ON BOARD TUPELEV 154 RUN BY MAGADAN AIR ENROUTE
ACROSS VITUS BERING'S SEA RE-CONNECTING
THE ALEUTIAN LAND-BRIDGE FOR HUNTER-GATHERERS
OF AN EARLIER AND MORE RECENT ERA,
TO ARRIVE AT PWK, PETROPAVLOSK,
TO BEGIN THE SCARIER AIR TRANSIT
BY VINTAE SOVIET-ERA HELICOPTER
TOWARD THE KARNETSKY RESERVE
WHERE WE WILL BEGIN THE HUNTS
August 19, 2001
OVERFLY LARGE VOLCANIC CONES,
ARRIVAL IN PKC,
TOUR THE TWON OF PETROPAVLOSK,
THEN LAUNCH ROAD TRIP TO ARRIVE IN THERMAL SPA
"SANATARIUM" DACHA OV MALKA FOR THE BRIEF NIGHT
I am crammed into an obsolete Tupelev 154 airliner-the Soviet version of the 727-the day after USAir flew its last DC-9, which it had logged 4 million hours in because it was too noisey and fuel inefficient-and all around me are fifty-year old successful guys in camouflage. This is the seasonal surge in the one thing the keeps the newly capitalistic Russian state alive-a big inflow of US $100 dollar bills. I have helped considerably this morning early by going through a confusing series of demands for new fees to be paid in cash on the spot. Magadan-an airline put together by Russian noveu mafiosos-discovered that it can gouge still more than their extravagant price for this money making trip-no one on this flight is on any frequent flyer award coupon-and charged me $134 cash for a "firearms permit". This is just the airline, adding a new charge.
We were late in arrival on the Millennium Hotel shuttle (haven't I been in a hotel by that name last September in new York City and do I not have a reservation to stay in such a hotel in Boston on this September-and are they not all astronomic in their excessive charges?) and were sent first to the US Customs Office to fill out a declaration of ownership of the rifle to prove I had it in the US and did not pick it up in Russia. OK. But, while there, I was given a whole sheaf of other reports to fill out, including an Inspection Fee of $35 for the trophies that I do not yet have, but an additional notice that I would have to pay a special port fee of $85.00 if I came in outside the usual business hours of 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Mon through Fri, and they triumphantly noted that I will be coming in on Magadan Air at 5:20 AM on Friday. I should tell them that I have perfect confidence that the Magadan Air will never deliver me on the scheduled time and will be at least the same four hours late that we are today.
It may get confusing enough, so I will say it now---I leave in late after noon on August 31 and return at 5:20 AM earlier the same morning-but such are the wonders of travels across the International Date Line. In fact this flight is only 4 ½ hour54s for the flying time, but the takeoff at about 8:30 AM on August 19, 2001, will land much later on August 20. Go figure.
Beneath me, in the cloudy fog, is a massive fishery of cold and fertile waters that once was a bridge-the Aleutian land-Bridge, an ice age or two ago-and that connected the hunter-gatherers of the are of Siberia to which I now go with their brethren over the ice floes in Alaska-and from thence the whole of the Americas over time. Now, that re-connection is being made by a whole plane load of guys who have worked hard most of their lives and are now cashing in for a once-in-a-lifetime experience in going back to the hunting and gathering experience after a few generations of saving up enough capital to afford such a primitive experience, to learn again the thrill and fear of facing Ursos Arctos horrribilis. A very handsomely mounted standing brown bear in a glass display case in the International Departure Lounge ant ANC shows a ten foot Kodiak Bear (the name of the Brown Bear when it comes from the islands of the Alaskan side of the Bering Sea) standing at full height, which is easily twice the elevation of the average hunter on this flight. The great Grizzly Bear, which has this sub-species when it is coastal as opposed to interior, gets so much bigger because it is gorging right now on a rich protein diet of up to 100 pounds of salmon per day. The fertility rate of the average Kamchatka brown bear is triplet cubs because of this rich food source---and that is even higher fertility than the human species in San Antonio!
I will be starting out in rugged terrain and scrambling over the Pacific Rim of Fire for the Ovis nivicola nivicola, the Kamchatka Bighorn Snow Sheep. I had just clipped a three dimensional photo out of the Lufthansa magazine on the trip to the Himalayas showing the Kamchatka mountains in all their volcanic, yet snow-capped, glory, and now I will be tgrying to get up and over them. The average hunter who has matured to the point of trying to get sheep has made enough money to try to afford this luxury, so he is older and well vested; however, the irony is that as he gets old and rich enough to afford the hunt, he cannot pull it off. As I had said in Alaska in 1997, I am glad I did not wait until I was 85 to start sheep hunting! It is a combination of alpine mountaineering skill, with a very good and patient "spot and stalk" ability, with also the endurance to keep paces with s twenty-something native guide who delights in packing out an intact sheep in a single trip. I may be right on the cusp---since I am said to be about as fit as any of the hunters Eurasian Expedition has ever sent out, including its owner, and still not one of the high rollers-at least recent market reversals (witness a TIAA/CREF retirement account about 48% of its value only eighteen months ago) and grandiose plans not just on my part for house remodeling, but on others' parts for house reclaiming! But, this is a window that, once closed, one does not try to open again, so this is the right time to be undertaking this adventure. As I had said to Jerry Jacques, one cannot undertake "once -in-a-lifetime" experiences annually-but, then, I have plenty of folk reminding me that with respect to all the other adventures I have had, once-in-=a-lifetime seems to happen to me four times a month!
But, I may be entering an era where I will genuinely be taking on experiences
that will or should happen only once in a lifetime, and at least a couple of
these I am happy to say that I would have no plans to repeat. That does not
go for such excursions as the Himalayas, Africa, running marathons in exotic
locations, going sea kayaking among the whales and sea lions or exploring jungles
and tundra or polar ice packs.
The other, true, once-in-a-lifetime experiences have yet to happen-and will
happen only once!
I always plan far enough in advance, that by the time the calendar of my planned activities comes rolling around, I had discounted the experience in view of the next adventure already in the planning phase-witness the much more extensive Itinerary for Sept/Oct to follow. But, now that I am all packed and on the final approach, the reality of this adventure is setting in beyond the distraction of how to get all my overweight and overcharged bag and baggage with me-not just on the outbound, but also on the return trip-I now look around and see the others on this plane who may have truly figured this for their single shot at such an experience, and figure I am probably a bit ahead of the group.
I am next to Allan Magee, a nice guy from Tucson Arizona. We met, as planned, since he recognized me from a few of the pictures I had emailed him the day before, at American Airlines baggage claim, and went to the Millennium Hotel he had reserved where we talked about past hunting trips. He and I are rather well matched, at least in philosophies of the hunt. He has refused to shoot a few big game animals that were simply driven up to in a Russian jeep in Central Asia into the middle of a herd of big elk, or in Africa into a big Roan antelope or lions. He prefers the fair chase and even got a hunt refunded once since the guide insisted he shoot something that was pre-spotted and simply driven up to. So, he and I are both out her for the experiences, and he has every confidence that the experience will also include his packing back a couple of big trophies.
I am happy just to be here, and to be packing a rifle along with the other goodies seem to have ransomed several times over in just getting them and me here. I am going to be climbing hard and looking far for a good Ram-since the Dall ram has a very good story associated with him and we need not devalue that one-or the more bone-chilling saga of the Kazakhstan "Epic" I need not repeat. But, I am going to do something memorable, I am sure of that, and the "Epic" memorability need not be the reason.
I am one of few veterans on this flight. Most people here have never been to PKC and its rather bizarre look of a once thriving world power naval base, now turned into a desperate subsistence closing town with the young Russian women being the more exportable items than the giant brown bears in the hills and much easier to obtain. It is sad to see what Russia has become, but it would have been scarier to see what it might have been and had hoped to be. The totemic emblem over all of this is the Great Russian Bear. I am now in pursuit of their totem, and may take one back to the very nation that Khrushchev, shoe in hand, had pounded out the threat "We will bury you!" From the look of the closed failed collective farms swept up in the "Virgin Lands Programs" I had seen in Kazakhstan from the Soviet era, and the big Naval Pacific Base here-shutdown as forlornly as many in the post-cold war US---one of us did bury the other, and is even planning to carry away the totemic trophy from the triumph. It is a historic fate that brings me back to this isolated corner of the vast Mother Russia, the land that so identifies with the peoples souls and the single thing they have that they can count on to defeat outsiders from napoleon to Hitler-and even American mega-materialism in consumer power.
OVERFLY LARGE VOLCANIC CONES,ARRIVAL IN PKC,
TOUR THE TOWN OF PETROPAVLOSK,
THEN LAUNCH ROAD TRIP TO ARRIVE IN THERMAL SPA
"SANATARIUM" DACHA OF MALKA FOR THE BRIEF NIGHT
I had just come from the post office in Petropavlosk, which was in the process
of being reconstructed when I was here two weeks ago before departure from my
entry port-where I had attempted to purchase stamps, postcards and other means
by which I could send you "serial letters" and other means to report
this exotic adventure. The post office was all demolished then, and several
later attempts to get stamps resulted in my finally getting some (on my sixth
trip) to visit the literally "hole in the wall" postal office of the
tiny village of Kozurevsk, population 300, a glimpse back a century in time
in central northern Kamchatka.
I had to cannibalize the stationery, envelopes and post cards I had scavenged along the way of all the trips of this year to use the "down time" of weather waits and periods of prolonged observation while clinging to mountainslopes as a "participant/observer" of the natural history around me. But, I did use this time and direct description to produce as complete a narrative captured in a series of six "Serial Letters" now posted securely from the reconstructed Petropavlosk Main Post Office. Not so my Email Transmission from the Internet Café. On pushing "Send" after asking the local computer gurus each time to interpret the Russian script on the screen in the Cyrillic alphabet, and repeatedly asking them how to "Save" the document I had just produced before sending it, should any glitch occur that might not have it sent, I was assured to simply push the button, since "nothing can go wrong!" Of course, the entire document went "Poof" and neither I nor any of them could find a trace of it to be retrieved or saved. So, all my effort at getting a report to you on this remarkable trip before my return from Petropavlosk has been futile.
I will try again by hooking my own lap top to an electric line in the Hotel Petropavlosk, and reluctantly repeat some of my report, which I will then try to attach to the outline of the chapters of the daily events-since it truly has been a "once in a lifetime" experience-even for me-even though I have been exactly her in Kamchatka brown bear hunting only 25 months ago. So, here is a brief summary, with a much fuller and worthwhile description of the unique ecology of the area written with a ballpoint pen and sent via post in Serial Letters to arrive some weeks away.
RETURNING FROM KAMCHATKA---
WITH A RAM AND A RUG!
Starting with the "BOTTOM LINE" that many consider the ultimate measure of success of a hunting trip "Did you catch anything?"---Yes, I succeeded on both trophies I had set out to pursue. In one instance, I have a superb trophy in the first case, and in the second a rather typical representative specimen, but in each case, I had a superb experience in a fair chase hunt in rugged wilderness.
It was not easy!
Getting here was more than half the effort if not the most fun part!
GETTING HERE
It is a long way to Anchorage, but it is there where things start getting interesting. I stayed at the Millennium Hotel Anchorage (last September's barely returning from Kazakhstan to New York for the "George Award" took place in the Millennium Manhattan- luxury hotel there and here, and to follow) and I will be this September in The Millennium Boston--the kind of luxurious extravagance I usually would not choose for myself. At the baggage claim at ANC I met by pre-arrangement Alan Magee, an experienced hunter who is well matched with me in at least the ethical fair chase methods of big game hunting. As I had declined to shoot a big bear from a snow machine 15 months ago in Kamchatka on my first visit, he had gone to Africa four times in pursuit of a lion, but declined to shoot them over bait, preferring to track them, and had declined to shoot a big maral in Mongolia when they had driven up to it.
This hunt is billed by George Sevich as "Only for the Hard Core Hunter, interested in Fair Chase Pursuit." There is no horseback help, no aerial spotting from planes or choppers, and the only way we could get into this rugged wilderness for the "Spot and Stalk" hunts was to charter a big Russian helicopter to drop us off in a base camp we had to carry with us and set up on the mountain.
We flew Magadan Air--a newer privatized piece of the Russian Mafioso's that can extort monopoly prices out of the few folk who are trying to get to Kamchatka at this time of year, commercial fishermen, or sport hunters. The US F& W officers licked their lips in ANC when they saw us, telling us we would need rifle certificates (to be sure we had it when we left and did not pick it up in Russia on return) and would need inspection and import permits for each species. We would also need to pay a specials $85 additional fee for them to come to meet the plane if it arrived outside normal business hours, and then fees for each specimen. There will then be a charge for the sheep since it will need to be "dipped" in some from of caustic to prevent the spread of any possibility of the world-wide hysteria over "hoof and mouth disease threat"--not that there is even a remote possibility that these remote living sheep on their volcanic mountains would have encountered any contact with the carriers of this disease of cattle. That will take several months and probably damage the cape, before it is sent on to a registered taxidermist. I had hoped to have the possibility of a sheep trophy sent toward Marcus Zimmerman for the kind of taxidermy he had done on my Dall ram--"Wild Sheep Are Our Passion."
Then, for added fun, Magadan Air announced we needed to pay them an additional $134 as a special fee for firearms. This is in addition to an exorbitant air fare that made this six hour flight across the Bering Sea cost four times the cross country flights, each of which were as long, Washington to San Francisco, and SFO to ANC. Oh, well, they have a captive audience. And what a group--a bunch of fifty years olds somewhat portly, and all looking very successful despite none of them carrying brief cases or wearing ties. In fact, all were wearing the finest of Cabela's catalogs, loaded with layers of camouflage and carrying hand made split bamboo fly rods in carry-on cases. I am rather sure that even Magadan Air would not appreciate my carrying on my principle piece of equipment for my sport of this trip--the BAR .300 Win Mag--a caliber each of us carried, both hunters, and, as we later discovered, the jaegers as well.