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Their aren't many left like the man who killed a wolf with his bare hands
Posted on 5/20/14 at 11:17 pm
Posted on 5/20/14 at 11:17 pm
I only met Iditarod Joe once, and that was at a mushers committee meeting at Iditarod HQ a little over 10 years ago. Even at his advanced age he had a strong, firm handshake and would look you right in the eye and flash an ear to ear grin. Fewer young people want the lifestyle anymore, and the old timers are dying out. Iditarod Joe passed away on May 1, and there are very few like him left. A good rememberence of him today in the Dispatch.
LINK
Probably will not get much interest here, but the world is losing these old timers and is changing so rapidly we'll not see the likes of them again. The old woodsman, there aren't many left. If you know one, spend time with them, listen to their tales. It's how they become immortal because they were larger than life.
LINK
quote:
WASILLA -- Not many in this day and age can claim to have killed a wolf in hand-to-fang combat, but that's not why hundreds turned out Sunday at the headquarters of the Iditarod Trail Committee in Wasilla to honor the late Joe Delia.
Delia was a man with big, gentle hands who knew well the kill-or-be-killed rules of the jungle, and yet lived by the best rule of mankind -- love thy neighbor. He was a strong man with the face of a smiling hawk and a heart full of compassion.
quote:
Iditarod broadened the impact Joe had on the world, but he was one of those special people who would have had an impact without Iditarod. He was, quite simply, the best of what Alaska once was -- a place where those living deep in the wilderness reached out a hand to help anyone and everyone because of a shared recognition of the frailty of man.
"He was always looking out for everyone," remembered former Skwentna neighbor Joyce Logan, who along with husband Joe, once owned the Skwentna Roadhouse across the river of the same name.
quote:
Joe befriended Israel's father, Tom Peyton, when he moved into the Skwentna River valley in 1975, looking to become a man of the wilds. At Joe's memorial service, Tom, now in his 60s, joked about how Joe often warned that "there's always some guy with a bag of traps in one hand and a .30-06 (caliber rifle) in the other" looking to make a life in the wilderness.
quote:
The term "woodsman'' doesn't mean a lot to most people these days. But it still means much to a select few who know the hardships and difficulties of life beyond the edge of civilization, and understand the work ethic and complex bag of skills required to make that life look easy.
quote:
"He jumped off his snowmachine and bull-dogged the wolf to the ground," Israel said. Joe pulled the snare tight around the wolf's neck, and the animal went limp. Joe thought it was dead. He tied it on the back of his snowmachine and headed home.
One problem: The wolf wasn't dead.
On the run back to Skwenta, it came to life and attacked Joe, knocking him off the snowmachine and into the snow. They ended up in a life-and-death battle in the bitter cold. Joe eventually managed to pin the wolf against the cowling of the snowmachine and beat it to death.
"And that's at age 60-plus," Israel said. "He killed it with his bare hands."
quote:
The crowd was heavy with Alaskans from another time. These were people who knew how to use an ax better than a computer.
As the service ended, someone started to sing "Amazing Grace." It was not planned. It was sung a capella with only the wind whistling in the early leaves of May as accompaniment.
It was the kind of thing Joe would have appreciated.
Probably will not get much interest here, but the world is losing these old timers and is changing so rapidly we'll not see the likes of them again. The old woodsman, there aren't many left. If you know one, spend time with them, listen to their tales. It's how they become immortal because they were larger than life.
This post was edited on 5/20/14 at 11:39 pm
5
Posted on 5/20/14 at 11:28 pm to RogerTheShrubber
Wish there were more men like him still around.
Posted on 5/20/14 at 11:47 pm to RogerTheShrubber
quote:Do you know that they have classes in high school and college that teach guys how to give a handshake? Drives me bonkers when some guy flops a wet rag handshake on me. I'm the a-hole who squeezes as hard as I can when that happens just to prove a point
Even at his advanced age he had a strong, firm handshake
Posted on 5/20/14 at 11:50 pm to Hammertime
quote:
Do you know that they have classes in high school and college that teach guys how to give a handshake? Drives me bonkers when some guy flops a wet rag handshake on me. I'm the a-hole who squeezes as hard as I can when that happens just to prove a point
Joe had a handshake like he was really glad to see you again, even if it was the first time he had met you. No one was a stranger.
Posted on 5/21/14 at 12:23 am to RogerTheShrubber
It's up to those of us who love the outdoors to teach and pass it own to our kids and their kids.
To much tv, xbox, and computers now a days.
When I was younger it was bike ridding, creek wading, hunting, fishing, practicing noticing tracks and animal sign in the woods, and all other types of outdoor related fun when I was young.
To much tv, xbox, and computers now a days.
When I was younger it was bike ridding, creek wading, hunting, fishing, practicing noticing tracks and animal sign in the woods, and all other types of outdoor related fun when I was young.
Posted on 5/21/14 at 1:12 am to bulldog95
A year or so ago Joe had to leave Skwentna for Anchorage.
quote:
No man can outrun Father Time, especially in the Alaska Bush where life remains closer to the age-old struggles of nature than the comforts of the modern age. But Joe Delia gave it one hell of a try.
For 50 years, Delia was an institution along the Skwentna River. Time Magazine profiled his life in 1970 under a headline that read: "The Vanishing World of Trapper Joe Delia.''
Delia was 40 then, and it might have seemed the world he knew was vanishing. It wasn't. It was changing in ways that no one could quite predict. The Alaska population boom that was threatening the lifestyle of those who knew the Alaska Bush turned into something of a population dud. Alaska grew, but it didn't grow in Skwentna. The back-to-the-Earth hippies went back to town. Alaska coalesced around a few major cities. It continues to do so.
And now Delia lives in one of those cities.
quote:
He was a modern-day mountain man. He tried to take his snowshoes, rifle and pack with him on the plane when he left -- just in case.
He told friends maybe he could get a snowmachine in Anchorage and drive back out to Skwentna to trap in the winter. It's 90 long miles by trail, a long ride even for a younger man in the best of health. It's not the sort of drive Delia is up to making these days, but letting go of a place you love is a hard thing for a man like Delia. The country becomes part of you are. It's a piece of your soul.
quote:
Not longer after, Leonard left to live out the end of his life in the kinder, gentler world of modern America. Joe was not happy to see him leave, but he watched a lot of friends move out of the country or move on to the other side. The late Joe Redington, founder of the Iditarod, was one of those who enlivened the Delia cabin for years. The two Joes could sit around at Iditarod time telling stories about the old days that held the attention of everyone in the always-crowded house. Redington was a top-10 Iditarod finisher in his 70s, but time eventually caught up to him, too.
Ill health forced Redington off the runners, and he spent his last days at the family homestead at Knik, not far from the doctors in Wasilla.
quote:
A couple feet of snow had piled up back home in Skwentna. Everyone there was digging out -- as they have been frequently this winter. Childs noted the caretakers in the Delia house are beginning to wonder just what they've gotten themselves into. With the snow piled more than 4 feet deep, you shovel all the time to keep buildings from collapsing, to make it possible to see out windows after roofs avalanche, to build a ramp to hike up out of the cabin to where the snowmachine is parked.
It is, sad to say, no life for old men. And all men, even the toughest of them, grow old.
This post was edited on 5/21/14 at 1:15 am
Posted on 5/21/14 at 2:18 am to RogerTheShrubber
quote:I feel like if i was given the opportunity I could. Maybe even two at the same time.
Their aren't many left like the man who killed a wolf with his bare hands
Posted on 5/21/14 at 8:01 am to Macintosh504
quote:Uh-huh.
quote:
Their aren't many left like the man who killed a wolf with his bare hands
I feel like if i was given the opportunity I could. Maybe even two at the same time.
Posted on 5/21/14 at 8:53 am to RogerTheShrubber
Just where is it I could find bear, beaver, and other critters worth cash money when skinned?
Posted on 5/21/14 at 10:33 am to RogerTheShrubber
Damn that sounds like a great guy and a great time. He was a man, through and through nothing like what today's yuppies are like.
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