Floating The Last Frontier
Here’s how you can see the 90% of Alaska that others miss
Text And Photography By Lyn Freeman
Alaska is the pilot’s dreamland,” John Snedden, a businessman and pilot from Idaho, said to me as my family and I stood on the deck of Bristol Bay Sportfishing Lodge in Iliamna, Alaska. Below us, two floatplanes sat anchored to the beach. We had all come here, a state twice the size of Texas, with different dreams. For Snedden, it was the adventure and world-class fishing; for my wife, it was the lure of North America’s most spectacular wildlife locations; and for my son, it was all that, plus a chance to do some dogsledding (albeit a tall order in the summer). I had come to Alaska to fulfill a lifelong dream—to fly the Last Frontier. All of us got more than we could have imagined.
The village of Iliamna, just under 200 miles south and west of Anchorage, is a tiny outpost for about 100 people who live on the shore of Alaska’s largest body of fresh water. The area is home to some of the world’s largest caribou herds, moose, bears, five species of salmon, trout and an uncountable parade of animals. There are no roads to Iliamna, so most who live here or visit must come or go by airplane.
“ All my family are pilots, they’re always flying everywhere,” said 87-year-old native, Rose Hedlund, who now spends most of her time sewing seal skins and the pelts of arctic fur animals into traditional hats and mukluks. “I’m not a pilot, but I sure have spent a lot of time flying!” she grinned. “Everybody here has.”
It was that blend of aviation and adventure that first attracted Bruce Johnson to the area and ultimately gave birth to Bristol Bay Sportfishing. For the better part of the last three decades, he’s flown visitors a million miles back and forth across the area in floatplanes, providing them some of the best fishing the world has to offer and, at the same time, showing them an Alaska that’s only available to pilots.
“ We couldn’t do what we do without airplanes,” Johnson said. “We’re not just limited by sitting in one spot. If there’s a king salmon run on the Nushagak River, we fly in to fish there. The next day, we might fly over to Kodiak Island or the Katmai Wilderness to watch the bears. You really can’t see Alaska except by airplane.”
Johnson met us at the small Iliamna airstrip and immediately loaded us into his Cessna 206 on Aerocet floats. Within moments, we were headed out low and slow over the landscape, overwhelmed by the onrush of sights. Off our left wing was a stair-step of glacier-fed waterfalls; to the right, a moose and her calf fed on the bright yellow flowers at the edge of a small turquoise pond. In what seemed like only moments later, Johnson throttled back to settle the floatplane into a sea of big green lilies that lay along the banks of a river, where big brown bears had already begun to gather in anticipation of the coming salmon run.
“ Locals call these bears ‘browns,’ Johnson told us, “but they’re genetically the same as grizzlies.” Because Alaskan brown bears feed on fish during the summer, they’re about a third larger than grizzly bears on average. Cubs are typically born in January or February and, by the time they reach maturity, can easily weigh in over 1,000 pounds, making them the largest carnivorous land mammals on earth. Accordingly, the bears were unimpressed with our presence, happy to amble the riverbank and look for fish. Johnson pulled some lunch meat and homemade cookies out of a storage area in the floats and we ate sandwiches while we watched the show.
Behind us was Augustine Volcano, a volcanic island emanating from the waters of lower Cook Inlet. Though today it sat tranquilly against a blue sky, Johnson had pulled his floatplane ashore in this exact location a few years back when it suddenly erupted. “It was pretty interesting. It sent up a cloud about 30,000 feet high,” Johnson remembered. “There are lots of volcanoes here.” About 80% of all active volcanoes in the United States are in Alaska.
Proof of fact, Johnson loaded us back into the 206 and flew us to another volcano. The caldera had long ago filled with snowmelt, creating a true “crater lake,” Alaskan-style. Slipping through a notch in the volcano rim, Johnson eased the Cessna inside the crater and dropped down onto the water. He taxied to the shoreline and killed the engine, patiently waiting for the floats to feel the beach. It was a remarkable moment.
The “flightseeing” continued on a daily basis. Each morning, we loaded into a floatplane and headed to any one of a number of angling spots the lodge uses to “satisfly” its customers. Bristol Bay keeps a small fleet of jet boats stashed along the banks of key lakes and rivers in the area, allowing guests to arrive by airplane, then use the boats to zero in on the bite. Depending on the time of year, Bristol Bay clients come for wild trophy rainbows; all Pacific species of salmon, including king and silver; and five other species of freshwater game fish, including Arctic char, Arctic grayling, Dolly Varden, sheefish and northern pike. In the early part of the season, customers reel in 50- to 60-pound king salmon and, by late summer, 10-pound-plus rainbow trout aren’t uncommon. Combining the scenery and thrill of flying, clients from all over the world line up to take advantage of Bristol Bay Sportfishing’s short 14-week season.
In winter, Johnson runs the lodge’s operations from Sandpoint, Idaho, where he resides with wife Bonnie and daughters Megan and Jessica. But when the ice begins to melt in Alaska, Johnson is back in Iliamna, ready to greet a huge number of returning customers and some new ones, as well. This summer, the guest list included George Bush, Sr., a pilot himself, along with another friend who’s done some flying, Chuck Yeager. Johnson says that General Yeager has fished with them for several years, and is sure that during any given day, Yeager has a line in the water more hours than he sleeps. “He’s an amazing pilot and really understands bush flying,” Johnson added.
While Bristol Bay Sportfishing does have the luxury of a telephone, its fly-in-only remoteness on Lake Iliamna with paved runway access is part of the attraction. Basketball coach Phil Jackson took a break in his contract negotiations with the Los Angles Lakers to crawl into Johnson’s plane.
“ We were coming in from a day of fishing on the Newhalen River,” Johnson remembered, “and this native kid came running up. ‘Mr. Jackson, you just got hired to be the coach for the Lakers!’ the kid said. ‘I did?’ Jackson replied with a smile. When the press greeted Jackson back in the Lower 48, he told them he wouldn’t have known he had a job if it wasn’t for a native boy.”
Bristol Bay Sportfishing uses its aircraft to put anglers into areas where the fishing is at its peak. After evening sessions of fly tying, visitors can test their creations on the area's wild trophy trout and salmon.
When our time at Bristol Bay Sportfishing was over, we packed our bags with little enthusiasm. It was hard to say goodbye to a place where an airplane is such a life-altering tool, something that led us through hundreds of square miles of beauty and unique adventure, and created memories none of us would ever forget. I learned a lot about what airplanes can really do and we all got to see an Alaska that only aviators can know.
“ Everyone here has the most wonderful stories,” Snedden smiled as we shook goodbye at the lodge. And now we had ours. We had all gotten our wishes—well, all except the dogsledding.
But on the way to the airport, the lodge’s Chad Hewitt smiled and turned left instead of right, passing Rose Hedlund’s home and continuing down an unpaved road to the small native village of Newhalen (an anglicized version of the Yupik native word “Noghelin,” meaning “land of abundance”). There, to my son’s delight, was a team of sled dogs next to the river.
Wiggling and prancing and whining at the end of their chains, the dogs seemed as excited to see my son as he was to see them. It was only after a few minutes of petting and licking that somebody noticed the set of small tails, wagging and barely protruding from a woodpile. Puppies. Sled dog puppies.
“ Mush,” as we’d name him, a 10-week-old Alaskan husky, rode back to Los Angeles in the belly of a 737. From my window seat, I watched the first sunset we had seen since we left two weeks ago. Below in the darkness, we watched the firefly sparkle of Fourth of July fireworks from the islands of city lights down the stretch of California. From 37,000 feet, the fireworks looked demure and muted, civilized down to the safe and sane level of living that hadn’t yet touched the area we had come from, Alaska.
Jerry Jacques regularly takes guest "flightseeing" over an abundance of natural wonders. A volcano crater filled with water, which has now turned into a lake, allows Jacques to establish an approach over the rim of the crater and land on the lake in his floatplane.
It was that blend of aviation and adventure that first attracted Bruce Johnson to the area and ultimately gave birth to Bristol Bay Sportfishing. For the better part of the last three decades, he’s flown visitors a million miles back and forth across the area in floatplanes, providing them some of the best fishing the world has to offer and, at the same time, showing them an Alaska that’s only available to pilots.
“ We couldn’t do what we do without airplanes,” Johnson said. “We’re not just limited by sitting in one spot. If there’s a king salmon run on the Nushagak River, we fly in to fish there. The next day, we might fly over to Kodiak Island or the Katmai Wilderness to watch the bears. You really can’t see Alaska except by airplane.”
Johnson met us at the small Iliamna airstrip and immediately loaded us into his Cessna 206 on Aerocet floats. Within moments, we were headed out low and slow over the landscape, overwhelmed by the onrush of sights. Off our left wing was a stair-step of glacier-fed waterfalls; to the right, a moose and her calf fed on the bright yellow flowers at the edge of a small turquoise pond. In what seemed like only moments later, Johnson throttled back to settle the floatplane into a sea of big green lilies that lay along the banks of a river, where big brown bears had already begun to gather in anticipation of the coming salmon run.
“ Locals call these bears ‘browns,’ Johnson told us, “but they’re genetically the same as grizzlies.” Because Alaskan brown bears feed on fish during the summer, they’re about a third larger than grizzly bears on average. Cubs are typically born in January or February and, by the time they reach maturity, can easily weigh in over 1,000 pounds, making them the largest carnivorous land mammals on earth. Accordingly, the bears were unimpressed with our presence, happy to amble the riverbank and look for fish. Johnson pulled some lunch meat and homemade cookies out of a storage area in the floats and we ate sandwiches while we watched the show.
Behind us was Augustine Volcano, a volcanic island emanating from the waters of lower Cook Inlet. Though today it sat tranquilly against a blue sky, Johnson had pulled his floatplane ashore in this exact location a few years back when it suddenly erupted. “It was pretty interesting. It sent up a cloud about 30,000 feet high,” Johnson remembered. “There are lots of volcanoes here.” About 80% of all active volcanoes in the United States are in Alaska.
Proof of fact, Johnson loaded us back into the 206 and flew us to another volcano. The caldera had long ago filled with snowmelt, creating a true “crater lake,” Alaskan-style. Slipping through a notch in the volcano rim, Johnson eased the Cessna inside the crater and dropped down onto the water. He taxied to the shoreline and killed the engine, patiently waiting for the floats to feel the beach. It was a remarkable moment.
The “flightseeing” continued on a daily basis. Each morning, we loaded into a floatplane and headed to any one of a number of angling spots the lodge uses to “satisfly” its customers. Bristol Bay keeps a small fleet of jet boats stashed along the banks of key lakes and rivers in the area, allowing guests to arrive by airplane, then use the boats to zero in on the bite. Depending on the time of year, Bristol Bay clients come for wild trophy rainbows; all Pacific species of salmon, including king and silver; and five other species of freshwater game fish, including Arctic char, Arctic grayling, Dolly Varden, sheefish and northern pike. In the early part of the season, customers reel in 50- to 60-pound king salmon and, by late summer, 10-pound-plus rainbow trout aren’t uncommon. Combining the scenery and thrill of flying, clients from all over the world line up to take advantage of Bristol Bay Sportfishing’s short 14-week season.
In winter, Johnson runs the lodge’s operations from Sandpoint, Idaho, where he resides with wife Bonnie and daughters Megan and Jessica. But when the ice begins to melt in Alaska, Johnson is back in Iliamna, ready to greet a huge number of returning customers and some new ones, as well. This summer, the guest list included George Bush, Sr., a pilot himself, along with another friend who’s done some flying, Chuck Yeager. Johnson says that General Yeager has fished with them for several years, and is sure that during any given day, Yeager has a line in the water more hours than he sleeps. “He’s an amazing pilot and really understands bush flying,” Johnson added.
While Bristol Bay Sportfishing does have the luxury of a telephone, its fly-in-only remoteness on Lake Iliamna with paved runway access is part of the attraction. Basketball coach Phil Jackson took a break in his contract negotiations with the Los Angles Lakers to crawl into Johnson’s plane.
Bristol Bay Sportfishing uses its aircraft to put anglers into areas where the fishing is at its peak. After evening sessions of fly tying, visitors can test their creations on the area's wild trophy trout and salmon.
“ We were coming in from a day of fishing on the Newhalen River,” Johnson remembered, “and this native kid came running up. ‘Mr. Jackson, you just got hired to be the coach for the Lakers!’ the kid said. ‘I did?’ Jackson replied with a smile. When the press greeted Jackson back in the Lower 48, he told them he wouldn’t have known he had a job if it wasn’t for a native boy.”
Bristol Bay Sportfishing uses its aircraft to put anglers into areas where the fishing is at its peak. After evening sessions of fly tying, visitors can test their creations on the area's wild trophy trout and salmon.
When our time at Bristol Bay Sportfishing was over, we packed our bags with little enthusiasm. It was hard to say goodbye to a place where an airplane is such a life-altering tool, something that led us through hundreds of square miles of beauty and unique adventure, and created memories none of us would ever forget. I learned a lot about what airplanes can really do and we all got to see an Alaska that only aviators can know.
“ Everyone here has the most wonderful stories,” Snedden smiled as we shook goodbye at the lodge. And now we had ours. We had all gotten our wishes—well, all except the dogsledding.
But on the way to the airport, the lodge’s Chad Hewitt smiled and turned left instead of right, passing Rose Hedlund’s home and continuing down an unpaved road to the small native village of Newhalen (an anglicized version of the Yupik native word “Noghelin,” meaning “land of abundance”). There, to my son’s delight, was a team of sled dogs next to the river.
Wiggling and prancing and whining at the end of their chains, the dogs seemed as excited to see my son as he was to see them. It was only after a few minutes of petting and licking that somebody noticed the set of small tails, wagging and barely protruding from a woodpile. Puppies. Sled dog puppies.
“ Mush,” as we’d name him, a 10-week-old Alaskan husky, rode back to Los Angeles in the belly of a 737. From my window seat, I watched the first sunset we had seen since we left two weeks ago. Below in the darkness, we watched the firefly sparkle of Fourth of July fireworks from the islands of city lights down the stretch of California. From 37,000 feet, the fireworks looked demure and muted, civilized down to the safe and sane level of living that hadn’t yet touched the area we had come from, Alaska.