Survival In the Alaskan Wilderness
The full moon and milky snow illuminate the nighttime landscape I found myself lost on the mountain.
I have to make a choice. Looking for the North Star I placed a stick pointing north to direct me to the closest destination when I rise in the morn dawn. To the North one hundred fifty miles to the nearest cabin hoping that it is supplied with stable foods and a warm place to stay until rescued, or south two hundred miles in the other direction where a trapper lives all year round.
Over my shoulders I carried my rifle and survival equipment and begin the one hundred fifty-mile hike to the cabin. Walking through spruce, hemlock, and lodge-pole pines and eating a variety of berries.
In the morning after the snowstorm, I woke to ski snow-powder steeps. A wolf rested on its haunches, inspecting my unprotected surroundings. I took aim, shot, and missed, and it turned and took off.
For days, I had the feeling that someone or something was watching me. I started seeing signs of bear tracings. I was almost out of ammunition for my rifle and decide to make a spear. I looked around for a suitable sturdy tree limb or sapling a few inches taller them me. Using my knife, I fashioned a shelf for the knife creating securing support for the knife and wrapping it tight with rope.
I had shot a three-point buck early that morning and dressed it out; when I heard woof, woof, woof, sounds. The brown grizzly bear came down on all fours and started pawing at the ground, then came at me like a freight train.
I wedge the wooden in of the spear between the rock and into the ground. The grizzle charged then stood up rising above me, impelling itself through the heart with the spear killing it instantly. His dead weight slumped falling limp forward on top of me trapping me under.
Tired and cold the pain disappeared by the time I amble down the pathway toward the summer cabin in the noon-lit dawn.
1/3/2017
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