Sick Camp

by Jaret Owens

In the fall of 1975 I was guiding at Rainy Pass Lodge in the interior of Alaska. I just came back to the Lodge after being on a 10 day sheep hunt in which I had filled out my hunter with a nice ram. Here we are with hunters from all over the world, anxious to go hunting, an opportunity of a lifetime. Unfortunately, someone came to the Lodge that had the flu. Chain reaction in motion! The next day another hunter came down with the flu as well as a guide. Everyone was freaking out. So, in an attempt to not catch the bug, with hunting opportunities of a lifetime within their reach, the guides had a serious obligation to fulfill. Somehow, they decided to fly the sick guides and hunters to the closest camp, which was called ½ way camp, hoping to avoid contaminating anyone further. Before I knew it, I also came down with the flu. Mike Brannon made several trips with the 180 on floats and flew us all out to what they called Sick Camp. It was miserable with everyone being sick. Everyone together puking and hacking. All I can say is that IT SUCKED!

We were all camped out in a wall tent. The second morning there was a fresh skiff of snow on the mountains, and it was drop dead beautiful but I felt like crap! But when you live to hunt you still have that drive. I asked my hunter from Italy if he wanted to just go out a short distance from camp at a vantage point and glass. He nodded yes, and we both slowly walked to the closest vantage point from camp and started glassing. We glassed for about 10 minutes, and I couldn’t believe it. Half a mile out, on the other side of the Happy River in the rolling hills, that were loaded with blueberries, was a big grizzly. His big silver tip hump was beautiful with the soft sunlight shining on him. We suddenly forgot about being sick and found an unforeseen energy. Off we went!

It was later in the season, and we were able to cross the Happy River in our Lacrosse ankle fit hip boots. I checked the wind so that we could stay down wind and headed where I thought the bear was last located. When the bears are feeding on blueberries, they are so erratic that they have no direction. All they do is follow the berries and you have no idea where they are going. We quietly and carefully walked over a tiny little hill and just below me I could see the back of the bear with his head down eating berries only 10 yards away. The hunter was looking the other direction at that moment. I gently tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. The big bear heard us and stood up on his hind feet looking right at us. The Italian hunter shot him right through the heart and the bullet came out breaking the spine. That was a perfect shot. I had my 375 aimed on him and he never got up. WHAT A RUSH! I think this bear was just the medicine we needed to cure our flu. I skinned the big bear out and we were stoked as we crossed back over the Happy River to go back to Sick Camp.