2008 Soap Box Archives

No TV, no problem

To try to describe my trip to Alaska in a couple of hundred words is like trying to pack ten pounds of sand in a five-pound bag. The size and scope of the place, the unique things you get to do and see is way beyond unique.

We took a train ride from Anchorage to Denali National Park where we saw caribou, grizzly bear, moose and all kind of wildlife including a peregrine falcon and the biggest porcupine I ever saw.

After spending the night at a lodge in the back country we took the train back to Anchorage and drove to Sterling where the first day we took a small plane to a place they called bear camp.

After an exciting landing on the beach, we started doing what we came for, viewing grizzly bears. It's totally different from seeing a bear in a zoo. Here you literally go into their world and observe them as they go about their daily business, fishing for salmon and roaming around the countryside.

You realize the seriousness of what you're doing when you notice that the guide is carrying a gun. We spent the night in a tent surrounded by an electric fence which I don't think would have deterred an angry grizzly bear for five seconds.

We watched the bears fishing in the stream from a viewing platform and came face-to-face with one while we were walking on the beach near the camp. Despite being about thirty-five-yards away from a wild animal, we never felt threatened. Our guides told us to stand in place and to not run. In a bear's mind, food runs. The bear got our scent and decided to walk around, giving us a very wide berth.

The plane landed on the beach again and we went back to Sterling to a place called Great Alaska Adventures for some world-class fishing. The first day was for trout in the Kenai River where I landed a fourteen-pound rainbow trout and I must admit that I didn't even know rainbow trout got that big.

My favorite fishing guide in the whole world, Jeremy Eubanks, works here and he can flat put you onto some fish. The next two days we fished for silver and pink salmon and let me tell you something, fifteen-pound silver salmon in open water can give you one merry old ride.

There's no TV at the lodge and I'll have to say I haven't missed it a bit. I don't know what's going on in the world, but I do know there's a lot of big salmon out there waiting to give me a tussle.

Okay, I know I sound like a chamber of commerce ad for our fiftieth state and I'll go on and admit it, I'm in love with Alaska.

Anybody who loves to fish should take at least one trip to Alaska. There's no place like it.

Well, I guess I'll end this. Next week we'll be back to the lower forty-eight and find out what's been happening while we were gone.

But in the meantime, I've got two more days of fabulous fishing left. It's tough work, but somebody's got to do it.

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

 

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