Hunter and hunted
So for the next few years, I did not participate in other hunting activities for this game, however I did sometimes hunt for Ptarmigan- a small chicken-like bird that lives year round in the arctic. These birds changed colors to protect themselves from predators as they were brownish with dark stripes in the summer and then they went completely white in the winter months. I used my double barrel side-by-side 12 gauge shotgun with a full choke for this purpose. The birds were easy to shoot once you found them, however, many times I had to snowshoe through very deep snow for hours to locate them. Usually, I enjoyed the snow shoeing experience in the beautiful Alaskan environment.
My absolutely favorite animal to hunt though was Grouse. These birds were similar to ptarmigan’ s, however they were very difficult to shoot. They would wait until you walked right up on them and then they would thunderously take off and fly directly away from you at 20 miles per hour. After their loud takeoff, it flies rapidly and then locks its wings and glides to safer territory. As I was quite a good shot, I would usually get one each time to fill my bag limits.
House, Livengood, Alaska Photo by Barry Epstein
Cabins on Don’ s Goldmine,
Grouse taste much better than any other birds including chicken. My preferred place to hunt grouse was in Livengood, Alaska. This extremely remote town was located about 83 miles North of Fairbanks and travel there at the time was only on gravel road. My best friend in Alaska was Don Parker and I met him at the University of Alaska and we are still very good friends after more than 40 years. Don’ s house in Fairbanks was party central and we had more wild and crazy times. There would always be many people over having barbecues, smoking pot and we would encourage everyone to join in p
Don Parker at Ali-Baba Steese Hwy
Trunk, Livengood, Alaska Photo by Barry Epstein
playing music as we had some sort of a band. Don was the base player, I was on
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