# Bear and human skull with broken gun..



## fogtender

This photo was taken in the early sixty's on Kodiak Island. The man holding the gun is/was suppose to be a very well known guide of the day, I had been told his name once, but forgot it. The two skulls and the broken rifle pretty much tell a story that is hard to describe and be able to give the creepy feeling that one gets when you look at it closely.

When I travel here in Alaska by snow machine, four wheeler or in the Airplane, I always carry a .44 Mag. pistol. Not that I have the faith in it that I would have with my 12 Ga. shotgun with slugs or my .300 Mag rifle, but I can put a loud shot off and hopefully startle a bear into running off. If not I can make him have a very bad day with the other five shots...


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## Snowcat Operations

When we head to Alaska for the next part of our project we will be installing sites every 40 square miles.  I am wondering if they are still going to be of belief that we should not be armed?  lol.  Either way I know all of us "smarter" field guys will be armed!  .44 mag revolvers and most likely .50 wild west Alaskan in the Marlin 1895 package.  Either >50 or the 457 W.W. Alaskan.


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## fogtender

Snowcat Operations said:


> When we head to Alaska for the next part of our project we will be installing sites every 40 square miles. I am wondering if they are still going to be of belief that we should not be armed? lol. Either way I know all of us "smarter" field guys will be armed! .44 mag revolvers and most likely .50 wild west Alaskan in the Marlin 1895 package. Either >50 or the 457 W.W. Alaskan.


 
They were doing some sismic work in the Kenai area a few years back. They woke a Brown Bear and it killed one of the workers before they even knew what was happening.

I would at least carry a can of the "Bear Spray" it is pepper spray, not a real fan of it, but it does work...most of the time.

Otherwise don't be the slowest guy in the group, if you are, carry a stick and smack the faster guys in the knee as they run by... You only have to outrun him...

What kind of sites are you setting up?


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## Snowcat Operations

Well right now I know I can outrun Bob Pierce!

Check this link out.  http://www.forumsforums.com/3_9/showthread.php?t=9259&highlight=wild+west+Alaskan


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## Bobcat

Snowcat Operations said:


> Well right now I know I can outrun Bob Pierce!
> <snip>



You'd be wrong. Like I said to you before, I'd endure the pain while I needed to, and suffer later.
Sore back or not, I'm still _lighter_, taller, and faster than you!


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## fogtender

bobpierce said:


> You'd be wrong. Like I said to you before, I'd endure the pain while I needed to, and suffer later.
> Sore back or not, I'm still _lighter_, taller, and faster than you!


 
Not if he takes out your knee cap as you run by....


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## Bobcat

That is not beyond him. He does bear some resemblance to Tonya Harding.


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## fogtender

bobpierce said:


> That is not beyond him.


 
That dog!!! 

Then I would suggest you wear some knee pads when you are around him in Hazardous situations...or whenever you are around him! 

Don't pay any attention to the people around you laughing, they are totally clueless and we won't tell them anything... just make sure the knee pads are colored to match your outfit for the day.... here are some snazzy options...






These are your basic design....






These offer better protection and...








These offer the Max protection against damaged Knee caps... with lots of duct tape used I might add.

There, you should be fully versed in the ways of the wilderness and the cowards that you may walk with....


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## Bulldog1401

bobpierce said:


> That is not beyond him. He does bear some resemblance to Tonya Harding.



Oh sure..Catch the guy ice skating in a skirt one time and he is branded for life...


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## fogtender

Bulldog1401 said:


> Oh sure..Catch the guy ice skating in a skirt one time and he is branded for life...


 
Wow, those guys sure have some history...


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## Bobcat

fogtender said:


> That dog!!!
> 
> Then I would suggest you wear some knee pads when you are around him in Hazardous situations...or whenever you are around him!
> 
> Don't pay any attention to the people around you laughing, they are totally clueless and we won't tell them anything... just make sure the knee pads are colored to match your outfit for the day.... here are some snazzy options...
> <snip>



Hey, thanks for offering up some of your gear, but I think I'll tough it out.


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## fogtender

bobpierce said:


> Hey, thanks for offering up some of your gear, but I think I'll tough it out.


 
Not a problem, we have plenty of it for the Newbies that come up here...  You get use to them...


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## Bobcat

I'm a Fort Yuck hug-n-slug vet; I know the score.


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## fogtender

bobpierce said:


> I'm a Fort Yuck hug-n-slug vet; I know the score.


 
So what are you going to be doing out in the wood every 40 square miles that will take you a long time to complete...


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## Bobcat

Seismic of course. Details TBD. Will be shallow vault, shallow borehole, or surface pad, in order of preference. Hoping for realtime signal, store and forward, or SoH satcom with local long term storage, OR local long term storage, in order of preference. 2yr record duration followed by removal. First ones will be coming out before the last ones go in.


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## fogtender

bobpierce said:


> Seismic of course. Details TBD. Will be shallow vault, shallow borehole, or surface pad, in order of preference. Hoping for realtime signal, store and forward, or SoH satcom with local long term storage, OR local long term storage, in order of preference. 2yr record duration followed by removal. First ones will be coming out before the last ones go in.


 
Well that is going to be quite the task.  When you concider there are some seven million acres or so...  that is about 175,000 inserts for a 40 acre track...

Need a guide...


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## Bobcat

40 Miles, not acres! I think it comes to more like 200-225 sites, don't remember.


I'll bet you know everything south of Squarbanks pretty well, how about north?


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## RedRocker

Note to self, use alias when traveling to Alaska.


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## fogtender

bobpierce said:


> 40 Miles, not acres! I think it comes to more like 200-225 sites, don't remember.
> 
> 
> I'll bet you know everything south of Squarbanks pretty well, how about north?


 

Well been a pilot up here for about thirty+ years, grew up here (over 50+ years, modest about age), spent five years in the Coast Guard stationed here on ships and such, started worked riverboats on Alaska's Western Rivers at 16... I think I have a pretty good idea of where a lot of stuff it at...  Been to just about every town from Attu out in the Aleutians to Point Barrow up North to the Southeast Panhandle... Which by the way, is a State that covers almost the Width of the Lower 48 States and is as tall as Texas to Minnasota...

Was that bragging?....


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## XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Foggy, keep an eye out for a couple of geeky looking guys with lots of firearms, computer doo-dads, and funny looking snow-cats.  I suspect they'll only need batteries if they are stranded.


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## RedRocker

fogtender said:


> Well been a pilot up here for about thirty+ years, grew up here (over 50+ years, modest about age), spent five years in the Coast Guard stationed here on ships and such, started worked riverboats on Alaska's Western Rivers at 16... I think I have a pretty good idea of where a lot of stuff it at...  Been to just about every town from Attu out in the Aleutians to Point Barrow up North to the Southeast Panhandle... Which by the way, is a State that covers almost the Width of the Lower 48 States and is as tall as Texas to Minnasota...
> 
> Was that bragging?....



Ever meet this guy? 
http://www.fepco.com/


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## fogtender

RedRocker said:


> Ever meet this guy?
> http://www.fepco.com/


 

I met him a couple of times at Talkeetna and at then at Lake Hood when I was refueling a bunch of years ago, didn't know what he did at the time until about the third meeting.  Flew over his base of operations a couple of times and did a "Waggle".  Didn't know about the book until a few years ago.  Read the online version, then bought the book.  Lots of good flying stuff in there.


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## fogtender

PBinWA said:


> Foggy, keep an eye out for a couple of geeky looking guys with lots of firearms, computer doo-dads, and funny looking snow-cats. I suspect they'll only need batteries if they are stranded.


 

I would suspect that they will be doing more in Helo's than Snowcats...

If they plan on being done in this Decade....or two....

There is a lot of "Nowhere" in between each 40 Square Miles...


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## fogtender

bobpierce said:


> 40 Miles, not acres! I think it comes to more like 200-225 sites, don't remember.
> 
> 
> I'll bet you know everything south of Squarbanks pretty well, how about north?


 
Bob,

I either assume that you are only doing a small part of Alaska with the sites, if you only figure 225 sites at best.

There is about 586,412 square miles up here divided by 40 is about 14,660.3 sites that you would have to do to cover the place...

For those that have any interest, here is a data sheet on the State from the State's Office of Economic Development...



*Land area: *With 586,412 square miles, or about 365,000,000 acres, Alaska is the largest state in the union and; one-fifth the size of the lower 48 states. 
*Area per person:* Approximately .91 square mile per person.
*Diameter:* East to west, 2,400 miles; north to south, 1,420 miles.
*Coastline:* 6,640 miles, point to point; as measured on the most detailed maps available, including islands, Alaska has 33,904 miles of shoreline. Estimated tidal shoreline, including islands, inlets and shoreline to head of tidewater, is 47,300 miles. 
*Adjacent salt water:* North Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, Arctic Ocean. 
*Alaska-Canada border: *1,538 miles long; length of boundary between the Arctic Ocean and Mount St. Elias, 647 miles; Southeast border with British Columbia and Yukon Territory, 710 miles; water boundary, 181 miles.
*Geographic center:* 63° 50' north latitude, 152° west longitude, about 60 miles northwest of Mount McKinley.
*Northernmost point:* Point Barrow, 71° 23' 25" north latitude, 156° 28' 30", west longitude.
*Southernmost point:* Tip of Amatignak Island, Aleutian Chain, 51° 15' 44" north latitude, 179° 06' 31" west longitude. 
*Easternmost and westernmost points: *The easternmost and westernmost points depend on whether you look at it from the global geographic perspective considering the longitudinal meridians, or just west=left, east=right. 
The 180th meridian, (halfway around the world from the Prime Meridian at Greenwich, England) is the global dividing line between all eastern and western longitudes and happens to pass through Alaska's Aleutian Island chain. That means, when taking the global geographic perspective, Alaska has both the easternmost and westernmost spots in the entire country! The piece of land with the most westerly longitude is Amatignak Island at 179° 06' 31" west, just shy of the 180th meridian. Only 70 miles away, in a westerly direction but on the other side of the meridian, is Pochnoi Point on Semisopochnoi Island, with the most easterly longitude of 179° 46' east. 
The chain continues in a westerly direction for approximately another 300 miles to Cape Wrangell on Attu Island, which is the farthest piece of land that one can travel to in a westerly direction in the state. If one is facing north and not considering the global longitudinal lines, this would be considered the farthest western point in the state. Looking to the right, to the east, and using the same criteria of not considering the global longitudinal lines, the farthest eastern point in the state is near Camp Point in southeastern Alaska. 
*Tallest mountain:* Mount McKinley, at 20,320 feet, is the tallest mountain in North America. Alaska has 39 mountain ranges containing 17 of the 20 highest peaks in the United States.
*Largest natural freshwater lake:* Iliamna, with 1,150 square miles. Alaska has 94 lakes with
surface areas of more than 10 square miles among Alaska's more than 3 million lakes.
*Longest river: *Yukon, with 1,875 miles in Alaska and 2,298 total. There are more than 3,000 rivers in the state. The Yukon River ranks third in length of U.S. rivers, behind the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
*Largest island:* Kodiak, in the Gulf of Alaska, with 3,588 square miles. There are 1,800 named islands in the state, 1,000 of which are located in Southeast Alaska.
*Largest glacier: *Bering Glacier complex, with 2,250 square miles, includes the Bagley Icefield. Ice fields cover about 5 percent of the state, or 29,000 square miles.
*Largest city in population:* Anchorage, population 250,006 (1994 estimate).
*Largest city in area:* Sitka, with 4,710 square miles, 1,816 square miles of which are water. Juneau is second, with 3,108 square miles, part of which is icefield.
_Source: The Alaska Almanac, 27th Edition_


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## Bobcat

I am pretty sure we are both wrong, but you are wrong*er*! Our array in the lower 48 will have been comprised of about 2,500 station by the time we finish. So, if AK is 1/5 that size, it already brings us down to 500 stations.


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## Snowcat Operations

Alaska is 50% the land mass of the continental United States.  That Half the land we call the lower 48!  In theory that would be about 1250 stations.  BUT talk is they will extending the distance between the sites to 50 or 60 miles.  60 miles apart is just to far from what I am told so most likely 50 miles will be the compromise.  I am guessing that less than 10% can be reached by land based vehicles while the rest will be reached with helicopters and planes.  There sure is going to be some steady work for a few Bush Pilots!

Actually if you were to lay a map of Alaska over a map of the lower 48 (same scale of course) it would cover half of the country.  Its not 50% the land mass of the US.  My mistake.  BUT either way its HUGE and will be harder to complete than anything we have done or will do in the Lower 48 without question. The only road systems really are located on the West coastal region of the State.  Yes there are a few other roads but NOTHING like here in the main part of the country.


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## Bobcat

There are other things that come into play, like peninsulas and islands. Both bad places for these measurements, so those areas must be subtracted from the equation.


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## Snowcat Operations

Either way it will be at least 800 stations give or take a 100.  Coastal regions and rivers will be taken out of the equation.  Should be interesting.


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## Bobcat

Anyway, back to skull and bones...


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## California

Nationwide seismic survey, for what? Petroleum exploration? 

Are the taxpayers paying the cost?


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## Bobcat

Nope. Much deeper (depth-wise) than oil exploration would require.

http://www.earthscope.org/observatories/usarray

Yup. You're paying for it via a National Science Foundation grant.


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## California

bobpierce said:


> http://www.earthscope.org/observatories/usarray



Interesting!


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## fogtender

bobpierce said:


> Nope. Much deeper (depth-wise) than oil exploration would require.
> 
> http://www.earthscope.org/observatories/usarray
> 
> Yup. You're paying for it via a National Science Foundation grant.


 

I have a sneaking suspicion that someone is using this for a ploy to look for snowcats in the wilderness.....


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## Bobcat

A happy coincidence.


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## Snowcat Operations

NO......NOT BOB!


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