Quote:
madscavenger » Fri Sep 07, 2012 5:28 pm
In 1980 (might have been 81), my wife and i were in Alaska traveling the Richardson Highway, in the rain at night. We were looking for a campground and some place where we could grab a sandwich or something. Not much on the Richardson, except dead porcupines. Uh uh. We finally found one, pitched a tent in the rain (always fun) and drove back a couple miles in the Rent-a-Wreck (Alaska was one of the few states they did business in, but those beatup gas guzzlers were quite the bargain for this couple of vagabonds), to a set back roadside tavern we had passed whose single porch light was the only sign of its presence. The door was unlocked and it was dimly lit, but when i poked my head in i heard a voice welcoming us. They were actually closed, but the owner, a retired Chicago cop (hey, a homeboy), was standing behind the bar, a couple of friends having downed who knows how many shot-and-a-beers, adorning a couple of stools. He reached up and rang a bell. "Round on the house", he called out, our shot-and-a-beer appearing almost instantly. The second arrived almost as fast. When he rang the bell again, i told him we had to slow down a bit, cause we hadn't eaten all day. "Well hang on buddy", he said as he went in the back and fetched a couple of strips of salmon. He had a small smokehouse out back, where he smoked the salmon he caught over alder. He fillets them, cuts em into thin strips, does some other tricks (soaks in brine?, etc), and hangs them in the smokehouse for several days (at least). They need considerable drying. They're cold smoked, IIRC (course, i was a little gone by then). Squaw Sticks he called them. They come out kind of like jerky, only more fleshy; chewy, but not so tough. And its the best smoked anything we've ever had. But, the festivities were not yet complete. A couple more rounds (all on the house) and accompanying tall tales filled the time until the rain fell off some. We weren't exactly champing at the bit to head back and climb into not exactly high grade sleeping bags. The two friends, were mostly silent during all of this, here and there chipping in with a short story or two. i was really gone. If i leaned over, i swear i would have fallen off the stool. Then it happened. One of the owner's side kicks threw a Bowie knife at my left foot. Well it looked just like one and was about the same size; and sharp, it might as well have been one. It stuck in the wood floor, about two inches from the shoe. i was so drunk i wasn't even startled, just slowly turned my head a little, when the blade hit the floor, and immediately slowly back as if someone had dropped a dime or something. Never gave it a thought. Didn't even look up at him. The bell rang. My wife stood up, sort of, and tried to give them something for the Squaw Sticks. They refused. We had to get up just before dawn, 3-4 hours from now, she told them, to watch the fauna venture out. And it was raining, and we had to find the tent. We left, peed on the Rent-a-Wreck (same color ya know), and drove the car, if you call 5-10 mph driving, to the nearly deserted campground (deserted, except for the zillion or so mosquitos, two hard sided vehicles, and no other tents) and collapsed on the sleeping bags. On them, not in them. Did we beat the wildlife to the punch? Yes we did. Hell, we drank the punch, and thumbed our noses at them.
This is the story of the Squaw Sticks. We still had another three weeks to go, however we only drank that much one other time that trip. Does that answer your question?