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| Harding Lake Cabin at -50 Degrees |
Bet the title of this story had you thinking of some raucous, sinful Thanksgiving Day debauchery didn't it? Well, sorry to disappoint; this is a short story about "eating off of the land" in Interior Alaska and sharing it with our young children, lessons that our pioneer fore bearers might have enjoyed many Thanksgiving Days ago.
Most 6985th crewmembers made good use of breaks and long week-ends by harvesting Alaska's abundant wildlife resources for sport. It was common to go fishing for Northern Pike and Sheefish on the Tolovana River outside of the Native village of Minto. Flailing the rivers or Copper River dip netting for migrating salmon were both high on the list of favorite fishing experiences. So, too, was casting and ice fishing for Rainbow Trout, Arctic Grayling, and Lake Trout. Seasonal moose or Dall Sheep hunting and trips to hunt Sourdough and Nelchina herds of Barren Ground Caribou were popular with the big-game hunting crowd. Another of the very popular hunting pastimes was small game hunting with small caliber rifles; harvesting Varying Hare, Red Squirrels, Ruffed Grouse, and Willow Ptarmigan with .22 caliber rifles comes immediately to mind. As a consequence of all this outdoor activity, most of us had freezers that were well stocked with wild game, and we all lived "high on the hog," as they say.
One fall in the late 1970s, Hank Hankerson and I decided that we would gather their young families around the next Thanksgiving Day table and serve them only foods harvested from the wild. Both of them had frozen meat, fish, and berries that would serve this purpose well. They were advance-planning, and all of this sounded very noble and enjoyable. The plan was to spend the day and evening eating and playing games at Harry's little off-grid cabin near Harding Lake. A main focus of this intended feast was to show the wives and children how the old sourdough families would have done it. It was hoped that they would all learn a good lesson about appreciating wild game and how much more demanding its harvest was than simply "picking a few thing up" at the base commissary.
Hank and Harry proposed and accepted the idea to each other, and then they promptly forgot it. Both of them belatedly remembered what they had intended to do when that Thanksgiving rolled around; consequently, they had nothing thawed out to prepare. To make it worse, they had invited the Sadowski family to join them. (Butch Sadowski also had a cabin along the Harding Lake access road.) What to do? Skip the plan and go out to eat? Not on your life! Harry decided to go with the plan with the added twist that they would hunt for their supper that very day. A risky proposition but one that would even more firmly convey the lessons they wanted their children to learn.
The Hankerson, Sadowski, and Swanson families gathered at the Harding cabin early that holiday morning, all 12 of them crowded into 400 square feet, and hoped that all would celebrate with more than the Ramen soups and C-Rations Harry kept out there for emergency use. The men agreed to take the children on a small game hunt and the women agreed to stay in the warm cabin with the little ones and complain about the idiocy of their husbands. It was cold, as it always is in interior Alaska in November, but the children were fired up, and the men were essentially trapped into turning this learning lesson into something positive.
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The bounty of small game in that area, at that time, did not let our noble planners fail. Four Red Squirrels, one Varying Hare, and One Ruffed Grouse were harvested before late afternoon. The children all enjoyed learning about wild game and hunting, and they enjoyed each other's company. The boys particularly relished the gutting of the animals, and the girls squealed and cringed at it. The women were happy that they had something to eat, even if it was all fried, and didn't have to prepare it themselves. Harry was relieved that he had "lucked out" with the harvest, but he tongue-in-cheek assured everyone that it was just his nature to be a skilled and successful hunter providing for his family. The memory lives on, even these 40 plus years later.
RIP Cat Hankerson and Butch Sadowski.