LeNora Conkle
With The Drifting Leaves Joleena Gordon's Journal as told to LeNora Conkle ISBN: 0-9720604-3-X 224 pages, soft cover, b/w photos, 6" x 9" $14.95 |
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Synopsis
This is a true-to-life story of a girl who grew up in a small farming community during the Depression before World War II. She was bent on escaping a life of drudgery, and hankered for a taste of adventure in the great, wide world "beyond the horizon." She found plenty of adventure in Alaska. She flew with the Alaska bush pilots of old, built from scratch a big game hunting business in the Wrangell mountain wilderness of Alaska with her pilot-guide husband. She catered to hunters from around the world who journeyed to the world-class hunting camps of Alaska in the 1940s through the 1970s. Then, in another chapter of life, she experienced the good life of urban conveniences in the Lower 48 and traveled throughout Europe and other lands. But she always returned to Alaska, to her favorite Meadowlark Lake where the drifting leaves brought solace, peace, and complete contentment in her later years.
LeNora Conkle
Now in her 90s, LeNora Conkle is still bright, active, and energetic. Author of four other books portraying the wilds of Alaska over six decades of residency, she now turns her pen to a narrative of Joleena Gordon in a life which mimics many of her own adventures in Alaska and the great, wonderful world beyond. Nowadays, there are always old friends dropping in to visit and swap stories. LeNora says, “You only get old when you sit around and do nothing!”
Table of Contents
| FORWARD INTRODUCTION Dust On The Wind Ashes Blowing In The Wind December 7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor And San Diego Far Away Alaska – Where Dreams Come True Trails Across The Tundra Melody Lake – Hunting and Fishing Stony Creek Spike Camp Tragedy At Melody Lake Joleena Love And Romance In The Mountains A Filly And A Kitten A Visit To South Carolina Ross and Julie Gypsies Travel Abroad The Last Goodbye A Gift Of Love and Remembrance A Home On Meadowlark Lake As The Years Drift By Like The Drifting Leaves On Waters That Run To The Seas |
Excerpts From
With The Drifting Leaves
MELODY LAKE – HUNTING & FISHING
One hunting season, Joleena was alone in base camp on Melody Lake and heard a bull moose in the trees across the lake, snorting and breaking branches while rubbing his antlers on a dead tree trunk. She thought it might be fun to try calling it like she had heard the Indian guides talking about, and one Indian guide in particular who was an expert at calling them in close. She got results – far more than she expected. She was grunting and rubbing a dry stick against a tree trunk like she had heard guides telling about. She was standing in front of the canvas cook tent when the bull came charging out of the trees onto the lakeshore. He was shaking his sixty-inch spread antlers, and came splashing across the shallow, narrow bay.
The tent didn't look like a very safe place from that mad animal, so she went up the tree behind the tent. Miles had trimmed the lower branches and left trimmed limbs allowing easy access to higher ground in the event a visiting grizzly had total access to the cook tent, while the smart cook sat in the tree waiting and watching. She hadn't expected a bull moose would be the cause of this first use of the handy refuge. Seeing no cow moose to greet him on the shore, he headed for the airplane tethered in the sheltered bay close by. "Oh, oh, this will be serious if he tears up the Super Cub. I'll be in big trouble." She was scolding herself for doing a foolish thing as she descended to the ground, then into the tent for the 30.06 rifle. Three shots in rapid succession above the moose and the Cub and the trees bordering the shore, sent the bull into the trees on a horse trail and out of sight.
Joleena was so happy to see that moose on its way seeking a cow that was eager for romance, that she hadn't thought about three shots in succession being a distress signal. Two guides, a horse wrangler and two nonresident hunters were returning from a hunt and had the meat and antlers from the two moose they had collected on the pack horses. They did not appreciate meeting a live bull moose coming down the same trail and-on-the-fight. All six horses were not happy either, trying to shuck riders and packs and leave the two-legged ones to handle the moose while they galloped off to a safer area.
Miles [Joleena's bush pilot husband and big game guide], and the hunter he was out with, had also heard the three shots and arrived back in camp soon after the others had. They had hiked out in the morning and climbed a lookout hill where they could glass surrounding areas and a valley noted for moose. They had eaten their lunch and were enjoying the time while waiting for late afternoon, when a bull moose might decide to travel where they could locate him. Hearing three shots in rapid succession, they forgot their mission and practically ran all the way back to camp to rescue the cook from a grizzly bear.
The guide, Clark, returned to camp with his hunting party and told Joleena all the problems they had had by a bull moose in the rut that came snorting on the trail not far from camp when they were returning from their hunt. She apologized and said she hadn't expected her amateurish calling to get results. Especially the problem it created for Clark to keep the bull from attacking the horses with the moose antlers on his pack, plus having to repack the horse, which had scattered his pack. They were lucky in getting rid of the moose without having to shoot it. Miles wanted to know how they managed to chase the bull away without it charging either of the horses carrying the dead bull moose.
"I ran a ways out in the timber off the trail, climbed a tree and started grunting and rubbing dry sticks against the limbs, and when that bull came charging past looking for another bull to fight, I just climbed back down and ran back to the horses. We got back to camp in record time. I didn't know it was so easy to call a bull. I never had any luck calling one before!" Clark answered, turned and winked at Joleena.
She confessed to Miles and he just shook his head, looked at her and frowned. She got the message. He wasn't happy about aborting he hunt with his client when finding everything under control in camp. His client wanted to know why one of them hadn't kept the moose in camp knowing he was hunting with this outfitter for a sixty-incher, or better, and that one would surely have filled the order.
"No problem," Miles said. "We'll take Joleena with us and she can call up a bigger one if we don't get one tomorrow."
After her trial and error in calling up a bull moose, she decided best to stick with chasing bears out of hunting camps or at their home on Melody Lake. She was accumulating a few experiences with bears, black bears and grizzly bears, and all had turned out in her favor. Her closest call had been one summer walking along a trail, which skirted the lake, swinging her berry bucket, looking for a blueberry patch where they were thick on the hillside. She came face to face with Mama-Grizz. One cub was close behind mama and the other one was behind Joleena on the trail. A very dangerous situation. In the berry patches, she always carried the 30.06 rifle with five shells in the magazine for protection only. She did what she had heard so many of the old-timers say they did, stand perfectly still but ready to shoot if she had to. It was too late to turn and run anyhow, that would have been her undoing, as she well knew. She didn't want to shoot mama; her cubs would never make it on their own. This mama and her two little cubs had been seen around the lake all summer and she had never bothered any of their possessions. Mama had stopped; one front foot raised and sniffing the air to get the scent, then snorted loudly a couple of times. Joleena heard the bushes rustle behind and then alongside of her, as the cub raced back to mama. Then all three of the bears turned and ambled back on the trail the way they had been coming. Joleena let her breath out, and forgetting about berry picking for that day, went home to get over the shakes and be thankful she hadn't been re-arranged in various parts of her anatomy.
After several years in the big game hunting business, Miles had a variety of bear stories to tell and he was a gifted storyteller. He had a knack for making the hair raise on the back of a listener's neck with his vivid descriptions of bear encounters – some of which were with grizzly bears, and some were with noted big Alaska brown bears, which inhabit the coastal regions. He had some experiences with those when he took clients to the coast on October hunts.
Joleena had been in camps many times when Miles and his client returned to tell the experience of the day, and she could re-tell them almost word for word, but without the drama. Being the cook in a hunting camp and hearing stories so soon after they happened, before they were embellished or partly forgotten, had its rewards.
The two humorous experiences with grizzly bears were the ones she enjoyed hearing Miles tell with a sense of humor making himself and his client look ridiculous.
"I had this client, a photographer by the name of Ben, wanting wildlife pictures for a magazine article he was working on. I had parked my Super Cub on a small lake and we had hiked up a trail to get movies of a bull moose with impressive antlers. On returning to within sight of the Cub, a grizzly was walking near the tail section and sniffing around it. 'Let's both yell and wave our arms and maybe it will run.' I was thinking of the predicament we'd be in if it tore up the airplane." Miles said.
"Ben fiddled with his camera equipment and suggested we get closer so he could get better pictures. 'No way. But if you want to get closer, toss him your last sandwich and entice him out of line of fire so I can shoot without hitting the airplane, I'll be back here to cover you.' I told him."
"When we yelled, the bear made a false charge in our direction, growled menacingly, and then went back sniffing around the Super Cub. I was more concerned about the bear damaging our only means of transportation than I was getting pictures of it. Ben dropped his camera and shimmied up a nearby tree."
"'You throw him your sandwich. It's your airplane!' Ben called, completely forgetting his interest in this grizzly. He meant it, too, because he stayed up that tree until that grizzly decided he didn't know how to fly an airplane, and there wasn't anything worth eating in it or on it, so left. Ben had to leave the following day with movies of everything but grizzly bears. 'Gee, Ben. That was sure some good pictures we didn't get.' I kidded him."
"You should have handed me the camera and let me take a movie of you tossing that bear a sandwich, then the bear chasing you up the tree. That movie would have more than made up for all the hours we flew without seeing a bear. You could have sold it for more dollars than what this trip has cost you."
"Ben turned loose swear words with the finesse of a well-educated man, many of the words I had never heard used in this way.
Hunting and guiding for the Dall rams, that Alaska is noted for, especially in the Wrangell Mountains, was Miles' favorite hunt. Always a Fair-Chase guide, he appreciated his many clients who loved the hunt in the mountains as well as the trophy they collected. All big game outfitters are especially pleased when they have return clients who have had a successful hunt, and recommend their services to their friends.
Now Melody Lake Outfitters was getting repeat clients. The game was plentiful, and the prospective client could be assured of a successful hunt for the game he booked for.
Not an iron-clad guarantee for an animal, as that would depend on the client's ability to walk and/or climb and shoot accurately once his guide has maneuvered him in a position to do the shooting. It is an established rule; the guide shoots a wounded bear only if it is about to get away. No conscientious guide, or a client, wants to let a wounded animal get away someplace and die. The guide especially does not want to look for a wounded bear in thick willows, the alders or dense trees. Those things do happen, but no one ever got hurt that worked for Miles and Joleena in their hunting camps.
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