There were three men in the tiny cluster of homes.  Contrary to my normal loner lifestyle I befriended all three.  The first I met was Red.  Red was older than my grandfather, so I'd not call us pals, but he was friendly and interesting.  I was drawn to him enough that I would put Red in the immediate friend category, though that would soon change.  The second man I met was the Dave who leased and operated Red's restaurant along with his wife Becky.  Like us, Dave was new to Alaska and one of the more interesting people I have met.  The third guy was John.  John owned and operated the nice lodge up on the hill.  John was a long time Alaskan, who like Red, had a well known name throughout the state.  John was an accomplished wildlife photographer, one of the best in the state.  John had a formal letter from President Ronald Reagan complimenting him on the three eagle photographs that hung in the White House.  I was with him once when he received a package from National Geographic that was a shooting assignment which included a block of film and a check.  When National Geographic pays a guy in advance for a photo assignment, that fellow has arrived as a wildlife photographer.

I was drawn to the three for different reasons and all of them gave me their full attention when they were with me.  Red wanted to use me, but I believe John and Dave genially liked me.  With three new friends and the entire state of Alaska to explore I had plenty to do.  The day after the incident with the wounded bear I went on a fishing/hiking trip with Jason, Dave's teenage son.  The Kenai River, which is one of the best known fishing rivers in the world was literally a stone's throw from our cabin, but Jason, wanted to see and fish a remote lake on the mountain behind my cabin.  So with fishing gear and a large caliber pistol on my hip Jason and I hiked up the mountain.  It took three hard hours of hiking to reach the high lake, but it was worth the trip.  The small lake sat inside a bowl of mountains in such a way that made it impossible for float plane operations, so the only way to reach it was by helicopter or the hike we'd just endured.  According to Red, the lake had abundant trout and was never fished, so Jason and I were eager to give it a try.

The October day had been warm and pleasant, but before we could get set up the weather deteriorated.  In minutes the bright beautiful day changed into a cold raging snow storm.  I was new to Alaska however, I was a student of the weather.  I knew that whatever had brought this sudden and drastic change had a deeper storm pushing it.  So with regret, but without hesitation I told Jason we had to abandon this trip and come back another day.  We had to get off the mountain quick.  There had been no ground snow on the trip up, but we'd barely started the trip down when snow had become a problem.  Half way down we were struggling through eighteen inches of wet heavy snow and it was clear that getting home was a matter of survival.  We'd been moving down the mountain as fast as we could so needed to stop for a moment to catch our breath.  When we stopped both of us heard something crashing down the slope behind us.  Jason and I turned at the sound but couldn't see anything through the thick brush, but both of us smelled it.  Jason said, "Bear," at the same instant my mind identified the smell.  It was the same smell we'd both commented on the previous day from Red's black bear.  The same basic smell only stronger, even though we weren't close enough to see this bear.  Yet.  We had only paused for a second to process this before Jason and I began running down the mountain.

I'd like to think that I allowed Jason to go first and I stayed back as the rear guard to protect my friends son, but the truth was that Jason was younger and faster, so he was ahead of me on that crazy trip down the mountain.  I never actually saw the bear, but from his sounds and smell he got far too close before we pulled away from him.  When we got home I told Red what happened.  He said the only thing that saved us was that large bears don't move well down a steep grade.  After saying this, Red smirked and nodded towards the large pistol on my hip.

"Why didn't you just shoot him," he asked.

"I forgot all about my pistol," I answered truthfully.

The next day Mary and I stood on the shore of the Kenai Lake just taking in its majestic beauty.  It was nice just to stand there holding her hand.  While doing this a float plane dropped through the clouds and lined up to land on the lake.  This would be the first float plane landing I'd witnessed so I watched with great interest.  The pilot made a perfect touch down on the water, but as soon as the Cessna's floats sunk into the water a violent gust of wind whipped across the lake, lifting the right wing enough to make the left wing touch the water.  For a second I thought the airplane would flip, but the floats had sunk enough to slow the plane so it settled back down.  The pilot taxied to the short dock near us so I went out to help secure the plane.  I identified myself as a pilot new to Alaska and complimented the pilot on his landing, then asked,

"What would you have done if that gust had caught you on short final."  (That's when a plane is still in the air, but moving slow for landing.)

He said, "I'd have been badly hurt or died.  On short final a gust like that would have flipped us over and there's nothing I could have done about it."  When he saw the look on my face he added, "That's flying in Alaska, kid."

After the pilot and his passenger went into the restaurant for his dinner I told Mary I'd find something else to do.  Flying up here was too unpredictable to be safe.  My dream to become a bush pilot was over.  The two recent encounters with the bear likely had an effect on my demeanor, but whatever the case, I was beginning to understand that Alaska was a dangerous place.  I never considered flying in Alaska again.

The next day I spent some time with Dave, sitting in his restaurant drinking coffee.  Dave was a certifiable loner, but he and I hit it off immediately.  In no time we were telling each other our secrets.  I've always kept my criminal past a secret from people I meet, but it felt natural to tell Dave about my escapes and car chases.  If you've ever heard men talk about such things you'll know that we guys like to one-up the other.  Dave was able to successfully one-up my story.  He said he was an engineer with a degree from a prestigious school and that he was recruited by the CIA when he graduated.  After months of training, Dave began traveling the world spying on other nations for CIA.  His assignments were always to evaluate things related to engineering.  I wanted to believe Dave but was having trouble.  So I said, "Bullshit."

Wordlessly Dave went up the steps to the area of the restaurant where his family lived.  He returned with an American passport.  He said, "Do you follow world events?"

I really didn't, but I wasn't ignorant of most stuff, which is what I said.  He asked if I remembered when Israeli fighters bombed Iraq's nuclear weapon's facility.  I remembered the event, but not the year so he handed me a newspaper clipping with the story that included the date.  He showed me his passport.  It had his photo on the first page, but he'd placed a strip of tape over the name.

"I can't let you see my name," he said apologetically.

According to the passport stamps, a month before the Israeli air strike on Iraq, Dave had flown from France to Bagdad, Iraq.  He stayed in Iraq for a month then returned to France.  Dave left Iraq three days before Israeli fighter jets ended Iraq's nuclear weapons program.  Dave claimed CIA had sent him to Iraq.  His cover was an American engineer for hire, working as a French nuclear contractor.  His CIA job had been to determine what it would take to destroy the facility from the air, and the best time for the raid for minimal collateral damage.

The rest of his passport was equally bazaar.  Dave had visited several dozen countries, but few of them would be considered tourist attractions.  Most stamps were from the middle-east and Africa, with numerous South and Central American hot spots as well.  He's the only guy I know who'd been to Iraq and Nicaragua.  He pointed out there were no reentries into the United States.  None.  Yet here he sat in a U.S. state.  It was like he never came home.  From the stamps it looked like he lived in France and traveled from there.  I asked if he lived in France and he said no.  I asked how he reentered the U.S. and he said by military transport originating in Germany.  There was more to this conversation, but the meat of it was that Dave claimed to have worked for the CIA.  It was an unbelievable claim which I believed.

In many ways Dave was like a large percentage of Alaskans.  A guy with an interesting past who came to Alaska to get away from whatever it was he did.  Based on percentage of population Fairbanks, Alaska had more people with graduate degrees than in any other city in the U.S..  Easy for me to believe.  I once had an Anchorage taxi driver who'd been a Boston surgeon.  The surgeon said he'd never be a doctor again.  Dave told me he'd never again work for any intelligence agency.  I doubt the doctor went back on his promise, but Dave did.  I'll explain that one later.

John the photographer wasn't a spy, but he was interesting none-the-less.  As I mentioned John was a professional outdoor photographer.  I'd never been around photography, but I was enticed by John's photos and even his equipment.  Like nearly all professional outdoor photographers prior to the digital age John used Nikon cameras and lenses.  John offered to teach me photography, but I'd have to buy my own equipment and that equipment would have to be Nikon.  It wasn't long before I called myself, "The best equipped amateur photographer in the world."  It was not an idle boast.  I matched John's equipment.  I bought the same Nikon camera bodies as he had: Nikon F2 with and AS head and motor drive, a Nikon F3 with motor drive, and every high-end lens Nikon made.  The cheapest lens I had cost $425, but my favorite was the seventeen pound Nikon 600mm F-4.  I paid $4200 for that lens and it was used.  I even had the same Bogden tripod John used.  I was truly a well equipped amateur photographer.  When John and I set up to shoot with our matching Nikon 600mm/F4's attached to tripods tourist would stop to take pictures of us.  I loved photography and took some amazing shots but I never sold a single one.  I'll always remain an amateur photographer.

Before I leave the subject of photography I'll mention another Alaskan I like a great deal, Carry Anderson, who was also a student of John's, though far ahead of me.  Back then Carry had taken some amazing Northern Lights shots.  Today he's known for just that.  Carry made a living working for CBS radio news and was their news guy in Alaska.  He lived in a one bedroom trailer in an Anchorage trailer park.  Carry worked hard and made decent money, but spent everything he could spare on camera gear.  Whenever I went to Anchorage I would crash on his couch.  This was after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which Carry managed to beat other reporters to the scene of (the end of Valdez Narrows is difficult place to reach) so he did a great deal of reporting on the clean up.  I have fond memories of Carry making professional news broadcast for CBS from his small kitchen table.  Years later I still got a kick out of hearing Carry on the radio, still reporting from Alaska.  Carry is one of those rare guys everyone likes.  He is also a talented photographer.  It's worth checking out the photography on his website.