"One day it was such a nice day in

Marshall, I asked Matt if he wanted to go on a boat ride."

"Where to?" Matt asked.

"To Nuksuk maybe," I said.

"Okay," Matt said.

"Then I told Matt to call Chris and JB and ask them if they wanted to come with us to Nuksuk. And sure enough they both agreed. So Matt and I got ready and ate a little and then went to pick up Chris and JB. Then we were on our way."

"When we got to Nuksuk we took the first slough on the left. We stopped at the first bend and changed the gas tank because the other one was empty. I asked the boys if they wanted to check around in here and they said yes, so we went on our way. A few bends into the slough we saw a young bull moose standing in the middle of the narrow slough. I hit the throttle to go faster so we could get a better look. We stopped about ten feet away from it and finally it ran up the bank. It was just trotting along the bank so we decided to follow it. We ended up going along side it for about two minutes until it finally ran into the trees. I told the boys that it might come out on the other side of the slough so we zoomed over to the other side. It didn't come out but we saw the Game Warden fly over us with a float plane. I told Mall, Chris and JB that we were lucky that we didn't shoot at the moose or else we would've probably gone to jail. We continued riding in the slough until we got to some lilly pads. Then we had to turn around and head back out because it was getting too shallow."

"When we got to the main slough in Nuksuk we stopped, and I asked Mall, Chris and JB if they wanted to check out Reindeer Slough which was quite a ways inside Nuksuk. The boys agreed so we didn't waste any time. When we got to Reindeer Slough we started to rod and reel. We didn't catch anything even though there were lots of signs of fish. All we caught were snags and weeds!"

"It was getting late so we started on our way out of Nuksuk. We were on our third bend when JB saw a big black bear. We didn't see it for long though because it went into the trees too fast. We zoomed over to the other side of the slough and waited for it to come out. It looked like Matt, Chris and JB really wanted to catch a bear because they were excited. I told them we'd better be on our way if we wanted to make it to Marshall before it got too dark. I promised the boys that we would see another bear going out even though I wasn't really sure. Coincidentally we did see another black bear a couple more bends out and Matt, Chris and JB shot at it with their rifles. But I think they all missed it by a mile because there were no blood trails in the grass. Finally we got tired of looking for it, and we were getting sleepy besides, so we started on our long way home."

By: Robert Owletuck

Interviewed by: Chris Fitka