On one of our early trips we stopped by a cabin, the last place on Oil Well Road. The resident was an old guy who had lived there for many years. The pioneer was 75 or 80 years old, had homesteaded the place, and knew the area well. He invited in for cup of coffee. The homesteader told us that there had once been a road all the way to the river, but much of it had gone to swamp after the seismic trails were made. He told us where it connected to Oil Well Road, and thereafter, we had an easy walk for three-fourths of a mile, but would then get lost in a big swamp, eventually finding our way to the south side an hour or so later. We also found the road on the bluff side, but would again get lost in the swamp on the way back. We eventually connected the two ends of the road and marked the swamp route with colored survey ribbons and many notched trees.
We went down to the State Land Office after we had finished staking our corners to make inquiries about filing leases. We were trying to identify our parcels by describing their location in relation to a birch tree that had a very large burl and a "W" shaped bend in the river. The guy there looked at our info and said “no” that wouldn’t do - trees tend to fall and rot, and rivers change beds as often as politicians. “Then, how do we do it?”, we asked. He said it would be best if we could describe it in relation to an existing survey marker.
We inquired at the survey office and they helped us determine the location of the nearest marker to Oil Well Road. On our next trip we foumd the survey marker without much problem (pleasant surprise), and it was located only 30 feet from one of the seismic trails. From there we used a compass to shoot bearings and a one-hundred foot tape to measure the distance up one seismic trail and down another, zigzagging our way to our stake. Once done, I calculated the bearing, and determined that the straight line distance between the two points was one and a third mile. The State gave us our lease
The next summer Dan was commercial halibut fishing in Kodiak so I walked into the land by myself to check it over. I found that a bear had discovered our camp and taken revenge. Our coffee pot had a large hole in its bottom edge. I suspected it was made by a large canine tooth. Camp utensils were scattered about. The tent was shredded with long claw mark tears down its side. It had been collapsed so only the top peeked above ground level. I looked inside and found my Coleman lantern, which I’d hung in the top of the tent, was the thing holding it up. The lantern was okay, even the mantle was intact. I didn’t want to carry it home so I took a length of wire that had been used to detonated charges along the seismic trails (there was a lot of it lying around) and strung the lantern up in one of the cluster trees.
That night I made a lean-to with a piece of plastic and crawled into my sleeping bag. It was a bit uncomfortable as I had no protection from mosquitoes until the air cooled that evening. I awoke a few hour later by the howling of a pack of coyotes. Their yipping and yapping were both eerie and beautiful. I was entertained twenty minutes as they moved through the valley below, their serenade first rising and then ebbing as they passed. My 308 was lying at my side, but it never occurred to me that the coyotes were a danger.
That winter several of us skied into the land. There was a couple feet of snow and the trip was pleasant. When we got to the land we found that one of the trees had blown over. Our tree cluster was broken. Upon closer observation I realized that the downed tree was the one I had hung the lantern. I when along the fallen trunk to the branch I tied it to and dug into the snow. There it was undamaged and the mantle was still intact. I took it home.
We had the lots surveyed in 1980 by Henning Johnson, a well know surveyor of the area. I purchased my lot for $225. The surveyors said we were off by only 50 feet from our original measurements - not bad for amateurs. We returned that fall to check the survey and note the position of the corner markers. The surveyors had changed the lines so that the two lots had a common side. I ended up with most of the grassy slope but more that two acres were over the bluff and not of much use. I still had a couple of good acres. It was another ten years before we got back to it again.
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