FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Vice Blog

ALASKAN TIDBITS

SOURDOUGH DISGUISE
Alaskans like to shit on non-Alaskans the same way Hawaiians bitch about "mainlanders" and Jews talk about "the goyim." They think everyone in the "Lower 48" is a Peta-supporting wine-drinker who wants to stop aerial hunting and turn the entire state into a park.

The opposite of this Frasier-y sort of strawman they keep going on about, the Alaskan equivalent of the "real New Yorker", is called a "sourdough," which was a Gold Rush term for a prospector who'd been stuck in Alaska so long he'd become a penniless crank. Pretty apropos for a place where the chief options for high school grads are getting your pilot's license and spending the next 20 years saving up for a plane, or working on the oil rigs in Prudhoe Bay and spending your off-weeks getting destroyed in Anchorage.

Advertisement

SNARES AND SNARING 3rd Edition
Unlike bow-hunting and snowshoes, fur-trapping technology hasn't come very far since the "Aluoette" canoe days. This was the most recent book we could find on the subject and it contained pictures of guys who looked like they just got back from the Civil War. I guess there's a natural limit to how good you can get at making something else accidentally strangle itself.

FOX-EAR DEALIE
This was a parting gift from our surrogate Eskimo mom, Edna, that was both very very sweet and very very fluffy. Still, gotta say it kind of diminishes the impact of all that "use every part of the buffalo" business when you're like "So what do you do with the ears?" and the answer is "Keychain toggles."

BEAR-KILLING BULLET
This fell out of the grizzly when we were skinning it. It's one of the 14 slugs Heimo and Edna had to fire into it before it went down. Heimo never admitted it, but I think he was embarrassed by how many shots it took to kill the bear both because he's proud of his marksmanship and he's extremely reverent about the animals he kills and making sure their deaths are as quick and painless as possible. If you find that hard to believe, go watch part 5 and notice how quiet he gets when he has to take care of the bunny.

Anyways, as for the Amadou Diallo act with our griz, it was dark and Edna put a round right past Heimo's eardrum when he was trying to take aim (supposedly).

Advertisement

THE REST OF THE BEAR
After we dumped the carcass a good mile or so from Heimo's cabin, we hauled the skin, skull, and penis bone back home. The skin was coming home with Heimo at Christmas to be tanned and eventually stuffed and mounted for our office. The skull had to be presented to the Bureau of Fish and Wildlife to prove that the pelt came from a bear he himself had killed. They pull out one of the back teeth so you can't reuse the same skull a bunch of times. The penis bone was for use, as Heimo told us, "When you're at a party with an uptight broad. You make her a drink and use the bone as a swizzle stick. Then after she's taken a sip you say, 'You know what that is, right?' "

Tragically, John Martin left our penis bone in ANWR.

UPDATE: Heimo found the penis bone and brought it with the pelt! We're getting it with our bear--"uptight broads" take heed.

THE MAJESTY
I can't remember which comedienne it was who said the South was a case of "when beautiful places happen to bad people" (possibly Brett Butler?) but a), fuck her, and b) Alaska is like a case of when insanely breathtaking places happen to no people. Around Anchorage and Wasila there is literally shit like this going on in any direction you can turn in. Can you imagine how boring it's got to be to grow up surrounded by this and then go to college in like, Ohio? We watched a fucking volcano erupt.

REDNECKS
Even in "Los Anchorage" everybody we saw was pretty solidly "outdoorsy." I'm not sure I saw anybody in a collared shirt that wasn't also flannel or camouflage the whole time we were there. I'm definitely sure I didn't see anyone in a tie.

NORTHERN LIGHTS
We got our first taste of aurora the same night we shot the bear (also taco night!). Did you know Viking chroniclers in the 13th century guessed the rudimentary cause of the Northern Lights (solar winds curving around the earth's magnetosphere)? How the fuck did they figure that out?!

Psst: If you haven't watched Heimo's Arctic Refuge yet, the whole thing is now up at VBS. Click the words and watch the deal.