Al Hansen
Well-known member
I was mired in mud up to my waist and thinking at the time, “I am much too young to die.” I nervously looked about wondering when the tide was going to be coming in. It was then that I glanced at my two partners that were on solid ground not 15 to 20 feet from me giving encouragements but to no avail it seemed.
In an instant I flashed back to a bar that, Bill, my principal and a bunch of us teachers had gone to after school on a Friday afternoon to have a few beers prior to going home. While we were there having so much fun, he told me a story of a duck hunter that had gotten stuck in the glacial mud that covers Cook Inlet. I guess this man couldn’t get out of the situation that he was in and eventually, even with people in boats by him, could not get him out. They even offered him a shotgun barrel to breathe through just before the rushing incoming tide washed over his head. That man lost his life out there. I remember thinking of what a horrible way that had to be to die.
As my mind focused back on reality, it was then that I shuddered just thinking that my boss and his buddy, Les, couldn’t help me one bit. At the time I was holding my Browning A-5 and I made a quick decision, checked the chamber to make sure it was empty and tried to toss it to Bill. Well, that was a good thought until I watched my gun fall just short of Bill’s outreaching hands. It darn near sunk out of sight but he did manage to reach it when Les held one of his hands and he then took a step into the mud and with his other hand groped about until he felt it and pulled it out of the slimy muck.
All this time I knew that if I tried to get out, at each struggle, one foot would sink down farther than the other . I was just getting myself deeper into the quagmire than I really wanted to be.
Our original plans were so simple. We had been watching some Canadas landing out on the mud flats when the tide went out, so we decided to hunt there on this one morning in September. By the way, Cook Inlet has some of the highest tides any place and on this morning that was no exception. All went well as the three of us picked our way out to a great looking spot to hunt. I remember the gully wash that we had to go through to get there. As we went along, the ground there was like jello. but sufficiently stable enough to let us go by and onto the mud flats. “No big deal,” I thought at the time. I was just 25 years old then. Well on this particular morning no geese showed up and to make matters worse we could hear the shots of duck hunters banging away at pintails that were flying into the marsh of the Palmer Hay Flats. It was then that we decided to go back. I was last in the line up to go across this gully wash and it was once again at that area that made you feel like you were walking on jello that my right foot sunk down about 6 inches. As I tried to pull it out, the other foot sunk down to 10 inches of glacial silt and Cook Inlet clay/mud. It was as if the area that we walked on stirred up the silt/water beneath where we had walked and it was no longer safe to be there.
Well, with Bill being able to get my shotgun and thus freeing me of holding that, I began to run some options through my mind. None of us had rope and there were no branches or logs of any sort for my to hunting friends to get to me. They had searched the area and found none. It was then that I finally realized how lucky I was because that morning when I slipped on my hip boots when we got out of the Bronco, I did not lace them up around the calves of my legs. I could still feel a smidge of freedom in each boot and I knew right then what I had to do. I took off my hunting coat and winged it to Les who was touch closer now to me and told my friends what I was going to do.
I flung my upper body face forward into the mud reaching out with my arms as far as I could trying to displace my body weight and ever so slowly began to inch out of my left boot and then right, alternating as I slowly crawled through this muck. When I got my left foot out I then found it much easier to get the right foot out and maybe looking like some creature almost totally engulfed in this quagmire, I inched my body ever so slowly out towards the dry land. Both of my hunting partners made a human chain with one on dry land holding the other as he reached out to grasp my extended hand. My God, I can’t begin to tell you how gratifying the touch of Bill's hand felt to me as they then grunted while pulling me up to firm ground.
It was almost hilarious but right then I was in no laughing mood as we began our long trek back to the parking lot up by Cottonwood Creek. Of course I was in my stocking feet because my hip boots were still right where I left them in that muck. I was totally exhausted by the time we reached the Bronco.
In retrospect, that little incident was my eye opener to being an Alaskan. I could still visualize the old-timer giving me a once over and saying, “Cheechako, this land is unforgiving and don’t you forget that!”
Al
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