Just wanted to add a picture that didn't make it in, although it should have.   This is a picture of Jacob pulling in a Red Salmon, also known as a Sockeye Salmon.   He is using my fly rod to full in the fish.  He did a great job and is learning the importance of keeping the rod bent.   Not long after this picture was taken Jacob was fishing from the bank while I was in the river fishing.   He yelled at me saying "Dad Bear!!"   I turned around and there was a Grisly bear standing about 15 feet away from Jacob.  He did a great job and didn't get scared at all.  I of course scared the bear away and he left with no harm done.   I suspect he wanted to partake of hard work, but we wouldn't have anything to do with that.   For this very reason we fish with guns in Alaska.   Hopefully we will never have to use it.  We don't tempt fate though.   One of these days we will learn how to put a slide show on the blog so that more pictures can be seen.   

Caribou Hunt

This is the caribou that Jake spotted on our hunting trip to northern Alaska.  Our family and another family just got back from a trip to the top of Alaska.  It took us 17 hours to drive there.  It was a lot of fun.  We passed the Arctic Circle and the Yukon River.  We drove north of Fairbanks for about 450 miles, most of which was on dirt road.  We went in search of caribou that the guys could shoot with a bow and arrow.  The hunt up there is only open to the bow unless you hike 5 miles off of he road and then you can use a gun.  This proved to be a bit of a challenge since you have to be pretty close to get off a good shot with the bow.  Jeremiah and Cameron (our friend) spent 4 days stalking up on many caribou only to have the animals spook just when they were getting close.  Somewhat frustrating but they definitely learned a lot for the trip next year.   We saw 100's of caribou, some wild musk ox and a lot of other little critters.  The temperature up there was never above 40 degrees and mostly stayed in the 30's.  We woke up a couple of mornings to snow on the ground.  It was quite the adventure.  We stayed warm in our tents with little space heaters and some good sleeping bags.  The kids did awesome and want to go back.   They got a little bored on the long drive up and back but other than that we had a fabulous time.