Dalton Highway Hunting Restrictions

I shouldn't be sharing hunting secrets, but it is a fallacy that the existing Dalton Highway buffer is an artificial restriction on access. ANY Alaskan with some gumption and wits can cross the corridor and harvest caribou with a rifle and successfully transport the meat home for consumption without a snow machine. In fact most of the people I know that harvest caribou do so without the aid of off road vehicles (ORV) on the north side of the Brooks Range through creative use of skis/snowshoes and sledges or non-motorized boats. When I have traveled the Dalton Highway to the starting point of my hunt I have seen large numbers of bow hunters along the road hunting within the corridor.

The other caribou herds located along highway corridors and have ORV access (eg. Nelchina, Delta, Fortymile) are in annual crisis and under intensive Alaska Department of Fish and Game management at great expense to the state treasury. Registration and drawing hunts are par for the course, emergency closures are annual events. Predator control is a constant battle. Please keep good old Alaskan ingenuity and muscle powered access as the main and successful method of guaranteeing that the Central Arctic Caribou herd is managed for abundance and not crisis.

I have actively hunted the Central Arctic Caribou herd using non motorized access since 2005 when I realized how easy it is to access this herd outside of the 5-mile corridor. I and my family have relied on the high quality of the meat we have obtained on these hunts. The hunts have provided my sons and I some of the best quality time that we have had together since they have become adults. Part of the quality is derived is from the remoteness and the physical effort that is required by the minimal short 5 mile mile buffer before we can hunt with a rifle. This opportunity should be preserved for all Alaskans.

Here's to Senator Mike Kelly's Alaska HB 267 going down in flames!

Obviously not a slave to the blog

This blog was started when the temperatures were hovering (funny choice of words) at -45 F. Now it's springtime and the temperatures are mostly in the positive scale, and the sun is shining for over 12 hours a day. It is hard to be tied to writing great treatises on politics, rocks, skiing or boating. So, don't expect a whole lot.
Lets just leave it that.
Oh...Wait! There is the wolf control rant, I'll try to find the article, and letter to the editor at the Fairbanks News Miner. I'll not rant on this yet, but soon.

So now I have a reason to come back!

Here is Mike Huckabee on the Confederate flag in South Carolina:

“You don’t like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag,” Huckabee said. “In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d tell them what to do with the pole, that’s what we’d do.”

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/shared-blogs/ajc/politicalinsider/entries/2008/01/18/talking_confederate_one_day_an.html

So tell me, what does that say about morals? Is this some sort of hidden hick-homo-love-hate "thang"? He can jamb some "thang" up where the "sun don' shine", but did he have his 50--year-old colonoscopy?

Seriously, Mr Huckabee has several quaint quotes to his credit in the last few months. They generally relate to doing physical harm to someone in a casual, off-hand sort of way. Is this the way that a devout follower of Jesus Christ of Nazarath should speak? Do we really want someone that easily rolls off statements like the above to be our president? I could go on...

So, on another of my rants:

Last Wednesday was one of the top 10 snowfalls for Fairbanks (8-10 inches)! Whoopee! the Skiing at was great on Saturday. there is still some iffy old snow, thin but grabby below, but what fun! There is more on the horizon.

Baby Steps

So, today I join the blog-o-sphere! Tomorrow, I conquer the world. There is so much to say and so few who will listen. So with tongue in cheek, and fingers on key board I lead the march to destiny.

Today, I changed my voter registration from "U" to "R"; Ullr, save my soul. I like to think that I am tolerant, but I can't abide a Baptist minister as a president of the FREE world. Besides, J. McCain has paid some dues, and he seems like a fiscally responsible dude, I would likely vote for him in November despite his hawkish nature. We'll see how the Alaska Republicans like a responsible, tax paying, debt-fearing citizen among their midst come Alaska Caucus day on Feburary 5.