The Chisana News Wire, Issue 2, Freezing Our Butts Off
(Just in case you didn't recieve it, here it is!)
Wow! It has been over a year now, since PioneerOutfitters (dot) com was created. One month gone already of the new year!
The second issue of The Chisana News Wire brings you news of Mother Nature’s twisted sense of direction she’s blowing up. From +20* above to -54* below zero, there is just no predicting what she’ll throw at us next. We have gained over 4 hours (and yes, I just counted!) of daylight. We are averaging a gain of over 6 minutes a day.
Phone calls and emails are flying between Alaska and Canada as we are putting feelers out for more range horses. We hope to bring into Chisana this year a stud. Master Guide Terry Overly had hoped that we would find him last year, but none of the studs Terry looked at made much of an impression. (Fingers crossed! We want to start breeding our own range horses again.)
On Alaska Chick’s Blog a while back, we talked about range horses and what we look for in a horse to live and work with us, in the interior of Alaska. Range Horses, Where, How and Why for Pioneer Outfitters. http://pioneeroutfitters.com/AlaskaChickBlog/bid/36613/Range-Horses-Where-How-and-Why-for-Pioneer-Outfitters Go HERE to read more.
A WORD FROM THE MAN IN BLACK, MASTER GUIDE TERRY OVERLY
Well, as Amber-Lee has decided I must have input to the Chisana News Wire, I asked her what she wanted me to talk about with you. “The old days, the horses and the way things were.” That is the answer I received. So that is what I will share.
In the hay days of the Chisana Gold Rush, men walked into Chisana carrying big and heavy packs on their backs.
Dog teams were used and the mushers traded goods for the labors of their teams and themselves. This was the way of life.
Horses were used extensively to carry great packs and heavy loads of supplies for the mining fields as well as riding and to pull wagons and sleds in the winter.
These, the dog teams, the horses, riding and packing, these were the life line of the Chisana Gold Strike.
I really do not know and never did hear about how many horses wintered here in the Chisana Valley, but I do remember seeing many small fenced in areas, maybe 12’ x 12’ or 16’ x 16,’ on the islands out in the middle of the Chisana River as well as on the East side of the river, back in the open grassy areas.
When I asked Bud Hickethier (my step-Dad) and Ivan Thorall what those little fenced in areas were for, I was told to keep grass in for the horses. We never used those penned in grass areas, we had no need in those days.
It seemed, that the old prospectors would cut the wild grasses with sickles and scythes and stack it up, inside the fenced in areas to have hay to supplement the horses if it was needed, I was told.
I do know, that when I first came to Chisana, in 1960, one of my jobs was to grind by hand, using an old coffee grinder, the whole barley and oats we fed our horses here in Chisana. I still have that old grinder.
If needed, we would supplement our horse’s diet of the natural grasses like pee-vine, willows and a few other things I see the horses eat but do not know what they are.
Our horses, back then, seemed to do fine for the most part. Once in awhile, there would be one or two that needed supplemented. Sure, there were always some horses that always seemed to get a little thinner than some of the others over the course of the winter months.
We never fed them hay. No one I knew of ever fed their horses hay. Larry Folger, Ray McNutt, Doug Vaden, Urban Rahoi or Lee Hancock. Our horses did fine on the range in those days without us feeding them for the most part, with only a few of them needing the supplement grains.
So what has changed? (Read More!)
Alaska Chick and Alaska Chick’s Blog!
Hi there, everyone! As you have probably noticed, if you have visited Pioneer Outfitters (dot) com recently, changes and shuffling is taking place everywhere.
Alaska Chick’s Blog had it’s first “blogoversary” on January 31st, with 129 posts published and blessings too numerous to count. So, I will say here, Thank You.
There is a HUGE surprise coming, FYI, and I hope you will love it... you’ll just have to keep watching!
Here are a few posts that I would like to share with you, just in case you might have missed them.
Medicine Man, a Summer Horseback Adventure
Alaska Chick's First Interview with Youngest Old Timer in Alaska
A Story Without Love Is Not Worth Telling, Alaska Chick
PIONEER OUTFITTERS SURVIVAL & GUIDE TRAINING
Training continues and adjustments are being made as there are three new trainees arriving in Alaska within the next 30 days.
Wes is currently my new hero (along with Gammy Nancy, of course, and NOT just for coming home and helping me with the boys and EVERYTHING else!) for making sure that I am up and online early enough to reach out to connections on the other side of this great big world! (Hey. We are talking about folks 10 and 11 hours ahead of us here in Alaska!)
Seriously though, the Survival & Guide Training continues, as it is how we live and care for what we are. More than that is the very real observation that today’s people between the ages of 16 and 25 years are at a disadvantage. A disadvantage, mind you, that come from the advantages and advancements made in our own society and world.
If you or someone you know is looking for or talking about becoming a professional big game guide, there are some important points to remember.
Nancy’s Say-So ... (CZN GAMMY)
While anxiously awaiting a Christmas visit to family and friends in Tok, my suitcases were packed and sitting by the door. I was just waiting to hear the sound of the incoming mail plane and wondering if the snow machine would start in time to get all of this paraphernalia to the air strip in time to get loaded along with bags and boxes of outgoing mail, not to mention ME!
After the rundown on where the emergency exit and ELT (emergency location transmitter) are, my question to the pilot, whom I've never met before, let alone flown anywhere with is, “Why do I need to know THIS?”
An hour of flying over some of the most ruggedly beautiful landscape that God ever created. It would have been a delightful flight except for the fact that there was a bit of turbulence. The “hang onto the door strap to keep myself in my seat and my head from banging the roof kind of turbulence”... NO KIDDING HERE.
Made it to terra firma and my fun began. My sons and their families all live in Tok. Last minute Christmas gifts to wrap and a round trip to Fairbanks with a pal, a couple more gotta get this for....
Christmas day arrived and as I watched one of my four year old granddaughters thoughtfully peal the tape from the corner of her brightly wrapped gift; I wonder does she always do this? Then without any warning ribbons and paper go flying, eyes shining with excitement and a smile as big as Alaska itself, I hear "thank you Gramma". Merry Christmas!
Hugs, great food, more hugs, more food, what a great day. I can't believe how fast my week away is going. Then as a favor to help out dear friends I was asked to stay for another three weeks. Inside toilets thermostats running water no wood stoves to feed, this is GREAT.
Spending time with special people and loved ones every day, phone calls home to check on family there, knowing there was a lot of stuff I could be doing if I was home and being reassured everything is ok.
Chatting with my other four year old granddaughter and listening to her accounts of one of the dogs being a FEITH and what Santa brought her made me wish I could be both places at once.
Yep, I was starting to get homesick. Not mopey homesick, but enough to start rearranging things in my suitcases in the event that I can go home before the next available seat on the mail plane. Then I got a call from Master Guide Terry Overly, “I’m going to fly into Northway to get horse feed and I can bring you back, if you can get a ride down."
YIPPEE.
My daughter in law and granddaughter in law and granddaughter drove me the 72 miles to the airstrip in Northway and we wait for the black plane that Master Guide Terry Overly will be flying. There it was! Circling the sky above.
As we bid our farewells, a small hand wrapped my scarf around my neck, her eyes glistening with tears and our special goodbye of "You live in my heart and I live in your heart," hugs all around, and I'm sitting in the plane on my way back to my mountain home, family and life in Chisana.
There is a lot to the old saying "Home is where the heart is". I am a very, very lucky woman. I have homes and I CAN be two places at once.
Till next time,
Nancy!
I am, Alaska Chick.
“As you look, really look, and find no words; feeling both, your heart healing and filling to an inner bursting point and feeling that your soul has been laid open to the breeze and wind like a raw wound. This takes you beyond the physical, past the mental; this is the spiritual element. This is Chisana.”
My name is Amber-Lee Dibble and I am the Manager at Pioneer Outfitters. We are located in the Wrangell St. Elias National Park & Preserve, our nation’s largest, most unexplored, unexploited and untouched National Park.
I am Mom, the Manager and the lead Guide of the Extreme Pro Team Guides. Born a Capricorn 1, Week of the Ruler, on the Day of The Indomitable One.
Pioneer Outfitters has been taking people into the wilderness of Alaska on horseback for Spiritual, Pleasure, Gold Panning, Glacier Exploring and Historic Trail Pack Trips, as well as Big Game Hunting and Survival & Guide Training since 1924. We, our family and our horses have always lived here year-round. As we make our life, we make our “living.”
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