Alaska Man Monday - Fish, Mammoths, and More Dumb Crooks

We’re beginning our journey into summer; the birches and alders are leafed out, the mosquitoes are starting to show up, the last bits of our snowpiles are melting away, and some of the odder things about life in the Great Land are asserting themselves.

First up, a pro tip: When you’re transporting meth, don’t do it in a junker vehicle that’s sure to get pulled over:

On 05/02/2024 at approximately 1808 hours, the Highway Interdiction K9 Team observed a suspicious silver Chevy Silverado near Seldon Road and Church Road. This vehicle had multiple equipment violations and had a locate to ID all occupants for an APD eluding case.

Here’s the fun bit:

Following a search warrant on the vehicle, a distribution amount of methamphetamine was located. [Latrael] Hackathorn and the passenger, Rosemarie Otten are being charged with Misconduct Involving a Controlled Substance 3rd Degree.

The tip? If you’re holding a buttload of meth with intent to sell, maybe don’t drive around in a hunk-o-junk vehicle with multiple, obvious equipment violations.

Alaska Man Score: 2 out of 5 moose nuggets. Points for giving us a reason to point and laugh. Demerits for being a degen meth-head.

Next, in Tales From the Stone Age: Alaska’s fish & game commissioner has two hours on his calendar for a… woolly mammoth?

For a journalist, it’s hard to imagine an entry on a public official’s calendar more enticing than four hours of woolly mammoth.
OK, it’s not actually that hard — entries like “bribe acceptance” and “V. Putin secret meeting” would also get me pretty excited. Nonetheless, it is an understatement to say that I was prettttttty curious about this item on the calendar of Doug Vincent-Lang — the guy who, as Alaska’s fish and game commissioner, would presumably retain authority and jurisdiction over anything related to that most charismatic of megafauna.

The item in question? The Commissioner, the guy who oversees fish and game policies for the State of Alaska, had two hours on his calendar marked off with the words “Wolly (sic) mammoth.” Now there haven’t been any woolly mammoths in Alaska for quite some time, so this would appear to be code for something – unless somewhere in the Great Land, a cloning lab has recently done some really shocking work while being unable to spell “woolly.”

Alaska Man Score: points 3.5 of 5 moose nuggets. Points for the interesting head-scratcher; demerits for being a bureaucrat who looks to be up to something.

Finally: The ice is out! Andy Couch, who writes the Mat-Su Anglers Fishing Report for the Frontiersman, describes how our fishing waters are opening up:

When I wrote last week’s fishing column only a few Mat-Su Valley lakes were ice-free and fishable, with Junction and Lucille Lake the only locations I knew that people had already been out in boats. Even before the weekend, however, additional lakes in the Kepler - Bradley system, including Matanuska Lake, had quickly lost all of their ice cover. I saw people boating and fishing on Matanuska Lake, even though it can be a bit difficult getting a small boat to the water on this particular lake. While people continue to fish Bradley Lake and Kepler Lake along the Glenn Highway west of Palmer, there are now many additional locations where Mat-Su anglers can fishing without needing to travel to Bradley or Kepler Lake in order to find some ice-free water.

Fishing is a big deal up here. It’s a major reason many people from Outside visit Alaska. It’s one of the best things about living here. For a month or so, I’ve been checking our equipment and tackle; we’re ready to go.

Alaska Man Score: 5 moose nuggets. Thanks, Andy, for keeping us up to date. Fish on!

Now, some discussion of bears: