Alaskan Adventure

Revision Story

We were high above the mountain tops of Alaska as the amphibian plane’s engine droned on for what seemed like hours. I couldn’t tell if the butterflies in my stomach were from nervousness or excitement, or both.
“We’re close to the mountain!” Jake yelled over above the engine. The look on his face reminded me of the feeling in my stomach.
“There are storms coming in from the Northwest, yelled the pilot. “We better find a place to land for the night till the storm passes.” This was the beginning of the season when the snow storms really start to pile up the snow. We spotted a large river down below between two big mountains. The pilot yelled again, “We are going down there to land. We will be out of the storm and winds some down there.” The pilot was an old Indian friend of the family. Jake and I had a week off and he agreed to take us around to different spots to snowboard. We flew farther and farther away from the river then made a huge u-turn. We started easing down slowly. The engine was getting quieter and quieter. We landed roughly in the clear river. We weren’t really carrying anything with us. Beside our clothes we had on, we only had our boards and boots. Living off the wild was part of the adventure.
“We are going to have to stay here until the storms pass, the Indian pilot said. “The Indian” as most people called him was like family to me. I have known him all my life. He was best friends with my Uncle George. My Uncle George lived on Sugar Island in Sault Sainte Marie with the rest of our tribe of Chippewa Indians. This friend of my Uncle George I came to know as Bear. That’s what everyone in our family calls him. He calls me Tatonka which means buffalo and my sister Wingush which means sweet grass.
We floated to shore in the plane. My dad was living here in Alaska. By foot, we were 3 days away. Bear said, “We need to start a fire.” We had no matches or lighters. Bear grabbed his axe and disappeared into the woods. We knew he was going to gather some firewood so Jake and I were trying to start a fire with a bow, a stick and some kindling. We were rubbing it back and forth really hard for a long time and it finally started to smoke. Jake was blowing on it while I was spinning the bow. Then a little flame appeared. The kindling caught on fire and the then the sticks. Bear arrived just in time to throw some birch bark on it and it went up like gasoline. It was getting cold. We knew it was important to keep the fire going so we cut more trees. Bear was good at surviving in the winter because he has done it many of times living with our tribe at Sault Sainte Marie. While we were sitting by the fire Bear was carving sticks and chipping rocks that were along the shore. He was making arrows and arrowheads. He also started making a new bow. All the while he was working, he would tell us stories about how the tribe use to live and survive. He would tell me stories about my Uncle George. My Uncle and Aunt were buried on Sugar Island. My dad and I would visit him during the summer. It always made my heart physically ache but kept the memory of him alive. Then we would go fishing like we always did with my Uncle George. My Uncle would always catch the most pike and he would nail there heads to this wood post outside and eat the rest of it. My Uncle George and Bear were best friends. They were in the army together. After surviving the army they both moved back to Sugar Island where they decided to live for the rest of their lives.
Suddenly a gust of wind snapped me back to reality. The storm was coming in and it was getting really windy and cold. We all dug trenches in the snow to stay out of the wind. The winds picked up even more. At one point the winds were stronger then ever recorded in Alaska. We all laid in our dug out trenches trying to keep a fire going for about three days. We had no other choice but to lay there cold and hungry.
The storms started to ease up the 4th morning. We packed up our stuff and got back in the plane. We flew to my dad’s house which took about 3 hours because of the wind. We finally got there and landed in the back of the Wolf River. We all ran through the door and started to eat all the food we could find without even saying a word to my dad. After we ate, we told my dad what happened. Bear went back to Sugar Island with the plane. The storms were too strong to fly us around and in between the mountains. Jake and I decided we would try to snowboard some around my dad’s which we’ve done a hundred times. After Bear left we decided to give fishing a try. We had so much fun that’s all we did for the next two days – but that’s another story.

By: Kevin Vermillion