I spent a formative spring and summer in 1975 in the western Aleutians as a technician for the Fish and Wildlife Service. A few days on Adak, the Aleutian Islands Refuge HQ, and then by FWS boat to the Rat Islands at the end of the Chain (we could see Russia from there!). Just me and one other guy on several different islands, 'removing' introduced foxes as part of the endangered Aleutian Goose Recovery effort. That was my introduction to hunting, plus I wrote a nice little paper on snowy owls. That project was an enormous success: after fox removal and goose re-introduction, the once nearly extinct goose is now so abundant that it is an agricultural pest on its wintering grounds on the NW California coast, and there is a late hunting season in an effort to keep them off farmer's fields.
For my fiftieth birthday 23 years later, I took the ferry from Kodiak to Dutch Harbor and back - fabulous trip, and rather more comfortable than the summer of '75. Followed that with a week alone on Hallo Bay on the AK Peninsula to see big bears up close. Damn that was fun.
