Island adventure~

[snow1]

When my friend sent me an email stating his island vacation adventure ,silly me thinking cozumel,jamaica etc as my friend lives in AK. long cold winter's time to go some place warm...or so I thought.

instead he set out with a local native friend to close in on his "super 10" big game kills,this trip was "buffalo/musk ox"

small excerp from his email~

Luckily, I have a close friend in Bethel AK that has been planning on doing this hunt with me for a few years and we were able to finally work it out this year. I flew to Bethel the first Monday of 2022 after work. I packed my Arctic Oven tent and a good down sleeping bag and we set up the tent in the Game and Fish parking lot for two nights of waiting in line for the tag. My good buddy is an outfitter in western AK so he supplied us with all the other quality camping gear we needed. The temps for the trip averaged about -10 to -15 and wind was pretty consistent blowing around 20 mph. With the Mr. Buddy on low, the inside of the tent averaged about 40-50 degrees. If you need to be sold on an Artic Oven tent, get ahold of me. Between me and my friend we own 3 and I can’t praise them enough. They are in their own category when it comes to camping in the cold!
We made it back to town for some rest and food and by 1pm the next day we were on a plane back to Bethel. Our two week trip was somehow pulled off in about 24 hours. Because such small aircraft are used for passengers, typically people’s meat and hide remain on the island for weeks until a cargo plane is flown in. To sweeten the pot even more for us, a CASA C212 was taking advantage of the weather window and flew in for a load of commercial reindeer meat the same time we were leaving. We were able to sneak our meat and hides onto the plane and it arrived back in Bethel the same time as we did.

By Monday, I had all the meat cut up and in my freezer at home and started on combing the hide for the qiviut. The qiviut that underlays the guard hairs of a musk ox is 8x warmer than wool and 30% softer than cashmere. One of finest fabrics in the world. It took me about 10 hours to comb it all out of the hide – if I decide to sell all the qiviut I got from the animal, that task will pay about $350/hour. The remainder of the hide is soaking for hair removal and will be turned into buck skin clothing.

this ox hair " qiviut" I never herd of.interesting,but then never had a urge to hunt musk ox,he tells me ox meat is his new fav,mine was/is dahl sheep but it might change when I try his ox meat.

[dutchboy]

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[glenn57]

M

[LPS]

X

[snow1]

hmmm,what's with these replies?

[LPS]

Originally your post just had one letter.  Maybe an M or something like that.  So we just continued in the direction of the conversation.  LOL  Then later your story appeared.  We wondered too what is up with this.  LOL

[roony]

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[snow1]

Originally your post just had one letter.  Maybe an M or something like that.  So we just continued in the direction of the conversation.  LOL  Then later your story appeared.  We wondered too what is up with this.  LOL

Oh you guyz....lol

[Cooperman]

U

[snow1]

All the years I worked/lived in AK it always amazed me how these folks live life in these small tundra villages.

Google this town Bethel...good grief to get an idea,scroll thru the pics.

[LPS]

There was that show on about the family that ran an airplane business that was in Bethel I think.  Was a good show too. 

[snow1]

Incase anyone is curious what critters are included in the super 10 category,here ya go.

The Super Ten is one animal from each category:
Deer
Moose
Bear
Sheep
Mtn Lion
Caribou
Bison/Musk Ox
Mtn Goat
Elk

they tell me it's about $200k to complete today

These ox roast could pass for beef rib roasts,they look fantastic.

[Gunner55]

There was that show on about the family that ran an airplane business that was in Bethel I think.  Was a good show too. 

If it was this 1, I watched it a lot too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Wild_Alaska

[LPS]

Ya that was it Gunner.  Fun show!