of getting it here and the chemicals used in mass meat production and distribution. Add to that that a hunting trip would be a good wilderness experience, and I just needed to find a willing teacher. Luckily, I hold the trump card to convince an outdoors man to ruin his fall hunting trip with an inexperienced girl: a float plane.
My coerced guide and tolerant friend Jedd made sure that I was outfitted with the right rifles (a .30-06 and a .338, we'll see which one works best) and hearing protection for target practice. He recommends I use a .338, but I'm Annie Oakley with the .30-06... not so much with the bigger weapon. Two weeks to go...we'll see.
This isn't my first rodeo as far as guns are concerned. My dad insisted that we take a gun safety course as kids. I don't remember much from that besides that the girl who sat next to me wanted to change her name to "Crystal Blue Persuasion" and the instructor only had stubs for fingers... but could still pull a trigger. Luckily, the Army brushed me up on the M16 in college, but that was the last time I shot a rifle: more than 10 years ago, and just using the post sights on the barrel. Turns out, hunting rifles have a lot more kick, but really fancy scopes. If you can hold marginally still while looking through the scope and pulling the trigger, you will hit what you're aiming at. 
I'm not thrilled about attempting to murder an animal, but I am excited for the experience of this hunt and have been talking about it to anyone who cares to hear. Surprisingly, hunting talk is not always well-received, even in Alaska. The other day, at a remote lodge, I announced I was going on my first moose hunt, expecting to be as lauded as a toddler's first trundling steps. Wrong. Another Alaskan pilot and two German lodge patrons read me the riot act and accused me of being a trophy hunter: something that would be funny to anyone who knows about my deep seeded fear of taxidermy.  My list of reasons for wanting to learn to hunt certainly sounds a lot more "eco-friendly" than buying all-organic foods shipped in from Denmark... what's more organic than hunting and gathering? None of my critics claimed to be vegetarians, but one of them justified himself by saying that he doesn't eat animals with fur. Apparently my willingness to shoot Bullwinkle is morally abhorrent, but God condones carving up Big Bird or Nemo. So, I need to re-sight my scope, and my moral compass, but then, what do you expect from a girl who wears boots to a summer wedding?

If you've got the money, I've got the time

The federal government classifies what I do as an "on-demand air taxi." In practice, this means that someone can walk in the door, say, "I want to go here, now." and, we take their money and take them there. Usually, people don't want to go very far, as we charge $450/hr to carry them around by small aircraft. However, we are clear that our "on demand" service will go 'anywhere in the state of Alaska.' Because of this flexible policy, last week, Steller Air was the chariot for the world's most ridiculous beer run.
A guy came into the office, dressed all in motorcycle leathers, and introduced himself as "Radar." He claimed his brother was a seismologist working remotely in Alaska and he pulled up a map on his iPhone to ask how much it would cost to bring his little brother beer. Mark and I debated whether the islands he pointed at, way out near the end of the Alaska Peninsula, were a three-, or four- hour flight away. We quoted him the price to charter the aircraft. He didn't flinch. We said we would have to leave early. He said, "I'm not afraid of getting up."
So, with the main fuel tanks and the tip tanks loaded, along with additional gasoline in jerry jugs in the floats, Radar and I met on the dock at 7am and launched southwest. We stopped in Kodiak because even 134 gallons of fuel would not be enough for me to make the round trip, and because Radar needed to pick up 2 cases of Rolling Rock, as the liquor stores in Homer had not been open early.

The only thing stranger than someone from a California biker gang wanting to charter a small float plane for a distance of almost 400 miles, was the weather being good enough to go that far. We cruised along over miles of cold water and along the dramatic desolate coastline alternating between conversation and napping (well, I wasn't napping... ). Radar taught me what different patches mean on motorcycle jackets (or "cuts") and which ones people get killed over. He also regaled me with tales of all the bar fights he's won.

When we arrived at Simeonof Island, the weather was sunny and warm. The winds were fairly calm. We found a group of five tents, the only sign of human life for hundreds of miles. After judging the bay was deep enough and obstacle-free, I touched down and taxied as close to shore as possible. Due to a shallow beach and fast moving tides, I couldn't get the plane all the way in, and we would have to wade. Radar had refused our first offer of rubber boots at the Steller dock, as he had his biker boots, but we insisted. So, he was able to wade to shore with his beer while I anchored the plane to float in the bay.
Once she was secured at anchor, I opened up the floats and started hoisting fuel jugs up onto the wings and funneling fuel into the tanks.  I saw heads popping up in the water around me, and every time I looked down at the fuel tank and then back up, a ring of fur seals moved creepily closer. Seals are sneaky and curious, and these ones probably don't see many humans, let alone float planes. By the time I emptied the last jug in the wing, they were close enough that I could look into their eyes. When I jumped down and started to wade back to shore, they spooked and disappeared.
Radar was standing at the tents when I caught up with him. No one else was around. Apparently the brother was out in the field. Agreeing that they must have heard us come in, we decided to wait for them to come to the tents. Meanwhile, I waded back out to check the anchor. Halfway to the plane, I noticed a bill floating by. I reached into the water and pulled out a fifty dollar bill. Wow. Much more exciting than finding the twenty bucks you left in the pocket of your winter coat. A few steps later, another bill: another fifty.  I figured they must be Radar's, we are miles away from any form of civilization, and the seismologists don't have any kind of boat. I re-tied the plane and waded back to shore. Radar said the money wasn't his, and I offered to split the treasure with him, after all, he was the reason I was there.
We watched salmon struggling up a spawning stream, ate lunch on the beach, and waited for scientists that never appeared. Radar drank a Rolling Rock. I waded back out to the plane, and as soon as I stepped in the water, saw another bill. Picked it up. Another fifty! I found two more fifties, and then, when I saw another bill float by, I was actually annoyed that it was a twenty. Imagine my dismay when the next bill out of this remote stretch of ocean was only a ten! I tried to split the whole $280 haul with Radar, but he said the rest was mine because of my good karma for sharing the first fifty.
I was two-hundred-thirty dollars richer, no brother was showing to accept his beer, and the tide was going out. Radar tucked the beer under a rock in the creek for it to cool, and we waded back out to the plane. As we climbed away from this seal-and-money-infested island, we took a few more turns, but caught no sight of the seismology crew. Radar seemed only mildly disappointed. He slept most of the way back, and I made the straight shot to Homer in less than four hours.
Back at Steller Air, Radar paid his bill for an eight hour aircraft charter, changed back into his biker boots, and walked out the door. I made a note in my logbook. This was the most expensive beer I've ever delivered, the first sunken treasure I've ever found, and the only time I've ever tipped a customer.