Stories from

The spring of 1997 had been quite damp in Batavia, gloomy even by Western New York standards. Still, I was surprised to get my first tan of the year inside the Arctic Circle. Not to be confused with the polar ice cap at its northern extreme, much of the Arctic Circle is full of lush growth, crystal-clear rivers, mountains and, during the month of June, 24 hours of sunlight. During our stay the sun was visible 24 hours. Each morning, between midnight and one a.m., the sun would skim the horizon before once again beginning its ascent. 

Not being used to catching shuteye in the daytime, the constant sunlight made sleeping difficult, even in the confines of a tent. There were times when I felt physically exhausted, but mentally the wheels were still turning. And the mosquitoes didn’t help. Lying inside the tent, you could hear their non-stop drone. They seemed to be just waiting for us to exit the tent. It seems the farther north you go, the bigger - and bolder - the mosquitoes.

Even the caribou find the mosquitoes annoying. The Alaskan Pipeline runs parallel with the Dalton Highway and Mike Bilbee, a game warden who patrols the Dalton Highway from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay, said he’s seen caribou literally get beneath the pipeline and use it to scratch their backs.   

We arrived at our destination by traveling north on the Dalton Highway, a 414 mile long, two-lane gravel road beginning outside of Fairbanks and stretching to the Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean. In between are three settlements: Coldfoot (pop. 13), Wiseman (pop.22) and Deadhorse (25 permanent residents). After reaching the 66^th parallel, the southern edge of the Arctic Circle, we stopped for pictures before pushing onward. We stopped outside of Coldfoot,  setting up camp on the south fork of the Koyokuk River.

The Koyokuk’s south fork is a rocky bottomed, swift-flowing river, noted for its arctic char. While we were a bit early for the char migration, we did manage to supplement our diet with Arctic Grayling. Considered one of the arctic’s most sought after game fish – lake trout & arctic char being the others – grayling are small in comparison. A grayling of one pound is average, anything 2-3 pounds is a good catch and four pounds is world class. Noted for their tall dorsal fin, the grayling of the Koyokuk River were accommodating and feisty on light spinning gear. We caught enough to sate our appetites. Stuffed with butter, wrapped in tin foil and cooked over an open fire, they proved quite tasty.

While the fishing was good, we had to stay on our toes at all times. Fresh bear prints were visible in the soft, bare earth along the river. At one point I tried to bathe in the river, but after wading ankle deep into the Koyokuk I changed my mind. I’ve bathed in the lakes and rivers of the far north, but nothing like this. The water was cold it numbed my ankles – I as afraid to submerge. I left the bar of soap on a rock, returned to camp, grabbed a washcloth, a five gallon pail and took a sponge bath.

It was on the return trip, about two in the morning, when Tim and I caught sight of wolf near the side of the road. Black as coal, the wolf looked our way, almost as if our approaching vehicle was of interest. Then just like that, it was gone.     

Next: Floating the Little Susitna River

 

Through the courtesy of Lester and John Lines, the owners & operators of the Aurora Mining Company, Tim Sawyer and I had set up our camp on Harrison Creek in the East Crazy Mountains of east-central Alaska.

This being grizzly country, we armed ourselves accordingly, carrying a high powered rifle and a .44 magnum wherever we went. A couple weeks before our arrival, seven grizzlies had been spotted ambling down the grassy slope of Mastodon Dome (so called for the prehistoric remains once unearthed on the site). All seven bears eventually made their way to the Lines’ camp, passing through without incident. An avid hunter, Tim had seen the big bears up close, the previous year taking a grizzly measuring nearly nine feet.  

Also in camp was “Pete” the German shepherd. A few years earlier a friend of John Lines noticed a puppy that had its snout wrapped with duct tape to keep it from barking. John's friend removed the duct tape and threatened to tell the authorities before leaving with the dog. The dog was then placed with John and the two became best friends.

 Prospecting was a lot of work. Tim donned a diver’s dry suit and vacuumed the bottom of the creek, sending rocks & sediment up a hose and onto a small floating dredge where it was deposited onto a small sluice. Gold, being the second heaviest element, sank to the bottom of the sluice before it could be washed out the back.   

While Tim worked the dredge, I used a pick and shovel along the creek bank, shoveling rocks, mud and sediment into five gallon pails until they were half full. Adding water, I swished it around some, before pouring the contents into a sluice set up in the creek. Sometimes, after the cloudy water passed through, flecks of “color” were visible on the bottom of the sluice. That was gold. We then washed off the sluice pad into another bucket, before transferring it into a pan. Using a little bit of water, you gently tilted the pan back and forth, allowing the water to wash away silt, exposing the gold. Generally, in a streamside operation, any gold left in the pan was so small you needed an eye dropper to pick it up. It was then transferred into a glass vial.

Though our work yielded minimal returns, it had been a good experience. Still, I was ready to try something else. There were grayling in Harrison Creek and after ten days of prospecting I was ready to go fishing.     

Ten days into our stay the weather turned and Tim thought it a good idea to take a field trip. We backtracked the fourteen miles through the East Crazy Mountains, only now there was a slight difference. Three days of rainy weather had reduced the graded secondary road to muddy ruts – three hours worth – until we reached the Steese Highway once again. Not so surprisingly, we weren’t on the highway long when we hit dry weather once again.

We traveled to the settlement of Circle, Alaska, on the banks of the Yukon River. There we came across one of the locals selling books out of a large tent. For $1.25 I purchased two books, one being Hemingway’s, The Old Man and the Sea, the other was Phillip Keller’s, A Shepherd Looks At Psalm 23.        

Our next stop was just down the road, at Circle Hot Springs, and a relaxing swim in water over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Outasight! Just what the doctor ordered.  The next morning we made one final stop before returning to base camp. We had breakfast in yet another tiny settlement, this one called Central. This was a real treat, as breakfast in camp each day had consisted of oatmeal and half an orange.

It was also in Central where I spotted a pay phone. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. That meant it was 7 am in Batavia and Claudia hadn’t left for work yet. The phone rang twice before she picked up. “Hello?” It was good to hear her voice. “Hi Honey. I miss you. Can we have cavatelle,  meatballs and sausage when I get home?”      

Next stop: the Arctic Circle.

 

The seven hour flight was nearly at an end, and only then did I bother to look out the window. Looking down I noticed the glare of the sun, reflected off the snow and ice-capped peaks of the Wrangell Mountains. It was 10:30 pm. I wouldn’t experience darkness again for a month.

 

The date was June 1, 1997, and the plane was minutes from touching down in Anchorage, Alaska. At the airport I would meet up with Attica native Tim Sawyer, then a phys-ed instructor and high school football coach in Palmer, Alaska. There were two days of classes remaining, after which Tim and I would spend the next month seeing a good deal of Alaska, gold prospecting, hiking, fishing, photography, etc. Our journey would cover more than 2500 miles of Alaskan wilderness with seven different camp sites. Our travels took us through the Alaskan Range, across the Yukon River and beyond, to the Arctic Circle and several stops in between.

The adventure began with a five hour drive north to Fairbanks, then traveling northeast on the Steese Highway, a two-lane gravel road, for one-hundred forty miles. At some point, Tim turned off the “highway,” following a graded secondary road for fourteen miles through the East Crazy Mountains. By traversing a series of rolling hills and valleys, we came to the north fork of Harrison Creek. There we would set up base camp for ten days before moving on to the Arctic Circle and another go at the gold and some mighty fine grayling fishing.  

Four weeks later we would cap off our adventure by rafting a forty-seven mile section of the Little Susitna River, a two day excursion in a two-man Zodiac, a rubber raft with wooden floor boards. Through a series of posts over the next few days, I would like to revisit Alaska, and share the experience.

 

Monday is the Winter Solstice, officially the first day of winter and  the shortest day of the year. With three months (at least) of snow, wind and ice in the offing, I'd like to take one last look at autumn, and some of the locales Claudia and I canoed, hiked and cruised along the back roads. 

West Bethany woodlot

A grove of maple and hickory trees

Rather than build up their winter food cache with tender shoots of osier and black willow, the occupants of this beaver lodge raided a farmer's corn lot.

October moon

Black willows along Tonawanda Creek

A stop over for waterfowl, a home to aquatic fur bearers.

A layover between flights.

A placid backwater.

Late autumn on the Tonawanda.

Winter offically arrives with a crescent moon.

Though I once fished the little stream in my early years, I never knew it had a name. Not long after we moved to Creek Road, a former neighbor, the late Anthony Torcello, told me it was called Celery Brook. It seems that back in the day, the White Swamp – where the stream originates- was once drained and used to grow celery.

Flowing out of the swamp, the little creek meanders through woods, fields and through another small woodlot before emptying into Tonawanda Creek. It seemed like a good place to capture the season’s first snowfall.

 Skim Ice

Cattails mirrored on a placid surface

Snow-capped Queen Anne's Lace

Autumn remnants

Time to head  home

It was 7:10 a.m. this morning when the high-pitched honking was audible several moments before they came into view. Finally, they appeared, coming out of the northeast, each group nothing more than a dark slit in the overcast gray. It was one of those vast throngs of Canada’s that spread across the sky. Along the southern edge of the flock were smaller fowl, their wingbeats much faster than that of the geese. They were ducks, and the scene reminded me of a squadron of fighters accompanying much larger bombers.

Despite the size of the flock, they were flying too low to be migrating. I’m guessing they came from the Sandwash, only a couple miles distant. The flock on the Cedar Street quarry has more than doubled in the past month.

They’ve been staging for weeks now. Huge flocks of geese, Canada’s making their stopover on local waterways and impoundments. In recent weeks they’ve been dropping into freshly cut corn fields in vast numbers. Great rafts of honkers sitting on Lake Ontario have been taking advantage of the spillage in the massive grain fields in Orleans County. There seems to be a great number of geese still on hand throughout the region, indicative of the weather. I hope the trend continues.   

The afternoon began with a lengthy canoe ride and troublesome wind gusts - and the wind was at our back. The return trip promised to be a real hoot.

We were in a wetland measuring nearly a square mile, a cattail jungle dotted with potholes – all of which held and incredible number of ducks. We took no guns along, no cumbersome bags of decoys and no retriever. With the opening day of ducks season two days away, we were scouting, searching for the ideal location - a thick stand of cattails to conceal the canoe from incoming waterfowl.  

On this day the tops of the cattails were bent over by the stiff wind and yet myriad waterfowl were having little difficulty negotiating the elements. Ducks were vacating the potholes in great numbers. By the time we left they had easily number into the thousands. While countless numbers took wing, many came zeroing in to our location. Once realizing their mistake, they applied the brakes, at the same time quickly scrambling to gain altitude. 

Having a prior commitment, I knew I wouldn’t be back on opening day. Not that it mattered. Two   hours spent amid the marshy environs had been reminiscent of a waterfowler’s bygone era. An that was fine by me.

It’s been an enjoyable autumn on many fronts and there is much to give thanks for. There were a handful of goose hunts, at least one memorable bowhunt, a few scenic canoe rides, and the chance to wet a line on two occasions. And I managed to take in at least one high school football game each weekend. But the scene that readily comes to mind is that of a gray October afternoon when an overcast sky turned the surface of the potholes black, the tops of the cattails bending in the wind and countless ducks on the wing. I felt like we had paddled back in time, right onto the cover of a 1950’s Outdoor Life magazine.  Happy Thanksgiving!

It's that time of year when retrievers tend to shine, really making their owners proud. After considerable time invested in training, many a Lab’s owner will now savor the moment as their charge leaps from the cattail blind or camouflaged duck boat in pursuit of downed waterfowl, or maybe work the swale for upland game. Yet many a Lab isn’t trained to perform in the woods, fields or swamps – they are simply family pets and good companions. Such is the life of “Hurricane,” one of three Labs owned by the Kehlenbeck family of Alabama. And while not your conventional Lab, Hurricane possesses many character traits for which Labrador retrievers are noted.  

Attentive and focused......

though not always!

Always happy when getting attention.

Stately in appearance.......

and noble-looking.

but most of all, they're good friends.

The above photo depicts Oak Orchard Creek little more than a quarter-mile upstream of Lake Ontario. From the creek mouth to Waterport dam, this is a much wider stretch of stream with a more diverse fishery than found upstream. But on this day, with the exception of few bumps at the end of the line, neither the trout nor salmon were willing to cooperate.

Having moved upstream in search of warm water species, Mike Draper works a rubber worm in hopes of enticing a bass or pike.

The creek bank along a stretch of stream known as "Fiddler's Elbow."

Drake mallards and a lone hen soaking up the sun.

Doug Harloff plying the waters of Marsh Creek, a feeder stream spilling into the Oak Orchard at Twin Bridges.

On the return trip empty boat slips signify the close of the boating season.

 

 

 

I never know what I might come across while driving the back roads.  Take this morning for instance, when I saw a standardbred race horse swimming in a horseshoe-shaped pond.

"Nitroglycerine" is being tended to by owner Frank Zambito and trainer/horse farm owner Fred Haslip.

I think he's smiling at me!

Swims over...back to the barn.

Left to right Nitroglycerine, Frank Zambito and Fred Haslip.

Joe Lawrence is on a roll. Last year he closed out the deer season with a monster whitetail scoring 144 on the Boone & Crockett scoring system and placing him high in the New York State Big Buck Club’s muzzleloader division. (The Batavian, Dec. 20, 2008 – Father & Son Memories). On Saturday, the opening day of archery season in New York’s southern zone, the elder Lawrence did it again. He began his fortieth bow season by taking another massive whitetail that is all but certain to make the NYS record book. The big buck sported ten points and weighed a whopping 202 lbs. field dressed.

It was late afternoon when the buck appeared, already displaying rutting tendencies by chasing after four does.  “I used a grunt to call to turn him, and he stopped and looked in my direction,” Joe said. “I hit the grunt call again and he came right to me.” He made the shot from a tree stand at a distance of fifteen yards. 

Award plaques on display at the Blue Devil Hall of Fame Banquet.

Hall of Fame Inductees include from left to right bottom row;  Joe Fiannaca, Nancy Platt, Ed Dawson.  Top row left to right;  Paul Sherwood, Tom Briggs, Tony Miceli, Pat Woodring.

In attendance were the Bosseler brothers, Bill and George who were selected to the first Blue Devils Hall of Fame induction in 2002.

Also on hand to celebrate the inductees selection was this contingent of 1960's Notre Dame Fighting Irish; left to right, Ron Francis, Bill Sutherland, Jim Fanara, and Bayne Johnson.

Carrie Panek oversees the pumpkin harvest on the Panek Farm.

Cut and ready for loading.

One of many wagon loads.

Waiting for a home...

Snow geese mingling with Canadas

A closer look at the "snows"

Vultures take flight

Get ready...

Here they come

Calling 'em in

Fetch 'em up!

 

Turkey vultures are normally seen gliding high overhead, soaring on thermal currents, those columns of rising warm air that enable them to cover miles while conserving energy at the same time. Last Wednesday I took these photos along the edge of an evergreen forest. Seven were roosting in a dead hardwood with several more situated in a splintered pine.

While a few birds flew back and forth between the edge of the pines and the dead tree, for the most part they were unalarmed, staying put for several photos.    

Above photo depicts one turkey vulture spreading its wings while another preens its feathers. There is much speculation as to the reason for this practice. Some believe the wings are used as solar panels to generate body warmth while others tend to think they are utilizing the suns ultraviolet rays to kill bacteria picked up from diseased carcasses.

They are ominous-looking creatures, and with their featherless heads, turkey vultures may not be much in terms of appearance, yet they perform a valuable service by cleaning up carrion. Even from high overhead, the turkey vulture employs its keen sense of smell to locate food, one of the few birds of prey able to do so. 

Every so often I stole a glimpse heavenward. The early a.m. sky was crystal clear, the lightshow overhead spectacular. Orion, Pleiades, Cassiopeia and both Dippers stood out clearly while the spiral arm of the Milky Way appeared to be a misty vapor spanning the dark expanse. 

Doug in foreground, Jim in background, setting decoys.

The canoe is loaded to the max with decoys, packs, shotguns. Amid the gear sits Sadie, Doug Harloff’s chocolate Lab. I’m seated in the bow while Doug mans the stern. Some distance ahead of us a small beam of light pierces the darkness - a headlamp worn by Jim DiCasolo. Situated in his canoe are more decoys and Quaker Hill Dee Dee, Jim’s chocolate lab.

Doug looking for incoming geese.

A forty minute canoe ride – including one portage – took us to our destination, a brushy clump of growth that would serve as a blind. Before getting situated there was the business of setting out decoys. Already the first hint of light penetrated the horizon, bringing with it silhouettes of ducks zipping past at close range.     

Sadie doing what she does best.

With the last of the decoys set, both canoes were then pulled into the “floating island” and covered with camo-mesh. As daylight increased it became easy to identify ducks on the wing. Mallards, blue wing teal, black ducks, woodies and even pintails were on the move. But duck season was still a month away.

Jim DiCasolo scans the sky.

We were here for geese, and once the first flocks were heard, Doug and Jim went to work on the calls.  Both felt it would be a spell before they got any response, as the honkers were heading for the feeding grounds. We looked forward to their return trip.

Before long a pair of Canada’s came in, dropping into the decoy set. The shotguns barked and a second afterward, Sadie and Dee Dee leapt in, swimming to the fallen birds.

Dee Dee, 11 years old and still going strong.

It was obvious both dogs had been taught well. Whenever a flock of geese came into view, or even low flying ducks, the dogs locked in, following intently with their eyes. Dee Dee and Sadie were a joy to watch, and on this day, six hours spent standing in thigh deep water passed quickly.      

 

With Autumn offically arriving at 5:18 p.m. tomorrow, I'd like to share these late summer photos taken last week.

Purple asters and goldenrod are two of the more prolific wildflowers in the area.

Note the bumble bee at the top left of the goldenrod.

Asters close up.

Virginia Creeper with a headstart on the autumn foliage.

"Creeper" enveloping willow and cottonwood trunks.

Windmill marsh as seen from observation tower on Albion Road, Oakfield.

Backwater south of Windmill Marsh.

 

With autumn nearly upon us, and early goose season underway, I got to thinking about the late Albert Frieday. I decided to call his son Bill.

I was still in high school when Bill’s younger brother Steve introduced me to the sport of waterfowling. We mainly hunted geese in corn lots and later I came to relish the mileu of the duck hunter. Steve entered the Marine Corp after graduation, and upon his return, we took up where we left off. Steve wasn’t home a week when we headed off in search of new places to duck hunt. Our first day of scouting for new hunting grounds resulted in a hike through tall grass that left paper cuts on our legs. In our haste to leave the grassy overgrowth we soon found ourselves   stuck thigh deep in swampy muck.  

Not long afterward I met Steve’s father and brother, Bill, also a Marine vet. It was only a matter of time before I had the opportunity to hunt with the elder Frieday, a man I had heard Steve speak of a great deal. I remember hunting with Albert on two occasions, and both times I walked on egg shells. 

Albert Frieday while serving in China.

Albert was a stern man, a no-nonsense individual not to be crossed. He grew up in Oakfield and took to the swamps and woods in his early years where he wielded both shotgun and fishing rod, becoming handy with both. In 1926 he entered the Marine Corp and in 1928 took part in the Nicaraguan “Banana Wars” and later manned a machine gun in China. After seven years he left the Corp but was drafted by the Army in ’42 after Pearl Harbor which resulted in another four year hitch.  After the war Albert and his wife Mart Catherine settled down in Batavia.

The rafters of the Frieday garage were stocked with carved duck decoys, mostly wooden but some were fashioned from cork. There were also a number of goose decoys, hip boots, and of course, Albert’s foul weather gear. Inclement weather didn’t deter him one bit, the nastier the better. “The weather didn’t bother Dad at all”, said Bill. “He liked to hunt ducks & geese in foul weather.”  One of Bill’s earliest recollections of going afield with his father was as a 12 year old, helping Albert set decoys in the pre-dawn darkness. “I was too young to hunt, but I remember carrying burlap bags filled with decoys along muddy trails while it was pitch black outside” said Bill, who along with Steve eventually became an avid waterfowler for a number of years. 

Albert was an old-school duck hunter, shown below with his Winchester Model 12.  He would pluck every duck and goose by hand, right down to the last feather. Mary Catherine Frieday would place strips of bacon over the ducks and geese prior to roasting and many a wild duck and goose dinner was enjoyed in the Frieday home. The depression era fresh in his mind, Albert made it clear that no wild game harvested was to be wasted. But there were exceptions to this rule, much to Albert's chagrin.

The Friedays had a pair of Irish Setters, Freedom and Goldie, who were mainly used for hunting upland game, but Albert would often take one of the dogs along when he hunted ducks and geese in corn lots and winter wheat fields. Prior to one such hunt, having loaded our gear into the back of Albert’s station wagon, I hopped into the back seat alongside Freedom. In the pocket of my field jacket was a pack of Twinkies and a bag of M&M’s. I tore open the Twinkie’s first and with my right hand stuffed one in my mouth. With my left hand I extended the remaining Twinkie toward Freedom who was eagerly waiting with his maw wide open, his huge tongue at the ready. The cream-filled cake was inches from his mouth when Steve and Albert boomed in unison, “DON’T GIVE HIM ANY.” At the time I didn’t realize they were thinking of the dog’s dental hygiene – I just thought they were being mean. It was late afternoon when the first flock of geese came in. They passed by at close range and Albert dropped a double. Freedom promptly ran to the fallen birds, picked one up and – headed in the opposite direction. He eventually returned but without the goose, which we never did locate. For years I figured the dog was being vindictive, as a payback for the reneged Twinkie. Only recently did Bill Frieday tell me Freedom had a habit of running off with downed waterfowl.     

I was fortunate to have known Albert Frieday, if only for a short time. He was not only an old- school outdoorsman, he was a husband, father, Marine and Army combat veteran and a great American.

The little guy I am holding in my arms now tends bar at Center Street Smokehouse. He was six months shy of his third birthday at the time of photo. Earlier that year Claudia and I had eaten dinner at Window's on the World, the restaurant situated on the 108th floor of the World Trade Center's south tower. It was evening, and I remember looking down into New York Harbor and thinking how small the Statue of Liberty seemed.  I took these moments for granted until Sept. 2001.