I've never met Randy. Oddly, never heard of him either. One of my friends here in Fbks. knows him and lived in the Kandik R. country at the same time. Randy's story if pretty common actually, but many of the players are dead or gone.
The years 1975 to around 1990 was an attractive time to be a wilderness trapper in Alaska. I came in 1978. Settled in the Ruby, Ak. area. Usually had to go somewhere else in summer for cash income. Lots of money in the state back then. Oil was flowing and the state was throwing the money out. Yukon R. was a good provider of fish for dog teams. Randy says, "you can't move fish". That only applied to where he was, Kandik R. Other areas along the Yukon trappers would put up fish, mostly Salmon, dry them, then move the dogs and fish to trapping camp. There was land to be had or at least used. The Yukon R. was a hiway for boats in summer and dog teams/snogos in winter. The whole Yukon drainage from the mouth up to Eagle and up the Tanana to at least to Fairbanks used to support a Salmon economy. All 3 species of salmon that spawn in the upper Yukon and Tanana R. drainages are now in trouble. No fishing what so ever. I think it's the same way in the Kuskokwim country where White lives. Not sure about Salmon in the Kusko drainage but no one living remote any more.
That's all over with. Pretty sure there's no one wintering up the Kandik. Very few spending winter in a remote trapping camp anywhere in Alaska. Must be over a million pictures of that time period sitting in boxes around Alaska and down in the lower 48. I know I've got plenty.
There is a family that winters/ traps up the Kandik. My family as far as I know were the last to overwinter/ trap in the preserve as Nate and Ruby Becker quit a few years before us.
![[Linked Image]](https://trapperman.com/forum/attachments/usergals/2025/01/full-51818-242610-1000002385.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://trapperman.com/forum/attachments/usergals/2025/01/full-1515-242635-img_0643.jpg)
