Mike Stockburger's Awesome Summer of '94!

When summer arrived Mike's brother (Wes), and a high school friend from Vermont, went with Mike 750 miles up river to Nenana. They were going to Nenana because they were hauling a saw mill back to Holmer. "So I had hardly any room in my boat," said Mike. The ride took four days. During the four day trip they saw villages they had not seen before. When night came they camped out in tents and told stories. Mike's friend told them a story about making maple syrup.

When making the syrup, he said, you need at least 55 gallons of sap because 55 gallons of sap will make one gallon of syrup. After you get the sap you have to boil it down for hours and hours. Long ago people used to use horses and sleighs to collect the sap, but now they use long hoses that connect from tree to tree and go to the sugar bush (the shed) where they boil down the sap. When you are done with the syrup you put it in jars and use it with pancakes.

In Anvik they were going to camp out, but a nice gentleman invited them to spend the night in his house. He was the famous dog musher, Rudy Demoski. They stayed in his house for one night. They also met George Huntington, Charlie Huntington's dad, in Galena. Mike met many more people but he can't remember any names. They saw only five other boats. Can you imagine traveling 750 miles and only seeing five boats?

When they arrived in Nenana they put the boat and saw mill on a trailer and drove it 450 miles by truck to Anchorage. Then they went to Palmer and went fishing for halibut. He said that when you fish for halibut you use a really heavy rod with a hook that has a little herring on it. He also went dip netting for salmon, commercial fishing, and caught crab and shrimp in pots. At the end of the summer he went on a glacier cruise out of Seward where he saw whales, seals, otters, a lot of eagles, puffins and cormorants.

By: Mike Stockburger

Interviewed by: Sophie Ann Moore