Читать книгу Racing Toward Recovery. The Extraordinary Story of Alaska Musher Mike Williams Sr. онлайн

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I always cherished his parents, especially his mother. She would tell us the rules for living and to have a strong faith in God. His dad was a quiet guy, Willie Jasper. He was always driving his dog team. He also taught us about how to set fish traps under the ice in November about four or five miles from Akiak. He was an expert and my brother Walter and I would hang around with him. He would hitch up his dogs and we would hitch up our dogs and we took off after him. The fish traps were three feet by three feet by ten feet in size. The real name of the fish we trapped is burbot, but we called them lush fish. I don’t know why.

I learned how to hunt by going out with my dad and brother Frankie. They were hunting for moose and took me along. They always got their moose. Mostly I was traveling with them. We had a canoe that we used on the lakes when we were trapping muskrat and hunting ducks at the same time.

From the beginning I was a good shot with a rifle. I had to be. You have to learn and you have to gain experience, but I was a good shot. Maybe it was because Frankie taught me. He was the best shot. When I was a young boy the best part of it all was being able to go out on a hunt with my father and older brother. It was a good feeling that they trusted me to come along. It meant a lot. They made me confident in myself. Doing those things built confidence. I learned how to set up camps and about survival. Once I knew how to hunt I knew I was going to be able to survive because I would have something to eat. It was a case of knowing that I could always go back home with something.