January 4, 2006
Island offers bear necessities
Central High School graduate spends six weeks in remote Alaskan island town
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
"You know you're not at the top of the food chain anymore."
After encountering grizzly bears up close and personal during a six-week odyssey to Alaska, veteran hunter Ryan Quinn has a new perspective on nature. Helping out at a hunting and fishing lodge in Larsen Bay and exploring the remote Kodiak Island, Quinn immersed himself in adventure.
He encountered bears at the town dump, where an electric fence keeps them out, and checked another out after a lodge guest successfully shot the six-foot tall animal - considered small by Alaskan standards. Quinn soon discovered that bears actually wanted as little to do with people as most people wanted to do with them.
"They look like they're slow, but they're not - they're very quick animals," said the 1998 graduate of Traverse City Central High School. "If you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone."
"But it takes a little while to get used to that thought," he added.
Quinn headed to Alaska at the invitation of pal Mike Mihalyfy of Gaylord, who has spent the past three seasons working as a guide there. After working for seven plus years in the same job as an auto mechanic - starting as a part timer while still in high school - Quinn quit his job for the trip. He decided it was time to reevaluate his life while having a some fun.
"I just flew up there one way, saying, 'I'll figure out when I want to come home later,'¡" he recalled.
Quinn spent his time in a small town called Larsen Bay, which boasts 75 year-round residents. Larsen Bay is one of eight small towns on Kodiak Island, where residents eke out a living on fishing, fish processing or tourism. A mountainous island with the towns perched on the perimeter, people travel between towns or to the mainland by either bush plane or boat. They either walk or use all-terrain vehicles to get around town.
"Water is really how they do things, they make money by fishing and the inland is for hunting," Quinn said.
The one grocery store in Larsen Bay was located in a resident's basement and sold bare necessities only an hour a day, six days a week. The gas station - with prices at or above $3.50 a gallon - was also open only one hour each day. The minuscule downtown had just a handful of buildings surrounded by just four miles of roads, none paved. Twenty children attended a loosely-graded school that had three teachers.
The self-reliance and determination of the locals, who tended to be jacks-of-all-trades and hold two or three jobs to survive, impressed Quinn. He was amazed at how residents contrived to get things done.
"In Larsen Bay, you pretty much fix everything yourself," he noted. "There were no professional plumbers or mechanics."
The six lodges in town were self-contained themselves, bringing in their own supplies for guests and workers.
"Guests would stay about a week and I would help with all sorts of things," Quinn said.
In mid-November, Quinn decided to head back home and began an 11-day journey across the continent. Along the way, he took nearly every mode of transportation possible.
He left Larsen Bay on a bush plane, flying to the island's largest town, Kodiak. A ferry took him to the mainland and the next day another took him to Juneau. After another layover, he jumped on a larger ferry that traversed the Inside Passage along the coast of western Canada and northern Washington State.
"That was really cool," said Quinn, who slept at night in his sleeping bag on deck.
Debarking at Bellingham, he hitched a ride to Butte, Mont., with someone he met on the ferry. After skiing for a few days, Quinn took a train to Chicago. Heavy snow slowed the train down and he missed his connection in Chicago, so the company bussed passengers to Grand Rapids. His parents picked him up the day after Thanksgiving and brought him back to Traverse City.
Returning, his hometown seemed like a thriving metropolis compared to tiny Larsen Bay. Despite growing up in a small town, remote Alaskan life was on a scale Quinn had never imagined. The town's insular atmosphere, personal politics and family webs comprised one of the trip's biggest challenges.
"In Larsen Bay, there's no restaurant or diner, no social events other than invitations," Quinn said. "I really liked the terrain, but the people were sometimes hard to deal with."