Click the link below to watch an interview of Joe Want.
Joe was born in Alaska and started working as a guide in the late 1950's



https://youtu.be/YqSZ7ZeEeI4

I have lived next door to Joe for 40 years. He is a wealth of wilderness lore and a Master story teller. That 40 years has been an adventure!

Pete

Listening to Joe talk about his early years brought back some memories.
My brother and I did some of our first trapping in the Chickaloon River Area, back when we were teenagers.

Watching and listening right now. Very cool guy, with some very cool stories!

Rusty Newhouse, what years were those? Buddy of mine trapped coal Creek and I spent literally months up there guiding sheep hunters.

newhouse114- I sent you a PM

Rusty,thanks for posting that.I first heard of Joe want in the early 1980's.The first two Dalls that I ever mounted were from customers that hunted with him in the Brooks Range.They couldn't stop talking about him and their experience so I had to watch this althe way through.I didn't realize there were so many layers to this guy or even that he was still living.Fascinating!

He's such an Alaskan! Sealed a sheep for me in September. Makes ya feel like a million bucks after he counts the annuli and plugs the horn, then gives you a hearty handshake and congratulations!! One of a kind guy..would have been neat to have a camera rolling on a hunt with him back in the day.

Very cool...thanks

There is some video of Joe at the time he was working for P&T at Olga Bay. I've seen it with my own beady brown eyes! ATA has a copy of the video. I've seen it in the course of editing the new ATA book about Darrel Farmen guiding on Kodiak that will be published soon.

Did you come through Fairbanks for your sheep hunt? And you did NOT call me to go have coffee? This cannot be allowed to happen again...!

Pete

Excuse the change of subject but, they plug sheep horns in Alaska now?? When did this happen?

It has been about 15 years that we have been required to present sheep horns for sealing.

There were a fair number of sub-legal sheep presented in the first years, but that has dropped off.

More interesting to me were the number of sub-legal sheep brought in by GUIDES!

Pete

Joe is the type of guy I like to meet. A woodsman. Pete--tell him "Hi" from all of us.

Heck of an interview. I love his mindset. Humble and always willing to learn. Funny too.

Since Daylight Savings went away today, I had an extra hour to kill when I got up this morning! I watched this video. Fantastic!

Pete

I worked for Joe a couple of years up on the Sheenjek in the seventies. Had a lot of fun, he’s a master practical joker and was a beast in the mountains.

Rusty thank you for posting that video up! I really enjoyed it. Met Joe a couple of times and he is an amazing man.

The last of the great brown bear men. I had the book. I can't imagine how pristine Alaska must have been in the fifties.

Great interview. ! Thanks Rusty !

It always amazes me about Alaska. I have never met Joe but he mentioned working for Jack Lee for a couple seasons. I did the same in the late 70's and in the early early 80's for his girl friend Ellie Jones.

Just look at this thread. Many of us have never met face to face but we are still connected somewhat through Joe Want. Is Alaska the only place that this happens ?

Another example is Pete. Long before my daughter met and married Pete's son, I knew who Pete was and some of the things he'd done........from reading the trooper dispatches mostly.

I guess it must be a function of huge state and small population.

It would be nice to have more of these interviews on tape.

It would be great to have an interview like this with Cleo McMahan and old timers like him

Years ago a friend of mine, now gone, had an empty brass shell from a British "elephant gun". It was a .450/.500 NE or .416 Rigby, something along those lines. It was huge. I asked if he or his Dad hunted in Africa, and he said that a family friend, Joe Want, carried a huge double rifle while guiding bear hunters on Kodak and gave him that cartridge casing. Man, I thought those bears must be huge. I wish I had the bandwidth to watch that video. Maybe next trip to town.