I was watching a recording of the Animal Planet’s “Wild
West Alaska” last evening where they told of one of Ken’s acquaintances, an
Alaskan Native, that Ken had talked into bringing in a rifle to upgrade and
“fix;” all in the hopes of Ken talking Jim, the owner, into tagging along on a
buffalo hunt for this young native man to obtain food for a native village
feast—but from
Ken’s viewpoint, a day off from work.
The episode brought to mind one time at Fort Greely that
I had the opportunity to come into contact with the local buffalo herd and how
that all worked out.
I had been conducting a staff meeting in my command tent
when we heard a ruckus outside. The five of us walked outside to see what was
going on and that’s when we saw them. A big portion of the Fort Greely Buffalo
Herd had just strolled through our area.
One of my guys, Fitz, came over and said: “Hey LT, one of
them was looking inside the vestibule of your tent!”
I was really glad that the visitor had figured out it
wasn’t his meeting and decided to stroll on away!
I wish I had taken out my camera when we first walked out
of the tent, but getting a picture was the last thing on my mind at the time. I
shot these two before they moved out of the area. This took place in February
of 1974. The temp was hovering around -60ºF
at the time.
