Two Athabascan Natives from Minto, in the interior of Alaska, were driving along the Manley Road when they came upon a couple of bull moose.  Now moose are not in season, and anyway, it is illegal to shoot from the road, but the Mintoites killed the moose anyway.

They had guns with them, but they didn’t have knives, so they couldn’t butcher the animals.  Leaving their kill by the side of the road, they took a little detour to the General Store in Manley (where half the fun is getting there) for some refreshment before returning to Minto for knives.

Now the store, which used to be owned by one of the Survivalists (my mother’s husband), isn’t supposed to sell alcohol to people from Minto, because Minto is dry.  Only the current owner claims he doesn’t know who’s from Minto and who’s not, and, what with not much passing traffic now gas costs $6 a gallon up there, a sale is a sale.  He sold the Mintoites whatever they wanted.

While the moose shooters were getting smashed and looking for their knives, some of the Manley Natives called the Fish and Game troopers to report the illegal shooting.  Fish and Game told the Manleyites that they were too busy to deal with it, so it was okay for them to go ahead and salvage what meat they could.

Unlike the Mintoites, the Manleyites had knives.  They hauled the moose back home, right around the corner from my folks, and began working on the carcasses.

After some time, the shooters came back with knives and reinforcements from Minto and demanded their kill.  They claimed they needed it for a Potlatch Dinner (not to be confused with a Potluck Supper), which apparently trumps Fish and Game laws.  There was a stand off, each group claiming the moose for their own, and for a while it looked bad.

Luckily there was an Elder from Minto present who said to the Manley people, You have done a lot of work.  You keep what you have already cut up, and we will take the uncut meat.

Thus it was settled, though there are still a lot of angry people, some of them well fed.

The Survivalists arrived in Manley Hot Springs Alaska five days after setting off from here. The website says that half the fun of Manley is getting there.

Their half of the fun went like this: from the ferry straight to Costco for a cooler, folding stove and more food to add to the supplies already loaded on the pick up. That evening they got as far as Hope, BC where they stopped for the night, having first negotiated Daisy’s (that’s Fluffy’s fiance) room rate. The hotel proprietor, a young man in Sikh dress with a white turban and elaborately curled moustaches said the dog charge was $10. An elderly man, also seeking a room, butted in that he had a dog too. “It’s a little dog; it don’t amount to anything and I ain’t going to pay.” An argument ensued with the old man repeating that his dog was too little to be charged and the proprietor insisting that all dogs paid $10. The old man started to walk out and the young man began to waver, and then my mother piped in that if he didn’t have to pay for his Pomeranian she wasn’t going to pay for her Toy Poodle.

The proprietor stepped good-naturedly from behind his desk and, barefooted, said he would go out and see these tiny dogs. After inspection a $5 charge was agreed in both cases, although the Pomeranian, wearing a red sweater, was smaller, as well as more fashionably dressed.

The second day they drove along the Fraser River to Cache Creek and along the Yellowhead Highway to Vanderhoof. The following morning, as they started up the Cassiar Highway, it felt to them as if they were entering the wilderness at last.

They stopped at Dease Lake on the Cassiar and, with almost everything still shut for the winter season they set about doing some illicit motel cooking. When they had set up their little folding stove they realised they had no matches. The only store had closed up early and a truck driver smoking a cigarette outside only had a lighter that he wasn’t parting with. They drove about town looking for some place open and came upon a restaurant with lights on in the back, where the cook was closing up. He gave them a disposable lighter cheerfully adding that it was guaranteed for 1000 lights and he thought he had probably only lit it 999 times.

My mother’s messages are often foody, and this one made me hungry. Here’s how their day finished:

We got the stove lit. I put the carrots in the frying pan with a bit of water and some butter and salt and partially cooked them. I boiled the rice, and when the carrots were partially cooked I poured the carrot-butter water into the rice. Then I coated the chicken breasts with Italian flavored breadcrumbs and browned them in the pan with the carrots and some garlic, olive oil and butter. We sipped wine, it smelled lovely, and we began to feel competent once more. I made a little salad. After a while we had dinner, and while I washed up in the bathroom basin with motel face soap Jerry put the stuff away and closed up the stove. While doing that he discovered that it had a lighter switch.

Which is all very well, but while they are in Manley I think they are going to have to brush up their survivalist technique.

When I was alone in the house I did an inventory. The right side of the road is the wrong side for me and since I am hoping not to have to drive for a week or two I wanted to see when I next need to go off Island to shop.

There are three refrigerators and three freezers here. I find dozens of hamburgers (good for feeding Fluffy), eight pork roasts, five chickens, fifteen lamb chops, four steaks, several bags of fish, a dozen or so chicken breasts and at least as many thighs, two boxes labelled “sausage patties”, and among several nameless, dubious cuts of meat there is one that I am quite sure is a beef tongue.

In the back bathroom, still in boxes, are sixteen tins of chopped tomatoes, five and a half pounds of spaghetti, a ten pound bag of rice, eight cans of chicken noodle soup, a case of Gatorade, some “brownie bites” and enough capers to see me through a decade or two. Also 1500 square feet of plastic wrap, 1000 square feet of aluminum foil (that’s aluminium to my British computer), 300 zip lock bags, 100 garbage bags, 3 gallons of bleach, a gallon of washing up liquid (I’ve forgotten what the Americans call that, but I don’t need to worry because I won’t be buying it), 36 rolls of toilet paper, 12 boxes of Kleenex and more than a 1000 napkins.

I realize that I have fallen amongst survivalists - of the particularly tidy eater sort. I begin to worry that the supply toilet paper and Kleenex is dangerously low.