Obama’s “moon project” aka high-speed rail is moving along. Costs are spiraling:

Faster than a speeding bullet train, the cost of the state’s massive high-speed rail project has zoomed to nearly $100 billion — triple the estimate given to voters and more than enough to run the entire state government for a year.

Planned completion times are increasing:

bullet trains won’t be up and running until at least 2033, much later than the original estimate of 2020, although that depends on the state finding the remaining 90 percent of the funds needed to complete the plan.

And the voters are increasingly beginning to see the light:

Four weeks after the news that the cost of California’s high-speed rail project has tripled since voters approved it, the struggling project is taking another hit: waning public support.

A new Field Poll shows that 64 percent of California voters would like a ballot measure giving them a chance to reconsider their 2008 decision to approve $9 billion in state bonds for the project.

Fifty-nine percent said they would reject the $98.5 billion project if it were put before them again. In 2008, 52.6 percent of voters approved plans for the rail line to connect San Francisco and Sacramento with Los Angeles.

So what should our government do? Should they be fiscally intelligent and kill the stupid thing?

Obama?

Ain’t gonna happen:

The Obama administration vowed Thursday at a House committee meeting in Washington that it would not back down from its support of California’s bullet train project despite attacks from critics who alleged it is tainted by political corruption.

“We are not going to flinch on that support,” said Joseph Szabo, chief of the Federal Railroad Administration.

Szabo said that his agency had committed itself to provide $3.3 billion for a construction start next year in the Central Valley and that federal law prohibits any change of mind about where to begin building the first segment of the state’s high-speed rail system.

“The worst thing we could do is make obligations to folks and start to renege on our word,” Szabo told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

If the cost has increased three fold before one shovel has hit the ground…what do you think it will end up costing in 20 years when it will supposedly be complete?

It’s insanity. It’s a huge waste of taxpayer money. And in the end it will STILL be faster to fly.

If Obama really wanted a “moon project” to spend money on it should be for a completely new mode of travel. Something that would provide new technology and might actually be worth spending the money on.

But instead he wants to bankrupt us on a 19th century mode of travel.

Prologue: This is a story of two Stone Age chieftains, who migrated to America during the last Ice Age, approximately twenty thousand years ago: one came from the East and one came from the West, but before you begin to recite the teachings of Archaeology from twenty years ago, you might be surprised to know of startling new discoveries about the migration of man and the inconvenient facts surrounding the theories of Anthropomorphic Global Warming.

The Whale People, Their Homeland (Europe’s Western Coast, now submerged)

Yellow Hair was an anomaly; he was ancient, almost forty years old, but strongest among all the men of the Whale People. He was chief of the Whale People, and he ruled his tribe with rules etched in flint. Breaking the rules often meant death for the offender; for life was a tedious and constant struggle between survival and death, and death came all too often twenty-thousand years ago, during the height of the last great Ice Age in the area off the coast of Western France.

Much of the world’s water was locked up in ice sheets that a mile high covering much of Europe, Asia, and North America; in fact, the ice sheets covered one-third of the earth’s land masses and depleted the oceans of so much water, the ocean depths were a hundred meters less than they are now. There were coast lines connecting Europe with North America, and Asia with North America, they extended nearly a thousand miles from north to south on each corridor. It was a temperate area of grasslands and coniferous forests with limited precipitation, because of the amount of water frozen in the glaciers. There were thousands of creeks and rivers fed by springs and lakes that are now a hundred meters under water. It was a harsh ecosystem that supported the mastodon, a creature much larger than the elephant, as well as musk ox, giant sloths, saber toothed tigers, large bears, caribou, giant moose, elk, horses, and camels, all of whom migrated freely back and forth from Asia and Europe to North America.

No one knows why the giant glaciers appeared or why they receded, but the Ice Ages were real events in the story of the earth; the Ice Ages spanned tens of thousands of years and facilitated the dispersal of man all over the world.

The Whale People were a hardy bunch that had drawn their genetic pools from the blue and green eyed traders from the East, the tall, blonde haired, white skinned people from the land to the North, and the darker people of the South. It was a fairly short walk from North Africa to what would become Spain; the drought conditions of the world brought on by so much water being sequestered in ice forced many of the darker people of Africa to migrate north to be near the life giving water from glacial melt in summer and the springs that formed creeks and rivers on the Southern boundaries of the European Glacier and to the western shores of Spain and France.

The Whale People had originally occupied a coastal area that was next to the Southern ice shield of Europe approximately twenty-thousand years ago. Almost nothing could survive on these ever increasing glaciers that covered large portions of the continents, but there was a strip of new land exposed from the ocean depths, extending well beyond our present shorelines, because of so much of the earth’s water being frozen in the glaciers. This strip of land was warmed by the ocean, but it still remained a cold climate in summer, from the cooling effects of the great mass of ice on its borders. On this narrow strip of land, a micro-climate existed that had allowed animals, grasses, and a few hardy trees to proliferate in a wondrous abundance for tens of thousands of years, but the pressure by humans and the ever encroaching ice was reducing the availability of food sources and thus the livable space was under fierce competition by all species, but the competition among humans was the probably the fiercest.

Yellow Hair’s tribe had occupied the Southern coastal regions since the beginning of time or at least as far back as their oral history recorded their time here on earth. Yellow Hair wasn’t a singer who memorized the family lines and history of his tribe, but he knew his fathers had been chiefs far back in time. He had remembered his fathers and his personal history by assigning each of them, one of his fingers. He could go back in time by looking at a finger and tell you the name of that father, going back in time, nine generations.

The Ice People, The Migration (From Central Asia)

Tiger Paw loved to hunt and here in the land of the North Star, this land the North People call Beringia (the land bridge connecting Siberia to Alaska), the hunting was better than in the stories of the First Days.

It was told in the oral traditions of history, on the nights of the full moon, of how his people, the Ice People, had followed the herds over the Great Grasslands and forests to the West, just South of the great walls of ice. In the beginning, they were the first people, because the Father of the Ice had shown them great favor by providing them with flint for spears and the many animals to hunt. At first everyone was hungry during the winter, but the Father of the Ice liked the Ice People and gave them the beasts of the Steppes and the stone technology to kill the beasts, he also gave them fire and taught the women how to cook and how to brain tan furs and leather.

They learned that the brain of each animal, when allowed to break down to a gelatinous mass in a covered ceramic bowl, was sufficient to tan its own hide. They marveled at the skills of the ice Father and how he put all these mysteries of life within reach of those with the intelligence to figure out the answers. The Ice Father taught the women to love the hunters and to entertain them at night, so the tribe would be happy and always have new little ones.

Tiger Paw’s belief was essentially correct in the oral history of his tribe, but his concept of time wasn’t capable of comprehending the enormity of his tribe’s migration. His ancestors started moving east through the mountains and grasslands of Southern Russia and Northern Asia, several thousand years ago. Using the logic of 20,000 years ago, they figured the sun was always refueled in the East and traveled overhead to the West, only to get tired at the end of each day, needing to sleep through the night to be strong and hot the next morning, much like the hunter who hunts all day, breeds his woman at night, and then sleeps to be strong in the morning. They wanted to see this land where the sun is refreshed; there is surely much fuel to warm the sun, just beyond the horizon to the east. Sadly, the sun seemed to be weakening, because the great ice sheets were getting larger and eating more and more land. They were over a mile high and moving to the South at the rate of several man strides every day.

The idea of a great source of fuel to the East, was essentially the idea for migrating to the East. For over a thousand years, they followed the basic idea of moving east, always east. There were hostile tribes to contend with and periods of starvation coupled with disease, but they kept moving east.

Their culture and customs were ill suited for sedentary life. It was a simple matter of hygiene; a concept that was understood by sedentary tribes, for they knew that human waste was dangerous and should be deposited in a hole dug specifically for that purpose, they also understood the need to maintain clean drinking water.

It seems a simple concept, but migrating people rarely suffered from the ravages of cholera and dysentery, for they rarely made camp for longer than it took for a kill to be consumed or to spoil, except in the winter and the effects of disease were lessened during the extreme cold of winter.

Sedentary tribes, without cultural customs for contending with human waste, were condemned to die of disease if they stayed too long in one place. The problem was self-correcting in time, since tribes that lacked certain cultural conventions were weakened and often annihilated by other tribes who looked upon them as unclean or they simply died out from the ravages of disease.

During the migration of the Ice People, they had acquired many customs from the women they had traded for and the occasional lost hunter they had adopted. Even though Tiger Paw believed his tribe to be the only true people walking the earth, he understood advantages in acquiring new people with new technologies and customs.

The Whale People of Europe

Nine generations would place Yellow Hair’s father in the time when the great mother whale, Olalla of the big wild salt water, gave birth to man and all the creatures of the earth. In Yellow Hair’s mind, his distant relative was the first human to slide through Olalla’s birth canal and swim to shore; therefore, his birthright was one of leadership and a semi-divinity, for he was a direct descendant of Olalla. He couldn’t explain the bloodlines of other people or even those in his tribe and he forbid himself and others from asking frivolous questions that complicate the simple explanations of their life.

It was this natural birth of Yellow Hair’s relative that intrigued the Whale People and provided the common bond that held them together. The secrets of their existence and their connection with divinity was thought to exist through the navel of Yellow Hair, for that umbilical connection was directly related to Olalla the Whale Mother who had birthed the first relative of Yellow Hair, the very first human.

Unfortunately, it was the natural scheme of their life that was in jeopardy at this time; for the success of the Whale People made them the envy of many tribes. They had mastered the science of not only trapping great bounties of salmon in the rivers, but more importantly, they smoked and dried the salmon over smoldering fires to preserve them for months. This was a quantum leap in technology for the people of the world. News spread for over a thousand miles to the East along with the tasty morsels of the pink colored fish flesh.

Tribes with many huge warriors and advanced stone weapons ventured into the traditional lands of the Salmon People and brought many wondrous trade goods to trade for the smoked salmon of the Whale People. Trade was good for the Whale people, but some of these tribes decided to stay and there were now tribes camped in their winter hunting grounds and on their fishing grounds.

The winters were too cold to fish in the great salt water and the rivers and creeks were frozen. Rather than eat smoked salmon all winter, the Whale people had learned the different migration routes of the Caribou and devised traps to catch the Caribou in blind canyons for the winter. If there was enough feed for the Caribou, they would slaughter them as they needed meat; if the valley floor ran out of the lichens that the Caribou eat, they would slaughter them all at once and smoke the flesh like that of the salmon. In a gaunt world of starvation and hardship, the Whale People lived in a world of plenty.

They were happy to live under the leadership of Yellow Hair; not only was he divine, but he was a fair and intelligent leader, who could sense when and where the Caribou were migrating and when the Salmon started their runs or when there was a whale trapped in a small estuary by the tide. His people made boats with oak frames with greased leather for hulls that worked well if you kept the hide well greased with seal oil or whale blubber.

If his people observed the rules, they lived in harmony within the group: if they broke the law, Yellow Hair might cut their throat or trade them into slavery. He was feared, but loved as well. He was the nucleus that kept his tribe strong.

In these early days and up up until the present, there were several aspects of a society that needed to be worked into a particular culture for that society to exist and thrive. Survival, procreation, food, and leadership were all important elements that had to be defined culturally for a tribe to exist. If the rules or laws were broken, the society broke down.

Yellow Hair could control his own people; unfortunately, there were other tribes moving in and occupying their traditional Caribou hunting grounds. They observed the Caribou techniques of the Whale People and just repaired the log fences and gaits while waiting for the Caribou to pass through the mountain valleys.

This was no problem for Yellow Hair, he knew the mountain passes and could divert the Caribou with fire and by dressing his men in wolf and bear hides to drive the Caribou into different blind canyons. He would just build new gaits and fences at the entrances. These new people would have to live off the few Caribou that might be separated and the odd elk, horse, camel, or moose they could kill. If they were desperate or if they found a mastodon trapped in mud or lame, they could fight the mastodon to the death, for it was only possible to kill one at great risk to the hunters. He knew these new green and blue eyed people would often be facing starvation and that the Whale People almost always had plenty of Caribou and fish; therefore, they were at risk from these starving tribes.

These interlopers should have stayed in their own country, Yellow Hair reasoned. They were unfit for life between the ice and the salt sea. Their eyes were light colored and they suffered from the sun’s glare, their skin was too white in color and they couldn’t work naked in the glacier fed waters to catch the salmon. They didn’t engage in ritual washing and smoking their bodies in the traditional way. That alone prevented them from being hardy enough to survive the fierce cold and winds of these ancient lands. The blue and green eyed people were weak beyond measure, but they were large people and dangerous.

Yellow Hair knew he carried the seed of the first human, but it was this first human’s lusty ways and hunger for wild women of the forests that had produced all these uncultured barbarians. This ancient father had produced these excess humans of his own blood, and were now posing a threat to the very existence of the Whale People.

Yellow Hair had little sympathy for weakness, he had seen a weakness of character in the previous chief, his own father, and challenged the chief to personal combat for leadership of the tribe and to possess the young princess wife of his father. He killed his own father and claimed his father’s earthly goods and wives as his own. He was hardy enough, but that was back when men were men. (The weakest of the men was many times stronger than an NFL linebacker.) In those early days they hunted and killed the near humans for sport. There weren’t enough of them left now to worry over; besides, they can’t speak words, the men run like pregnant women, and they make the crudest tools and weapons. They are laughable, but in a wrestling match they are deadly, for they are strong like the mastodon. No, it is much safer to kill them with spears from a goodly distance. The near humans’s muscles are so large, they can only thrust a spear, if they try to throw a spear it is laughable.

He didn’t like to think about it, but these near humans, might be the result of his relative, the First Human, coupling with some creature of the forest. It was an ugly thought, but how else do you explain the presence of these near humans. He tried not to dwell on the negative aspects of the heritage of the First Human, but sometimes this irresponsible behavior of his family was embarrassing and impossible to ignore.

Yellow Hair had several wives and at least nine children, aged from twenty-four years to one winter. He enjoyed his kids; however, they were expected to meet the same requirements for life and work as everyone else, if the rules were relaxed for his family, he knew there would be resentment among his people.

Women who chose a mate from another tribe were expected to leave, but if a suitable mate was a loner and could prove himself as far as fishing, hunting, courage, and work, he could be accepted into the tribe. Yellow Hair would never allow slackers and free loaders a wooden soup bowl; charming a maiden of his tribe, did not warrant a free meal around the cook fire.

Everyone had to contribute with meaningful work or be banished or possibly executed by Yellow Hair. Life was a precious gift, but the nature of living next to the ice made it imperative that everyone worked to insure survival of the group. When the Salmon got lost and didn’t return to their rivers and creeks in sufficient numbers or the Caribou were called by Olalla to rest a year and not migrate, the old frail people were expected to walk alone into the night and not return, infanticide was also practiced to keep the numbers of the tribe down when food was scarce to help keep the nutritional requirements low. There were always hard decisions to be made, but the Whale People realized they must be ready to sacrifice just to survive next to the ice.

Killing a huge mastodon could mean survival through the winter, but unless they were mired in a bog hole or suffering from a severe lameness, it was far too dangerous to try and kill them and even when they were trapped, it often took hours to kill the monsters and many times his hunters were killed as well.

Sea lions were also dangerous to kill for they could travel much faster than a man can run. They were usually killed with a fusillade of spears when the animal was caught sunning himself beneath a ledge. The spears were made with sharp narrow points and heavier shafts, but the lighter javelin was also used, these weapons were designed to penetrate a tough hide and several layers of blubber; unless, the spear throws were lethal, the animal would run to the sea to escape and a valuable cache of spears and javelins would be lost with him. The sea lions were unafraid of humans and would run over a man who stood in his way as if he wasn’t there. The man would be crushed under several tons of sea lion, traveling faster than a horse.

The wild horses were trapped in blind canyons like the caribou, but they were more wary than the caribou and often sensed a trap and would turn just before being caught, to run over the men and sacrifice a few members of the herd to insure that the herd would survive.

Stealth and hunting discipline was primary in killing any of these animals, for even though man was a strong lethal killer, if an animal turned to fight and a man was caught without his weapon, humans always died. Yellow Hair explained to his elder sons, Sea Otter and Ivory Tusk, that Olalla, the whale mother that had birthed their first father, had given them superior brains to stand against the fierce animals of the grasslands and the ocean; otherwise they would have starved long ago. They accepted these truths without question; yet, there were many unanswered mysteries for the twenty year old lads.

The Ice People of Asia

Often the men had some hunting trick or knowledge of nature that helped them secure food: the women the hunters acquired for wives, always brought new knowledge of food preparation and garment making that made life better for the Ice People.

Several generations ago, the Ice People adopted a small band of tiny people with black silky hair (from the tribes that would form Japan, then a mountainous area connected to Asia and on the Eastern shore of a large lake). Their tribe had been wiped out by barbarians and they were starving. Chief Four Fingers, Tiger Paw’s grandfather, was intrigued by the women and thought if they had some meat on their bones they would be intriguing bed warmers.

The kindness shown by Four Fingers was rewarded not only by having attractive bed warmers, but these people were excellent fishermen, they also knew how to smoke fish and meats, but most importantly, they understood boatbuilding and using a mast with a short gaff rigged sail and rudder.

Although, the Ice People were on the coast, it is important to remember that so much water was frozen in the great ice sheets, that the ocean depth was reduced by over a hundred meters. The land bridge connecting Alaska and Siberia was over a thousand miles wide. Coastal areas often extended hundreds of miles farther into the sea than they do now. Thousands of rivers and creeks existed that are now on the sea floor. Beringia was a dry grassland that teemed with migrating herds traveling freely between Asia and North America.

Four Fingers had welcomed these fishermen into the tribe and did his best to insure the little people adopted the Ice Culture, but the technology that was gained by the little people was transforming their culture. He was primarily concerned with the combining the two DNA groups by spreading his seed around as much as possible, but the cultural and technological aspects of these ancient fishermen kept the Ice People from starving many times.

The original DNA pool of the Ice People had been slowly diluted for thousands of years as they traveled through Asia, along the borders of the ice; but rather than weakening the gene pool of the Ice People, they became stronger. Instead of a fair-haired tribe with green and blue eyes, they were primarily dark haired people with almond eyes. There would be an occasional child born with round blue eyes and fair hair, amid great laughter and jokes directed toward the mother and father, but the Ice People were a loving people and the throwback was always accepted as one of the true people.

The Ice People had managed to keep their own numbers close to one hundred hunters, not counting women and children. They lived well, but there were dangers from larger hostile tribes. Many tribes were driven into Beringia by starvation, but killing the great mastodon required advanced hunting skills and coordination among hunters; and yet, the skills for hunting horses, camels, muskox, caribou, and other animals of this huge grassland were advanced as well. Fishing required the skills and knowledge for building fish traps and a willingness to work naked in near freezing cold water. Boat building skills consisted of carefully burning and scraping a log with sharp instruments, until a boat shaped form appeared. Their sails were abbreviated, since the heavy keel technology would take thousands of years to be discovered; however, with paddles, these fairly fast, sleek canoe type vessels could be used for fishing and sealing and perhaps more importantly for continued migration to the land of fuel to the East.

The Ice People were hunting and fishing on the Northern edge of the glacier that extended into Southern British Columbia and north into the Yukon and Alaska. Although, it was an enormous glacier, in comparison to the glacier to the East, covering the rest of Canada and much of the US, it was a miniature glacier. Tiger Paw’s People knew there was a corridor of excellent winter hunting between the two glaciers, but they were also enjoying excellent fishing and sealing in the stormy salt sea, during the summer months.

Life was good for the Ice People, but with success in the struggle for life, comes those who want to steal that success.

The Whale People of Europe

Both of Yellow Hair’s sons had chosen good mates from outside the tribe. Yellow Hair had examined the potential mates closely for sickness or deformities and then deemed them sound women suitable for work and childbirth. He had paid a man’s weight in smoked salmon and several pairs of winter moccasins for the young girls, but each one had been an excellent purchase from the barbarian tribes of green and blue eyes, since they each produced a healthy son for the tribe. Thus his tribe would be guaranteed to survive with the superior intellect and knowledge that Yellow Hair was passing on to his sons. Yellow Hair was respected by his tribe for his infinite knowledge of nature, animals, survival, food preservation, weather, the seasons, and the land itself.

Mates were an important aspect of tribal life, adultery was not permitted without a formal declaration by a woman in front of the tribe at dinner. A man could have several wives if he could care for them, but if one of them stated her desire to be with another, there might be a fight to the death or the choice might go unchallenged for various reasons. Yellow Hair was a detached observer and official of these domestic disputes. Someone might die in a fight as a result of hard feelings and tempestuous desires, so the divorce option was not to be taken lightly. He thought it was a good system that helped keep his tribe strong and stable and especially, in helping to control these wild mating desires of both men and women.

Yellow Hair liked to keep about a hundred men in the tribe and twice that many women. The number of children fluctuated, because so many children died from the harsh life. It was obvious that Olalla wanted only the strongest of children to survive and she had to test them every winter. Everyone was expected to work in the cold glaciers streams to help catch the salmon and the boys were expected to join in the difficult and dangerous hunts. The work of women was much safer, but many of them died in childbirth, so in time, Olalla provided twice as many women as men. Yellow Hair also purchased wives for his men, when there always seemed to be a shortage of unmarried women.

He gave them a thorough physical exam before purchase. He demanded clear eyes, preferably of the earth colors and not the colors of plants and sky, broad hips for child birth, good sound teeth that met in a fairly uniform manner, well formed milk paps, and a well formed birth canal with no infection.

He had an unfortunate incident in the past, a woman was infected and gave birth to two blind children. Yellow Hair had been forced to kill the babies and after becoming suspicious, he examined the woman and discovered that she was infected. He killed her and drove her husband out of the village to prevent the spread of infection to other members of the tribe. He hesitated to only banish the man, who was a cousin of his, rather than kill him, for he knew the infection would probably continue through the populations of other tribes.

Yellow Hair had picked his eldest son, Ivory Tusk, to succeed him as chief. The lad was strong, had good eyes, and an uncanny way of understanding the animals and fish. He was a good strong son.

It all happened very quickly. A group of several tribes raided the fishing camp in the early morning before the sun chased away the thick fog. They intended to kill and rob the Whale People of their dried salmon. Many of the Whale men were overwhelmed and killed, the survivors were forced to retreat to their canoes. They lost over half the adults and most of the children in the initial minutes of the attack. They had few personal belongings with them, but they felt lucky to escape with their lives. They pushed the canoes into the surf as spears were landing around them. They managed to retrieve a few of the spears that were thrown, but they escaped with only a few stones for knives and a few spears.

Yellow Hair counted people, there were forty-five men and twenty-three women with just a few suckling children and adolescents that had survived the raid. They had suffered a terrible defeat. The raiders might be following them in the extra canoes, they kept paddling all day to the North. Ivory Tusk was wounded in the gut and in a few hours, he could no longer continue to paddle. Yellow Hair took the time to transfer him to his canoe.

He looked his brave, handsome son in the eye and felt tears for the first time, since he was a child. “Olalla is calling you home” he said, “You have the chance to see her in this world, before you cross over to the spirit world. Are you ready, to see the Whale Mother?”

Ivory Tusk nodded his head, yes, and looked to the blue sky of morning, while thongs secured his legs and arms to prevent him from swimming and prolonging his agony. He was proud to be a strong leader like his father and made sure to maintain his honor and dignity as the men prepared him for the depths.

His father said to him, “We will sing of you at the winter fires and I will see you in the Spirit World, my son,” as he slipped his son’s bound body into the great salt sea.

The Whale People all said their goodbyes as Ivory Tusk disappeared under the waves and still looking up at them, the Whale People then resumed paddling as the storm clouds began forming.

The Ice People of Asia

Tiger Paw knew there were food thefts taking place by some of the other tribes and some of them were making threatening signs at kill sites. Life was hard in Beringia, starvation was everywhere, the Ice People were well fed, their women had meat on their bones and produced children every year or two; they were successful, but the other tribes wanted this good life and the riches associated with success and eating well.

The Ice People had a simple life and a simple formula for success, but it required a keen observation of nature, the intelligence to apply the skills of hunting, and the willingness to work tirelessly to secure food; for everything was easier if you secured food. If you had excess food, like dried and smoked fish and meat, you could trade for tools, weapons, furs, and women.

Tribes who weren’t successful had to trade their women and girls for food to live; eventually, the young men of less successful tribes became despondent and angry. They looked at the wealth of Tiger Paw’s people and wondered why their tribe wasn’t rich with the bounty of the world. After all, the bounty was put on earth for everyone, all the tribes should have healthy women and dried fish; the Ice People were just acting like bears, they took their share and everyone else’s share as well.

Blue Duck, the only son of Chief One Eye, of the Muskeg people, was one of those consumed with envy and hatred. He and several of his companions watched as a small band of Ice People brought down one of the giant moose with several well placed spear throws. He was incredulous that women accompanied the men on the hunt. This fact alone made his heart burn with hatred and anger; these people had no respect for the ancient customs of his people and now they were going to enjoy the tasty internal morsels of this magnificent animal, an animal that rightfully belonged to Blue Duck and his people. He decided it was time for the Muskeg people to assert their authority over the greedy tribes of the world and take what is rightfully theirs.

The three men of the Ice People had the moose deboned and cut into roast sized pieces that were packed into six backpacks, while the women prepared a feast of the heart and liver cut into small chunks and stuffed into the stomach with blueberries, onions, and edible grasses that the moose had eaten on his own. The stomach was roasted over the coals until it swelled and pressure cooked the contents into a nutritious feast for the three couples.

Blue Duck gathered his hunters around him and devised a plan; they would sneak up on the camp and attack the group when they started to eat the wrongfully acquired feast. They would kill the men and try to capture the women; if the women fought too hard, they would kill them as well. They would then eat the feast and pack the meat back to their own camp. It was a momentous decision, the men were reluctant to resort to murder and theft, but their stomachs had been empty for a week and they had not known a woman for months.

Blue Duck had five men to attack three men and three women in a camp that was celebrating. It was almost dark by the time they had crawled close enough to hear the Ice People laughing and talking. They crawled to within several caribou strides, just after dark. The stomach had the entrance and exit sections tied in a knot and it was under extreme pressure from the steam and heat locked inside. One of the men split the top with his flint knife and the delicious aroma made the Ice people cheer and laugh, while the Muskeg men felt their senses sharpened by the scent of food; until, they were even more determined to commit murder and mayhem.

The Ice People let their meal cool for a few minutes, while they waited with their wooden spoons ready to dig into the stomach.

Blue Duck had his right index finger in the air to remind his men to wait for his signal, before beginning the attack.

Just as the Ice People closed around the stomach to eat, Blue Duck and his men attacked with a fierce savagery. The Ice men were each killed with multiple wounds from the spears. An older woman managed to jump on the back of one of the attackers and mortally wound him through the neck with a knife, before a spear entered her rib cage from the side and pierce both her lungs. A second woman was hit in the mouth with the butt end of a spear and fell backwards in an unconscious state. The men fell on the meal and had turns breeding the woman like a pack of ravenous wolves. It was an hour or two later, before Blue Duck noticed a woman was missing. He tried to get his men to leave, but once a leader encourages his men to break the cultural laws, the men begin to lose respect for that man’s leadership and authority; besides, their bellies were distended after eating like animals and they were exhausted after having their way repeatedly with the woman, who now appeared to be lifeless. They wanted to sleep and leave in the morning, and there was nothing Blue Duck could do to get them moving.

Blue Duck realized it was hopeless and drifted off to sleep. Just before morning, a well disciplined group of hunters, led by Bear Killer, son of Tiger Paw, descended on Blue Duck and his men and within seconds, three more of the Muskeg men were dead, Blue Duck and another were wounded, but still alive.

They brought the wounded men back to Tiger Paw’s camp and tied them to a tree. Tiger Paw raged inside, but he didn’t show emotion to his people or to these criminals. He used his serrated flint knife, with an edge as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, but far more durable, to cut the fur clothing from the two men, exposing their nakedness.

Blue Duck was screaming threats and insults, but his efforts were wasted, for the Ice People noticed the silhouette tattoo of a right hand on Blue Duck’s chest. It was a well known symbol of a chief’s hand, designating his choice for leadership; it was a black tattoo done with ashes.

This was big medicine for the Ice People; it could mean war, the Muskeg tribe was a large tribe with oversized people, who were often starving.

The Whale People of Europe

The Whale People followed the shore line and passed camps on shore with people who waved to them, but yellow Hair pushed on wanting to find a new hunting and fishing ground. The shoreline no longer allowed them to head north, they had been paddling west for several days when the storm clouds finally unleashed a fury on the Whale People. The waves were higher than the boats were long. Yellow Hair yelled to the other leaders to paddle to the peak of the waves at an angle and to paddle down at a high rate of speed to keep the waves from cresting and breaking over the top of them and burying them under a wall of water.

It was hopeless, the canoe captains couldn’t hear him over the noise of the storm; hopefully, his captains would follow his lead and survive the storm. He saw one of the canoes trapped in the trough, when a huge wave many times as high as a man buried them and drove them to the bottom of the salt water.

The storm raged for three days and at the end, the Whale People were so exhausted they collapsed in the hulls of their canoes and let the storm have its way with them. Yellow Hair awoke on the fourth morning and looked out to see only one other canoe floating near-by. The temperature was mild, nearly seventy degrees, Yellow Hair had never felt such a mild temperature, on the shore, there was a forest of huge trees he had never seen before. He thought he might be in the Spirit World. He called out to the other boat, three men, including his youngest son, sat up and waved. There was also a woman in that canoe with a suckling child. There were three men and an adolescent girl in his canoe. Yellow Hair made a motion with is hand towards shore and the two canoes landed on a sandy shore; although, they were a hundred and fifty miles from the present coast of Virginia, they were the first Europeans to reach the East Coast of North America.

That night at low tide, they walked far out on a sand bar to look for the tell-tale yellow flickering of campfires in the distance: for the first time in their lives, they realized they were utterly alone in the world, like the beginning of time and being born by Olalla, they were alone in the world.

The Ice People of Asia

Tiger Paw knew this was a crucial and defining moment in the leadership of his tribe. His son and his raiding party had been correct in their method of revenge on this Chief’s son and his raiding party and now Blue Duck was screaming for mercy. Tiger Paw yelled for a wooden gag to be placed in each of the captive’s mouths and tied behind their heads with a leather thong. He skinned the tattoo from the chest of Blue Duck and tied it with a thong to the neck of the other captive.

Tiger Paw then ordered his son to take half the tribe and circle the North end of the glacier and head south through the Yukon and into British Columbia. They were loaded and starting their migration within the hour. It was a big gamble; Tiger Paw had no idea whether the two glaciers maintained a corridor of land between them, he just had a fairly good hunch that there was a corridor of good hunting between the glaciers.

They had to leave this country or be annihilated by the Muskeg People. There were only enough canoes for half the tribe. He might be sending his son and half his tribe to their doom, but he knew the coast line couldn’t support people traveling by land; therefore, there was no choice, he had to send half his people inland. He told his son to follow the Western Glacier and he would meet him at the southern end of the ice, in the area that was to become Seattle; Tiger Paw would take half the tribe by boat and they will join up at the end of the ice.

He turned to Blue Duck and emasculated him, so that his father would know he would never reproduce in the spirit world and certainly not on this earth ever again. He waited until Blue Duck had accepted his fate and was no longer struggling, he then cut his throat and ordered the rest of his people into their canoes. He let Blue Duck’s warrior go with his hands tied behind him and the tattoo still tied to his neck.

Tiger Paw and the rest of the Ice people left Beringia forever.

Tiger Paw and his did meet each other in the Puget Sound area, but Tiger Paw had no idea it would take twelve years for his son to make the trip. Tiger Paw’s son had gray hair and Tiger Paw was now little more than an ancient old man, but for the survivors it was a great reunion and a chance for marriages and procreation.

Eventually, nearly five hundred years later, the descendants of Tiger Paw and Yellow Hair would meet in the area that was to become Omaha, Nebraska. The names of Tiger Paw and Yellow Hair had been forgotten, but traces of their DNA are still present in many Americans. The same qualities that drove these chiefs to succeed against all odds and care for their people were carried down through the eons and it is still in the blood of tens of millions of their descendants, now walking the earth in North America.

Epilogue: This story is of course fiction; however it is based in fact, since we now know that there were land bridges that connected Europe and Asia to North America. Cultural and technologic traits as well as DNA evidence record the presence of DNA tracings of ancient Europeans among our indigenous native people of North America. This is significant, because the DNA evidence illustrates, that in spite of superficial cultural differences and phenotypical variation, people are much more closely related than anyone’s wildest imagination ever dreamed.

It is the author’s dream, that as new DNA science is discovered, people will have a softening of preconceived ideas of racial differences and a greater harmony can be achieved through knowledge and science, rather than relying on ignorance and cultural division.

Although the events in this article are based on supposition by the author, a man who has experience living on a sharp divide between survival and death, at least more than most people, it is easy to combine human nature with a harsh environment and find these behaviors close to the surface, even with our superior cultural attitudes.

The envious wailings of the OWS people who bemoan their pitiful existence and hide their selfish pleadings behind the cloak of Marxism and a dubious desire for an end to corruption; yet, their cries for equality seem to be hypocritical at best as they perpetuate and promote a code of lawlessness. Yes, under the guise of fairness and equality, greed begets more greed and the veneers of advanced culture become laughable with their pretensions of enlightenment.

This article, the preface of a novel, is not meant to belittle prehistoric man, but rather to illustrate that our advancements are mainly technological and we who consider ourselves so highly evolved culturally, are not that far removed from seeking shelter in caves and tents made of hides.

These people are modern in the sense that a baby from their culture could be raised in a twenty-first century family and no one would know the difference, but switching adults would be nearly impossible because of the cultural differences.

The extent of the land bridge between Europe and North America will be argued for decades, but the new DNA evidence suggests that if it was not complete, the exposed land masses permitted human migration with short trips by boat.

Chief Napoleon Bear Killer wasn’t really a Chief, but he looked the part and he scared most White men. He was tall with a face that was the color and texture of weathered leather in need of oil. A mustache drooping from the corners of the mouth gave him a sinister look, his facial expression never changed, and he stared right through you; these particular characteristics made people from the city a little uncomfortable. The long knife he carried on his hip didn’t help his appearance; especially, when he sharpened it every night after dinner while telling one of his tales of murder and mayhem. He was actually a kind hearted man with a gift for story telling. Unfortunately, a favorite story of his was about one of his ancestors, a homicidal maniac named Olivia Muskrat. He loved to tell this story to hunters late at night around the campfire, when there were strange noises in the darkness or the wolves were serenading us after a few shots of sipping whiskey.

Olivia and her husband trapped on the banks of the Parsnip in the mid 19th Century. Apparently, they had a blissful and harmonious existence except for her husband’s tendency to commit adultery with various young maidens. Now trying to hide facts from a trapper would be like hiding a crime from Sherlock Holmes. Trappers are attuned to reading ‘sign’ and they can see a story among the grass and twigs where most people see nothing at all.

Olivia knew her husband was cheating and this can be a serious offense in a matriarchal society. She tracked him and came to know all of his paramours. The knowledge of his infidelities seethed in her until she lost her mind and went on a murderous rampage; she killed her husband and his girlfriends, all in one bloody night. Her victims were decapitated and their heads stuck up on poles around her cabin. She kept one skull for a lantern on her table and to carry at night as she walked checking her traps. Since the daylight in the North country is only a few hours during the winter and it is usually an eerie gray misty kind of daylight, she needed her lantern most of the time.

Since her ghoulish lantern could be seen at night as she walked along the creeks and rivers, the Indians lived in stark terror of her and her knife. Infidelity became a much more risky business in the Peace and Omineca River country; Olivia always knew and she would seek you out in the dark of night.

Eventually she died, but the spirit world wouldn’t let her in when she refused to leave her skull lantern and her knife at the gate. So Olivia still walks the trails and creeks looking for those who have committed adultery. The flickering lights that people see at night are thought to be the candles burning in the eye sockets of Olivia’s husband’s skull that she carries with her.

Chief Napoleon would look around and say that they were still finding headless bodies in the bush country and they are almost always adulterers. We guides would join in the game and say something like, “Old Sam Morton wasn’t an adulterer, he wasn’t even married.”

Chief Napoleon would stop sharpening his knife and say, “He laughed with Mona Red Top, Charley Red Top’s wife. She was killed a week later.” The Chief would then draw his finger across his throat for emphasis.

Oyuki, A Japanese Ghost

Then one of the guides would say, “Damn I didn’t know that. I don’t want to meet Olivia at night. She doesn’t cut your throat while you are sleeping does she?”

“Olivia comes around when you least expect it. That’s how she has been able to kill so many men without them fighting back, but she only kills you if she thinks you cheat.”

The hunters would get nervous and put their rifles right next to their blanket rolls and be listening for sounds and watching the darkness for the light of a lantern.

One of the guides always asks, “Have you ever seen her?”

Scrooge's Third Ghost

“Many times, she comes to me while I sleep. Make noise and wake me up. First I see skull, with eyes burning bright red and yellow. Then I see her point knife at me.”

A guide, “Are you a cheater?”

“No. I have two wives: old one for housework and cooking, young one for laughing and kids. I old man, two is enough for Chief Napoleon.”

We guides were country boys caught in a time warp. Most of us lived out our lives and were never over a hundred miles from the cabin we were born in. Being able to spook the sophisticated hunters who acted superior to us was great fun, not all of them acted superior, some of them were actually great guys to be around, but when they had an arrogant attitude, Old Chief could pretty well make them hysterical with his stories of murder and mayhem. Often times, some of us guides would get half spooked after listening to Chief Napoleon.

Polls report that half of us are concerned about anthropogenic global warming. Those believers have been fed vivid and frightening stories with facts that rival Chief Napoleon’s stories. Chief specialized in taking a few facts and blowing them out of proportion until a grown man was as scared as a child. Chief’s story telling entertained those of us who liked a good story and scared the Hell out of the gullible.

It’s been done many times in the past on a much larger scale. In 2004, an EPA employee figured out that 630,000 babies were born at risk of brain and nervous system damage because of “unsafe” levels of mercury in the mother’s body. Pregnant women were advised not to eat fish.

The Japanese have continued to eat fish; actually, women of childbearing age consume 74% over the unsafe levels of fish as set up by the EPA. In fact, instead of babies being born with brain and nervous system problems, the babies have good brain function and a higher intelligence at age four.

The erroneous report was based on extrapolating the deleterious effects of high dosages of mercury to a presumed level for pregnant women without evidence. Suddenly, the hysterical effects of a dire warning set in and pregnant women quit eating fish, a healthy food for expectant mothers.

The hysteria over DDT was brought about by Rachael Carson’s book Silent Spring in 1962; she claimed the insecticides, particularly DDT, caused cancer. She scared way more people than a Hellfire and brimstone preacher could ever dream of scaring. There was no evidence for the claim and no one has proven the assertion to this day. The EPA banned DDT in 1972 followed by Europe and Africa. The most significant effect of the ban has been the deaths of millions from mosquito borne diseases like malaria.

In 1979, the American Journal of Epidemiology published an article linking low levels of Electro Magnetic Force from household wiring with Childhood Leukemia. There was the typical media feeding frenzy with scientific opinions from experts, who linked headaches and depression to the wiring that is in every American home.

In typical Big Brother concern, the US government established exposure limits and regulations that were estimated to cost over one billion dollars to the economy by the World Health Organization.

The authors of the original article published without proof and since then, there has been tens of thousands of articles published on the subject with no scientific proof of a link between EMF and cancer to date.

If we think back to Chief Napoleon and compare him to the most famous story teller of modern times, Al Gore; we realize they both achieved a measure of control through hysteria. Their audiences were considerably different. The Chief had a captive audience that was slightly scared to begin with, from being in a strange environment at night: Gore’s audience lives in a state of fear, a fear of the unknown and the future. Having a science they can comprehend, even if it is a false science, is reassuring to those who are insecure and gullible. Thus we have defined the people for whom these hoaxes are formulated, the gullible and insecure. Unfortunately it is their hysteria that can be used as a tool and a weapon by the Left to control the direction of our country and to keep themselves in the public trust. Most everyone knows it is far easier to save people when they aren’t really in danger.

Extraterrestrials may be forced to take drastic measures after they have observed the damage we have done to our planet. Al Gore will surely be placed in charge. A Scientist with NASA feels aliens may be upset and launch a pre-emptive strike as a compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases. Conversely, if we were to take drastic actions, perhaps by putting Al Gore in charge of regulating our carbon footprint, extraterrestrial beings will be more inclined not to launch a strike.

This highly speculative “scientific paper”, that should have been written for a grocery store rag, contains several scenarios written by a NASA-affiliated scientist, Shawn Domagal-Goldman of NASA’s Planetary Science Division and two colleagues from Pennsylvania State University, the official “Hockey Stick Graph” University. According to Domagal-Goldman, we should “prepare for actual contact” to avoid a “pre-emptive strike” by an otherwise benevolent alien race that is in agreement with Al Gore Doctrine.

The report: Would Contact With Terrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis, segregates alien contact into into three categories: beneficial, neutral, or harmful. However these aliens are probably waiting to contact us until we have attained a “societal benchmark such as sustainable development or international unity”.

Among the benevolent results of contact might be the offer of “solutions to problems on earth… (i.e.) world hunger, poverty, or disease” or they could provide “information on how to avoid technological catastrophe in order to help less developed civilizations succeed”. In the more harmful scenarios, they could be more inclined to eat us, keep us as slaves or pets. With the imaginations of adolescents, our scientists have brought science to the level of the tabloid with the added benefit of Socialist propaganda.

Aliens may see “intrinsic value” in all “ecosystems,” may decide to liquidate us in the interest of “improv[ing] galactic infrastructure” and “more efficiently us[ing] our resources.” An alien civilization may be in tune to Leftist talking points and may seek to “maximize” galactic “diversity”, they could resent our “rapid and destructive expansion on Earth” as a poor example to the rest of the cosmos.

They may need to destroy us to protect other civilizations and we can expect this sooner than later because of our increasing technologies. Our civilization may need to be destroyed because we are changing the nature of the earth’s atmosphere, through Global Warming of course, thus we are altering the spectral signature of earth. Egads! The authors note in typical AGW methodology, that it is difficult to predict the probabilities of such incidents, the possibilities should give us pause to consider our actions. There in lies the justification of an unproven science with altered data; but what if it is a fact or so what if the memo is a forgery, he should explain his actions during that period.

Recently, President Obama cut off funding to NASA; this tragic but humorous waste of paper may have been an attempt to get Obama to see the advantage of funding a Leftist scientific group that can generate “scientific” papers promoting the hoax of Global Warming as a protasis while trying to scare the crap out of the public. Sadly, their efforts seem to have backfired on them; if NASA relies on scientific minds like this, President Obama may be well justified in defunding NASA, since the need for new recruitment and a reorganization to form a group with non-political priorities is so blatantly obvious.

The defense of Goldman and NASA has been taken up by Media Matters. How blatant can the hypocrisy be, to have the ultra-Progressive shills defend you in the arena of public opinion. No, the need for a new NASA non-ideological NASA is obvious, thanks to the actions of Media Matters and Mr Goldman. How can we thank you enough for providing the evidence of another publicly funded ideological perversion of science.

Mr Goldman, if a scientist needs to prove his objectivity, it is best not to have Media Matters plead your case, for if there was ever a more non-objective example of political bias and hypocrisy it is Media Matters. Perhaps you had no choice, but from now on, a good portion of the public will view you in a circumspect manner for your political affiliation that you exposed in such a cheap and non-scientific manner. Conservatives don’t expect you to be a Conservative; no not at all, we expect you to be an objective scientist without a political agenda or filter.

Conservatives are extremely concerned with science and space exploration, but compromising science to carry the banner of a hoax and to promote the principles of the Progressive Socialist revolution is a counter productive waste of vast amounts of money. A new NASA formed under the auspices of a Conservative administration will be much more practical and result in a more productive government agency. We should not be mad at Goldman: we should thank him for exposing the corruption that has infiltrated a once noble government agency.

Epilogue: Goldman’s stupidity of trying to promote AGW by speculation in a report that supposedly was done for fun, was his own error in judgement. He let his philosophical feelings and ideology outdistance his common sense. He realized an apology was in order after being faced with a looming career catastrophe, it is copied in full below this paragraph. Goldman’s Hoax was called out for being a sophomoric article suitable for a Moore/Gore attempt at propaganda. His apology seems genuine; however, we are left wondering what he would have done if his tripe would have been well received by the public.

Some important points of clarification
So here’s the thing. This isn’t a “NASA report.” It’s not work funded by NASA, nor is it work supported by NASA in other ways. It was just a fun paper written by a few friends, one of whom happens to have a NASA affiliation.

A while ago, a couple good friends of mine (Seth Baum and Jacob Haqq-Misra) approached me about a paper they were writing, and asked if I wanted to join them on it. The paper was a review of all the different proposed situations for contact with an alien civilization. I didn’t think this was particularly important. After all, I consider the likelihood of contact with an alien civilization to be low. It certainly wasn’t urgent, as I don’t expect this to happen anytime soon. But… it sounded like fun and I decided to join in on it. So we wrote the paper, but I have to admit that Seth and Jacob put in the vast majority of the work on it. One of the scenarios we considered in the review was the possibility that an alien civilization would contact us because they were concerned about the exponential growth of our civilization, as evidenced by climate change. This isn’t an entirely new idea; remember, this was a review effort. Indeed, Keanu Reaves recently played a similar alien in the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” There were lots of other ideas we reviewed, but this was probably the most provocative.

Well, the paper came out a couple months ago. Today, for some reason, The Guardian picked it up, publishing an article about it with the following title: “Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientist: Rising greenhouse emissions may tip off aliens that we are a rapidly expanding threat, warns a report for NASA.” That then was picked up by The Drudge Report, with this headline:
“NASA REPORT: Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilizations…”

UH OH. Now that is a bit problematic.
So here’s the deal, folks. Yes, I work at NASA. It’s also true that I work at NASA Headquarters. But I am not a civil servant… just a lowly postdoc. More importantly, this paper has nothing to do with my work there. I wasn’t funded for it, nor did I spend any of my time at work or any resources provided to me by NASA to participate in this effort. There are at least a hundred more important and urgent things to be done on any given work day than speculate on the different scenarios for contact with alien civilizations… However, in my free time (what precious little I have), I didn’t mind working on stuff like this every once in a while. Why? Well, because I’m a geek and stuff like this is fun to think about. Unfortunately, there is not enough time for fun. Indeed, I felt guilty at times because this has led to a lack of effort on my part in my interactions with Seth and Jacob. Beyond adding some comments here or there, I did very little for the paper.

But I do admit to making a horrible mistake. It was an honest one, and a naive one… but it was a mistake nonetheless. I should not have listed my affiliation as “NASA Headquarters.” I did so because that is my current academic affiliation. But when I did so I did not realize the full implications that has. I’m deeply sorry for that, but it was a mistake born our of carelessness and inexperience and nothing more. I will do what I can to rectify this, including distributing this post to the Guardian, Drudge, and NASA Watch. Please help me spread this post to the other places you may see the article inaccurately attributed to NASA.

One last thing: I stand by the analysis in the paper. Is such a scenario likely? I don’t think so. But it’s one of a myriad of possible (albeit unlikely) scenarios, and the point of the paper was to review them. But remember – and this is key – it’s me standing for the paper… not the full weight of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. For anything I have done to mis-convey that to those covering this story, to the public, or to the fine employees of NASA, I apologize.

Mr Goldman, we don’t give a damn about your career. The infiltration of publicly funded scientific government agencies by close minded ideologues who use government funds to promote scientific hoaxes and a Progressive Socialist revolution worry us a great deal. Perhaps this will be a learning experience for you, it has been an eye opener for many Americans.

Some number of years ago, over twenty as I remember, the late (and IMHO great) Paul Harvey said that for every dollar spent at NASA, the return was seven dollars. So with that quote in my mind, the final Space Shuttle launch a few days ago, and Obama refocusing the NASA budget, I want to examine Obama’s NASA policy, as well as identify/review some of the daily benefits that we all derive from the NASA budget and space exploration.

Obama’s NASA Budget Proposal

Let’s look at what the Obama budget proposes. It ends our manned moon and space exploration, but it proposes a total NASA spending increase by $1 billion. So NASA won’t be totally out of business. His FY2011 budget proposed $19 billion, with emphasis on science, not on manned space flight. He wants to end NASA’s manned space flight program and rent space on Russian spacecraft. He wants to turn space transportation over to private, commercial companies, such as Space X, United Launch Alliance, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, Bigelow Aerospace and others. There is only one problem with privatization with space flight – it does not work. Space X is where NASA was in 1960 with Project Mercury. The ability to put humans into orbit exists only on paper.

Here is what Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, said: “Mr. Obama risks blasting American space superiority on a “long downhill slide to mediocrity”. The decision to cancel Constellation, the project to send astronauts to the Moon again by 2020 and Mars by 2030, was “devastating.”

Obama’s decision places us totally at the mercy of the Russians. Armstrong continued, “America’s only path to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station will now be subject to an agreement with Russia to purchase space on their Soyuz – at a price of over $50 million per seat with significant increases expected in the near future – until we have the capacity to provide transportation for ourselves,” he said in his open letter to Obama , which was also signed by Gene Cernan, the last man on the Moon, and Jim Lovell, commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission.

Obama’s plans for NASA include muslim outreach and making them feed good, and global warming. On the “making muslims feel good” front, here is what (then) NASA director Charles Bolden, a retired United States Marines Corps major-general and former astronaut, said that Obama told him. “… and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.”

On the “global warming hoax” front, this article by Larry Bell “kills two birds with one stone.” First, it shows that global warming (now referred to as climate change) is, indeed, a hoax. Second, it implicates NASA’s part in starting this hoax.

Says Larry Bell: S. Fred Singer, former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service and University of Virginia professor emeritus commented about these sorry circumstances in the foreword of my book, stating in part: “Many would place the beginning of the global warming hoax on the Senate testimony delivered by James Hansen of NASA [director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies] during the summer of 1988. More than anything else, this exhibition of hyped alarm triggered my active skepticism about the man-made global warming scare.”

So now we see that Obama wants to “privatize” low-orbit delivery, while focusing on other areas. Most Americans cannot remember a time when the United States wasn’t the world leader in space exploration. But now Obama wants NASA’s budget to be refocused on global warming and other politically charged projects instead of manned space flight.

Benefits Derived From NASA Budget

For more than 40 years, NASA has facilitated the transfer of its technology to the private sector, benefiting global competition and the economy. Since 1976, Spinoff, NASA’s publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology, has featured between 40 and 50 of these commercial products annually. Spinoff has detailed 1,723 such inventions to date.

“We get better airplanes, or we get better weather forecasting from space stuff, sure,” said Daniel Lockney, program executive in technology transfer and spinoff partnerships at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. “But we also get better-fed children. That kind of stuff, people don’t necessarily associate.”

Here is a long list of commercial benefits derived directly from NASA. Below are some selected specifics that I found interesting.

• Military Benefits: Here is what the Official US Air Force web site has to say about NASA. NASA began operations on Oct. 1, 1958, just before the one-year anniversary of the Soviet Union’s successful Sputnik I launch. Concerned about the race for technological superiority in space, U.S. officials debated long and hard over whether the space program should be placed under military or civilian control. NASA was established as a new civilian agency that borrowed heavily from the Defense Department and other government organizations as it built its own capabilities. One doesn’t have to look hard to see the deep connection between NASA and DOD. Meanwhile, officials at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), another organization Eisenhower created in response to the Sputnik launch, have provided critical expertise that has benefited NASA throughout its 50-year history. Defense Department officials stood up DARPA to find and quickly develop advanced technology for the military so the United States would never again suffer a technological surprise by another nation. DARPA scientists and engineers concentrated on the first surveillance satellites that ensured U.S. presidents had accurate intelligence information on Russian missile program activities, historical records show. But DARPA experts advanced other space projects as well, developing the Saturn V rocket that ultimately enabled the United States to launch the Apollo missions to the moon. DARPA, BTW, developed the first computer network that was eventually to become the Internet. That development has proven to be commercially successful.
• Medical field: it helped enable body-imaging techniques such as CATScans and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). NASA research investigating the nutritional value of algae led to the discovery of a nutrient that had previously only been found in human breast milk. The compound, which is thought to be important to eye and brain development, has since found its way into 95 percent of the infant formula sold in the United States. And thermometers that are inserted in your ear and take your temperature in seconds? The technology was initiated by scientists at NASA.
• Computers: The first integrated circuit was built by Texas Instruments, funded by the Apollo program and the Air Force’s Minuteman Missile Project. TI developed it, but NASA was the customer.
• Television viewing: NASA scientists developed those panoramic views of football plays from all angles, based on robotic gigapan camera technology software used to create images of the Mars landscape from digital photos taken by space probes.
• NASA scientists developed lightweight, portable water filters that are deployed to disaster areas and remote regions of the world where water is scarce.

The list of benefits from NASA’s budget have a real and immediate impact on our daily lives is endless. You probably know about “the space-age technology” used to develop scratch-proof lenses, composite golf clubs, high-density batteries, blue-blocking ultraviolet sunglasses, the computer mouse and freeze-dried food. NASA is constantly collaborating with private companies to share its resources. For example, the space agency builds a wind tunnel, but then allows NASCAR to use it for testing, or loans a zero-gravity aircraft to filmmakers.

Where Does Obama’s NASA Budget Refocus Leave Us?

I think J. Christian Adams at Pajamas Media says it best: “Opponents of NASA’s manned space program crow about the benefits of privatized spaceflight. Of all the other federal functions ripe for privatization – the dinosaur postal service for example – Obama targets the one function that provides both national security benefits and requires massive accumulation of capital to conduct. Too bad Obama’s zeal to wipe out manned space flight through privatization doesn’t extend to other parts of the federal government.”

Crossposted at RWNO, my personal web site!

The USS Stark (FFG 31) burns and lists to port on 18 May 1987, one day after the guided missile frigate was struck by two Iraqi-launched Exocet missiles. The attack killed 37 sailors.

The New Sovereign Investment Fund of Libya or of Colonel Qaddafi, there is no distinction in the money funds of Libya or Qaddafi, invested $1.3 Billion with Goldman Sachs; the bank used the funds on stock options at a variety of international banks and a collection of currency bets. Two years later, the Libyan fund had lost 98% of its value and was worth only $25.1 million.

Officials of Libya’s sovereign wealth fund were upset with Goldman Sachs and accused them of malfeasance; mainly, for making trades without authorization and misrepresenting investment deals.

In July 2008, [Mustafa] Zarti, the fund’s deputy chairman, summoned [Youssef] Kabbaj, Goldman’s North Africa chief, to a meeting with the fund’s legal and compliance staff, according to Libyan Investment Authority emails reviewed by the Journal. One person who attended the meeting says Mr. Zarti was “like a raging bull,” cursing and threatening Mr. Kabbaj and another Goldman employee. Goldman arranged for security to protect the employees until they left Libya the next day, according to people familiar with the matter.

Tip-top Goldman bosses, including CEO Lloyd Blankfein and finance chief David Viniar, scrambled to try to figure out how to fix the relationship with Libya and maintain access to its vast fortune. They also feared that word of the massive loss would spook other sovereign funds, so they offered the nation several ways to recoup the money. The last of the offers was made in a June 2010 meeting. Eight months later, the United States froze some $37 billion in Libyan assets as dictator Muammar Qaddafi turned on his rebelling people. Included in that large amount was what was left of Libya’s investment with Goldman.

In July 2008, [Mustafa] Zarti, the fund’s deputy chairman, summoned [Youssef] Kabbaj, Goldman’s North Africa chief, to a meeting with the fund’s legal and compliance staff, according to Libyan Investment Authority emails reviewed by the Journal. One person who attended the meeting says Mr. Zarti was “like a raging bull,” cursing and threatening Mr. Kabbaj and another Goldman employee. Goldman arranged for security to protect the employees until they left Libya the next day, according to people familiar with the matter.

Being enraged with a favored company of Obama might be dangerous to your position and your health; after all, Obama has the U.S. military and if he keeps his intervention small enough, he doesn’t need congressional approval.

relations between Goldman and Gaddafi became increasingly strained, the Wall Street firm made a total of three separate compensation offers to invest in the group on attractive terms between May and June of 2009, including the deal involving preferred shares. Another proposal would have given the LIA unsecured debt in Goldman, promising a stream of payments that would eventually have repaid the losses.

Over the next two years, discussions on these and a series of other compensation proposals were discussed by LIA and top-level Goldman staff – chairman Lloyd Blankfein, finance head David Viniar and European chief Michael Sherwood. However, they were unable to agree a solution and talks are thought to have eventually petered out last summer.

Now a company that can lose 98% of a 1.3 Billion Dollar investment might be first in line to receive Tarp Funds, thanks to Henry Paulson, Ex-Treasury Secretary. Tim Geitner who is connected to the Federal Reserve, who names Mark Patterson, former lobbyist for Goldman Sachs and the man replacing Geitner at the FED is William Dudley, former chief economist at Goldman Sachs.

Just How Close Are GS And Obama

Goldman offered Libya’s securities-wealth fund an opportunity to invest $3.7 billion in the securities firm, the paper continued, one of six options placed on the table over months of negotiations.

The proposals came at the same time Goldman had taken $5 billion in investments from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in order to pass the Federal Reserve’s “stress test” to determine whether it had to raise additional capital.

The United States is now one of the NATO allies targeting Libya with rockets in an attempt to get Qaddafi, the decades-long despot, out of power and to see a Transitional National Council take his place.

With all the money wizards of GS and the Obama Administration swapping bunks, is it possible that the financial rip off of Qaddafi was about to become an embarrassment?

What better way to get rid of an embarrassment than to take him out with missiles when he threatens his people, while ignoring other despots that are actually killing their people by the thousands, we are talking about an embarrassment of Goldman Sachs for Muhammad’s Sake! Let’s remember GS used their bailout to start making a profit, they have managed to do so well with their wizardry that they can award 28,000 employees a $600,000 bonus. We can’t lament a few rockets that can help keep the reputation of a company like GS pristine and untainted by corruption. It is imperative that we keep things in perspective.

But damn Obama’s luck, the rockets didn’t kill the Desert Fox and the maniacal fanatics of the Muslim Brotherhood didn’t pull him to pieces, now what is happening to the reputation of Goldman Sachs. Qaddafi wants his money back and the wizards of Obama and Goldman Sachs ain’t looking too clever.

Obama’s promise to rid his administration of lobbyists is a standing joke when it comes to Goldman Sachs. Geitner has reportedly chosen a former GS lobbyist Mark Patterson to be his chief of staff. Patterson worked as a registered lobbyist for GS from 2005 to April of 2010.

It’s natural for Geitner, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs to select a Goldman Sachs insider for the number 2 position. At the Treasury, Jerry Rubin of the Clinton administration, was another Goldman Sachs CEO.

The man chosen to replace Geitner at the New York Fed was W. Dudley former Chief Economist for Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs may as well be considered a part of the federal government. They paid Bill Clinton just under $950,000 for speeches between 2004 and 2007. Their Political Action Committee was the fourth largest donor to Clinton’s campaign, just below Citigroup. The Center for Responsive Politics maintains that Goldman’s Political Action Committee invested over a half million to congressional candidates in the 2008 elections, mostly Democrat incumbents. Goldman Sachs employees contributed more than $5,000,000. Obama received over $1,000,000 from GS for the 2008 election.

How quaint of Obama to promise to limit the influence of lobbyists in his administration. Goldman has had a seat at the table since regulations on finance were began to be unlaced during the Clinton years, they were among the first and largest recipients of TARP funding, receiving $10 billion immediately.

In matters of the economy, we can have faith in the intellect of men like Geitner, who according to Bernanke has two main guiding principles: “Life’s about alternatives” and “A plan beats no plan”. Bernanke also has referred to Geitner’s technique to thwart critics, “spray foam on the runway”; meaning, you take steps to limit collateral damage from crashes.

Would Obama be willing to use our military to cover for Goldman Sachs’ incompetence and corruption?

The answer may be hidden within another question, would Obama be willing to use the military to cover for his own incompetence and corruption?

There are those who would say these must be the words of an authoritarian tyrant.

We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

Barack Obama, July 2, 2008, Colorado Springs, CO.

The plan is in place, the president will now have access to all cell phones in New York City and soon all the big cities in the US will be required to receive messages from “The Won”.

A new national alert system is set to begin in New York City that will alert the public to emergencies via cell phones. It’s called the Personal Localized Alert Network or PLAN. Presidential and local emergency messages as well as Amber Alerts would appear on cell phones equipped with special chips and software.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the system would also warn about terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

“The lessons that were reinforced on 9/11 is the importance of getting clear and accurate information to the public during a crisis,” New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Verizon and AT&T, the nation’s largest cell phone carriers, are already on board. Consumers would be able to opt out of all but those presidential messages.

“We believe this new alert system is a welcome addition to our arsenal of readiness,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. “It’s like a police officer’s gun: it’s there for a good reason but we hope that we never have to pull the trigger.”

The announcement of the new emergency alert system came in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death and an uptick in security and safety concerns around New York City.

For now, the alerts are capable on certain high-end cell phones but starting next year, all cell phones will be required to have the chip that receives alerts.

By the end of the year, the new system will be in place in New York City and Washington and in cities around the country by the end of 2012.

Such a move coming from anyone else, might seem to be an excellent idea on the surface; until, we ask why the president has set himself up the provider of all news that is critical to survival in emergencies. Some of us have thought that since Homeland Security is the department in charge of emergencies and our safety, why are they not in charge of giving us critical information?

Could it be, that our president with his totalitarian concepts wants to set himself up as our savior in the event of national emergencies so that we only look to “The Won”for critical information, he alone will be in charge of our deliverance and safety or could it be that Mr Obama plans to sneak in the occasional political message since he has a captive audience waiting for information that will decide matters of life and death, like raising that Debt Ceiling or not opposing his Health Care Plan.

No way would our benevolent leader take advantage of a situation to capitalize on his political career, not the man who left us with the quote up above, not our president, the slayer of Osama.

Be Wary, Big Brother Will soon Be Not Only Watching; He Will Be Listening As Well.

At one time the Left was concerned with the feds listening to Americans speaking with terrorists, now that Obama will have access to everything in your life, everything is just peachy. No it might not happen within the first 90 days, but eventually they will have you, they will know who you are sleeping with, who you vote for, and how fast you drive on the freeway; the sky is the limit and Obama needs that information.

Really folks . . . absolutely not one of us here expect that the chaos in Egypt is going to miracle of miracles ORGANIZE into a viable Opposition Party . . . just ain’t gona happen. The logistics alone are unsurmountable, the corruption of the “opposition leaders” would begin instantly and in the end . . . is there any doubt what the results would be? Chaos is the opposition party.

Is there a way to organize chaos . . . NO. Can it be used productively and constructively . . . Yes. Look no further than the Tea Party.

How will the chaos of now be handled in the future? Electronically . . . another obvious statement.

Electronics and the speed of light dictate that the abondoned, disregarded, unheard be part of the process. Nothing else will work.

Therefore, in the future what will we see? We will see the distribution of government down to the individual participation, nothing else will answer the need to draw constructive progress from chaos.

The points of decision has been taken away from “inside the beltway”. It is now at the individual level and nothing politics can do can ever take that away. Thus, there is no real need for “chambers” of house or senate. Put the political centers back in the states. Send the senators and congressmen HOME to a their districts or states and set up distributed points of government interface. We have them already, we call them courthouses, town halls, community centers . . . allow the people who are active to collect at these centers and collect their input for decisions into the political chaos.

Can this happen over night, clearly not. But in time it WILL happen. Does it impact the “basis” or “type” of government? Absolutely not . . . only the way that the citizen interacts with the governing process.

We have a FUTURE that will define it’s self . . . unless we take the actions to secure a desired one. Electronic participation, individual input via iPhone or pPass . . . or “audience participation” . . .

Is this possible? Not only is it possible it IS required.

Everywhere the citizen encounters the “gray elephant”, the “Ass” the fence of the lobby . . . our politicians are surrounded by the arcane, the circus of performers . . . hell, even the polticians themselves have become jesters of court.

What have they encountered NOW. Where family was politics and positions were inherited, sons were groomed and careers were “pre-ordained” . . . suddenly the politician finds what is “instant change”. Ralling of voters have “ripped” the crown from the brow of “Democrats” . . . look no further than Massachusetts. We saw it in the “change of command” in November in the House.

The internet. Of all the businesses that have been most impacted by the internet none have been so impacted as the buiness of politics. Consider the “Music” business . . . the prime example of a commercial industry that “ignored” the internet. I do not have to tell anyone what the impact the internet has had on the Music business. Consider the business of politics . . . the “blind sideness” of politics REQUIRED that the impacts be UNKNOWN, UNRECOGNIZED, IGNORED . . . for that is the way politics works. Avoid the controversy at all cost . . . thus the CRISIS of the unknown is the only one that controls politics. OBAMA road a wave . . . yet he does not realize the consitutents of the way . . . only the wave.

The Arcade of Fools . . .

We all know America is doomed unless we return to core economic values and we know the economy is presently in ruins.

We know that if any recovery takes place, hyper-inflation is sure to manifest itself. Inflation is already rising, and that’s with a national 10% unemployment rate.

BUT THERE IS A SOLUTION, and only Conservatives can implement that solution. First, some FACTS on which I’m sure you’ll agree with:

A)The jobs lost aren’t coming back, because the Industries that supported them are gone.

B) To create new jobs, you need to create:

1 – A new Industry.

2 – One vital to our economy.

3 – One that will generate not just jobs, but tax revenue.

4 – One that by it’s nature, can’t be shipped offshore.

5 – One that, also by its nature, affects every area of our Nation.

6 – One so large, it will spin off other new Industries.

7 – An Industry so large that it will reverse the flow of money outside of America to a flow of money INTO America.

8 – One that will result in manufacturing returning to America.

9 – One that the people will support.

10 – One that the Government will support, and finally….

11 – ONE THAT WILL STRENGTHEN NOT JUST OUR ECONOMY, BUT OUR NATIONAL SECURITY AS WELL.

Does such an Industry actually exist? Why YES! IT DOES!

Now, another FACT: (Remember this): “Energy is what keeps us from living in Mud Huts making sharp sticks.” Keep repeating that to every policy-maker you meet. Let’s see some info you can give them, shall we?

Since Oil was discovered in Pennsylvania in the mid- 1800′s, THE ENTIRE WORLD has used roughly 1-Trillion Barrels of oil. The “Green River Oil Shale Deposit” (“Google” that to learn more) contains an estimated 2-TRILLION BARRELS of recoverable oil. And it sits on Federal Land. (We own it).

Bush wouldn’t harvest it because of obvious ties to “BIG OIL.” (Royal Dutch Shell has the bid on it, not an American Company).

One totally new Industry must be created to harvest and refine it, using BIG AMERICAN COMPANIES that employ millions of workers, like Grumman, Westinghouse, Caterpillar, GE, United Technologies, Kaman, Texrel, and big transportation, like Georgia Pacific Rail.

SECONDLY, regarding coal, there are more BTU’S of energy underground in West Virginia in Coal than there is under the sands of Saudi Arabia in oil.

All States combined, America has more BTU’s of energy in Coal Reserves than all the OPEC countries possess..

In the 1930′s Germany (Under WWI blockade and having no known oil reserves) perfected the Fischer-Tropsch process, a catalyzed chemical reaction in which synthesis gas (a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen) is converted into liquid hydrocarbons of various forms. The principal purpose of this process is to produce a synthetic petroleum substitute, typically from coal, for use as synthetic lubrication oil or as synthetic fuel (Diesel and Jet Fuel). This synthetic fuel runs trucks, cars, and aircraft engines and electrical power plants. (Think Panzer and Luftwaffe Divisions. What powered them?).

Imagine this new Industry that takes 1/3 of our commercial vehicles off of Crude oil-based fuel. WE CAN DO THIS! We’re America!

Remember, I’ve not even mentioned Domestic Drilling, Nuclear or Natural Gas energy harvesting.

And what about another new industry created by doing this:

Land Reclamation.

Paid for by a small 50-cent (or so) per ton tax levied on mined coal or Oil Shale (To produce Shale Oil). Again – NEW INDUSTRY, with jobs that can never be outsourced.

America could become the world’s leading energy exporter, instead of it’s leading importer. Think of what that means for our National Security, and for Income and sales tax revenues. And the flow of money back into America instead of out.

Think of the corporate tax revenues, and instead of money flowing out into entitlement spending, tax revenues coming in due to income and sales tax revenue.

And because this incredible economic recovery will be BECAUSE of a massive influx in Independent Energy Production, energy prices won’t inflate. They’ll actually decline, preventing hyper-inflation and allowing Americans more disposable income. The dominos of recovery will be all lined up.

A President could do all this with a simple stroke of a pen, BY EXECUTIVE ORDER, citing National Security and our National Economy.

BOLD? Sure! But I would do it in a New York Minute. People are angry. They’re tired of wars (political or otherwise) over energy. They want to work, they want jobs.

They don’t believe in man-made “Climate Change.”

We Republicans can sell this, and do this. Real results. Real jobs. A Stronger and more secure America. I respectively request that you good folks consider and support this plan as THE MAJOR PLANK in our conservatives next Campaign Platforms. The resulting debate will forever diminish and expose “The Environmental Left” as the Anti-Americans they are.

Their Domestic Energy Policies have crippled an brought America to it’s knees. We can not allow that to continue.

Regards, Nostradamus.

The mama lion wasn’t ready to give up her cub. She bet her life that she could turn the hungry Grizzly: he figured that she would surrender her cub to the inevitable, but she said, “no, not today, Mr Bruin, if you want my cub you are going away with scars and you might just die for your effort”.

Many of us are facing situations like the Mountain Lion, our savings are exhausted, we face the loss of jobs and businesses, the economy is in an abyss and our government is intent on strangling the economy with entitlement programs and taxes that have proven to be nothing more than an anchor around the neck of a drowning economy. Yes, we feel betrayed by our government and our political parties, where corruption is forgiven by those who are also involved in corruption, but only the weak surrender, to surrender is to die and we who are proud, are not going down without a fight.

Billy McCrae sent word to me, by moccasin telegraph, he needed to see me in Fort St John. I didn’t even think he knew who I was, so I was surprised and a little proud. He was a man of legends. A packer, guide, and trapper of the old days; he was in his 80′s, still had a full head of coal black hair and could easily outdistance me in town with his pronounced bow legged stride. I would be embarrassed to try and keep up with him on snowshoes.

Although he was fit and strong, more so than most men in their 30′s, even most in their 20′s, it was rumored he had some medical issues and wouldn’t be out on the trap line this winter. It was the winter of 81-82 and it turned out to be one of the coldest winters in the Peace Country since they began recording temperatures.

I knocked on his door and Billy met me with a smile and a handshake; although, it is said that I have a strong grip, the power in Billy’s right hand let me know, he could crush my hand as easily as a child’s hand. There is something about that group of old-timers, they are built like men of iron. He invited me in and told me he was so glad I could drop by.

His neat little house was a model of bachelor efficiency. Everything was in its place and cleaner than a dinner plate. There were little artifacts from Scotland and old prints of Highlanders in kilts doing battle with English soldiers. I didn’t recognize the period of the English uniforms and weapons, but I would have guessed late 18th Century. We had a cup of tea, he was a strict teetotaler, a fact that only added to his legend in the Peace Country.

Billy was a WWI vet and had a land grant for a 160 acres after the war. Like many vets, he emigrated to the Peace country, strictly because of the name. He aways seemed to be in a hurry, a rare habit in the North, it might have been a touch of shell shock syndrome: I had no way of knowing and I wasn’t going to ask.

He came right to the point of our meeting, he was worried about the far North end of his trap line. It had an abundance of Pine Marten that were mature and had not been trapped for several years. Unlike many of the views promoted by Animal Rights groups, the Pine Marten and several other fur bearing animals will mature and the old ones will eat the young ones until they are too old to reproduce and then the area will be depleted of Pine Marten for years if not decades. If the area is trapped, there will be a variety in the age groups and a healthy population will be the result. Over trapping like overgrazing will deplete the population also, but if the trap line is mountainous or huge, it is difficult to trap that much area. The older Pine Martens command the highest price on the fur market, but if you manage your resources well, they will represent only 10% of your fur harvest.

Billy had not trapped this area for five years because of the distances and his advanced age. He had planned to trap it this winter, but now, with his medical issues he wouldn’t be able to get there. He talked as if he was going to live forever and he needed to manage the trap line correctly; thus, was the reason he sent for me, he wanted me to trap that area for at least two weeks. It was an adventure to be sure, since Billy’s trap line was at the far reaches of Lake Williston, one of the largest man-made lakes in North America. It really isn’t a lake, it is a resevoir; the problem is water is always moving with the overflow from the hydro-electric damn in Hudson’s Hope and when that is compounded with warm springs beneath the surface, and the continual flow of the Ingenika, Ospika, Manson, Finley, Parsnip, Nation, Nabesche Rivers and numerous creeks into extremely deep water, with steep canyon walls, the ice on Williston has been known to be unpredictable.

I’ve broken through ice on several occasions and I’ve helped pull people out of the broken ice, it isn’t easy. The wet ice is slick, the human in winter usually has several layers of clothing that become soaked and much heavier, and the cold water drains the strength and life force from a person very quickly. I don’t fear many of the things that other people fear, but slipping under the ice has often been a nightmare for me.

Normally, Billy would make several trips in his freighting canoe to stock his cabins before freeze-up, of course those cabins weren’t stocked up with supplies now. He figured I had a snowmobile and could pull a sleigh in with enough supplies for a couple of weeks. Yes, a couple of weeks was no problem, but what if there was a problem. There would be no reliable source of food and a man could starve if there was an accident. There’s moose, caribou, and elk; however, without carbohydrates a man can starve to death while eating ten pounds of meat a day. The men of the Lewis and Clark, Journey of Discovery were eating ten to twenty pounds of meat a day; yet, they were always hungry. Without the carbohydrates, the mountain man can’t break down the protein in the meat efficiently and he will find himself eating more and more. This was a major concern for me, the temperature had been near 40 below for most of the winter and things break and go wrong during extended periods of severe cold.

To be honest, I figured Billy was going to offer me a chance to buy his trap line at a good price, since he was surely too old to be going back in that country. His trap line had been a major producing trap line for decades and had made Billy a nice estate in life.

There was a part of me that wanted to explore this Omineca-Peace Country, but I was also listening to an inner voice that was warming of the dangers of traveling on Williston Lake. They built the damn in the 60′s and tried to log all the timber that would be flooded over: it was a forlorn hope, 60 foot trees were still being launched from the bottom like wooden missiles to erupt through the surface at an immeasurable rate of speed, until the tree reached its maximum height and fell with deadly force in an unpredictable direction. There had been several close calls with boats and there had been several boats that never made it home; did some of those trees come through the hull after their roots gave up or did the trees rise up out of the water and then fall on the boat? Those questions wont be answered until judgement day.

Even though I had a feeling of dread for heading into an unknown area in the dead of winter during an exceptionally cold winter, those trees shooting up from the bottom from depths of over a hundred meters were also a nightmare if you allowed yourself to think about them for any length of time. Billy had trapped the area his whole life and had done quite well for himself, despite the fact that a portion of the trap line was now under water.

I told Billy I’d trap out the area as well as I could and set close to 50 Marten and Fisher traps and snares; if there were coyotes, lynx, wolverine, and wolves in the area, I’d trap them as well. He thanked me over and over and gave me an old hand made pair of snowshoes, we shook hands and I left with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had a foreboding about this expedition; it didn’t really make sense to be running off on a wild adventure, I had all the work I could handle on my own trap line. The other trappers probably offered to buy the line and refused the chance to trap Billy’s line.

I drove away thinking a promise is a promise and with a little bit of luck, I might make a handsome profit on this deal: in two weeks, I could probably catch every Marten and Fisher in the area, with a little luck I might get some other high dollar fur bearers and make a handsome profit.

In the early 80′s, the snowmobiles weren’t like the Formula One looking machines of today, they could easily travel at 50 mph, but the opportunities to go that fast were limited. That far north, the skies are usually gray and overcast all winter and snow conditions can be deep powder or solid ice; besides, I’d be pulling a sled that resembled the hull of a small sail boat and that would slow me down considerably. There would be at least 30 gallons of gas in five gallon plastic jugs, traps and snares, a small chain saw, an ax, food, survival gear, tarps, and my blanket roll. The gasoline was a bulky commodity; therefore, I’d need to be careful how much I used each day and use my show shoes as much as possible.

I parked my truck at a customer’s house in McKenzie and took off through town with my snow machine and sleigh. McKenzie is in an area called the Parsnip Reach, it is where the Parsnip River flows into Williston. It was quite the conversation piece as people watched the train like machine travel down the city streets. Once I was on the lake I opened the machine up, I was anxious to leave the city people behind with their finger pointing and condescending laughter. They lived on the edge of the wilderness, but they would die in a few days where I was headed, that’s why their superior attitudes never really affected me, I just felt pity for them. It seemed easier to take the Hart Highway to McKenzie and travel on the frozen lake rather than trying to reach the lake from North of Fort St John on the Alaska Highway. I could spend days fighting deep snow and blind passes. With a topography map and a compass, I could at least judge where I was on the ice and hopefully find the trap line.

The fierce winds had blown all the snow off the ice making the surface rough; the extreme extended cold temperatures and the flowing warm waters of the rivers had created huge fissures that would protrude from the surface almost four feet. Snowmobiles on ice have minimal braking and almost no steering, so the trip was not only jarring from the rough surface, it was way too dangerous to develop any speed, with snow coming down and a high wind there was also very little visibility.

Suddenly, a moose cow and calf passed me on the left, they were flying across the ice and two seconds later I saw why: a wolf pack was loping behind them. I gunned the engine and figured if I watched the animals at this high rate of speed, they would tell me where the ice ridges were. It was a big wolf pack and they were in no hurry, they could run all day at this speed, but the cow and calf were sure to be dinner if they didn’t get off the ice where the wolf had the advantage, they needed to get in the trees and deep snow or on a steep icy hill side, they could then leave the wolves like they were sitting still. There was a hazer on each side of the moose pair to keep them on the frozen lake and the rest of the pack was gaining on them.

I picked out one of the wolves in the back, he was resting before taking his turn on the flanks or biting at the hind quarter. I was gaining on him and thought I might stop this age old tragedy that was playing out in front of me. I looked up to see one of the wolves leap up and bite into the right hind quarter and hang there while enduring the hind leg and hoof bouncing him back and forth as she kept up her momentum. Three strides later the meat tore loose and the wolf stopped long enough to swallow the huge bloody piece of flesh and join the chase once again. At that point, I knew it was hopeless. Foolishly, I pulled up next to the wolf; I put a round in the chamber and held the rifle out to the left with my left hand with my right hand on the throttle. I’d shot this 8 mm x 06, the poor man’s magnum, with one hand before, it is not like the movies, it hurts, but I wasn’t thinking clearly or maybe I wasn’t even thinking. It had a scope, but with the bumpy ice at 35 mph aiming was hopeless. I was only about five feet away, I aimed the barrel at his massive chest and pulled the trigger just as he looked at me like I was I need of professional help. The rifle snapped my wrist upwards with a force that almost felt like it had broken my wrist. The wolf never broke stride, I had missed him. I brought my knees up to the handle bars so that I could put another round in the chamber. This time, I’d put the barrel right next to him and use both hands with my right knee holding the throttle. The barrel was only two feet away and I started my trigger squeeze, just as I was bucked off the machine as high as any horse has ever bucked me off. The rifle was gone and I was airborne for the longest time. Landing on dirt can seem really hard, but landing on ice is even harder. I had a perfect one point landing on my right kneecap. The lightening flased in front of my eyes as I cursed my stupidity.

My machine was still traveling without me and it was imperative that I know where it was headed. Just ahead of me, the wolves were tearing the moose and calf to pieces. If they knew I was wounded and defenseless, I might be dessert. I saw my rifle about ten feet away and rolled over and over to pick it up, I wasn’t crying, but I had tears in my eyes because of the pain. I stood on my left leg with the realization, that if I lost my machine and the sled, I was likely to die out here in the 40 below within a few days. I could just barely hear my sled through the gray mists and it seemed like the sound was coming back towards me. The machine roared past the wolves as they were pulling the two moose to the ice. It hit the ice expansion crack that had bucked me off and started traveling along the ice ridge with one ski on the ridge and one ski on the ice. I backed out of the way to avoid getting hit when the machine hurried past me to turn over about thirty yards past me with the throttle wide open and the drive belt spinning so fast I thought it might come off before I could get there and shut the machine off.

My nice machine was wrecked, but it looked like it could still travel. My left wrist was sprained and my knee was on fire and swelling fast. I could easily shoot one or two wolves now, but I decided I had more important things to consider, like finding Billy’s trap cabin and surviving the night. A snow machine and loaded sleigh is heavy and hard to turn over, but on one leg while standing on ice it is much harder.

Once I had the sleigh upright, I took off at a much slower pace. I shot azimuths of land that protruded into the lake and eventually determined my position in the gray void. I had about twenty miles to go and at 20 mph I would be at the cabin in one more hour, if I was correct with my map plotting. I pulled into a large bay after dark and headed into the bush about a mile. There was the cabin, luckily Billy had placed it on a windswept ridge and the roof was still showing above the snow. I pulled the machine up near the front door and after digging out the door, I started a fire in the stove before unloading my supplies. The thought of a moose steak with mashed potatoes, peas, and a glass of Irish whiskey kept me working through the pain and the thought of crawling between the warm blankets while taking a few more sips of whiskey seemed like a vacation in the tropics at this time.

I only ate about half my meal and figured I’d have the rest of the steak with my eggs in the morning and make a couple of potato pancakes with the mashed potatoes. I didn’t have much of an appetite, but the whiskey was delicious and soothing. I banked the fire and drank enough whiskey to forget about the knee and fall asleep.

I slept through the night and the cabin was letting the 40 below seep in by the time I woke up. I hobbled around to get the fire going and cook some breakfast after yesterday’s near disaster. I felt much better than I thought I would and decided to set a few traps and snares close to the cabin and scout out the terrain for sign of fur bearers and a likely trail up the steep hill sides.

It would be easy to trap the shoreline; unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be much activity near the lake. There were several valleys that I could explore for miles on the snowmobile; however, I’d need to try the higher elevations after a few days. Everything was so steep, I thought if I’d brought cross country skis, I could get some great skiing; of course with this knee that would just be another disaster waiting to happen. I set out a dozen Marten sets and went back to the cabin to warm up and rest.

When you are hurt in the frozen wilderness, no one knows of your situation, there will be no ambulance to rush you to the emergency room. You must use your own ingenuity to overcome your misfortune or give up and die a horrible death locked in the frozen arms of a nightmare. I was lucky, I’d missed having a terrible accident and only suffered a sore knee. The thought of being torn apart by the wolves like they were tearing apart the still kicking moose pair would be a horrible way to die, but at least it would be fairly quick. Laying there on the ice and letting the forty below claim your fingers and toes as the cold slowly but relentlessly works its way through your body while you shake and your teeth chatter until the hypothermia claims your life in a fit of delirium seemed a far worse way to die; especially, if you had lost your rifle and couldn’t expedite the inevitable and avoid the final agony.

I had let the thrill of the chase and the impetuousness of youth overwhelm my common sense; consequently, I had cheated death by a slim margin once again. I had to stop relying on luck, if I was going to live to be an old man; yet, little did I know, my will to survive was yet to be tested.

I managed to get a dozen of the mature Pine Martens over the next two weeks, they were all large, there were no young animals. They had long given up breeding or else they were very efficient at eating the younger generations. Now that there was a dent in the population, perhaps younger Martens would have a chance to repopulate the area and produce a healthy population once again. I managed to get one Fisher, its partner was in the area, but seemed to be trap wise after losing his best friend to one of my traps. The wolves were out on the lake on a regular basis, so I tried an old trick that used to be used to bring in Grizzlies. I walked back in from the shore of the lake about a hundred feet and started a little fire, once the fire was fairly hot, I threw on a chunk of beaver carcase and a scrap bit of beaver fur to barbecue a few minutes. The beaver has a peculiar odor that the animals find fascinating,; especially, when it has been seared over an open fire. I suppose humans in the city find the odor fascinating as well, since the beaver castors are the essential ingredient for those expensive French perfumes. I cooked the pieces a few minutes and nailed them to two trees about six foot in the air. Animals would be coming from twenty miles away to check out my perfume; if the Frenchies could get their perfume to work this well, it would be priceless.

The next morning I had a fine timber wolf. Unfortunately, a lynx had been enticed by the bait, but once he saw the dead wolf he hatted up and left. All things considered, I’d made a nice tidy profit for my effort; it could have been better, but I was handicapped by the knee. That night the wolves sang their sorrowful lament for their lost pack member. Normally, when you hear the odd wolf howl, it is much more melodic than the yipping cries of the coyote, but when a pack member dies or is killed, they actually sing to the night sky and all who will listen. It is not a chorus from a single location, but more like a succession of individual songs from a variety of locations. On this particular night, while sitting back in my bunk and having a small glass of whiskey to dull the pain in my knee, their singing seemed to convey an ominous warning. My communication skills with animals is limited, but I took this as a warning to be heeded, for the wolf is probably the most intelligent of all the animals in the mountains and they are probably trying to communicate; unfortunately, we don’t have the ability to comprehend their language of the mind. Unlike most people, I love to listen to the wolf and his song: tonight the song had a message of warning for me, of that I was sure.

My grub was nearly gone and I had just enough gas for the 80 mile ride over the ice to my truck in McKenzie. I decided to collect my traps and fur the next day, spend the evening straightening and skinning what ever was caught tomorrow and head home the next morning. I was anxious to head home, yet I had just started to become comfortable with my new surroundings. This was a hard country, but a country a man could come to love in time.

I had caught another Marten the next day and gathered up all my traps and snares without incident. That night I prepared to secure the cabin until next winter and wondered whether Billy would ever make it out here again. He was a Hell’uva man, but he was in his eighties: he was one of a dying breed, that was for sure.

I had coffee and oatmeal at 4 AM and headed out into the 50 below morning. I kept the snowmobile idling at 20 mile an hour and listened to the ice wearing away the steel of the skis in front and the steel studs on the rubber track. The drop in temperature was causing the ice to groan and crack with loud noises that were happening all to frequently. Ice expands as it freezes and when the temperature drops, I think the ice must expand even more causing the ice buckles or ridges that were out on the lake. When I’d come to an ice ridge, I had to take it at a right angle or the skis would just slip off and the machine would be pushed away from the ridge. It was a delicate balance to go slow enough to avoid an accident, but fast enough to have the momentum to push the sled on over the ridge. The studs I had bolted into the belt were nearly worn away at this time and I was motoring along with no steering in front and no traction from the belt, it was a peculiar situation. The cracks and rumbles from the ice were becoming louder and longer and I could feel the ice shaking like an earthquake was happening. I wanted to get off the ice, but I was in a section with steep canyon walls on each side of the lake. One of my horse customers was from Norway, he was the CEO at one of the local lumber mills and had been raised on fishing boats. He said he considered the lake to be very safe, until he was caught in a storm in this same area and he thought he was going to the bottom that night.

There was an unusually large pressure ridge in front of me and I gave the machine a little gas to get some extra momentum. I crossed over the peak and started down and on the other side, there was a nightmare. The ice was broken about six foot from the bottom of the ridge and was under rushing water, while the rest of the ice was slowly moving over the top of the ridge ice. I tried to gun the engine and jump to the solid ice, but it was a forlorn hope with the sleigh on the back and the steep angle of the ridge. The machine slammed into the sheet of ice and only the body of the machine stopped it from heading straight to the bottom. I crashed through the plastic windscreen like it wasn’t there and sprawled out on the ice in front of the machine, my upper body was on the ice and my legs and butt in the water. I pulled myself out of the cold water, once I collected my thoughts and figured out what had happened. The front of the skis were bent down and locked under the ice. With the weight of the machine pointed straight down and the sleigh still hitched to the snow machine, there was no way I could save the machine, it was headed for the bottom, that was a foregone conclusion. I needed to get back across the rushing water and salvage my emergency gear or I might as well ride the machine to the bottom.

My lower clothes were already frozen, my feet felt warm inside my moccasins and rubber overshoes, but my long john cuffs and moccasin tops were frozen to my skin above the ankles. I jumped to the machine and grabbed the end of the seat, but the vinyl of the seat and my frozen Carhart trousers caused my legs to slip off the left side into the swirling waters and when I pulled my lower body from the ice, another layer of ice quickly formed over my legs. This layer of ice actually helped because it acted as an insulating layer and my legs felt warmer now, but it was getting harder to move by the minute. As fast as the water was freezing, I figured the temperature had to be close to 60 below now. I untied the ropes keeping my goods in the sleigh and started throwing everything off as fast as I could including about three gallons of gas in a plastic jug. It was slippery working on the sides of the sleigh and I knew I was in a desperate race against time.

The ice roared and sent three great jerks through the ice beneath my feet. I watched as my snow machine and sleigh slowly slid into the blue black water to glide to the bottom, nearly one hundred and fifty meters down. I loaded everything on my pack frame except my rifle and my ax, I carried the rifle and ax and headed to the Eastern bank or wall about a quarter mile away. There was no need in going all the way to the wall because there would be no wood for a fire. I was just waiting for the ice to freeze well enough for me to cross the pressure ridge without getting wet again. The cold was seeping through my body, I was getting weaker and disoriented; unless, I found a place to make camp and build a fire, I was going to die.

The ice was still groaning and moving, but I had to cross that little ridge if I was going to live through the night. I climbed up on the ridge and threw my pack across the ice to be lighter on the new ice. I walked out on the ice and it held. It was clear and easy enough to see that it wasn’t all that thick, but it was thick enough for me to make it across. I kept the canyon wall on my left and kept walking and angling towards the wall. If I didn’t see trees soon, it would all be for nothing; because I needed a fire, and I needed it fairly soon. After walking through the short daylight of four hours, I was walking through the night before I noticed the trees only a few yards off my left shoulder. I walked towards a big spruce and fell into the snow hole beneath the tree. There was an immediate illusion of warmth, the hole was about eight foot deep and about twelve feet wide. There were lots of dry branches for fuel, I just needed to get a fire going. I pulled off my mitts with great effort and opened a 35mm plastic film container. My mind wasn’t functioning properly, I had opened the matches before laying out the fire. I unloaded my pack and looked for a birch bark roll. Birh has an oil in the bark that makes it burn like it is semi-explosive. I scooped some snow out of the way and laid the birch bark on edge, so that it formed a circular pattern, then I broke off some of the lowest branches and started paring off thin pieces. They were going every which way and some were lost in the snow. With my stiff hands, I picked up many of the pieces and tried to place them so that they were leaning against the birch bark. I broke off a few more branches and piled them on and then made a nice little pile next to the fire. It was difficult to get a match burning, but the third one didn’t break and flamed up, I started the bark burning and felt a relief when it started burning and smoking. There was no heat yet, but seeing the fire in the dark gave me a warm feeling. I used the small stuff, until I had a nice blaze. Feeling more secure, I reached up and started breaking off one to two inch pieces and put them around the perimeter of the fire. I used the two tarps I had left and laid one beneath me. There was only tea and coffee left, and a couple of teaspoons of oatmeal. I put the coffee on and heated some water for the oats. At least there was plenty of water, even if it was in the form of snow.

The feet of my moccasins were dry and fairly warm, they had been protected from the water by the tight fitting rubber overshoes, but the socks and leather above my ankles were frozen solid and extremely painful against the skin of my lower leg. The cold was causing the spruce and pine trees to crack and split, they sounded like sporting rifles were being fired all around me. That meant the temperature was close to 60 below. I had to plan carefully if I was going to survive the night. I pulled out the wolf pelt and split the hide length wise along the belly and wrapped the fur around my shoulders and back, then sat on the tail end. I slipped the some of the mature Marten furs over my hands and feet. I cut the Fisher pelt like the wolf hide and slipped it inside my flannel western shirt. My body was shivering so hard, I could hardly drink the coffee or eat the half bowl of oatmeal. The food gave em energy, but the cold was still trying to kill me. It was going to be a long night. My teeth were chattering so hard they were sore: I put a piece of wood in my mouth to soften the blow and to keep from biting my cheeks and tongue, but I quickly had it chewed to slobbered mass of splinters. I drank two ounces of whiskey to help endure the pain of the cold, but the cold was already in my bones and I would be lucky not to slip into hypothermia during the night. I tried to think of holding beautiful women next to me under sheets and blankets, I tried to think of the beach in Southern Mexico and the sun warming my body; it worked for a while and then i’d wake up and need to throw more branches on the fire or I’d have a nightmare of sliding beneath the ice and sinking deeper and deeper into those cold dark watery depths. Needless to say, it was one of the longest nights I have ever been through. I awoke from a torturous sleep thinking that someone was looking at me. I am often right about these feelings, I looked around and just in case but it was a million to one that another human was within 20 miles of my little camp. I stared through the foggy mist on the ice and saw a dark shape on the ice. It was too cold to be a Grizzly, it could be the wolves, a moose, or humans on snow machines. Maybe they smelled my fire and were curious. If it was humans, I’d hear them start their machines and fire my rifle, but it just might be an animal, I needed to eat if I was going to walk the 40 or 50 miles to McKenzie. I pulled my rifle up to the edge of the snow and peered through the gray mist and waited. In a minute or two, I made out two forms breathing out huge amounts of ice crystals. They weren’t humans, no human could breathe that heavily. Soon I saw a cow and calf moose.

I had to shoot the calf, what a tragedy, but the calf wouldn’t survive without the cow and probably half the moose will be eaten by the wolves during the winter anyway. I was shaking too much to touch the rifle with my body, I rested the stock in the snow and aimed through the scope, while hoping it was still sighted in on target. With a painful effort I tried to squeeze the trigger correctly and the rifle took me by surprise when it fired. It was a poor shot, I am ashamed to admit the poor 500 pound calf was shot through the shoulders and fell to the ice in agony in front of its mother. The cow looked at the calf as if she couldn’t understand what had happened. I couldn’t fire a finishing shot because the cow was now standing behind the calf and pushing it with her muzzle trying to get it to stand and run. I stood and yelled at the cow, but she didn’t want to desert her calf. I crawled through the deep snow to the edge of the lake and the cow was still standing beside her stricken calf. This is the only time a cow moose is dangerous, while protecting her calf; I fired over her head from 30 yards away and she finally gave up her vigil. I finished the calf with another shot and started to field dress the calf while the cow watched from further out on the lake.

This was a terrible situation, I have been a hunter all my life and have always tried to treat the animals as humanely as possible, it was dreadful, a situation that would have never happened if it was not a matter of survival under extreme conditions. I skinned the calf, took the hind quarters, the stomach, the heart, and the liver. I wrapped it all in the hide and dragged the heavy load to my fire. There wasn’t anything in the stomach that looked fit to eat, so I cleaned it out with snow and cut up the heart and liver into small chunks and packed them into the stomach and tied the entrance and exit shut to simulate a pressure cooker and put it on the fire. My cooking utensils were sitting on the bottom of the lake, waiting to be discovered by some archaeologist of the future. The stomach would do for at least one meal and it had an advantage over regular cook ware, in that you can take it with you and eat it along the trail.

My simple meal was done in about thirty minutes; although, time had lost all relevancy. There was 20 hours of darkness and four hours of daylight, those were my only references. I had lost my watch somewhere along the way.

The meal revived my strength, but I thought I should spend another night and have another meal of roast moose steak or two before attempting the 40 mile walk home, at least I was no longer disoriented and just as likely to head in the wrong direction. I made a bed from the moose hide by laying it skin side down. The hair was four or five inches long and stiffer than a boar’s bristly whiskers. The moose’s hair is hollow and provides superior insulating qualities for the moose and the odd trapper in a desperate situation. Right now, my new bed felt so warm and comfortable, i drifted off into the best sleep I’d had since leaving my home.

I awoke just as the sun was peaking over the eastern horizon. I knew that I was not alone. I took note of everything around me and heard noises out on the ice. I put my rifle in the same ice groove I used the morning before and looked through my scope into the gray. The wolves were making fast work of the calf carcase. They were done and cracking the leg bones open like chicken legs with just the slightest effort from their powerful jaws. One of them finished early and walked over to my trail through the snow. I swear it was the same one who looked at me just before I crashed my snowmobile. He sniffed the trail left by me and the moose hide and ventured up the trail a few strides before stopping to look directly at me. The hair stood up all over my body, he knew who I was, where I was, and what I was doing. From 25 yards away he stared at me for the longest time and then slowly backed up and trotted over to the rest of the pack and they were gone.

That was one of the strangest confrontations of my life. I swear he knew everything about me and what I had in my hands aimed right between his running lights. The temperature had warmed up to at least a tropical 40 below and it felt balmy. I made up my pack and loaded about ten pounds of prime moose roast. My meal had been so refreshing yesterday, I wasn’t hungry and didn’t want to waste daylight cooking a steak. I figured I could make 20 miles a day easily and be in McKenzie in two days without straining myself. I said goodbye to my little campsite that had revived me and hit the ice in high gear.

I made it to McKenzie the next afternoon and put a propane torch under my ford one ton with stove pipe directing the intense heat to my engine and batteries until they thawed enough to start the truck without effort. I drove home and tried not to think abut my losses; instead, I thought about how fortunate I was to still be alive.

Billy died in surgery while I was out on the trap line. He left the trap line to a nephew who couldn’t have trapped out there if his life depended on it; at least he was smart enough to sell it, but the guy who bought it never got up the nerve to try and trap it; after that I lost interest in the trap line. I was sure I didn’t really want to go back there in the winter. I hunted Grizzlies there in the fall for a couple of years; at night, I listened to the wolves and wondered if one of them was my buddy who was so close to me at least twice.

My ankles feel the cold before the rest of my body to this day and if I close my eyes, I can still feel those frozen moccasin tops tied around my ankles.

A few days later the skin on my ears, fingers, cheeks, toes, ankles, and nose turned white and peepled away. I had been close to having a disaster.

This story is not meant to illustrate my ability to survive difficult situations, for many trappers have survived in that country over the decades and still work that area to this day. If anything, I failed to function in that extreme environment. This is about reaching deep inside and making that extra effort to survive when everything seems like a forlorn hope; how, with effort and just a little luck, the smallest bit of positive reinforcement can help you achieve goals that seemed impossible during those darkest hours.

In all our lives, there will be enjoyment and contentment if we can just put forth that extra effort to push forward and hang in there until fortune swings our way. Then the little things in life will have so much more meaning; the sky will seem so much bluer, the water will taste so much better, and the grass will be so much greener. Thus the celebration of life continues to open doors for us as we continue life’s journey.